I remember 10 years ago, Dr. Spencer Johnson wrote an interesting best selling book about change management which has earned a great global attention and sold millions of copies.This renown parable is "Who Moved My Cheese?", a story of 4 characters (2 mices and 2 humans) living in a Maze who face unexpected change when they discover their Cheese has disappeared.
In fact, this book has spawned many variations of related topics written by the same author as well as other authors.
In the parable, Sniff and Scurry are a pair of mices, and Hem and Haw are 2 little people. The 4 of them live in the Maze and look for cheese, and each of them have different mindset, especially between Hem and Haw. If you haven't read the story yet, I strongly encourage you to read the book and find out what happened to them.
For those who have finished reading the story, it is wise to remember those “Handwriting on the Wall” , which is the essence of the parable after all:
Change Happens
They Keep Moving The Cheese.
Anticipate Change
Get Ready For The Cheese To Move.
Monitor Change
Smell The Cheese Often So You Know When It Is Getting Old.
Adapt To Change Quickly
The Quicker You Let Go Of Old Cheese, The Sooner You Can Enjoy New Cheese.
Change
Move With The Cheese.
Enjoy Change!
Savor The Adventure And Enjoy The Taste Of New Cheese!
Be Ready To Change Quickly And Enjoy It Again & Again
They Keep Moving The Cheese.
Therefore, we should never counted on the "cheese supply" to be constant. We all know that the worldwide petroleum supplies is limited but the usage is incrementing. We also aware that within the next couple of years, Malaysia will soon become a petroleum importer from the current exporter status. And now we have already feel the hike in petrol price and realise that the good old day of cheap petrol price might not come back again.
If you are still crying, protesting, annoying at the petrol price hike like Hem, you should also realise that doing so doesn't help much. Move on, try your very best to optimize your earning power, especially in the area to make your money work hard for you by growing itself through wise investment. Life has never been easy nowadays, remember the threat of formation of M-Shape Society has been accelerating, and it is only "when you move beyond your fear, you feel free".
Gambatte! to you and me. Gambatte! to all of us.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Who Moved My Cheese? - days after petrol price hike
Friday, June 6, 2008
Result of ZDNet Asia IT Salary Benchmark Survey 2008
ZDNet Asia had conducted an online survey between late-2007 and early-2008 to gain insights into Asia's IT workforce and salary trends. The survey drew 21,635 respondents from sectors such as government, healthcare, IT, services, telecommunications, legal and finance, and across seven Asian economies: Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.
Based on the survey findings, the average annual IT salary in Malaysia was RM72,144 (US$22,379), with those in IT management commanding a high of RM113,489 (US$35,204). Project managers on average drew an annual pay of RM73,912 (US$22,928), while systems developers earned RM56,393 (US$17,493).
Tech professionals in the legal and finance sector had the most attractive annual salary (US$25,188) followed by those in IT, Web and telecom (US$22,939). The annual salary for IT workers in the media, marketing and sales (US$17,444), as well as the government, education and health sector (US$20,037), were significantly below the industry average.
Compared with the rest of the region, Malaysia's average annual IT salary lagged behind that of Hong Kong (US$57,303), Singapore (US$44,858) and Thailand (US$24,108). The country, however, is significantly higher when compared to India (US$13,864), the Philippines (US$12,425) and Indonesia (US$7,709).
In Singapore, IT professionals with PhDs pulled in the highest average annual salary of S$96,805 (US$70,958), followed by respondents with a Master's degree who earned an average yearly pay of S$79,635 (US$58,373). The survey also confirmed common beliefs that bigger companies have the capacity to offer better paychecks, compared to smaller organizations.
The overall average annual salary for Hong Kong was HK$445,817 (US$57,109). Those working in legal and finance had the highest average annual salary at HK$492,917 (US$63,143), while ICT employees in the government, education and health sector have the lowest average annual salary of HK$395,619 (US$50,679).
Click here to go to ZDNet's article that will lead you to the detailed country-specific salary analysis (with statistical graphs) as well as download of the analysis reports (in PDF files).
You might probably also interested to read on:
- Result of Robert Walters Global Salary Survey 2008
- Malaysia Salary Guide 2008/09 from Kelly Services
- JobsDB Compensation and Benefit Survey Report 2009
New electricity tariff from 1 July 2008
As part of the restructuring exercise of fuel subsidy scheme in Malaysia, Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) has announced the new electricity tariff rate.
TNB has also setup a Bill Calculator webpage on their website for you to calculate the new electricity bill amount and the difference to the old tariff rate (the additional amount you need to fork out).
For domestic electricity, here are the differences:
Consumption (KWh) | Old Bill (RM) | New Bill (RM) | Difference |
200 | 43.60 | 43.60 | 0.00 |
250 | 58.05 | 60.85 | 2.80 |
300 | 72.50 | 78.10 | 5.60 |
350 | 86.95 | 95.35 | 8.40 |
400 | 101.40 | 112.60 | 11.20 |
450 | 115.85 | 135.00 | 19.15 |
500 | 130.30 | 150.00 | 19.70 |
550 | 144.75 | 169.50 | 24.75 |
600 | 159.20 | 189.00 | 29.80 |
650 | 173.65 | 209.00 | 35.35 |
700 | 188.10 | 229.00 | 40.90 |
750 | 202.55 | 249.50 | 46.95 |
800 | 217.00 | 270.00 | 53.00 |
Therefore, if your average monthly electricity consumption is above 300 KWh, it is wise for you to plug in a Power Saver to an electric socket in your house, which can effectively help you to save on electricity bill as well as stabilize the voltage in your house.
Click here to download the TNB's booklet on new tariff for all categories - domestic, commercial, industrial, agricultural, mining, etc.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
DKSH 2-days only warehouse sale is back again!
The DKSH Warehouse Sale is back again!
Date: 7-8 June 2008
Time: 10am - 5pm
Location: DKSH Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Jalan Universiti, Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
Look out for great savings on the following items:
- Casio cameras & musical keyboards
- Morgan electrical appliances
- Rubbermaid household products
- Timex watches
- Citizen clocks
- Ellgy personal and healthcare products
- Rosken skin care products
- Colgate-Palmolive household and toiletry products
- ... and many more!
Yahoo! releases Address Book API following Google & Microsoft
When Google pushed out their Contacts API in March 2008, it was called "the most in-demand API on the web that hadn't yet existed". Those APIs are important because they allow socially aware applications to offer users the ability to import information from their address books without having to worry about giving up their password to a third-party site. The application seeking the information also no longer needs to employ any screen scraping to gather information.
Soon after that, Microsoft also released the beta version of their Windows Live Contacts API in March 2008. In addition to a full contact management interface for a Windows Live user's address book, the Windows Live Contacts API provides a view to a subset of the Contact data for the purposes of sending Invitations.
Now, Yahoo! has also joint the bandwagon to launch their Address Book API in June 2008. Similar to Google and Microsoft, Yahoo! opted to employ their own authentication technology in the API, namely BBAuth. They intend to supports OAuth in the future, though, which will make it easier for developers to use the API.
The Yahoo! Address Book API is a JSON/XML interface for accessing and updating the Yahoo! Address Book using a web service. It can be used to look up addresses for auto-completion of emails, to add addresses for future shipping information, to obtain unique identifiers for network invites, or to sync with another address book.
Click here to go to the webpage of the Yahoo! Address Book API.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Restructuring of fuel subsidy scheme in Malaysia
Malaysia Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has announced the restructred fuel subsidy schemes today.
Here are the cabinet's decisions on the subsidy of petrol and diesel:
- Effective 5 June 2008, RON97 petrol price rises by 78 sen from RM1.92 to RM2.70 per litre. RON92 petrol price also rises by 78 sen from RM1.88 to RM2.62 per litre.
- At the same time, diesel price also rises by RM1.00 from RM1.58 to RM2.58 per litre.
- For personal vehicles up to 2000 c.c. and also trucks and jeeps up to 2500 c.c., an annual cash rebate of RM625 will be given.
- For motorcycles up to 250 c.c., the annual cash rebate will be RM150.
- The cash rebate will be given from 1 July 2008 onwards in the form of Money Order collectible in Pos Office to road tax renewed within 1 April 2008 and 31 March 2009.
- For personal vehicles above 2000 c.c., there will be a reduction of RM200 in road tax.
- For motorcycles above 250 c.c., the reduction in road tax is RM50.
Other than the above, decisions have also been made which affect the following areas:
- Diesel subsidy for logistic transport, vessels and fishermen.
- Gas price to electricity producers and for industrial usage.
- New electricity tariff effective 1 July 2008: no change for household with monthly bill less than RM43.60, else there will be a 18% residential tariff increase. 26% tariff increase for commercial and industrial regions.
- Windfall tax for Independent Power Producer (IPP) and Palm Oil Producer (POP).
- Effective 1 July 2008m threshold for 5% service tax to restauran outside hotels risen from RM0.5 million to RM3 million.
invisibleSHIELD the scratch-proof protection film for gadgets
If you have any handphones, digital cameras, gaming devices (such as PSP), iPods, laptops, media players, PDAs, watches, ... and all gadgets with a display screen, you will most probably get a casing, skin, cover or plastic to protect the screen from scratches or cracks.
invisibleSHIELD is a patented, military grade, durable, transparent protection film that can really protect such gadgets, unlike most of the ordinary "plastic film" that we applied on the screen of the gadgets which in fact is very weak and can't do much protection at all.
This urethane plastic film has its origins in the U.S. military, where it was used to protect the leading edges of helicopter blades from wear and tear while traveling hundreds of miles per hour. It comes with unique properties that allow it to provide self-healing qualities and unparalleled abrasion resistance.
invisibleSHIELD makes available a variety of pre-cut protection film specifically tailored for thousands of electronic gadgets currently selling in the market, which can fit tightly and perfectly on them.
It comes with a lifetime warranty and 30 days money-back guarantee. So, if it ever does wear or scratch, you can get its replacement for free, for the lifetime of the protected gadget.
You can see it in action with the video below:
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Handphone fair @ The Walk on the park, Menara PGRM
There will be a 4-days handphone fair of about 50 booths (the 1st in Malaysia) where all major brands like Nokia, Sony Ericsson, I-Mobile, Motorola, LG, Samsung and many more will be having discount up to 70%. More than RM50k worth of freebies will be given away too, including food & beverages vouchers, handphone accessories, Bluetooth, memory cards, etc. There will also be a handphone auction.
Date : 5-8 June 08
Time : 10am to 10pm
Venue: The Walk on the Park, Menara PGRM, Jalan Cheras, Kuala Lumpur.
For more detail, refer to the flyer/pamphlet below (click to enlarge).
Malaysia to lift cement ceiling price
Right about 1 month after Malaysia liberalize the steel market, the government is going to lift the ceiling price on cement effective Thursday 5 June 2008 to ensure development projects in the country are not delayed due to the tight cement supply. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said in a statement that this move was necessary as global cement prices had risen above the government-controlled price.
This move to lift the ceiling price has been long awaited by Lafarge (3794), CIMA (2844), YTL Cement (8737) and Tasek (4448). Artificially low prices had discouraged these producers from supplying more of the material, and had hampered the development of national and domestic projects.
Under the new structure, cement importers will on the other hand:
- pay a flat rate of 10% import duty for ordinary Portland cement (previously 50%)
- pay a flat rate of 10% import duty for ordinary hydraulic cement (previously 25%)
- exempted from having to obtain import licences (applicable to East Malaysia only)
Monday, June 2, 2008
Static electric shocks when getting out of car
Many people experience shocks when they get out of their car. That is caused by static electric discharged from the person's body or clothes to the metallic car body.
When sitting in the car, electrostatic charges are generated on the car seat and the person's body due to contact and movement between the clothes and the seat. The charges is accumulated if the person is wearing a good insulating shoe. It is observed that fabric and true leather seats normally generate more static charges than PU leather seats. If you wear synthetic fibre clothing, you also have more chance to accumulate higher level of static.
Having the air-conditioner blowing directly at you will also accumulate more static, as the air blown out from the air-conditioner is full of charged particles. If your car is full of dust and dirt, static will also be generated as a result of such particles "rubbing" with the air flow as you drive.
An ionizer can help to neutralize some of the static charges in the car. If you still experience the shocks when getting out of the car, you can hold the car key and let the key contact with the metallic car body first before you touch the door. This will discharge the static through the keys instead of your fingers, and you could hardly feel it, therefore avoiding the shocks.
Fact about maintenance-free battery of car
Nowadays, most car battery is a lead-acid storage electrochemical device that can converts chemical energy into electrical energy. A standard 12-volt, lead-acid battery is made up of 6 cells connected in series. Each electrolyte filled cell produces approximately 2 volts. The charge of this 12-volt battery is actually at 12.6 volts, and can vary slightly depending on the concentration of the electrolyte in its acidic solution.
The "maintenance-free" battery, similar in design to its conventional counterparts that need to refill with distilled water from time to time to maintain the fluid level, is actually just a heavier-duty version of the same arrangement. Many of the components in the maintenance-free battery have thicker construction. Different, more durable materials are typically used. For example, the plate grids often contain calcium, cadmium or strontium, to reduce gassing (which causes water loss) and self-discharge. This design is called a lead-calcium battery. The heavier-duty parts ensure that fluid loss is kept to a minimum and that components have a much longer life, making it a closed system.
The advantages of maintenance-free battery are: less preventative maintenance, theoretically longer life, faster recharging, greater overcharge resistance, reduced terminal corrosion and longer shelf life. However, they are more prone to deep discharge (dead battery) failures due to increased shedding of active plate material.
Grounding cables for car
Everything involving the electrical systems in your car requires a free flow of electrons from -ve to +ve terminal of the battery (note that the conventional current flow from +ve to -ve used in most circuit diagram is opposite to the actual electron flow).
Good electrical performance requires a grounding system that is capable to carry a lot of current with minimal resistance. Your car's engine control unit (ECU), spark plugs, lights, in-car entertainment (ICE) components, air conditioner, fans, power windows, cigarette lighter, etc. are all working on a complicated electrical network that includes fuses, relays, and electrical cabling, and they all share a common ground. Almost everything that is powered electrically in your car is grounded to the frame or the metallic body of the car. The negative battery terminal is also grounded to the frame, which causes the frame to serve as a gigantic piece of wire in the circuit.
Usually, the stock grounding system of the car consists of just a few non-braided cables that connect the chassis, engine and firewall to the -ve terminal of the battery. The cables are of normal quality only. In addition, as these connections oxidize or come loose over time, the amount of conductive material decreases, and the electrical devices have to work much harder to overcome the increased resistance.
By installing additional grounding cables connecting the various grounding point or point closest to the various components of the electrical system, and link it directly back to the -ve terminal of the battery, the result is: an alternative path is provided for better flow of the electrical current, via the lower resistance paths. The grounded electrical components are expected to work more effectively with better performance.
The current flow will always take the path of least resistance. Therefore, adding grounding cables to your car can only make the different if the additional cables are of higher quality and lower resistance than the stock grounding system.
Characteristic of grounding cable is determined by American Wire Gauge (AWG) specification. The larger the AWG number, the smaller diameter of the wire. For example, 4-AWG cables are better than 8-AWG cables, because they have thicker diameter, lower resistance and higher current carrying capacity.
Grounding cables are good companion to voltage stabilizer, and usually they are installed together to obtain the best performance.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Added flag counter starting from 1 June 2008 noon
I notice this flag counter in the blog of Taryn Yap today, and decided to add one for my blog too. So you can see it also resides in the right panel of this blog from now onwards.
This flag counter is a free service provided by Boardhost.com Inc. and is very easy to deploy. It is so easy that you don't even need to create any account to have one in your website.
The counter is counting on unique visitors, and makes use of IP address as well as browser cookie to avoid repeated counting from the same visitor. Every time a visitor from a new country visits your page, a new flag will be added to your counter. Detailed information from the Factbook of CIA about each of the country can be shown after you click on the flag counter to show more detail.
Click here to get your own flag counter from flagcounter.com.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Hush Puppies warehouse sale is coming again
Just come back from Hush Puppies warehouse sale. As usual to the previous warehouse sale, most of the apparel items are selling for at least 50% discount to market price.This warehouse sale is held by Shoe Connection Sdn Bhd in Kinrara Industrial Park, Bandar Kinrara, Puchong. They have this sale event occasionally. This time, it started from 30 May to 8 June 2008, 10am-7pm.
Items on sale are apparels for men, women, children and todders, which include Hush Puppies shirts, casualwears, pants, underwears, socks, etc. As usual, shoe items are not included.
For more detail, you can make a call to 603-80758899.
Share your real-live home defects story in Your Worst Nightmare contest
Everyone dreams of owning a home. However, sometimes that dream can turn into a real "nightmare". Have you ever experienced buying a home that turned out to be a lemon? If you have, share out your story and stand a chance to win a prize in "Your Worst Nightmare" Competition organized by the New Straits Times (NST) and Architect Centre, in conjunction with the launch and promotion of Architect Centre.
Architect Centre is the architectural service centre of the Malaysian Institute of Architects (a.k.a. Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia, PAM) set up in joint venture with an Australian service provider Archicentre Ltd. The center provides property inspection and building advisory services to the Malaysian public.
The competition is launched at the free Public Seminar entitled “How to Buy a Property & Save Money” organised by Architect Centre. It is a chance for readers to relate their real-life experience of home defects and lessons learnt, and thus help others to avoid the same mistakes.
The last closing date is 16 June 2008.
Click here for more information about "Your Worst Nightmare" competition.
Click here to download the Contest Form for "Your Worst Nightmare" competition.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Handling difficult people at work
In the business world, it is pretty normal for us to have unavoidable chance to work with some sort of "difficult people", who is working from the negative side of their personality and affecting other people in the team.
Usually, people don't intend to be "difficult" consciously or intentionally. Such actions are often preceded by a semi-paranoid feeling, and the person is often unaware of themselves and how they have affected others. They also don't realize how harmful their actions are to the teamwork and also to their own career success.
Among the common symptom of difficult people is "arrogant", especially prevalent in technical and/or professional people. Psychologically speaking, arrogance is a kind of defense against vulnerability and insecurity, often learned in childhood when parents constantly criticize a child for not being good enough. The person is so afraid of being seen as unworthy or incompetent, that they immediately throw up a defensive shield against any possible attack. This defense protects them for a while, but everyone else sees that it is false. In the end, they lose credibility and respect, which unfortunately is exactly the thing they fear the most.
"Dominance" is another well recognized trait that seems prevalent in people in management positions or positions of corporate power. No matter what other people says or does, this person will force their ideas on everyone else. There can be no open discussion or involvement. Things must be done this person’s way or else. However, they will also always trying to remind people that they are "opened".
This symptom has a negative aspect of "dictatorship". It is worst when the person’s primary role is acting as Warrior or King. If they happen to also have Power mode combined with Dominance, people will feel as if someone punched them in the stomach when the person lets loose with their verbal abuse.
The positive side of Dominance is "leadership". When this person is relaxed and working from the positive side of their personality, they can be quite effective and charming. As with Arrogance, stress or insecurity may bring on the attack. It may seem to come without warning or you may be able to see the stress building up.
In the end, the person probably loses their ability to control events, which is exactly the thing that they fear most.When you see someone go into attack mode or excess defensiveness, do recognize that it is useless to argue with them, and understand that the person is feeling very insecure at that time. Don’t continue to push them because they will only get worse. Keep your own sense of self-confidence and don't allow yourself to be verbally abused. If they are always overly defensive or always attacking others, you may need to find another person to work with, who does not have the same problem.
If the problem couldn't be solved, and the difficult person is your boss, you might want to reconsider whether it's time to find a job elsewhere. If the difficult person is your subordinate and they don't seem to improve within a reasonable time, you should get them out of your team to chop off the damage.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Facebook to go for open source?
Since last year, there are news about Facebook, the famous social networking website founded by Mark Zuckerberg is going for open source. The latest update is that they are currently working on an open source initiative that is meant to help application developers to better understand their Facebook developer platform and to be more easily build applications, whether it's by running their own test servers, building tools, or optimizing their applications.
This is seen to be a respond to the Google OpenSocial platform, which is currently widely implemented in many social networking websites, including Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING.
This initiative is expected to boost the interoperability between Facebook and other social networking websites. Application developers will then be able to easily port their Facebook applications over to other social networking websites, which in turn can help Facebook Platform, which comprises of FMBL (markup language), FQL (query language), FJS (Javascript library) and the Facebook API, to become a standard.
Another potential benefit of going open source is that, outside developers could work on the codes, make contribution and help to improve the Facebook Platform itself.
Monday, May 26, 2008
ePetrol system - possible solution for fuel subsidy?
ePetrol Holdings Sdn Bhd is proposing to the government of Malaysia to make use of their ePetrol system as solution to implement fuel subsidy scheme for citizen with MyKad. This company is established in 2003. Their founding directors include RHB Group founder Tan Sri Rashid Hussain and Dialog Group Bhd chairman and group managing director Ngau Boon Keat. They've showcased the ePetrol system during the World Congress on Information Technology 2008 (WCIT 2008).
User of the system will need to register and activate his MyKad at a registration kiosk to be eligible for the fuel subsidy. The user can link the MyKad to his bank account so payment can be debited from the account each time a fuel purchase is made. Otherwise, payment can be made via credit card or cash. The user is then identified with his MyKad at the petrol pump terminal, and his subsidy amount will be deducted during the fuel pumping transaction.
Will this solution be rolled out by the government? Let's wait and see...
Friday, May 23, 2008
Result of Robert Walters Global Salary Survey 2008
The Robert Walters Global Salary Survey 2008 shows a substantial salary hike in various employment sectors across the globe, including IT, banking, finance, commerce, engineering, sales and marketing. The survey's salary figures in the report are based on placements made by Robert Walters themselves through 2007. Robert Walters is one of the world leading global specialist in recruitment and recruitment outsourcing businesses.
Employees from the IT sector of Asian region generally enjoy a higher percentage of salary increment than their counterparts in American and Europe. According to the report majority of them enjoyed an increment of above 10% from last year, and some even got a 40% increment.
Competition to hire good IT employees in Malaysia intensified and organizations were seen focus on best practices in staff attraction and retention. Direct strategies including higher salary increments, joining bonuses and counter-offers, other initiatives included better managed and more dynamic career progression, flexible benefits, effective employee relation programs, etc. were employed. The challenges facing the IT industry in Malaysia include competition from overseas seeking Malaysians to work in countries such as Singapore, China and Dubai.
The total compensation for 2008 of an IT Director in Malaysia can be up to RM300k. Other well paid IT positions include IT Programme Manager (RM200k), ERP Project Manager (RM180k), Service Delivery Manager (RM150k), Infrastructure Manager (RM150k), Solution Architect (RM140k), ...
In Singapore, CIO and CTO get a salary of S$350k per annum. Other well paid positions include IT Director (S$220-350k), Programme Manager (S$220-350k), Service Delivery Director (S$220-320k), Project Director (S$200-300k), ...
In Hong Kong, many senior positions are paid in million of HKD per annum, including CIO/CTO (HK$1.65-2.7m), IT Director (HK$1.3-2.0m), Project Director (HK$1.25-1.7m), Programme Manager (HK$0.95-1.7m), ...
This comprehensive report of Robert Walters Global Salary Survey 2008 covers the following regions:
- Australia
- Belgium
- France
- Hong Kong
- Ireland
- Japan
- Luxembourg
- Malaysia
- New Zealand
- Singapore
- South Africa
- Spain
- The Netherlands
- United Kingdom
- United States
You might probably also interested to read on:
Thursday, May 22, 2008
BookFest@Malaysia 2008
The BookFest@Malaysia (海外华文书市) 2008 event is now entered into its third year. With the theme of “Reading Empowers” (阅读新势力), it will showcase more than a million books by both Overseas and Local publishers, featuring leading publishers from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Singapore and Malaysia.
Held for a duration of 9 days, this BookFest will be presented from 24 May until 1 June 2008, 10am - 10pm, at Halls 1-5 of the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, KLCC, stretching across the first week of the school holidays. The main organiser, Popular Book Co. (M) S/B is expecting over 450,000 visitors throughout this exhibition.
Among the interesting activities throughout the event will be:
- 2008 Feng Shui Sharing Session by Joey Yap
- Music Performance by Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra
- Pass Your Job Interview Within 30 Minutes
- "Design Fast Forward" Book Sharing Session by Eric Leong
- Blind Fold Reading
- Sudoku Fun Time
- Cooking Demonstration
- Magic Show and Interactive Game
- Cataract & Refractive Surgery - All you want to know and should know - By Dr.Yeoh Phee Liang
- Stock Investment Talks
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Web of Trust (WOT) the people-driven website reputation scorecard system
Web of Trust (WOT) is an innovative community driven website reputation scorecard system whose members exchange security info of websites: Can they be trusted? Are they safe to use? Do they deliver what they promise? Do they contain age-inappropriate item?
After installing a freely downloadable plugin into your web browser, you can easily see the reliability of companies and websites indicated by WOT colour rating icons. WOT will also dropdown a warning screen to you upon visiting a possibly dangerous site. In this way, WOT helps to keep yourself safe from spyware, adware, spam, viruses, browser exploits, unreliable online shops, phishing, and other Internet scams.
The 4 available WOT ratings are:
- Trustworthiness: Do you trust this website? Is it safe to use? Does it deliver what it promises?
- Vendor reliability: Is the site safe for buying and selling, or for business transactions in general?
- Privacy: Can you trust the site owner, safely supply your e-mail address, and download files?
- Child safety: Does the site contain age-inappropriate material (content that is sexually oriented, hateful, or violent in nature) or encourage activities that are dangerous or illegal?
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzImdPZuz9WZ6GYHd4tVqnadvo9JD09bIKl-qCUJ3wu7uf8Xj8_8qGwKIXDRcTa8TdMxwURqtKvC2mGEB7XCASWa8yahoAvYbMcM1WkocR5gKDJiVWJaCdVFgpYEnrDKXHhdqEYh6V2sg/s320/wot2.jpg)
You don't need to register to use WOT. If you registered an account and join the WOT community, you can also participate to contribute your ratings and comments on websites you have visited. Beside collecting the website reputation data from the WOT community, the WOT system also gets the data from hundreds of trusted sources such as listings of phishing sites. The reputation info is efficiently recalculated every 30 minutes, updated and make available for all WOT users.
WOT also shows its rating icon beside the links listed in webpage of famous web services, such as Google, Yahoo!, Live Search, AOL Search, Ask.com, Digg, Gmail, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, dmoz, etc.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzpP8tB6IwZf3V3zioQ4vlMwbZZZn8SariHPwRY_m3UihKD0qhE5CEbo5mlzgzAjpu2dPqHstT_nmZFGZlWJ-ybkL8FCqUBLaWyqBh3mLXlJzUzHpfiaob-4U9Ua4YFCwCUTbVugA8aeU/s320/wot1.jpg)
WOT is available as plugin (in some 10 languages) for:
- Mozilla Firefox 1.5 or later (Windows 98 / ME / NT 4.0 / 2000 / XP / Vista, Mac OS X, or Linux)
- Internet Explorer 6.0 or later (Windows 2000 / XP / Vista )
Click here to download WOT for Mozilla Firefox
Click here to download WOT for Internet Explorer
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Jobsdb.com Apply n Win contest
Jobsdb.com, an online job recruitment service provider for job seekers and employers, is currently running an Apply 'n' Win contest from 5 May to 29 June 2008 for the Malaysian job seekers aged above 21 years old.
In order to get a chance to win for the weekly prizes and qualify for winning the Grand prize, one just need to perform any of the following activities in their website:
- Sign up as a new member with completed resume.
- Update existing resume.
- Apply for jobs online.
Click here for more information about this contest.
Hack In The Box (HITB) Security Conference 2008
The next Hack In The Box Security Conference 2008 (HITBSecConf2008) will be held on the coming 27-30 October 2008 in the 5-star Westin Hotel of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The main aim of this conference is to enable the dissemination, discussion and sharing of deep knowledge network security information. Presented by respected members of both the mainstream network security arena as well as the underground or black hat community, the HITB events routinely highlight new and ground-breaking attack and defense methods that have not been seen or discussed in public before.
The first 2 days will be hands-on technical training sessions on:
- Structured Network Threat Analysis and Forensics
- Bluetooth, RFID & Wireless Hacking
- Web Application Security – Advanced Attacks and Defense
- The Exploit Laboratory
- Triple track security conference featuring new HITB Labs
- Capture The Flag (CTF) team hacking and defending competition
- Lock Picking Village (LPV) showcase on physical security bypass methods
- Wireless Village showcase on wireless hacking gadgets
- Open Hack to uncover new and previously unknown software vulnerabilities in operating systems and software (USD5000 prize money awaiting the first hacker to compromise a Macbook Air...)
Monday, May 19, 2008
Compulsory rear seatbelt usage from June 2008 onwards
Ever since Germany made compulsory the usage of rear seatbelt from 1984 onwards, more and more countries ruling the same, and Malaysia will have this enforced from 1 June 2008 onwards. A 3 months "grace period" will be given whereby passengers found breaking this rule will be warned, and from 1 September 2008 onwards, they will be summoned.
The function of seatbelt is to reduce injuries by stopping the wearer from hitting hard interior elements of the vehicle or other passengers during collision or emergency break. Passengers with seatbelt buckled up will have better chance to survive from accident, and researches have concluded that car drivers and/or front-seat passengers are 5 times more likely to die in a crash if their back-seat passengers are unrestrained.
However, by the moment this ruling in Malaysia only applies to cars manufactured from 1 January 1995 onwards. It is temporary waived for a 3 years period to those vehicles manufactured before 1 January 1995, after which the ruling will apply for them too. This is because most vehibles registered after 1 January 1995 are equipped with rear seatbelts, and those without are urged to fit in as soon as possible. Perodua Kancil and Kenari cars manufactured between 1998 until mid-2004 will also be exempted from the ruling until 2011 (3 years later).
This ruling is expected to impact on the total amount of passengers that can be carried in the car. A 5-seater can then carry up to 5 persons including the driver, all fasten with seatbelts respectively, and a 7-seater can carry 7 persons. So far, the Road Safety Department does not indicate whether seatbelt usage will also be compulsory for 3rd row seats or not.
Anyhow, the original Toyota Avanza already equipped with 7 seatbelts for all 3 rows of passengers, and has no problem for its passengers to comply with this ruling.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
The tragic 8.0 Richter earthquake in SiChuan, China
It was just 10 days after Myanmar (Burma) struck by the deadly storm brought by tropical cyclone Nargis, where more than 5,000 square kilometer of area affected, causing hundred of thousand families lost their home, shelter or even lives. On 12 May 2008, a terrific earthquake measuring 8.0 Richter scale (earlier reported as 7.8) hit the south west of China, bringing severe damage to more than 10,000 square kilometer, completely destroyed most of the townships in Wenchuan County (汶川县), turning them into dead towns of ashes and bodies. That powerful quake was felt as far away as Beijing, 1500 kilometers to the north, as well as in Bangkok, Thailand 3300 kilometers to the south. Many are burried, and the survivors are refuging from their home...
To date, it is reported that all across SiChuan, 32,477 people has died, and 220,109 injured. Many are still buried in the collapsed buildings. The towns are filled with smell of dead bodies.
Imagine that just overnight, your house tumbled into ashes. Or even though it is not yet collapsed, it is no longer safe and you dare not stay in it for another second. Imagine that just overnight, you lost everything, your home, your property, your beloved, and even your life. It is really a horrible tragedy, and this is not a movie, but a real disaster in SiChuan.
They are shocked, they are in great sorrow. They need to get medicated, they need shelter and food, and they need help to rebuild their home. What can you offer for them?
Click here to go to Tzu Chi Foundation (慈济基金会) homepage for info and donation.
Click here to go to World Vision (世界宣明会) homepage for info and donation.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Hidden card holder clip in Perodua Myvi
Since inception in 2005, Perodua Myvi has been one of the best selling car in Malaysia, and there is one in my household too. If you drive Perodua Myvi, probably you are aware of a small drawer to the lower right of the car ignition key hole, as shown below:
Do you notice something in the drawer? Yes, there is a hidden clip on top of the drawer, and many Myvi drivers probably don't aware of its existance or usage. It is "hidden" because you won't see the clip if the drawer is not viewed upward at this angle.
This is actually a card holder clip that you can "hide" your Touch 'n Go card, petrol station loyalty card, autogate access card, etc. on it, just like this:
Pretty cool isn't it?
Friday, May 16, 2008
HP to buy over EDS for about US$13B
Recent rumours about Hewlett-Packard (HP) intention to buy over Electronic Data Systems (EDS) has been confirmed, after they released the official statement this week about their multi-billion dollar M&A plan.
By acquiring this world leader in outsourced IT services, the merged entity will form a giant IT services provider big enough to directly rival with IBM Global Services.
If this deal come to reality, it will also indirectly impact on the recent multi-billion outsourcing plan from SITI operations to EDS announced just about a month ago.
Is HP making a right move this time, and won't repeat the same mistake of recent acquisition of Compaq, which was one of the root cause for Carly Fiorina to be forced to step down, and nearly lead to the breakup of the company? Nevertheless, this move certainly brings uncertainty to all the parties involves, especially to their employees and the IT job market.
Meanwhile, the new IBM building in Cyberjaya, which is opposite the EDS building, is close to completion by now.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Ornasteel
Ornasteel (彦钢控股, 5094) posted its 1st quarter result for financial year 2008 today. It has shown a strong recovery from the relatively poor results of last 2 quarters in 2007. Its revenue increased by 14.7% from preceding quarter, and profit before tax increased by 65.7%. Its net profit also increased by 60.36% as a result of net profit margin improved to 7% from 5% in preceding quarter. Its NTA grown to RM1.90 per share, which is 15.85% above its closing price of RM1.64 today.
Ornasteel has been renowned in excellent cash flow management. When it was first listed on Bursa Malaysia at 30 December 2004, it had net borrowings of about RM130 million. It managed to turn into net cash position within a short period of time, and its net cash has accumulated to RM75.4 million as reported in today's quarterly report, grown by 40.15% from previous quarter (RM53.8 million). In fact, it is now among the financially healthiest steel companies in Malaysia, backed up by a blue chip controlling shareholder of Taiwan largest steel maker, which is also one of the top 5 most profitable steel player in the world.
During the 2nd quarter of the year, which result will be posted 3 months later, Ornasteel has adopted to offer their products to customers on a monthly pricing basis instead of the usual quarterly pricing basis. Beside that, the Malaysia steel market was also liberized starting from 12 May 2008. Ornasteel also proposed to change the company name to CSC Steel Holdings Berhad which shows the prominent relationship with its mother company, China Steel Corporation (中钢公司). It is showing sign of moving towards stronger fundamental and better result.
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.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
7-Zip the free and open source file archiver
I noticed that a lot of people have WinZip and/or WinRAR installed in their computer, and most of them remain unregistered. Both of them are famous file archiver utility applications, and they are shareware, meaning you can try them out for free for a limited period of time. After that, if you are satisfied and want to continue to use them, you have the obligation to pay for the software.
What if you are not willing to pay for your file archiver utilities? Then you should uninstall them from your computer. However, you also have the option of using open source file archiver utility, which you don't need to pay for it and you can freely use it, copy it, redistribute it, even bundle it with your own application. 7-Zip is the one you are looking for.
7-Zip is licensed under GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). It is a file archiver with high compression ratio and comes with its own 7z compression format which can compress files even better than ZIP and RAR format. It is available in both GUI version and command line version, and its source code is available in Source Forge repository.
Here are the features of 7-Zip:
- Works in Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista.
- Has ported version for Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, DOS, etc.
- Localizations for 69 languages.
- High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression.
- Supported archive formats:
- Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR.
- Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, MSI, WIM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS. - For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip.
- Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats.
- Self-extracting capability for 7z format.
- Integration with Windows Shell.
- Powerful File Manager.
- Powerful command line version.
- Plugin for FAR Manager.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Sun ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office
The ISO standard OpenDocument format (ODF) is a free and open file format for electronic office documents, such as spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. It is a De facto standard used by OpenOffice.org.
Sun Microsystems has developed this ODF Plugin to enable MS Office to read and write ODF documents. It works seamlessly with MS Office 2007 (SP1 or higher), MS Office 2003, MS Office XP and MS Office 2000.
This ODF Plugin is provided by Sun Microsystems for free, and it integrates with the "Load" and "Save As" dialog and the "Save (Ctrl+S)" shortcut of MS Office Word. It simplifies the import and export of ODF documents with a new toolbar in MS Office Excel and PowerPoint.
With this plugin, you can now switch from native MS document format to world recognised ISO/IEC 26300 OpenDocument Format developed by the OASIS industry consortium, and most importantly, you can use and exchange without hassle the document files with OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, NeoOffice, KOffice, IBM Lotus Symphony and many more office application suites.
Click here to go to the download page for Sun ODF Plugin for MS Office.
Beijing to host OpenOffice.org Conference 2008
Redflag2000 of China has won the majority votes and awarded to host for the OpenOffice.org Annual International Conference 2008 (OOoCon 2008) in Beijing by 10-17 October this year. This international open source conference will be held in the 5-star Beijing Asia Hotel.
This is an annual premier event for anyone interested in or working with OpenOffice.org. It is where representatives of all the community projects meet to celebrate and learn from the achievements of the past twelve months, and discuss how to meet the challenges of the next twelve.
During the conference, top open source technical staff and backbones throughout the world will gather together and share outcomes in open source technology among others, advocate progress in effective application of open source technology, improve world software technology level and try to break technology monopoly through forums, lectures and other interactive manners.
Click here for more information and latest updates about the Beijing OOoCon 2008.
OpenOffice.org - the free and open productivity suite
Nowadays, office application suite is an essential software in almost all PCs. Each Microsoft Office license costs you from a few hundred ringgit up to a few thousand ringgit (based on the bundled applications in the suite) to legalize your installation and usage in your PC.
If you try to use unlicensed or pirated copy of Microsoft Office, it might be rendered unusable after some time if you don't activate the product or pass their 'Genuine Advantage' Authentication. If you cracked the product and use it, your Microsoft Office will have no support at all, and you might not be able to update it to fix problems, bugs and security issues. This attempt is also illegal, and the Business Software Alliance (BSA) might take action against you, bring law enforcement officers to raid your office or home, seize your PC, summon you to court, and charge you a big fine.
Well, you don't have to take that risk, and you can still have a well supported and fully functional office application suite alternative to Microsoft Office, which is free to copy, distribute and install in as many PCs as you like, at no cost and no license fee, thanks to OpenOffice.org.
OpenOffice.org is both a product and an open source project with GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). It is primarily sponsored by Sun Microsystems and jointly developed by over 450,000 worldwide developers including Novell, RedHat, RedFlag CH2000, IBM, and Google. This free office application suite consists of:
- Writer the word processor (similar to MS Words)
- Calc the spreadsheet (similar to MS Excel)
- Impress the multimedia presentation producer (similar to MS PowerPoint)
- Draw the diagram illustrator and desktop publisher (similar to CorelDraw and MS Publisher)
- Base the desktop database management system (similar to MS Access)
- Math the mathematical equations, symbols and formula editor (similar to MS Equation Editor)
- it is multiplatform, setup file available for installation in Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, etc.
- it is directly included in most Linux distro such as Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, openSUSE, Mandriva, etc.
- it is multilingual, supports for over 100 languages globally.
- it pioneered the ISO/IEC standard OpenDocument file formats (ODF).
- it can open, read and write to a vast variety of document formats, including MS Office documents, Palm AportisDoc, Pocket PC documents, etc. Support for the new MS Office 2007 documents is also available in OpenOffice 3.0, which is currently under beta release.
- it can directly output any of its documents to PDF files.
- it supports various macro languages in OOo Basic, Python, BeanShell, JavaScript, etc.
- it is professionally supported by Sun Microsystems as well as the OpenOffice community at large.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Metro Kajang on the move
Today the low profile Metro Kajang (6114, 美景控股) shown its publicity in The Star as well as Sin Chew regarding its recent complete acquisition of a 273-acre prime freehold land (Paradise Estate) in Kajang, which is just 2.5 km from the Kajang town centre and is accessible via the SILK Highway and Jalan Reko. This is in addition to their existing 455 acres of landbank in Selangor and 324 acres in Perak.
Metro Kajang has paid RM80 million for the land, and plans to turn it into a high-end integrated township with 3,500 units of high-end homes with a gross development value (GDV) of RM1.5 billion.
Kajang has an annual population growth rate of 8%, and Metro Kajang is the biggest developer in Kajang and Semenyih area which had built over 1,000 residential and commercial units in the region over the past 20 years.
Last year was not a good year for Metro Kajang, as it recorded lower percentage of profit recognition upon completion of recent projects in Damansara and Petaling Jaya, and its new projects with a combined GDV of RM162 million on 24.4 acres near its head office at Wisma Metro Kajang in Jalan Semenyih were still at the preliminary stage of development. This has brought down its revenue, despite its pre-tax profit being lifted by a RM13.8 million gain due to revaluation of its investment properties. This might explain for its low PE and declining in share price from the peak of RM2.20 since 16 July 2007.
Recent move in Metro Kajang also include the complete acquisition of an Indonesian company which has a 35 years title of 15,942ha (39,395 acres) land in East Kalimantan suitable for palm oil plantation.
Metro Kajang isn't an exciting counter, but it is pretty stable in profitability as stated in their annual report: "The Group posted an uninterrupted profit track record since commencing business twenty years ago".
The price hike in steel, cement, brick and other building materials is no doubt bringing negative impact to its property development and construction division, which is their major contributor of operating revenue and profit. The board of directors only foresee a satisfactory result for year 2008. As at 31 December 2007, they have lock-in unbilled sales value of 167.9 million, and they've targetted to launch new property of over RM200 million this year.
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.
Toyota Rush and Perodua Nautica
In January this year, UMW Toyota launched the Toyota Rush in Malaysia, and now in May, Perodua launched the Perodua Nautica in Malaysia too. Both of them are actually the rebadge of the 2nd generation of Daihatsu Terios, which is co-developed by Daihatsu and Toyota in Japan.
Let's look at their similarities and differences:
Toyota Rush:
- Type: 7 seater SUV, RWD
- Import: CBU from Indonesia
- Comes with 3 specs: 1.5G M/T, 1.5G A/T and 1.5S A/T
- Overall dimension (LxWxH in mm): 4410 x 1695 x 1745
- Interior dimension (LxWxH in mm): 2580 x 1445 x 1240
- Wheelbase: 2685 mm
- Kerb weight: 1250 kg
- Minimum road clearance: 200 mm
- Minimum turning radius: 5.2 m
- Fuel tank: 50 litre
- Engine: 3SZ-VE
- Front suspension: MacPherson Strut with Coil Spring and Stabiliser Bar
- Rear suspension: 4-Link with Coil Spring and Lateral Rod
- Tyres: 215/65R16
- Door visor: with
- Projector headlamps: only with 1.5S A/T
- Fog lamps: only with 1.5S A/T
- Sterling wheel: 4 spoke
- Sunglasses holder with spot lamp: with
- 2nd air-cond blower: with
- Colours: blue, black, silver, champagne
- Peninsular OTR price: 1.5G M/T: RM85,888 1.5G A/T: RM88,888 1.5S A/Y: RM94,888
Perodua Nautica:
- Type: 5 seater SUV, 4WD
- Import: CBU from Japan
- Only comes with 1 spec: 1.5 A/T
- Overall dimension (LxWxH in mm): 4115 x 1695 x 1740
- Interior dimension (LxWxH in mm): 1800 x 1385 x 1240
- Wheelbase: 2580 mm
- Kerb weight: 1200 kg
- Minimum road clearance: 190 mm
- Minimum turning radius: 4.9 m
- Fuel tank: 50 litre
- Engine: 3SZ-VE
- Front suspension: MacPherson Strut with Coil Spring
- Rear suspension: 5-Link with Coil Spring
- Tyres: 215/65R16
- Door visor: without
- Projector headlamps: with
- Fog lamps: with
- Sterling wheel: 3 spoke
- Sunglasses holder with spot lamp: with
- 2nd air-cond blower: without
- Colours: black, grey
- Peninsular OTR price: RM89,900
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Tan Teng Boo emerged as substantial shareholder for PIE
On 7 Nov 2007, iCapital.Biz Berhad (5108), the public listed closed end fund managed by Tan Teng Boo (陈鼎武) who has been famous for writing excellent independent financial review for many years, disclosed their substantial interest in P.I.E. (7095, 广宇科技) for 3,407,200 or 5.32% shares purchased at open market by 1 Nov 2007. Since then, the share price of P.I.E. has surged up from the RM4.20 closing on 1 Nov 2007 to way above RM5 all time now.
As published in the 2007 annual report of P.I.E., iCapital.Biz maintains as the 3rd largest shareholders following Pan Global Holding Co. of Taiwan (holding 51.42%) and Lembaga Tabung Haji (holding 5.82%). The shareholding of iCapital.Biz has increased from 4.78% interest in 2006 to 5.32%. What is more interesting is that, Tan Teng Boo by himself also acquired 194,000 shares or 0.30% of P.I.E., making him the 27th largest shareholder as well. Previously he was not in the top 30 shareholders list of P.I.E..
P.I.E. has an excellent growth record during the past 5 years (please refer to page 24 of its 2007 annual report), bringing a 5-year average EPS growth rate at 35.09% and 5-year average price appreciation rate at 20.79%. Baring unforeseen circumstances, its EPS is prospected to grow further by about 16% in 2008 to another record high.
In year 2007, their trading arm showed a substantial decline in revenue, but offset and covered by improvement in revenue of their manufacturing arm, making an overall revenue increase by 1.22% from 2006. Margin of trading activities was also seen lower, but offset and covered by higher margin of manufacturing activities, making an overall net profit growth of 36.05% from 2006.
P.I.E. has a strong balance sheet with zero borrowings, and cash in hand of RM80,960,674 which is equilvalent to RM1.26 per share. Its NTA stood at RM3.06 per share in 2007, from RM2.71 as in 2006. It has declared a first and final dividend of 12 sen per share (less 26% tax), a special dividend of 8 sen per share (tax exempt), and another special dividend II of 16 sen per share (less 26% tax), which goes-ex on this 26 May 2008 and payable on 10 Jun 2008. This makes up its gross dividend of 28.72 sen per share, or a nett DY of 5.13% based on its last closing price of RM5.60 on 9 May 2008.
Dr. Neoh Soon Kean (梁孙健博士) of Dynaquest has been making recommendation to P.I.E. since 2004 while its price was RM2.07 then. However, Fong Si Ling (冯时能, a.k.a. 冷眼) has not been seen in this counter yet.
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.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Malaysia to liberize steel market effective 12 May 2008
It has been quite some times since the Master Builders Association of Malaysia (MBAM) and Real Estate Housing Developers Association (REHDA) called on the Government of Malaysia to lift the price controls on steel products and allow the free market to decide its actual price. The Malaysian Iron and Steel Industries Federation (MISIF) has also been urging the Government to lift the import restrictions of flat steel products.
Finally, our Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announced the liberization of steel market after the cabinet meeting on Friday 9 May. This decision includes:
- lifting of price caps to steel products
- exempting steel importers from having to pay import duties
- scraping the requirement for steel importers to obtain import license
- allowing local steel producers to export their products
So, who will be benefited from this move?
1. Manufacturers of cold rolled coils (CRC)
Currently, there are 4 main CRC manufacturers in Malaysia, which are Megasteel (of Lion Group), Mycron (5087), Ornasteel (5094) and Yung Kong (7020).
Before this, Megasteel is the only local producer of hot rolled coils (HRC), which is the raw material for CRC. The problem faced was:
- lack of supply
- price of HRC supplied by Megasteel is relatively higher than world market
- quality of HRC supplied by Megasteel is lower because they relies on scrap metal as feedstock
- restriction of importing raw material
- price cap to end product
All the above problems will be solved following this steel market liberization, and Ornasteel (5094), being the largest CRC producer in the country, will benefit the most.
2. Construction, property and automotive players
Before this, even though the price was capped to steel product, the supply and demand market was disrupted, and there was almost no supply to these industrial players unless they are willing to pay at the black market price, which is higher than the capped price.
The supply and demand market for steel products is expected to fall back to normal following this liberization, and the projects can be planned and budgetted more effectively.
The following industrial players are expected to get benefit from this:
Construction: Gamuda (5398), IJM (3336), WCT (9679)...
Property: SP Setia (8664), IOI Properties (1635), Metro Kajang (6114), Plenitu (5075), Suncity (6289), E&O (3417)...
Automotive: Proton (5304), MBMR (5983), UMW (4588).
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.
Friday, May 9, 2008
VisualWade the PHP code generator
VisualWade is a freeware PHP code generator that generates web applications from design models. You will be able to design and deploy sophisticated web applications in PHP connected with relational databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL or ORACLE with just a few mouse clicks.
VisualWade is a great PHP developer solution to generate a complete solution in a very small period of time and ready to deploy in a PHP web server. It generates all PHP necessaries pages and also the database creation script. It generates the interface tier as templates, easy for customization and final touch-up.
This Model driven web development tools uses UML as class diagram specification, and complete with Navigational Access Diagrams (NAD) and Composition Layout Diagrams (CLD) for the user navigation specification according to the Object-Oriented Hypermedia (OO-H) method developed at University of Alicante. It also uses Object Constraint Language (OCL) as complementary language.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Asian Festival of Speed car club gathering at Sepang International Circuit on 18 May 2008
The Asian Festival Of Speed (AFOS) organized by Motorsport Asia Ltd. is recognised regionally and internationally as the premier Asian Motorsport Series. This 4-day race meeting at Sepang International Circuit begins on Thursday, 15th May, with a qualifying session, and the first two 10-lap races run the following day on the full 5.54km Grand Prix circuit. Saturday will see another qualifying session for the three further rounds which will be held over 20-laps each of the tight 2.72km North track.
Motorsport Asia Ltd. has invited all the car clubs in Malaysia to participate in the biggest car club gathering of the year during this biggest Asian Festival of Speed 2008 event on the 18th May at Sepang International Circuit.
Participating car club members are also invited to witness 6 power packed races, i.e. Asian Touring Car Series, ATCS 1500Max Challenge, Asia Supercar Challenge, Formula V6 Asia, Formula BMW Pacific and Formula Asia 2.0. There will also be a photo session with Race Queens from projectracequeens.com.
Microsoft released Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3)
Microsoft has just released Service Pack 3 (SP3) for the Windows XP operating system. This service pack includes all previously released Windows XP updates, including security updates and hotfixes, and selected out-of-band releases.
Among the previously released functionality which is included in this SP3 are: MMC 3.0, MSXML6, Microsoft Windows Installer 3.1 v2, Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) 2.5, IPSec Simple Policy Update, Digital Identity Management Service (DIMS), Peer Name Resolution Protocol (PNRP) 2.1, Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) 6.1, Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2).
It also includes a new functionality called Network Access Protection (NAP) to help organizations that use Windows XP to take advantage of new features in the Windows Server 2008 operating system. Beside that, improvements to black hole router detection is included too.
As with previous service packs, no product key is requested or required when installing Windows XP SP3 using the update package available through Microsoft Update. However, the Windows Product Activation mechanism has also been upgraded.
This Windows XP SP3 is for x86 editions of Windows XP only. The x64 editions of Windows XP were serviced by Windows Server 2003 SP2.
Click here for more information and download of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3).
Toyota Owners Journal
Recently, UMW Toyota has split out the Toyota Owner's Journal from their Tribe Toyota portal and added more features to it.
Toyota Owner's Journal is a web portal for car owners who have purchased a Toyota vehicle from UMW Toyota or their dealers. It enables you to view and/or update your personal and contact details in their system. You can also view the purchase details and specification of your Toyota vehicle, its insurance details, and your 24SEVEN Road Assist membership details.
If you serviced your car with Toyota service centre, you can also view your service history, including date of service, mileage when serviced, service centre location, invoice amount, served by who, service type and parts changed. Information for your next scheduled service is also displayed on the screen.
Other than that, you can also view the eVouchers that you've earned, their value, issued date, expiry date, and rebate status.
There is also a reminders section that you can opt to receive reminder email for your next scheduled service, renewal of road tax and insurance, renewal of 24SEVEN Road Assist membership, etc.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Blogger Backup Utility
Blogger Backup Utility is an open source utility running on Windows PC to backup and/or restore the blog posts hosted in Blogger a.k.a. BlogSpot. It is developed by Greg Duncan and is running on top of Microsoft .NET Framework, therefore you need to have this framework component installed in your Windows PC before it can be used.
It makes use of your Google credential to automatically search for the URL and feeds of your blog(s). Alternatively, you can manually key-in those information without using your credential information.
What Blogger Backup Utility can do?
- it can incrementally backup all your posts in Blogger (BlogSpot) and save them locally as XML files.
- it can also incrementally backup all the comments in your blog.
- it can help you to restore back your backup posts to Blogger (BlogSpot).
What Blogger Backup Utility cannot do at the moment?
- comment restore would be available in future release.
- picture backup and restore would be available in future release.
- video clip backup and restore would be available in future release.
In order to use this utility, you should set your Blogger settings to allow for FULL blog feeds. Beside this, you should go to the Edit HTML page of Blogger and download your full template to your local PC, as this utility will not backup your template either.
Click here to download the installation file for Blogger Backup Utility. You can also click here to download its source code.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Withdrawal of EPF money for housing loan monthly installment
Since 1 January 2008, EPF a.k.a. KWSP members are also allowed to withdraw their money from EPF Account II to pay for their monthly instalments of a housing loan, which has been taken up for the purpose of buying or building a house.
Unlike the withdrawal of EPF money to reduce housing loan which the money is directly made payable to the bank, this withdrawal for housing loan monthly installment can be banked in to your personal savings account and its usage is just up to you, if your housing loan does not have the non-performing (NPL) status. Otherwise, the money will still go to the bank as if the withdrawal to reduce housing loan. In anyway, you should not let your housing loan to fall into NPL status, because the interest rate will be high, and the bank might put your house on auction to recover the defaulted loan.
I would advise you to opt for the withdrawal of EPF money to reduce housing loan instead of this one if you intend to use the money for your housing loan. This is because that method will directly reduce your loan principal in a lump sum and can save you interest as well as reduce the loan tenure period, but this method might not do the same for you and you might end up saving nothing.
I would advise you to use this monthly withdrawal of EPF money for purposes like the following:
- to settle out your outstanding credit card debts. This is because the interest rate is high, and soon you will lost your credit card interest free period if your debt is not settled.
- for purchase down payment or settle the loan of your car. This is because the car loan interest is calculated differently, and is generally higher than your housing loan. I have already written an article about this.
- for house renovation, wedding, birth of child, etc. This is because the interest rate for personal loan is generally higher than your housing loan.
- for investment in 2nd house, business turnover, or investments that you believe the return is much higher than EPF dividend.
This withdrawal is eligible to:
- A Malaysian citizen
- A permanent resident in Malaysia
- An expatriate who joint as member of EPF before 1 August 1998
The withdrawal process is pretty much the same as the withdrawal to reduce housing loan. You just need to complete the Form KWSP 9P (AHL) and submit it together with the required supporting documents to the nearest EPF office. You must go to the EPF office by yourself because your thumbprint is required to verify your application.
The required supporting documents are:
- Your MyKad
- Your bank savings account book or statement
- Photocopy of both side of your MyKad, printed on the same page of A4 size paper
- Photocopy of the pages containing your bank account details (including your full name, IC number, bank account number, branch of bank, etc.) of your bank savings account book or latest bank statement
- Letter from the bank confirming your housing loan details and the latest outstanding balance. You have to apply for this letter from your bank.
Withdrawal of EPF money to reduce housing loan
Most EPF a.k.a. KWSP members know that they can widhdraw the money in their EPF Account II for the purpose of reducing or settling the balance of their housing loan taken from a financial institution approved by EPF for the purchase or construction of a house in Malaysia. This can help them to settle their housing loan in shorter period and save on the interest payable to the bank, at the trade-off of losing the annual dividend payable by EPF on that amount of money.
This withdrawal is eligible to:
- A Malaysian citizen
- A permanent resident in Malaysia
- An expatriate who joint as member of EPF before 1 August 1998
The withdrawal process is pretty much the same as the withdrawal made to partially finance the purchase of new house. You just need to complete the Form KWSP 9C (AHL) and submit it together with the required supporting documents to the nearest EPF office. You must go to the EPF office by yourself because your thumbprint is required to verify your application.
The required supporting documents are:
- Your MyKad
- Photocopy of both side of your MyKad, printed on the same page of A4 size paper
- Letter from the bank confirming your housing loan details and the latest outstanding balance. You have to apply for this letter from your bank.
The money is made payable to the bank for your housing loan account, and will directly use to reduce your loan principal. You can hardly withdraw it for other usage, and by right, you shouldn't do that too. If you intend to make use of the money otherwise, read my other article about EPF withdrawal which enable you to do that. Your housing loan statement for all subsequent months after that should show that the interest charges have been reduced.
Is it a wise move to perform this withdrawal of EPF money to reduce your housing loan? The answer is yes if you foresee that the dividend from EPF in the coming years is probably lower than the interest rate of your housing loan. Otherwise, it might not be a wise choice, as keeping your money to grow in your EPF Account II is more beneficial than reducing the interest payable for your housing loan account.