Tracking your Touch 'n Go usage online

Using the Touch 'n Go card is convenient when passing the tolls, you don't have to prepare for the cash, and it supposed to be faster than manual transaction too. But using Touch 'n Go does not produce receipt at the toll.

In fact, you can track for your Touch 'n Go usage online. From the online statement, you can know about the transactions and amount you have paid to the tolls, location of the tolls you passed through, the reload transactions, and your balance in the card.

If your company accepts the print-out from this Touch 'n Go online statement as alternative to toll receipts for you to claim for travelling reimbursement, you can then use the Touch 'n Go lane of the tolls even while travelling for business.

You can click here to go to Touch 'n Go e-Statement page.

Preserving the ink in my DCP-130C printer

I purchased this DCP-130C multifunction inkjet printer for RM199 only in one of the PIKOM PC Fair last year.

It is pretty small and compact in size, and function well for me. It can do printing, copying and scanning. With the help of faxing software, I can use it to fax out scanned documents too.

Its control buttons are easy to use, I can copy documents both in colour or mono directly without the PC switch on. It has a paper input tray able to hold about 100 sheets of paper, convenient to feed-in paper.

It uses separate ink cartridges for black, yellow, cyan and magenta printing.

Now, the problem I faced with this printer:
Everytime I wanted to print, it went into Cleaning mode, and I had to wait for more than 1 minute for it to clean the print head before it started the actual printing. And because of this cleaning process everytime it was switched on for printing, the ink used up very fast. Worse still, any 1 of the 4 cartridges ran out of ink, the whole printer will refuse to print until the empty cartridge is replaced.

Later, I found out the solution to fix this problem. I just need to keep the printer in sleeping mode, don't switch off the power supply to the printer. This will make the printer perform routine cleaning based on its own timer, and it will directly print out document without having to go through the cleaning process anymore. I find its ink consumption also reduced a lot and can last a much longer period.

Congratulation to AirAsia being listed in Fast 50

In the March 2008 issue of Fast Company magazine, their panel of editors has nominated a list of The World's Most Innovative Companies, they called it Fast 50. Being a Malaysian, I am proud to notice that AirAsia, our Malaysian company had made it and ranked #43 in this list.

Below are what they've written about AirAsia.

Seven years ago, former music exec Tony Fernandes paid 25 cents for an ailing carrier with two creaky planes and $12 million in debt. Today, AirAsia's bottom-of-the-pyramid strategy has created one of the world's fastest-growing, most-profitable carriers, with the lowest operating costs in the industry and fares as cheap as $3. "It's like our bus," says Yap Choo Ying, who runs a market stall in eastern Malaysia and now regularly jets to Kuala Lumpur to see her grandkids. In November, the Malaysian company made a risky bet by going long-haul, adding flights to Australia; this year, it will add flights to China and India, where billions of people have yet to take to the skies.

Click here to read about The World's Most Innovative Companies (Fast 50) presented by FastCompany.com.