Today I would like to share my experience in cancelling the Touch 'n Go Zing Card.
I have been using the Maybank Touch 'n Go Zing Card for several years, until recently I decided to switch over to CIMB Touch 'n Go Zing Card.
The switching process involves applying a new Zing card from CIMB and cancelling the old Zing card with Maybank.
The reasons for the switch are:
I plan to cancel my Maybank credit card.
The auto-reload fee of CIMB Zing card would be cheaper in long run.
For example, if you use about RM200 Touch 'n Go value per month. In a period of 6 months, if you use Maybank Zing card, you will need to reload 12 times, and the total fee is RM2 x 12 = RM24.
If you opt for RM200 per reload in CIMB Zing card, you will only need to reload 6 times, and the total fee is RM2 x 6 = RM12.
The saving of using CIMB Zing card rather than Maybank Zing card is 50%!
And here is the procedure to cancel the Touch 'n Go Zing card:
1. Cancel the card with your bank. Call their call centre.
2. Cancel the card with Touch 'n Go. Call 03-76285115.
3. A RM5 processing fee will be charged for the cancellation. It will be deducted from the stored value in your Zing card.
4. Your Zing card will be blocked from further usage.
5. The remaining money in your Zing card will be refunded by Touch 'n Go to your credit card within 30 days.
Here is the list of auspicious dates for wedding/marriage in year 2010 (year of Tiger), which is produced based on the Chinese almanac Tong Shu. (Click the image to enlarge)
The dates highlighted in pink are considered even more auspicious.
You might aware that 10 October 2010, which can be written as 10-10-10, is among the auspicious dates. Another interesting date is the Saint Valentine's day which fall on 14 February 2010 and is a Sunday. That day is also the 1st day of Chinese New Year. You can expect many couples will get married on that auspicious day.
Bear in mind that although the Tong Shu is a compilation of Chinese astrology and calendaring studies gathering wisdom of thousands of years, we should use it wisely and rationally, but not be too superstitious on it.
Individuals with excellent interpersonal skills rise to the top – in their careers, in their organizations and in life! You’ve probably seen it happen time and again.
Take 2 people with similar skills and knowledge, but one of them has enviable people skills while the other’s interpersonal skills are only mediocre. Which one gets ahead faster and goes further? You know the answer to that one — no contest! What you may not know is that effective interpersonal skills can be learned – just like any other skill.
The ability to build effective professional relationships, to strike up instant rapport, to communicate with tact, and to make a memorable impression are nothing more than a collection of techniques that you can learn and cultivate.
To be conducted by Mr. Casey Tee, Strengthening Your People Skills in the Workplace is an intensive new workshop that provides you with ways to gain the essential people skills you need to push ahead in your career.
This workshop is... Organized by: Training Zone Dot Com Sdn Bhd To be conducted by: Mr. Casey Tee Date: 12 & 13 January 2010 (Tuesday & Wednesday) Venue: Grand Dorsett Subang Hotel, Kuala Lumpur
The world's largest travel guide book and digital media publisher Lonely Planet has released their 208 pages Best in Travel 2010 guidebook, and you can find it in Amazon.com online bookstore.
Being the 5th in their annual collection of the best places to go and best things to do for the year ahead, this traveller's guidebook highlighted 850 trends, destinations, journeys and experiences for year 2010.
"Malaysia is a clever choice for travellers on the lookout for a bargain”, they commented in the guidebook.
The technology capabilities that IT organization needs might form a very wide and deep list, varying based on the business strategies in place.
Richard Brennan, managing director of Denver-based technology strategy and advisory firm Tipperary Partners, has come out with a list of 8 common technology capabilities for our reference.
Operational: Expert in operating systems, networks, data centers; scaling them efficiently while appropriately managing risks.
Development: Expert in leveraging the appropriate technology to code and deploy complex systems.
Innovative: Expert at introducing technologies and processes.
Project management: Expert at managing and delivering complex projects within budget and timeframe.
Architectural: Expert in designing reliable, scalable and extensible applications and systems.
Data management: Expert at collecting, managing, organizing and providing access to data.
Process: Expert in establishing and managing operational and business processes.
Agile: Expert in reacting quickly to the changing technical/business environment.
This list is good enough for organizations to use as reference to determine and define technology capabilities of their own need. It is also a good evaluation/assessment list for both employers and employees.
Bear in mind that we might not be able to master in all of them. It is better to pick at most three to four items in the list and excel in them.
Maxis, after privatized and delisted for some times, is coming back to KLSE again with a new IPO.
According to the latest news, they will not be issuing new shares, but will offer 2.25 billion shares, representing 30% of its existing share capital. The estimated IPO price is RM5.20 per share.
With this information, let's do some calculation.
The total shares of Maxis is 2.25 billion / 30% = 7.5 billion.
For your information, Maxis made a revenue of RM8.45 billion and net profit of RM2.4 billion in 2008. For the 1st half year of 2009, revenue is RM4.24 billion and net profit is RM1.14 billion.
Let's estimate the EPS of Maxis now.
I'll estimate the net profit with the following simple guessing formula:
Multiply the half year net profit of 2009 by 2 to get a full year figure.
1.14 x 2 = 2.28
With this, the EPS will be 2.28/7.5 = 0.304
If the IPO price is 5.20, then the PE will be 5.2/0.304 = 17.11
Maxis stated that they plan to give back 75% of net profit as dividend. So the dividend will be around 0.304 x 75% = 0.228.
And the estimated DY will then be 0.228/5.20 = 4.38%
So, are you willing to buy Maxis IPO at the PE of around 17?
I think they come out with the proposed IPO price by referencing to Digi (6947), which currently has a PE of around 15.
Currently, even Digi doesn't seem attractive to me, so why should I buy Maxis at a higher PE and lower DY? This IPO is not attractive to me from the fundamental perspective.
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.
The new software version 2.80 is now available for Sing/Mal version of Garmin Nuvi 205/205w/255w.
This version will:
Synchronize to English v5.30
Update GPS firmware to v3.90
Here are the steps I have taken to successfully updated my Nuvi 255w.
Download the installation file from Garmin's website (link provided at the end of this article). The filename is nuvi255W_SG_v280.exe with the size of 10,672kb.
Remove the SD card (that I use to store additional maps) from the GPS slot.
Connect the GPS to my computer with USB cable and access to its storage.
Rename the file /Garmin/GPX/Current.gpx to /Garmin/GPX/temp.gpx. During the update process, a new Current.gpx file will be created and data in this temp.gpx will be restored to the new Current.gpx. If this step is not taken, you might lost your saved waypoints and/or favourites.
Delete these 3 files from /Garmin/Voice folder:
English_American_Jack.vpm
English_Australian_Karen.vpm
English_British_Daniel.vpm
Don't worry, they'll be replaced with new version of voice files during the update process.
Run the nuvi255W_SG_v280.exe from the computer. It will copy over some files to the GPS.
Safely unplug the USB cable and let the GPS reboot by itself. You will see the message of "Software loading..." on the screen of the GPS while it is performing the update.
In less than a minute, the GPS will automatically reboot itself after the update is completed.
Now the GPS is loaded with new software v2.80 (successfully updated from the previous v2.70).
Quite disappointedly, there is still no ecoRoute feature in this v2.80 of Nuvi software for Sing/Mal 205/205w/255w units.
Now you can withdraw your money from Paypal directly to your bank account in Malaysia.
Withdrawal is free of charge if the amount is above RM400. Else RM3 is chargeable.
Banks which can accept money transfer from Paypal are:
Affin Bank (PHBMMYKL)
Alliance Bank (MFBBMYKL)
Ambank (ARBKMYKL)
Bank Islam (BIMBMYKL)
Bank Kerjasama Rakyat (BKRMMYK1)
Bank Muamalat (BMMBMYKL)
Bank of America (BOFAMY2X)
Bank Simpanan Nasional (BSNAMYK1)
CIMB Bank (CIBBMYKL)
Citibank (CITIMYKL)
Deustche Bank (DEUTMYKL)
EON Bank (EOBBMYKL)
Hong Leong Bank (HLBBMYKL)
HSBC Bank (HBMBMYKL)
Maybank (MBBEMYKL)
OCBC Bank (OCBCMYKL)
Public Bank (PBBEMYKL)
RHB Bank (RHBBMYKL)
Standard Chartered Bank (SCBLMYKX)
Royal Bank of Scotland (ABNAMYKL)
UOB (UOVBMYKL)
The 8 characters code in bracket is the MEPS bank routing code which you need to provide during withdrawal from Paypal. You will also need to provide your bank account number too.
The withdrawal will normally take 2-3 days of processing.
This question "What would you do with 10 million dollar?" stroke my mind when it flashed out from the presentation slide of David Axmark during his talk about “Persevering in a FOSS business valued at USD$1 billion” in FOSS.my 2009 conference.
David Axmark is the co-founder of MySQL, the great database management system in used by many websites and applications nowadays. Somebody asked him this question few years back, before MySQL was sold to Sun Microsystems for US$1 billion.
David Axmark told us, by the time he was asked the question, he had no idea, though he sensed the investor might expect the answer something like "grow it to 100 million or more".
So, if you were asked the same question, what would be your answer?
Some of the possible answers might be...
Employee: retire immediately and enjoy your life
Businessman: grow it to 100 million or more
Investor: possibly the same answer as businessman above
Kind person: charity and social welfare, eg. build a school, setup a charity fund, help the unfortunate, etc...
Traveller: go around the world, take a lot of pictures and videos, then produce books, films, etc. to share with the whole world about your discoveries
Scientist: fund research to bring a better life to mankind
Environmentalist: fund for activities to save the mother earth!
Politician: fund for contesting in election
Movie director: well, that's probably not enough to make a great movie. Too bad.
many many more possibilities of answer (put in my comment page if you are generous to share with my readers...)
Today is the 2nd day of FOSS.my 2009, a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) conference organized and supported by grassroot communities in Malaysia, and the high tide being Richard Stallman's keynote speech about free software movement of more than 2 hours, right before the delayed lunch.
Well, the lunch time was delayed due to a slight delay on the keynote speech, and more importantly was mainly caused by overwhelming Q&A with some strong debates.
During this session, all the seats in the big lecture room in APIIT were full, and there are people standing around. Several hundred audiences attended his talk today.
For those who still wondering who is Richard Stallman, well, a.k.a. RMS, he is an American software freedom activist and the founder of GNU Project as well as Free Software Foundation. He is the first person who talked about software freedom back in the 80's, and also the first person who put it in action to bring the free GNU operating system to us.
If not of his great philosophy and numerous hard work, the history might changed and, the subsequent emergence of Linux kernel and numerous free and libre software might not be going as far as today.
RMS is very humerous. Guess what he wore on his head? (Hint: it is an IT product, probably obsoleted by today.) However, when come to his principal of software freedom, we see the very strong perseverance, no ambiquity, never compromise side of him.
RMS strongly disagreed some of the terms imposed by proprietary software vendors, such as "piracy". He said "piracy" is about attacking ships which is very bad, but copying and sharing software with friends is of no way be valued to compare with the act of attacking ships. We should be given freedom and encouraged to do so, for the good of the entire society.
RMS has reemphasized his philosophy on free software in his speech. He believes that free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it means that the program's users have the four essential freedoms:
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.
The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour.
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
RMS also differentiates clearly free software movement from open source movement, and he strongly against being labeled as the "father of open source". He said free software value things from ethical perspective, while the open source is a practical movement which might compromised his philosophy.
Perhaps not all of us agree with RMS' free software philosophy in 100%, but his speech did stir up our mind to think more in-depth about our freedom in software. We need great warrior like him to keep us awake about our rights and freedom that we should pursuit for.
Today I'm going to compare among the map of MalFreeMaps (MFM), MalSingMaps (MSM) and City Navigator (CN) by viewing exactly the same location with the same detail setup. Then it is very obvious to immediately figure out which one is better.
Maps used for comparison (click to enlarge them):
MFM 091019
MSM NT 2009.30
CN Southeastern Asia NT 4.50
The order of the maps below will always be MFM, MSM then CN. Here we go!
First we go and take a look around Mid Valley Megamall.
Then we go to smaller place, like Teluk Intan.
How about Melaka?
Lastly, we look at higher place, such as Cameron Highlands.
Now, do you agree with me on the following?
MFM and MSM have far more POIs than CN.
MFM has more beautiful map than the other two.
MFM uses better and more precise icons to display the POIs.
MFM has more detail lane coverage, especially in smaller town such as Teluk Intan.
Gals, you have started your dating night looking gorgeous dressed, but you have to watch your drink at all times!
There have been an increasing number of victims to spiked drinks and abuse. As such, the British lippy company 2LoveMyLips has come out with idea to attach a drug detector kit together with their lipgloss products.
The detector kit is to be used when gals are suspicious about their drink. It contains test stripes which can detect Gamma Hydroxy Butyrate (GHB) and/or Ketamine. The stripe will turn dark blue upon detection of such colourless and odourless drugs in your drink, alarming you about the risk.
CNBC is letting us to vote for our CEO of choice from the list of 12 nominees of excellent business leaders in Asia. The vote is opened now until 23 October 2009.
The business leader with the most votes wins the Asia Viewers’ Choice Award that will be announced at this year’s 8th Asia Business Leaders Awards on 26 November 2009 at Grand Ballroom of Capella Singapore.
The 12 nominees are:
Mr. Adirek Sripratak, President & CEO, Charoen Pokphand Foods PCL
Mr. Dean Lao Jr., Managing Director, Chemrez Technologies Inc.
Mr. Zhou Jichang, Chairman of Board of Directors, China Communications Construction Co.
Mr. Frank Gaoning Ning, Chairman, COFCO Corporation
Mr. Johan Dennelind, Chief Executive Officer, DiGi.Com Bhd
It has come to the 8th year for the editors of Oracle Magazine to present the Editors’ Choice Awards to people who exemplify leadership, vision, and dedication in working with and managing Oracle technology.
And the winners for year 2009 are:
João Cumerlato from Odebrecht Group, Brazil - CIO of the Year (Latin America)
Andy Platt from The J.M. Smucker Company, Ohio - CIO of the Year (North America)
Hyojoong Kim from STX Group and ForceTEC, Korea - CIO of the Year (Asia Pacific)
Giovanni Chiarelli from Telecom Italia Group, Italy - CIO of the Year (Europe, Middle East, and Africa)
Hideo Higuchi from Omron, Japan - CIO of the Year (Japan)
Katherine M. Tamer from United Space Alliance, Texas - CTO of the Year
Angelo Romano from Office of the Comptroller, Connecticut - IT Manager of the Year
Jake Ruttenberg from Starbucks Coffee Company, Washington - Data Warehouse Architect of the Year
Zachary Sherburne from Black & Decker, California - Performance Management/Business Intelligence Architect of the Year
Martin Buechi from Avaloq, Switzerland - PL/SQL Developer of the Year
Jerry Aber from MoneyGram, Minnesota - Content Management Architect of the Year
Kari Branjord from University of Colorado, Colorado - Applications Implementer of the Year
Hüsnü Sensoy from Turkcell, Turkey - DBA of the Year
Kelly Tuggle from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Texas - SOA Architect of the Year
Tim Frazier from National Ignition Facility/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California - Enterprise Architect of the Year
John Turato from Avis Budget Group, New Jersey - Oracle Grid Architect of the Year
Raimonds Simanovskis from TietoEnator Alise, Latvia - Developer of the Year
Brenda Hughes from Cisco Systems, California - Security Architect of the Year
Jennifer Briscoe from Collect America, Colorado - Oracle Fusion Middleware Early Adopter of the Year
Edwin Biemond from Whitehorses, the Netherlands - Java Developer of the Year
Chris Muir from SAGE Computing Services, Australia - Oracle ACE Director of the Year
David Jones, Gerry Hanifan & Arnaud Benjacar from Irish Life Investment Managers, Ireland - Oracle Fusion Middleware Architects of the Year
Naveen Garg from Colorcon, Pennsylvania - Oracle Enterprise Manager Architect of the Year
Ross Sharman from Knowledge Global, Australia - Green IT Architect of the Year
Dimitri Gielis from Apex Evangelists, Belgium - Oracle Application Express Developer of the Year
Patricia Dues from City of Las Vegas, Nevada - User Group Evangelist of the Year
Ray Fasullo from Telcordia Technologies, New Jersey - Embedded Architect of the Year
Firstly, you need to create a new directory in your computer to store the generated files (output of this conversion process). In the example here, I'll create C:\Garmin\MalSingMaps.
Under the Files section of GMapTool, select the mapset file by clicking on Add Files.
Then, you must specify the full path of your installed cGPSmapper in the Options section.
Continue to the Split section.Click the Directory button and select the new directory you've just created. Make sure you choose to create files for MapSource. You might also want to compile the preview map.
Click the "Split all" button when you are done. Make sure there is no error and the process completed successfully with a "Done!" message.
To install the map for MapSource, run the install.bat script in the output directory.
Now you should be able to open the map in MapSource.
If the map is locked, you need to unlock it by saving the unlock code in MapSource before you are able to see the map. You can do so by going to Utilities > Manage Map Products > Unlock Regions. Click the Add button and paste in your unlock code for the map.
The Edge Malaysia Top Property Developers Award ranks the best property players in the country, from the consumer’s perspective for both their quantitative and qualitative attributes.
The quantitative elements were the companies’ shareholders’ funds, revenue, pre-tax profit, gearing, and cash and cash equivalents for the fiscal year ended 2008.
The qualitative attributes include the quality of the product, innovation and creativity, value creation for buyers, image and expertise.
And the Top 30 ranking is:
Sime Darby Property Bhd
SP Setia Bhd
Sunway City Bhd
IGB Corp Bhd
Island & Peninsular Sdn Bhd
IOI Properties Bhd
Bandar Raya Developments Bhd
Eastern & Oriental Bhd
Sunrise Bhd
Bandar Utama City Corp Sdn Bhd
Gamuda Bhd - Prop Div
IJM Land Bhd
YTL Land & Devt Bhd
Paramount Corp Bhd
Selangor Dredging Bhd
Mah Sing Group Bhd
Naza TTDI Sdn Bhd
Selangor Properties Bhd
Dijaya Corporation Bhd
UEM Land Holdings Bhd
PJ Devt Holdings Bhd
WCT Land Sdn Bhd
Metro Kajang Holdings Bhd
Penitude Bhd
Naim Holdings Bhd
Malton Bhd
United Malayan Land Bhd
Hunza Properties Bhd
Segajuta (S) Sdn Bhd
Bolton Bhd
Is your house's developer among one of the Top 30 above?
For more information, please refer to the City & Country pullout of The Edge Weekly dated 12-Oct-2009.
I just learned about this last lecture of late Dr. Randy Pausch by chance, read through his amazing presentation slides and video on Youtube, and would like to share with you about his great talk delivered on 18 September 2007 in a lecture hall of Carnegie Mellon University.
Randy Pausch was a computer science professor and alumnus of Carnegie Mellon University. He got pancreatic cancer which took away his life at the age of 47 on 25 July 2008, 10 months after he delivered this last lecture.
The talk has been uploaded into the Internet and viewed by millions of people. A best-selling book titled "The Last Lecture" based on the lecture has also been published and translated in thirty over languages.
To date, his Last Lecture titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" is still giving great impacts to people around the world.
His talk was about his childhood dreams, how he overcome the barriers to realise his dreams (or at least getting close to it). He also talked about enabling the dreams of others, and some lessons learned.
He mentioned several times that "the brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people. Brick walls let us show our dedication."
Some of his important advice:
Be good at something: it makes you valuable
Work hard … “what’s your secret?”
Find the best in everybody; no matter how you have to wait for them to show it
Be prepared: “luck” is where preparation meets opportunity
He ended the talk by saying,"It’s not about how to achieve your dreams. It’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you."
Do you realize that nowadays we have to carry so many cards with us -- ATM cards, credit cards, member cards, petrol cards, discount cards, Touch 'n Go card, medical card, ... you name it.
I have been wondering is there a stylish and nice looking card wallet for me to keep my cards in my pocket, without cramping them into my money wallet, and I've found the patented ACM card wallet with money clip from the internet.
This Auto Card Manager (ACM) card wallet has a special compartment that can store up to 6 cards in a well organized manner. There is another model which can store up to 12 cards, but could be too bulky to carry in pant's pocket.
The cards can easily be slotted into the wallet. There is spacing between each of the cards, a feature said to be able to prevent card demagnetization, scratching and premature magnetic strip failure.
This is how it looks like with all the cards slotted in completely. Once slotted in, the cards are held firmly in the wallet and will not slide out by themselves. The cards are easily retrievable by pushing the button corresponding to their slot.
There is a money clip at the back of the ACM card wallet, which can be used to clip bank notes, receipts, name cards, etc.
And the money clip is easily detachable.
This ACM card wallet comes with 18 interchangeable button icons pads and a leather pouch. Its casing is made of metal meterial, which is pretty durable. Despite that, it only weighs about 90g with 6 cards installed.
Sponsored by Cisco and conducted by a team of MBA students from the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and also the University of Oviedo’s Department of Applied Economics, the 2nd annual global study on the quality of broadband connections has just been released on 30 September 2009.
The 1st groundbreaking Broadband Quality Study was published in September 2008 to highlight each country’s ability to benefit from next-generation web applications and services.
It was found that broadband quality is linked to a nation’s advancement as a knowledge economy and countries with broadband on their national agenda had the highest broadband quality. This year’s report covers an additional 24 countries to 66 and includes new analysis on broadband quality in more than 240 cities.
The study was based on approximately 24 million records sourced from actual broadband speed tests from Speedtest.net (Ookla) for the target 66 countries during May 2008 and May to July 2009.
The research team concluded that broadband experience is mainly affected by broadband speeds in both directions, latency, network over-subscription, and packet loss. These parameters were grouped into 3 major categories: download and upload throughput, and latency.
The Broadband Quality Score (BQS) for each country was determined using a formula that weighted each category according to the quality requirements of a set of popular applications now and in the future as follow:
It is found that:
Overall average broadband quality increased across the globe, with global average download throughput increased by 49% to 4.75 Mbps, while global average upload throughput increased by 69% to 1.3 Mbps. The global average latency has decreased by 21% to 170 ms.
South Korea tops the 2009 Broadband Leadership table. Driven by continuous efforts by the government to strengthen the country’s position as one of the world’s ICT leaders, and combined with higher broadband penetration, South Korea rises above Japan (in the 2nd place now) in the global Broadband Leadership rankings.
The Global Top 10 Broadband Leaders are:
1. South Korea
2. Japan
3. Hong Kong
4. Sweden
5. Switzerland
6. Netherlands
7. Singapore
8. Luxembourg
9. Denmark
10. Norway
Malaysia ranked 48 and China ranked 49 in this broadband leadership matrix. The United States ranked 15.
The EPF (a.k.a. KWSP) 2008 Annual Report reviews quite a lot of facts and figures. Here are some which might be of your interest.
As at 31 December 2008...
EPF’s total membership stood at 12.07 million members, of which 5.71 million of them are active members (members who continue to contribute). The population of Malaysia in 2008 (as recorded by Department of Statistics) was 27.73 million. From here, we can estimate that the workforce of Malaysia in 2008 was formed by about 20.6% of its population.
The amount of registered employer in 2008 was 441,820, of which 48,510 of them were new employers. Meanwhile 35,009 employers had cancelled their registration. From here, we can guess that about 10.98% of the employing companies are newcomers to the business world in Malaysia. However, there are also 35,009 employing companies closing their business in 2008.
The EPF dividend rate from 1952 to 2008 is charted as below.
This indicates that from year 2000 onwards until today, the EPF dividend rate has dipped below the average of 6%. The glory time of 1974-1999 when EPF dividend rate stayed above 6% had already gone for 10 years. When will it come back again?
Out of the 5.71 million active EPF members, 3.19 million of them are male, while 2.52 million of them are female. Their savings with EPF is shown as below.
From here, we can roughly guess that, male employees are generally having higher salary than female.
Most of the employees are in the 10,001-15,000 savings band (8.29% of male employees and 9.58% of female employees).
Less than 1% of the employees have RM500k and above savings in EPF. Only 5,575 males and 887 females (total to 6,462) have over RM1 million savings in EPF.
The average savings of the 53,022 active members at the age of 54 is RM132,539.78 (male: RM150,280.40; female: RM96,856.03).
The freely downloadable Garmin South East Asia (SEA) Travel Guide Version 2.00 (百变东南亚) supports both Taiwan and Sing/Mal version of Garmin GPS navigators.
This travel guide covers 5 famous tourism attraction places, namely Angkor (吴哥), Bali (巴厘岛), Hong Kong (香港), Macau (澳门) and Singapore (新加坡).
There are 5 files inside the compressed SoutheastAsia.zip:
AngkorTravel.gpi
BaliTravel.gpi
HongKongTravel.gpi
MacauTravel.gpi
SingaporeTravel.gpi
You just need to connect your GPS navigator to your computer with USB cable, and unzip those 5 files into Garmin/POI folder of the GPS storage.
To access the travel guide, tap on Where to? > Travel Guide.
The travel guide will recommend you the places to visit, eat, stay and shop. Information such as address, phone number, brief description, opening time, and photo(s) are available for the point of interests (POI).
You can tap the photo on the upper left to enlarge it to full screen. Tap on More button to show more information about this POI in the travel guide.
The Edge has just launched a new property website at http://www.theedgeproperty.com/ with the tagline of "Everything property".
The website features news reports related to the property industry, as well as a wide array of differing topics for the property owner and investor taking advantage of the Internet’s global appeal. It looks pretty informative.
However, the registered username and password in The Edge Malaysia website cannot be used here. You have to register for a new account in this The Edge Property website in order to be able to post comments and enjoy some other priviledged features.
According to information provided in the Report on Labour Force in Singapore 2008 published by Singapore's Ministry of Manpower, the median gross monthly income of Singapore employees (especially the full time employed workers) has increased by more than 20% over the past 5 years.
The median income by June 2008 stood at S$2,450.
"Income typically rises with educational attainment, reflecting the premium that employers place on education and skills. In June 2008, full-time employed residents with degrees commanded a median income of $5,060, 4.2 times the $1,190 for those with primary or lower qualifications."
I wonder if the Ministry of Human Resource in Malaysia conducts similar survey, and how will the figure be like?
Now CIMB Bank also offers the Touch 'n Go Zing Card after Maybank, Hong Leong Bank, EON Bank, Affin Bank, MBf Card and AEON Credit Service.
The CIMB Touch 'n Go Zing Card has the same fees and charges like those offerred by other banks:
Issuance of new card: RM10
Replacement card: RM10
Refund processing fees: RM5
On the other hand, it provides special multiple auto-reload options:
Reload RM100 with RM1.50 fee
Reload RM200 with RM2.00 fee
Reload RM300 with RM3.00 fee
Apparently, the reload fees are slightly cheaper than the Zing Card offered by other banks, especially when opting for RM300 reload, the fee is only RM1 per RM100 usage.
The Light Rail Transit (LRT) extension to Subang Jaya and Puchong area has been talked about for many years.
It seems that it will finally come to reality following the recent announcement from Syarikat Prasarana Negara Bhd about this proposed RM7 billion project expected to be completed by the end of 2012 (with finger crossed).
The proposed location of new LRT stations has been drafted out and open for public comment/suggestion. Design of some of the proposed stations is also made available for public review.
They actually setup a website about this proposal. You can get more information about the LRT extension plan, as well as provide online feedback with it. Hurry up, pay a visit to http://www.lrtextension.com for more detail.
The proposed LRT line extension is as shown in the map below.
Proposed new LRT stations to be extended from Putra line (from Kelana Jaya):
STN 01 - Subang Depot near D’Aman Crimson Condos
STN 02 - Dana 1 Commercial Centre
STN 03 - Kelana Jaya Centre Point
STN 04 - Subang Parade (interchange to Subang Jaya KTM)
STN 05 - Summit USJ
STN 06 - SS 18
STN 07 - USJ 7
STN 08 - Taipan
STN 09 - USJ Digital Mall
STN 10 - USJ 21
STN 11 - Alam Megah 1
STN 12 - Alam Megah 2
STN 13 - Putra Heights Commercial Centre
Proposed new LRT stations to be extended from Star line (from Bukit Jalil):
STN 01 - Awan Besar
STN 02 - PPR Kg. Muhibbah
STN 03 - Bukit Kinrara
STN 04 - Giant Kinrara
STN 05 - Kinrara Industrial Park
STN 06 - IOI Mall
STN 07 - Tesco
STN 08 - Rakan Muda
STN 09 - Tractor Malaysia
STN 10 - Puchong Perdana
STN 11 - Puchong Prima
STN 12 - Kampung Tengah
STN 13 - Putra Heights Commercial Centre
If you have better suggestion to the location of the proposed LRT stations above, quickly send your feedback to them before its too late.
The installation program will update gmapprom1.img, gmapprom1.unl and SGMYMAL.JCV in your Garmin GPS navigator.
During the installation process, you'll be asked for the unlock key. The key is stored in the existing gmapprom1.unl file in your Garmin GPS navigator, which you can open with Notepad or any text editor. Just copy and paste the key to the installer when asked.
The size of SGMYMAL.JCV has increased to 199,430kb from the previous 155,439kb (for MalSingMaps NT 2009.5).
This version of map supports all the features in Sing/Mal version of Nuvi 255w, including Speed Limit indicator, Junction View, Lane Assist, highway coming exit junctions info, etc.
Version highlights:
Synchronize to Malsingmaps v3.05.
Add more Speed limit information
Increase junction view display to 667 locations in Singapore and 704 locations in Malaysia
I remember when I was still a secondary school student, the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER, 远东经济评论) or better known as the REVIEW magazine was one of my favourite reading material in the school's library.
By that time, the Internet was still not introduced to Malaysia yet, and REVIEW became one of my main source to know about latest development and happening in the world especially in the Asian region.
It is sad to know that REVIEW will be gone into history soon, following the decision of the publisher, Dow Jones & Co. which owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., to terminate its lifespan by end of 2009.
If you are charging the battery of Garmin Nuvi 255w using a USB cable connected to your computer, there is a way to know the charging has completed, although not so straightforward.
You need to firstly unmount the USB storage(s) in your Garmin Nuvi 255w detected by your computer.
If you are using Windows, right click on the Safely Remove USB Device icon in the taskbar and select "Safely Remove Hardware". Then click the Stop button follow by OK button. Your Garmin GPS will reboot by itself and go into normal operating mode which you can use it and navigate as usual.
Now, slide the Power key on top of the GPS to the left to switch it off. If the battery is still charging, it will show the message "Charging Battery. Slide the Power key to turn on." before the screen turn off. If the battery is fully charged, it will show "Charging Battery completely. Slide the Power key to turn on." instead.
In fact, the GPS is not off when it is still connected to the USB, only the screen is turned off. You can always slide the Power key again to turn on the screen, and slide again to check for the charging status.
From the message, you'll be able to know if the battery charging has completed or not.
Garmin ecoRoute is a new feature for their GPS navigators which is made freely available to compatible units via the WebUpdater service.
This feature allows users to find more fuel efficient routes when navigating and even track their fuel usage. With ecoRoute, you may be able to save petrol and money by adopting smarter driving habits and finding more fuel-efficient routes.
After ecoRoute is successfully installed, a new Route Preference called "Less Fuel" will be added to the GPS unit. There will also be Fuel Report which tracks fuel usage over time, and Mileage Report which monitors mileage and fuel usage on a per-trip basis.
ecoRoute is available for US version of nuvi 255w. However, an email from Garmin Support confirmed that it is currently not available for Asian version of nuvi 255w, which includes the Sing/Mal version, Taiwan version, India version, etc.
For Asian version of Garmin GPS, currently only Nuvi 765 and Nuvi 1460 are ecoRoute supported.
Let's hope that it will eventually be made available to our Nuvi 255w in the near future.
Do you know how much interest you will get if you keep your money in your bank savings account today?
Here are some of the interest information obtained from the banks' website as of September 2009:
Public Bank Savelink - 0% for balance <= RM10,000
Maybank Kawanku - 0% for balance <= RM10,000
CIMB Regular Savings - 0.05% for balance <= RM25,000
Hong Leong Savings - 0.10% for balance <= RM10,000
RHB Passbook - 0% for balance <= RM10,000
EON Bank Savings - 0.10% for balance <= RM5,000
Alliance Bank Savings - 0.10% for balance <= RM5,000
HSBC Premier or PowerVantage - 0% for balance <= RM10,000
OCBC Premier - 0% for balance <= RM10,000
This indicates that you will get 0% interest or very close to that by keeping your money in your bank savings account.
Most banks also have Basic Savings Account which provides a better 0.25% interest for balance <= RM50,000. However, most of them also charge RM8 to the basic savings account annually.
If you still insist to keep your money in a savings account, perhaps you should keep in this Basic Savings Account.
So, it is wiser to keep a minimal amount of money in your savings account, just good enough for day-to-day regular spending. You should have your credit card, short term (<= 3 months) fixed deposit or volatile investment ready for emergency spending.
Then what to do with your money if not keeping in the savings account? Here are some of the better places to park your money:
The mapper community supported Malaysia & ASEAN Free Maps Project (MalFreeMaps) releases a new version of free map covering Malaysia/Singapore/Brunei for Garmin GPS every Monday morning without failure.
Today (14 Sept 2009) they've gone to another milestone by releasing an improved version of map with a new versioning scheme, also with new coverage to Indonesia.
The new version is called MFM-Garmin 090914 with the following additional features from the previous version:
Link to NavNet map in Kalimantan
Coverage of Southern Thailand (coming soon)
Optional Chinese POI
Improved SG Postal Code & Address map with instant search result
New POI icons
New POI categories with custom icons (coming soon)
New MFM map generator with option to generate either Full or Lite version
Topo contours are added into Full-version map
New multi-language installer
No more error when uploading map through Mapsource
I have successfully upgraded the RAM of my Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop purchased 3 years ago from the original 512MB to 2.5GB now, and have been using this new configuration for more than 2 months without any problem.
Before this, I heard about the Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop can only support up to 2GB RAM, but now I've confirmed that it can support up to 2.5GB.
The original 512MB RAM residing in Memory Slot 1 of the laptop is of DDR-2 PC2-4200 SO-DIMM running at 533Mhz bus speed. I purchased another Kingston brand 2GB RAM of DDR-2 PC2-5300 CL-5 SO-DIMM which can run at 667Mhz bus speed and slotted it into the empty Memory Slot 2.
As shown in the photo below, the RAM on the left hand side is the original 512MB, and on the right hand side is the new 2GB.
When the laptop first detected the new memory, it displayed a message stating "The amount of system memory has changed." when boot up and seems to be hang at this message. I was a bit worry then, but later found out from Internet that I just need to be patient and wait for a while. The laptop then accepted the new amount of memory and no more similar message appear during boot up therafter.
It seems that both the memory can work together well without any problem, and can even work in Dual Channel Mode. They passed all the stringent memory test in Dell's Diagnostic Utility, and have worked happily for more than 2 months now.
Although the working bus speed has to synchornized to 533Mhz even the PC2-5300 RAM is able to work on the faster 667Mhz, but the performance affected is very much neglegible.
In the BIOS, it correctly detected 512MB + 2048MB = 2560MB RAM has been installed, but it says only 2559MB is available for use. Therefore, the maximum RAM supported by Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop is 2.5GB only, and it will be a waste to install any larger amount than that.
Windows XP detects a total of 2,619,768kB (or 2558.367MB) of RAM.
Notice that I have completely switched off the Virtual Memory by setting the paging file to 0. I have been using the laptop without any Virtual Memory in Windows XP for 2 months, and it just works fine. In fact, it runs much faster than before, and there is less harddisk activity now.
The Garmin Nuvi 255w GPS navigator does not have much multimedia function, but it does have a decent Picture Viewer, enabling us to use it as a digital photo frame. Its 4.3" screen is good enough for this purpose.
If your digital camera can store photos into SD card, what you need to do is just to take out the SD card from your camera, and slot it into the Nuvi 255w. Then, switch on the unit and tap on Tools > Picture Viewer.
The screen will then show 9 thumbnails of the pictures found. You can navigate from one screen to another by tapping on the up/down arrow keys.
Tap on the picture to show it fully on the screen. Tap it again and you are able to show it in Full Screen mode, as well as enlarge or reduce its display size.
When displaying a picture, tap on the Info button to see the info of the filename, camera make and camera model. You are also given an option to use this picture as your Garmin nagivator's startup screen when power on.
In the thumbnail display screen, you can also tap on Slide Show to auto show the pictures one by one.
If you are planning to buy a Garmin GPS navigator, either the Nuvi, Fitness or Zumo, there is a place for you to check the price offered by various vendors in Malaysia, Singapore & Brunei.
The World Economic Forum has just released their 30th edition of The Global Competitiveness Report (2009-2010) ranking and featuring 133 economies in the world. This report stand out as one of the world's most comprehensive and respected assessment of countries' competitiveness.
While Singapore has improved its position from the previous 5th to 3rd, Malaysia has falled from 21st to 24th now. Taiwan shows a good progress from 17th to 12ve. Brunei also moved on from 39th to 32nd. Korea dropped from 13th to 19th.
Since 2007, each year InfoWorld's Bossie (Best of Open Source Software awards) will recognize a total of 40 best open source software from various categories for business and IT pros of the year.
The 2009 Bossie winners are...
Best of open source developer tools:
BrowserShots service
Drools BRMS
Eclipse Web Services Tools
Hadoop and Hive for distributed data processing
jQuery JavaScript library
Mono .Net platform
NetBeans IDE for Java and dynamic languages
OpenStreetMap mapping project
PhoneGap framework for mobile application development
WebKit browser rendering engine
Best of open source enterprise software:
Compiere ERP systems
Openbravo ERP systems
Dimdim web conference software
Drupal for content management
Intalio for process management
Jaspersoft for reporting and BI
Pentaho for reporting and BI
Magento for e-commerce
Piwik for web analytics
SugarCRM for sales and customer management
WordPress blog publishing platform
Best of open source networking software:
Cacti
Nagios
IPCop firewall
Kamailio SIP proxy server
KeePass password manager
Openfiler SAN/NAS appliance
OpenNMS enterprise monitoring system
PacketFence network access control
Puppet configuration management framework
Untangle network security gateway
Best of open source platforms and middleware:
Jitterbit data migration and integration
Talend data migration and integration
Mule service bus
WSO2 modular SOA platform
Nginx web server
OpenVZ server virtualization platforms
Xen server virtualization platforms
VirtualBox desktop virtualization tool
Turnkey Linux factory of software appliances
Beside the 40 Bossie winners, Infoworld also named the Top 10 Open Source Hall of Famers from the greatest open source software of all time. They are:
Linux kernel
GNU utilities and compilers
Ubuntu
The 3 BSDs (FreeBSD, OpenBSD & NetBSD)
Samba
MySQL
BIND
Sendmail
OpenSSH and OpenSSL
Apache
Beside that, Infoworld recognises there are a lot of great open source apps for Windows too, and they've picked the 10 best:
