RON 97 petrol in Malaysia made historical high price @ RM3.00/litre

The RON 97 petrol price has silently risen to a historical high of RM3.00 per litre since Thursday 6 September 2012, a whopping 30 sen increase from its previous price of RM2.70.

In July, it was reported that the price of RON 97 was slashed by 20 sen from RM2.80 to RM2.60 per litre.

Then, the price silently increased by 10 sen in August to RM2.70 per litre without announcement.

Now, it increased again to historical high, without announcement too!

CIMB Bank will discontinue their Western Union money transfer service

I am quite surprised to know that CIMB Bank will discontinue their Western Union money transfer service effective 29 August 2012.

Western Union is the most convenient and cost effective way for Malaysian to receive cash from Google Adsense.

We will need to look for other Western Union agents to receive payment from Google Adsense now.

Reference: http://www.cimbbank.com.my/index.php?tpt=cimb_bank#2

FBI seized Applanet.net, Appbucket.net and Snappzmarket.com for hosting pirated Android apps

The US government has shutdown 3 Android apps marketplace websites namely Applanet.net, Appbucket.net and Snappzmarket.com recently.

Those websites are known to host and distribute popular Android apps which are selling with a price in the official Google Play Store and/or Amazon Marketplace, etc.

Actually, most Android apps are selling at a low price, even lower than a cup of Starbucks coffee, and we just need to pay for once to download the apps and able to enjoy all future version updates/upgrades. Even when we changed to a new Android phone, the apps we purchased before will be automatically installed into the new phone.

Smartphone users should build the mentallity of paying for the apps that they find useful, which they like to keep in their phone for their use. Most of the time, the cost of the apps is less than 1% of the cost of their smartphone.

FBI seizure of these 3 piracy marketplaces is a meaningful move to somehow educate the users not to avoid paying for non-free apps. If the mobile developers are well rewarded by producing popular apps, that will encourage more and more fantastic apps to be produced.

Reference: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/376360/20120822/piracy-infringement-android-apps-download-applications.htm

Malaysia national and state public holidays for year 2013 announced

The 2013 national and state public holidays in Malaysia will be as below.

There are 14 days of national holiday, and 1 of them fall on Sunday and 3 fall on Saturday. Most of the states will have around 3 state holidays in addition to the national holidays.

Interesting Android app to display Chinese family relationship terminology 亲戚关系

The Chinese has a very systematic and complex family relationship (a.k.a. kinship) terminology system which maintains a separate designation for almost every one of ego's kin based on their generation, gender, lineage, relative age, etc.

Do you know the Chinese family designation of each and everyone of your relatives? I've found an interesting Android app by chance, which can help you to quickly find out the correct designation. So, no more embarrassment in calling your relatives correctly when you meet with them next time during family gathering, wedding dinner, Chinese New Year visiting, etc.

The app is called My Relatives (亲戚关系) and you can get it from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lanhk.myrelatives.

Online registration to autopay monthly TM UniFi Bill with credit card

Good news to all TM UniFi users who wish to pay your monthly UniFi bill automatically with your credit card. I just discovered that you can now register for this autopay service online, don't even need to fill up and submit the paper form anymore.

Step 1: Login myUniFi Online Customer Centre (a.k.a. UniFi Customer Portal) with your myUniFi account.

Step 2: Once login, go to the myProfile tab.

Step 3: Click the Change Payment Method button.

Step 4: Fill in the online form and click the Save Changes button.

You can find a new service ticket is raised in mySupport which is immediately closed. Your payment method in myProfile should be updated as well.

Alternatives of US-based GPS satellite navigation

The usage of global satellite navigation system has become more and more important nowadays, from military to civil uses. For example, location based service (LBS) in smartphones has high level of reliance on it.

The current global satellite navigation system used by most of us are depending on the Global Positioning System (GPS) of US NAVSTAR, which has 24 to 32 satellites in operation. The actual number of operating satellites varies from time to time due to maintenance and/or replacement, but the minimum in operation in any time is 24.

GPS has been operational since 1978, and made globally available since 1994.

Due to political, and more importantly, millitary reasons, some other nations have also developed their own global satellite navigation system as alternative to the US NAVSTAR's GPS.

These include the Russian Global'naya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema (Global Navigation Satellite System, GLONASS) which is currently supported in iPhone 4S. GLONASS has been operational since 1995, but fell into disrepair after the collapse of Soviet Unoin, and was later recovered and restored in 2011.

China is developing a regional navigation system called BeiDou (北斗导航系统), which has 12 satellites and will implement for Asia Pacific region by this year (2012). They have plan to further expand it into a global navigation system by 2020, under a project called Compass. By that time, BeiDou system will have 35 satellites in operation.

The European Union also developing their own Galileo positioning system, but seems like they are facing some progress delay due to financial issue.

Indian is also developing the Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS) with 7 satellites, mainly for their own use.

A family vacation trip to Cherating, Pahang

My family has spent a vacation in Cherating, Pahang recently. It is a nice getaway place at East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia for urban person to take a look at the beauty of nature in the rural part of the country.

We stayed at The Legend Resort, which has an average outlook, but pretty modernly renovated rooms. From the number plate of the cars parked there, it is observed that majority of its guest are from urban area especially Klang Valley.

We booked our room from Internet. We've browsed through the famous hotel reservation websites and group coupon websites, and surprisingly found out that the cheapest rate we could get is actually from the hotel's official website! We stayed at Grand Deluxe Seaview room at the price of RM2xx per night only, and the seaview (photo taken from balcony of the room) is quite nice.

The Legend in Cherating has large swimming pools, as well as long sandy beach. There are many small crabs on the beach...

... and we are warned that there are jelly fishes in the sea. We saw some dead jelly fishes on the shore.

The food in hotel's restaurant is expectingly expensive, and there are many nice and cheap Malay food around, and a Chinese restaurant right at the junction where you turn in from the main road to a small road leading to The Legend Cherating.

In a small village several kilometers at the North of The Legend, there is one Hafiz's Cherating Activities which provides one-stop sight-seeing service around Cherating. To look for En. Hafiz, locate for this signboard in the village.

That night, we've gone for fireflies watching trip and also turtle watching trip.

En. Hafiz is a friendly and nice person who is very knowledgeable about the Cherating River and the Mangrove Forest Researve area along the river. The fireflies are residing in the mangrove forest. Before we got on the boat to watch the fireflies, Hafiz has done a presentation about the information of fireflies, their habitats, life cycle, etc.

Hafiz has learnt a tactic to attract the fireflies to fly near to us by using small torchlights to imitate the fireflies' communication signal. It is really a fantasy experience to have hundreds of fireflies coming to us from the mangrove trees at the river side, and later send them back to the trees. However, use of camera and handphone is forbidden as the light from the device will disturb and cause annoyance to the fireflies, so no photo taken during this amazing trip.

The turtle watching trip was guided by rangers from the Cherating Turtle Sanctuary. The location was at an open beach near Kemaman, some distance away from Cherating village.

When we reached there, a turtle was half-way laying eggs in a hole it digged. It is a green turtle and its egg is about the size of ping pong ball.

That turtle laid 137 eggs that night. It burried the eggs, and the rangers digged them out to bring to the sanctuary for hatching.

The yellow one is actually a ping pong ball brought by the ranger for explanation purpose.

The rangers brought along 3 baskets of 1 day-old baby turtles (about 200 of them) for us to release to the sea.

Off they gone into the sea, remembering this seashore. They will come back years after, when they grown up later, to reproduce and lay eggs at the same beach where they left that night. However, most of the turtles might not be able to survive due to predators and natural challenges in the sea.

We have gone to the Turtle Sanctuary the next day. It is located next to Club Med Cherating. There are 2 adult turtles there, and several small turtles.

The next day, we actually planned to go for snorkelling trip to Snake Island with Hafiz, but we missed the time.

We gone back to Cherating River in Hafiz's day-time mangrove river cruise that evening. It is the same river we watched the fireflies the night before.

During the cruise, we also travelled into a branched small river, where many small animals can be seen.

The crabs in the mangrove forest are very colourful. We saw red and blue crabs there.

During the 2 hours river cruise, beside the crabs, we also encountered with monitor lizards, mud suckers, monkeys, snakes, birds, insects,  etc. It was really a nice experience.

On the way back from Cherating, we've visited Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary near Temerloh, hundred over kilometers away. It is located at the end of a small village, quite some distance away from the main road.

After the retreat, now we are back to urban life. I think we shall revisit Cherating again in the future. It is a wonderful place.

RIP Dr. Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

News reported that Dr. Stephen Richard Covey (1932-2012), author of the best-selling motivational book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (over 20 million copies sold worldwide), has just passed away due to residual effects of an April bicycle accident.

Covey is the founder of Covey Leadership Center, which in 1997 merged with Franklin Quest to form FranklinCovey Co. Today, FranklinCovey has offices in hundred over countries as global consulting and training center in the areas of strategy execution, leadership, customer loyalty, sales performance, school transformation and individual effectiveness. Covey is also a professor at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University at the time of his death.

Beside The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Covey is also the author of the following best-selling books:

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families
• The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness
• The Leader in Me
• The 3rd Alternative
• First Things First
• Principle-Centered Leadership

Below are the 7 habits of highly effective people as listed by Covey. Read his book for full detail:

• Be proactive
• Begin with the end in mind
• Put first things first
• Think win/win
• Seek first to understand, then to be understood
• Synergize
• Sharpen the saw

Updated HTC Incredible S from Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) to Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich, ICS)

Right after Google released the latest Android version 4.1 (Jelly Bean) last week, finally the last version of Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich, ICS) with Sense UI 3.6 is now rolled out to HTC Incredible S smartphones.

The OTA (Over-The-Air) 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich, ICS) with Sense UI 3.6 for HTC Incredible S smartphone has been made available to Malaysia yesterday (18 July 2012) morning, a few days after its roll out to European region.

You can manually check for the update now, or wait for the automated update alert appear on your HTC Incredible S smartphone sooner or later.
The download process with probably take half an hour or more, and the updating process will take another quarter hour or more.

After successful update, I manually restarted the phone 3 times, and it is now operating faster than before (while it was on Gingerbread), showing its improvement in this new version.

The following are observed in the Android ICS for HTC Incredible S:

• A new launch bar which you can put in 4 most commonly used app, and in the center is the "All apps" icon. This launch bar appears in every of the 7 Home Screens. The quick launch icons in the Lock Screen follows the 4 apps you put in this launch bar.
• The stock Camera app has been improved.
• Widget of some apps is now resizable, including Folder Organizer and Business Calendar that I use.
• Facebook for HTC Sense has been taken out. FriendStream now has to use the official Facebook app to access to my Facebook account.
• Network usage info (both mobile and Wi-Fi) can be displayed in Settings > Usage. This is in direct competition with some 3rd party apps like 3G Watchdog.
• The items in Quick Settings list is now lesser, and you can no longer find Wi-Fi and GPS toggle switch in the list. You will need one more step, to tap on the icon to the right of Additional Settings bar to reach the Wi-Fi toggle switch in another list. The GPS toggle is even deeper inside the Location setting.
• Memory usage is observed to be lesser compared with previous version of Android.
• Now can do screen capture by pressing the physical Power and Home buttons of the phone together.
• Calls is now accessable to People, Groups and Call History directly.
• Added many Developer Options inside the Settings.
• The buttons of stock Calculator app now has too big font size.
• The white background of stock Battery widget make its text hard to see.
• .....

This Android ICS for HTC Incredible S smartphone is really a major upgrade from Gingerbread. Have fun!

Yahoo website hacked, 450k+ user information exposed

A MySQL database in Yahoo Voice (formerly known as Associated Content before being purchased by Yahoo in 2010) was just hacked using SQL injection, and its MySQL variables, together with 450k+ user information in database dump, is exposed to Internet by someone claimed as D33Ds Company.

Soon, somebody has analysed the database dump using a tool called Pipal, and revealed the top 10 most commonly used passwords to be:

• 123456
• password
• welcome
• ninja
• abc123
• 123456789
• 12345678
• sunshine
• princess
• qwerty

The result of the findings is posted in Pastebin.

Nowadays, password is commonly used as credential to authenticate users accessing web-based and/or mobile-based services in the Internet. As a user, beside not using password that are easy go guess (by human or by computerized program), we also need to assume that the website might not be putting enough security measure in storing our information in their server. Therefore, it is advisable to use different password for different website. If one is compromised, at least the rest are not badly affected.

Welcome to the era of negative interest rates

Don't be surprised when one day, you realise that the bank will charge you interest (instead of paying you interest, in common sense) for the money you deposit with them.

This has already gone real in certain financial institution in the USA and in Europe. Even some new bonds recently issued by the government of some countries in those regions are having negative interest rate.

Well, when a financial institution impose a negative interest rate, it sends a clear message to its depositors to withdraw their money from that institution and deposit to other competitors who still offering normal positive interest rates, or to use the money for consumption or invest in other kind of investment instruments that might not be as safe as the money market but also provide higher potential of growth to the money, or to keep the money at home in your personal safe.

Why a financial institution wants to force you to withdraw your money from them? Probably because they have too much idle cash on hand, and the investment situation is really bad, and the interest rate is really low (in low interest situation, their profit margin to lend out the money is low).

No matter how, be prepared for the day to come to you.

Your smartphone will be your personal assistant: Apple Siri & Google Now

A few years ago, Apple acquired Siri, and this artificial intelligence (AI) product is now part of the iPhone 4S launched last October 2011. It includes functionalities to make it a virtual personal assistant that we always bring along.

Recently when Google announced the next version of Android, Jelly Bean, they promised us with  Google Now, which is a search-centric, voice-powered digital AI personal assistant to compete with Siri.

We can anticipate one more interesting function in our smartphone in near future, which is a personal assistant who knows about our time schedule and proactively alert/remind us on upcoming appointments, and knows our interest and hobby and provide useful suggestion/answer that match with our interest.

It will also learn the detail in the air-ticket that we purchased, and able to kept us updated with boarding information, latest departual/arrival time schedule, the weather at the destination, etc.

It will be able to remind us about the birthday and anniversary of our family members and close friends.

When we are on the road, it will alert us on possible traffic jam ahead, and suggest for alternative route.

Nowadays, a smartphone is already very much more than a phone that we use to make call and send SMS. The revolution will continue with more and more features and functionalities added in.

New type of insurance plan to get early payout for 36 critical illnesses

If you have bought an insurance plan, or have been approached by insurance agent before, I'm sure you might have been known about the kind of health/medical insurance that covers 36 kinds of critical illnesses.

However, you might not be awared that the coverage on the 36 kinds of critical illnesses is at the terminal stage, which is a serious stage that is hard to recover or already close to death. Before reaching such a serious situation, although you might unluckily caught by one of the 36 kinds of critical illnesses, you still can't make any claim from your critical illnesses insurance policy.

Recently, I was informed by my insurance agent about a new type of insurance plan (well, actually not that new now as it has been launched for quite some times) that can complement the traditional 36 critical illnesses insurance plan with an early payout condition.

Under this early payout for critical illnesses plan, we can make the claim upon early diagnosis of a critical illness covered under the plan, and make use of the money for medical treatment. Early treatment let us have higher chance of survival.

The payout will be a certain proportion of the total sum insured, depends on the type of the diagnosed illness and its severity level (early, intermediate, terminal). Multiple claims across multiple critical illnesses is possible as long as there is still balance in the total sum insured.

Anyhow, this kind of early payout insurance plan seems to be come as a rider in a regular premium investment-linked insurance plan, making it not so flexible for people who want to take this kind of insurance but not so interested in buying unit trust through insurance (which normally incurs high commission rate and high admin charges).

Do contact with your own insurance agent to find out more about such early payout critical illnesses insurance plan if you are interested.

INVEST Fair Malaysia 2012 and iProperty.com Expo 2012

There are 2 investment events happened at the same time in KL Convention Centre and ended today, namely the INVEST Fair Malaysia 2012 at Hall 1 and iProperty.com Expo 2012 at Hall 4-5.


The INVEST Fair this year is really quiet, not much visitors. The number of booth is about the same like last year, not too many too. A lot of seats at the talk were untaken.

The iProperty.com Expo also doesn't have much crowd. Majority of the booths are exhibiting high-density high-rise residential buildings. You will be surprised that quite a few developers are aggressively having big projects in Cyberjaya and Putrajaya. It seems that the property development in Klang Valley continues to be heated up at the south, encompassing Puchong, Seri Kembangan, Cyberjaya, Putrajaya, Bangi, etc.

This should be good for construction and development support companies such as Pintaras Jaya (PTARAS, 9598) and Favelle Favco (FAVCO, 7229) as the projects around Klang Valley still heating up.

There are also exhibitors selling overseas projects in Europe, China, North America, etc.

Use Notepad to open any text file in Windows 7 right click

Notepad is a lightweight and handy text editor that comes with Windows operating system.

There is a trick in Windows that can let you right click on any text document and instantly open it with Notepad for reading or editing.

What you need to do is just to include a shortcut of Notepad into your "Send to" menu.

Below is the steps to do it for Windows 7:

Step 1: Open Windows > Run... or alternatively press the Windows + R keys on your keyboard.

Step 2: Key in "shell:sendto" and press the OK button. This will open Explorer and bring you right into your SendTo folder. The content in this folder are the items that will appear in your "Send to" menu whenever you right click on any file or folder. (If you are using Windows XP, then key in "sendto" only and press the OK button.)

Step 3: In this SendTo folder, create a new shortcut to "%windir%\system32\notepad.exe". That's all you need to do.

Now, right click on any text file, go inside the "Send to" menu and open the file with Notepad. Pretty handy isn't it?

You can use this trick to easily open files such as README, *.log, *.ini, *.nfo, ...

Note that you can actually use Notepad to open any file, but if the file is not in text format, you probably just able to see chunk of codes only.

Also note that this trick is applicable for the user currently using the Windows 7 only. If you have multiple users in the system, then the other users need to repeat the same steps above for their own Windows account.

World IPv6 launched today (6 June 2012)

Today (6 June 2012) is the world launching day for IPv6.

To recap, I wrote about the exhaustion of IPv4 last year. The address space used by the current version of the Internet protocol, IPv4, has already run out. Without action, we risk increased costs and limited functionality online for Internet users everywhere, in addition to curtailing the Internet’s growth of a platform for innovation and economic development. The only long-term solution to this problem is adoption of IPv6, which provides a practically unlimited number of addresses.

Now, major Internet service providers (ISPs), home networking equipment manufacturers, and web companies around the world are finally coming together to permanently enable IPv6 for their products and services by today (6 June 2012).

This marks the largest industry commitment to and deployment of IPv6 in the history of the Internet, with the ultimate aim to eventually replace the current IPv4.

Well, due to its vast usage and long time existance, IPv4 won't be replaced within a few years, and will co-exist with the new IPv6 for a lengthy transition period.

Meanwhile, for end users like you and me, whether it is IPv4 or IPv6 should be pretty transparent to us, as we are more adopted to the more human-readable domain names translated from the IP addresses.

In virtualization, use as few vCPU as possible for optimal CPU performance

Nowadays, virtualizing a physical server into several virtual servers is a common practice. In fact, the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) model of Cloud Computing is based on virtualization too.

Unlike physical server running on physical CPU, whereby the common sense is more CPU (or CPU core) is better, in a virtualized environment, it is often a best practice to configure as few virtual CPU (vCPU) as possible to the virtual server.

In most cases, if 1 vCPU is sufficient, it is advisible to configure the virtual server to use 1 vCPU instead of more.

This is because:

• Each vCPU will consume some physical CPU resource even if it is in idle state.
• Unused vCPUs still consume timer interrupts unless the guest OS kernel is configured with the NO_HZ "tickless timer" option (a feature available in the latest Linux 2.6 kernel).
• The more vCPUs a virtual machine has, the more interrupts it requires.
• Maintaining a consistent memory view among multiple vCPUs can also consume additional resources, both in the guest OS and the host.
• Some older guest OS execute idle loops on unused vCPUs, thereby consuming
  resources that might otherwise be available for other uses.
• The guest scheduler might migrate a single-threaded workload amongst multiple vCPUs, thereby
  losing cache locality.
• In SMP guests the guest OS can migrate processes from one vCPU to another. This migration can incur a small CPU overhead.

In addition, it is a good practice to disable screen savers and Window animations in virtual machines. On Linux, if using an X server is not required, disable it. This is because screen savers, animations, and X servers all consume extra physical CPU resources, potentially affecting consolidation ratios and the performance of other virtual machines.

Reference: Performance Best Prictice for VMWare vSphere 5.0

3 questions to ask yourself before venturing into a new business

Are you planning to be entrepreneur to start your own business?

I have just learnt that there are 3 important questions you must ask yourself and sincerely find out your answers, because these are the crucial factors that will affect the success rate of a new business venture.

The 3 questions are:

• How likely will your targetted customers be really willing to take out the money from their pocket and pay for it?
• How big is the profit margin?
• What make you remarkable from others?

Basically, these 3 questions will test the feasibility of your business in terms of acceptability, profitability and sustainability.

You need to get the actual feedback from the real market by doing a lot of observation, conversation and testing.

2011 Customer Experience Impact Report - Getting to the Heart of the Consumer and Brand Relationship

Based on a survey commissioned by RightNow (recently acquired by Oracle) and conducted by Harris Interactive, the 2011 Customer Experience Impact (CEI) Report explores the relationship between consumers and brands.

It reveals facts about what consumers are looking for from a brand, how quickly they will dump a favourite brand, and their tendency to seek retribution after a breakup.

Well, what makes a memorable experience that causes consumers to stick with a brand?

According to the CEI survey, consumers want:

• Friendly employees or customer service representatives (73%)
• The ability to easily find the information or help they need (55%)
• Personalized experiences (36%)
• Brands with a good reputation (33%)

Positive engagements create long-standing, loyal relationships, and this is so important to consumers that they are willing to pay for it. In fact, according to the CEI survey, 86% of consumers will pay more for a better customer experience.

For consumer organizations today, good customer experience is a competitive imperative. Understanding what customers want is the 1st step in creating exceptional experiences.

When asked specifically how companies can better engage with consumers to spend more, respondents said the following:

• Improve the overall customer experience (54%)
• Make it easy to ask questions and access information before making a purchase (52%)
• Improve search functionality and overall Website usability (36%)

Click here to download the complete 2011 Customer Experience Impact Report - Getting to the Heart of the Consumer and Brand Relationship.

DestraShield nanoliquid screen protector with Ag+ formula

I discovered this DestraShield nanoliquid screen protector with Ag+ formula by Destra Nanotech Sdn Bhd in GoMobile 2012 exhibition today.

This is quite an interesting screen protector. It is in liquid format, therefore can fit any form and size of glass surface. To apply it, just drop on the surface and spread it evenly with the melamine foam sponge that comes together in its package. After dried out, it will form a protection layer that claimed to be able to last for up to 6 months, after which we can reapply the liquid onto the surface again for continuous protection.

They say this nanoliquid screen protector can be used for handphone screen, camera lens, spectacles, computer monitor, television, mirror, ... and even car windscreen.

Its features include:

• Anti-bacteria
• Anti-microbial
• Anti-static
• Hydro and oleophobicity
• Scratches resisting
• Super hardness up to 7H
• Hard wearing and durable
• Improves clarity and brilliance
• One size fit all
• Easy to apply

They can demo to you its scratches resistance and hardness at their booth in GoMobile.

I applied this protector on my handphone. After application, the handphone screen has a mirror effect (can become mirror when screen is off). The screen display is crystal clear too. It also does not pick up much fingerprints, and the mild fingerprints can be easily wipe off with cloth material. It is also water resistant, when dropped with water, the water would not stick to the screen.

It's price isn't cheap though, selling at RM69 for a bottle of 2ml only. However, 2 drops is enough for application to handphone screen, and 6 drops is enough for my 21.5" touchscreen monitor.

I would say this is quite an innovative and useful product. Would be better if selling at a lower price.

Problem of Dell 1355cn colour laser MFP losing network connection seems to be fixed with latest firmware update

If you have a Dell 1355cn colour laser MFP printer and you connect to it using network cable via TCP/IP network, do you occasionally encounter the problem of unable to connect to the printer while it is in sleeping (power saving) mode?

As a workaround, you can regain the connection by switching off the printer and switching it on again.

I have just updated my Dell 1355cn MFP to its latest firmware (version A03, released 2 May 2012), and I noticed that this network connection problem seems to be solved.

If you are facing the same problem with your Dell 1355cn MFP, I'd encourage you to update its firmware to the latest version and observe if the problem is fixed or not.

Anyhow, this problem doesn't occur if you are connecting to the printer using USB cable instead of network cable.

Beside the new firmware, there is also a new driver update (version A03, released 2 May 2012) for Dell 1355cn MFP print, fax and scan functions as well.

GoMobile 2012

The annual mobile lifestyle event GoMobile 2012 is around the corner now.

Date: 11-13 May 2012
Venue: KL Convention Centre

GoMobile is actually 3-events-in-1, namely the GoMobile Expo, the GoMobile Conference and the GoMobile inOvation Awards And Celebration Party.

Also, there will be a special dedicated zone called Appcity to showcase Malaysia homegrown mobile applications, content and services.

Talks and briefings have also been lined up with topics such as Build An Android App With Zero Programming Knowledge, Why HTML5, How to Market Apps, Building Android Apps, Building iOS Apps, Windows Phone 7 Programming and Augmented Reality Programming.

This event is anticipated to attract more than 150,000 visitors.

Lenspen VidiMax cleaning kit for LCD / Plasma screens

I got this Lenspen VidiMax cleaning kit for LCD / Plasma screens from an online auction.

It is used to clean the dust and fingerprints on large LCD or plasma screens such as computer monitor screen, TV screen, etc.

This cleaning kit consists of 2 layers. The top layer has a chamois pad with special non-liquid cleaning compound to wipe off fingerprints on the screen.

And the bottom layer is a super-soft dust brush to wipe away dust on the screen.

After using it, my personal opinion is: I still prefer wiping off dust and fingerprints from the screen with a piece of microfibre cloth. When the screen is slightly dirty, the result is the same; when the screen is very dirty, slightly damped microfibre cloth does a better cleaning job.

Qunda KT-1000 universal air-cond remote control

The remote control of my Panasonic air-cond seems to have difficulty sending sleep timer signal to the wall unit. The air-cond remote control replacement unit from Panasonic will probably cost me a bomb (its official price is more than RM80).

I bought this Qunda KT-1000 universal air-cond remote control at RM19 including batteries after bargain in the market.

This air-cond remote control can do most of the air-cond settings and supports 1028 air-cond remote control signal codes. The picture below shows all its available setting buttons after its cover slided down.

It claims to support 98% of air-conds in the world, including brands such as Alpin, Aucma, Aux, Banshen, Boerka, Carrier, ChangHong, Chigo, ChoFu, ChunLan, Corona, Conrowa, Consul, Daewoo, Daikin, Doctor, DongBao, DongXinBao, Electrolux, Frestech, Fujitsu, Funai, GuQiao, Galanz, Glee, Goldstar, Gree, Haier, HiSense, Hitachi, HuaBao, Huake, HuaMei, HuaLing, HuiFeng, HuiKang, Hyundai, JDC, JiangNan, JinDa, JinSong, Johson, KangLi, Kelon, Klimatair, Kongka, LG, LiangYu, Little Duck, Loren-Sebo, Macquay, Midea, Mitsubishi, Moritz, Panasonic, National, Panda, Philco, Proton, Raybo, Rowa, Sabro, Saijo Denki, Sampo, Samsung, Sanyo, Sasuki, ShanXing, Sharp, ShengFeng, Shinco, Shuanglu, Shuai Kang, Songge, Sova, Summer, SunDurg, Swan, Tadiran, Tatung, TCL, Teco, Tiandi, Micom, Toshiba, Trane, Uni-air, Weili, Whirlpool, Xileng, Xinle, Yangzi, Yinyan, York, ... which most of the brands I have never heard before.

I found that there are more than 1 signal codes able to control my Panasonic air-cond. However, all the codes which can be used to control my Panasonic air-cond are unable to do timer setting to the air-cond. The air-cond can respond accordingly to on/off switch, mode settings, temperature settings, air swing settings, fan settings, etc. but no respond to timer setting.

So, my problem haven't solved yet.

Solution for AMD Catalyst Control Center unable to start problem after driver upgrade

Are you facing problem loading or starting the Catalyst Control Center (CCC) for your AMD Radeon graphics display card after you upgraded its driver to the latest version?

This is very likely to be caused by .NET Global Assembly Cache (GAC) in your Windows system preventing some of the DLL files in your new version of AMD Catalyst Software Suite from overiding the existing, older version of them in the system. As a result, the newer version of CCC is unable to work with the older version of the DLL files and simply won't start.

To fix this problem, you need to delete all the ATI's assemblies from the GAC before you install the new AMD Graphics Drivers and Software.

In order to delete assemblies from the GAC, you need Administrator's right as well as to turn off the Windows User Account Control (UAC).

Go to Control Panel > System and Security > Change User Account Control settings and pull down the setting to the lowest level.

You will need to restart your Windows in order to complete this task.

After system restart, use your Windows Explorer to go to \Windows\assembly folder and delete (uninstall) all the assemblies with this Public Key Token "90ba9c70f846762e". You can click on the Public Key Token tab to do a sorting, locate for the assemblies to delete, highlight them with your mouse, and push the Delete button on your keyboard.

When you are done, you may set back your Windows UAC to its original level, usually the 2nd bar. You will need another round of system restart to change the UAC setting again.

Now, install the new AMD Catalyst Software Suite and the optional AMD Catalyst Application Profiles, Hydravision Package and AMD Media Codec Package.

You should be able to launch CCC now!

Know your rights: Malaysia Employment Act 1955

Whether you are employer or employee in Malaysia, the Employment Act 1955 is a very important act related to your employment.

Below is a summary of some of the important points in that act:

• The Malaysia Employment Act 1995 is applied to Peninsular Malaysia and Labuan only. For Sabah and Sarawak, they are governed by their respective Labour Ordinance.
• Either party to a contract of service may at any time give a termination notice in writing, and the notice period shall not less than:
• 4 weeks for employment less than 2 years
• 6 weeks for employment between 2 to 5 years
• 8 weeks for employment more than 5 year
• The notice period above is minimum requirement, which can be longer in the actual employment contract, and is important for short notice compensation serving, especially when Voluntary Separation, Retrenchment, Early Termination, etc. occur.
• Termination without notice nor compensation can happen in the event of any wilful breach by the other party of the employment contract.
• Employer may dismiss, downgrade or suspend up to 2 weeks after due inquiry to the employee, on the grounds of misconduct or inconsistent in fulfilment of service.
• Employee may terminate without notice when threaten by danger, voilence or disease.
• Contract is deemed broken by employer if he fails to pay wages not later than the 7th day after the wage period.
• Contract is deemed broken by employee if he has been continuously absent from work for more than 2 consecutive working days without prior leave from his employer, unless he has a reasonable excuse for such absence and has informed or attempted to inform his employer of such excuse prior to or at the earliest opportunity during such absence.
• Wages is not payable during the period when employee is imprisoned or attending to a court otherwise than as a witness on his employer's behalf.
• No deduction of wages can be made by employer other than:
• Deductions to the extent of any overpayment of wages made within 3 months of the mistake.
• Deductions for the indemnity due to the employer by the employee.
• Deductions for the recovery of advances of wages.
• Deductions authorized by written law, such as EPF, SOCSO, PCB, etc.
• Deductions upon employee's written request, in respect of the payments to a registered trade union or co-operative thrift and loan society of any sum of money due to the trade union or society by the employee on account of entrance fees, subscriptions, instalments and interest on loans, or other dues.
• Deductions upon employee's written request, in respect of payments for any ESOS shares.
• Deductions upon employee's written request, in respect of payments to a third party on behalf of the employee.
• Deductions upon employee's written request, in respect of payments for the purchase by the employee of any goods of the employer's business offered for sale by the employer.
• Deductions in respect of the rental for accommodation and the cost of services, food and meals provided by the employer to the employee 'at the employee's request or under the terms of the employee's contract of service.
• The total deduction shall not exceed 50% of the employee's monthly wages, unless for:
• Indemnity payable by an employer to an employee
• Final payment of the wages of an employee for any amount due to the employer and remaining unpaid by the employee on the termination of the employee's contract of service
• Repayment of a housing loan (where an additional limit of 25% applied)
• All wages must be paid in legal tender or direct into bank account.
• Employer shall not require any female employee to work in any industrial or agricultural undertaking between 10pm and 5am nor commence work for the day without having had a period of 11 consecutive hours free from such work.
• No female employee shall be employed in any underground working.
• Every female employee shall be entitled to maternity leave for a period of not less than 60 consecutive days in respect of each confinement.
• Maternity leave shall not commence earlier than a period of 30 days immediately preceding the confinement of a female employee or later than the day immediately following her confinement.
• A female employee shall be entitled to receive maternity allowance if she:
• Has been employed more than 4 months before confinement.
• Is employed more than 90 days during the 9 months immediately before her confinement.
• If a female employee dies from any cause during the maternity leave period, her maternity allowance shall be paid to her nominee.
• The employer cannot terminate a female employee who remains absent from her work after the expiration of the maternity leave as a result of illness related to pregnancy or confinement and certified by a registered medical practitioner, until her absence exceeds a period of 90 days after the maternity leave.
• Every employee shall be allowed in each week a rest day of 1 whole day.
• Employee who required to work during his rest day should be double paid.
• An employee shall not be required under his contract of service to work:
• more than 5 consecutive hours without a period of leisure of not less than 30 minutes
• more than 8 hours in one day
• in excess of a spread over period of 10 hours in one day
• more than 48 hours in one week
• For any overtime work carried out in excess of the normal hours of work, the employee shall be paid at a rate not less than 1.5 times his hourly rate of pay.
• Every employee shall be entitled to a paid holiday at his ordinary rate of pay on 10 gazetted public holidays in any one calendar year, including:
• the National Day
• the Birthday of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong
• the Birthday of the Ruler or the Yang di-Pertua Negeri
• the Workers' Day
• Employee who required to work on paid holiday shall be double paid.
• Employee who required to work overtime on paid holiday shall be triple paid.
• An employee shall be entitled to paid annual leave of:
• 8 days for every 12 months of continuous service with the same employer if he has been employed by that employer for a period of less than 2 years
• 12 days for every 12 months of continuous service with the same employer if he has been employed by that employer for a period of 2 to 5 years
• 16 days for every 12 months of continuous service with the same employer if he has been employed by that employer for a period of 5 years or more
• An employee shall, after examination by registered medical practitioner at the expense of the employer, be entitled to paid sick leave:
• where no hospitalisation is necessary:
• 14 days in the aggregate in each calendar year if the employee has been employed for less than 2 years
• 18 days in the aggregate in each calendar year if the employee has been employed between 2 to 5 years
• 22 days in the aggregate in each calendar year if the employee has been employed for 5 years and above
• 60 days in the aggregate in each calendar year if hospitalisation is necessary, as may be certified by such registered medical practitioner or medical officer
• An employee shall also be entitled to paid sick leave after examination by a dental surgeon as defined in the Dental Act 1971
• An employee who absents himself on sick leave shall be deemed to absent himself from work without permission if he is:
• not certified by a registered medical practitioner or a medical officer or a dental surgeon
• certified by such registered medical practitioner or medical officer or dental surgeon but without informing or attempting to inform his employer of such sick leave within 48 hours of the commencement thereof

Click here to read the full Malaysia Employment Act 1955.

Converting PDF back to Word or Excel file for free

I have been using the PDF conversion tools by Nitro PDF to convert PDF files back to Word or Excel format for quite some times. The result of conversion is pretty satisfactory.

They provide free conversion service, whereby we can submit the PDF file to them via their website, and they will email to us the converted Word or Excel file. The major limitations of this free conversion service are: can only submit 1 file at a time, and there is a submitted file size limit of 10MB only.

Anyhow, they also sell the Nitro Pro standalone conversion software that can be installed in your PC and perform local conversion without going through the Internet. Batch conversion is possible with Nitro Pro, and the file size limit is eliminated as well.

• Click here to go to the PDF to Word online conversion website
• Click here to go to the PDF to Excel online conversion website

Generating free QR code with custom colour, background, design, etc.

I just discovered this website that enables us to generate QR code with custom colour, background, design, etc. for free.

Here is the QR code of my blog generated by that website. Pretty cool isn't it?

Currently it only support 5 types of QR code generation, which are:

• Text
• URL
• Phone number
• VCard / meCard contact detail
• WiFi Access

And supported customization includes:

• Round the edge of the pixels
• Change background colour
• Put an image as background
• Change foreground colour
• Change colour of certain pixels
• Put an image as foreground
• Paste an image in front of the QR code

This is the website I'm talking about: http://www.qrhacker.com/

The legendary Dato John Lim Tow Yong JP (1925-2012)

Singaporean Dato' John Lim Tow Yong JP (拿督林道荣局绅), born in Suatow (仙都乡), Jinshizhen (金石镇), Chao'An (潮安县), Chaozhou (潮州市), China and actived in South East Asia, has just passed away on 7 April 2012 at the age of 87. That was just a few days right after his biography book, The Legend of Dato' Lim Tow Yong JP -- Founder of Emporium Holdings (英保良二老板林道荣·新马汶百货巨子传奇) been published. His death and his legendary life was widely reported in newspapers in South East Asia.

Dato' Lim has a brother Lim Tow Seng (林道信) who reached Singapore in 1935 at the age of 15 and  worked as an apprentice in a trading company, 7 days a week, 14 hours a day, with a monthly salary of $4 only. 3 years later, he started up his own provision shop called Lim Seng Huat (S) Limited.

In 1940, Dato' Lim also reached Singapore, first worked at his uncle's pork shop, later joint his brother's provision shop as a saleman. The business of Lim Seng Huat grew after World War II by importing and distributing made-in-China products. From Singapore, they expanded to Malaysia and Hong Kong. They even became the sole distributor of German MontBlanc pens in Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei.

In 1961, the Lim brothers founded the Emporium Holdings Group, and 5 years later, they opened the 1st Chinese-managed emporium in Singapore namely Oriental Emporium on 1 December 1966, selling made-in-China products on the same street with British's Robinson that sell high-end Western goods.

In 1968, they opened another emporium in Singapore, selling local products as well as made-in-China products. They continued to expand, and by 1979, they opened 16 emporiums in Singapore. In 28 March 1980, they opened another 8 emporiums and 2 restaurants in the same day.

At the same time, they opened 22 emporiums during 1967-1979 in Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Ipoh, Melaka, Seremban, Johor Bahru, Kuantan, Kulai, Kluang, etc. In December 1972, they registered Emporium Holdings (M) Bhd in Malaysia. Later in November 1973, they also registered Emporium (S) Pte. Ltd. in Singapore. Dato' Lim became the managing director of the Emporium Group.

Being a visionary boss, Dato' Lim paid attention to his employees' training. He sent his employees to Western countries to study the operations of large departmental stores there. He invited professor from Japan to give lecture to his employees.

He emphasized on team work and cultivated good inter-relationship among employees. He cared about employees' benefits and engagement of his employees. He brought in advanced management methodology and technology to improve productivity. He improved customer service to engage his customers. He led in the computerization of his operations way back in the 80's. At the same time, he established a mentoring system, breaking down his employees into 5-people groups with a leader, each group in charge of about 400 sqft in the departmental store, and awarded according to their sales contribution.

While the Emporium Group focused in selling oriental goods, Dato's Lim also established Klasse Departmental Sore to sell Western goods, and joint-venture with Kimisawa Departmental Store to sell Japanese goods.

In early 1985, at his peak, Dato' Lim made a Guiness World Record of having 113 companies around Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and Hong Kong.

However, a recession in Singapore in 1985 also brought him down. In 31 July 1985, 500 employees were retrenched. In 23 October 1985, another 200 employees retrenched.

The Emporium Group gone into trouble, because they margined too much on bank loan for expansion, and they never close down branches that didn't make money. Besides, high inventory level also caused cashflow problem. Later, they tried to convert some departments into consignment basis, which eventually formed a norm in departmental store operations nowadays.

In 1987, the Emporium Group in Singapore was taken over by Malaysian tycoon Bill Ch’ng (庄宝), and Dato' Lim resigned from the empire he built.

Meanwhile, the Emporium Group in Malaysia was applying for public listing in KLSE at the same time, but failed. In November 1987, 31 emporiums was bought over by Natvest Sdn Bhd backed by the Lion Group, and were renamed Parkson.

In 1988, Dato' Lim was declared a bankrupt by Singapore high court at the age of 63. By that time, Dato' Lim was in Labuan, trying to make a come back with RM100k capital. Since his bankrupcy, Dato' Lim was trapped in Singapore for 2 years, until he met Dato Hapitz who helped him restarted his business as Milimewa in Brunei.

In 1992, Dato' Lim made a come back by expanding his business to Sabah. In 1999, he was finally discharged from bankruptcy at the age of 75. In 2003, he had 18 departmental stores in Sabah, and in 2004, he sold all of them to The Store and gained a few millions. He became a millionaire again!

In 2010, Dato' Lim had 8 departmental stores in Brunei. In 2011, he used back the Emporium brand for his departmental stores. He also planned to build a hotel in Labuan.

On 24 September 1996, while Dato' Lim was still in his bankruptcy, 700 of his ex-employees invited him to a dinner to thank him for fostering them while they were in Emporium Group.

10 years later on 20 December 2006, Dato' Lim invited back his ex-employees to a dinner, and attended by 1380 people from Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and Hong Kong. That night, Dato' Lim spent over 300k to thank back his ex-employees.

On 30 March 2012, Dato' Lim invited his ex-employees again to his dinner, in conjunction with the launching of his new book. That dinner was attended by over thousand people. However, Dato' Lim didn't make it to the dinner, he was hospitalized, and later passed away in his glory. His funeral was attended by several hundreds of his present and past employees.

There are 2 things that we all admire Dato' Lim. One is his business skill in building his business empire recorded in Guiness Book of Records, and making him a millionaire once again after bankruptcy. Another is his leadership charisma in having over thousand of engaged employees, who still remember and feel thankful to him regardless he was in failure or success.

Is your wage above, below or on average to the global salary scale?

International Labour Organization (ILO) has been keeping track and publishing the average wage of workers (not self-employed or people on benefits) in most of the countries in the world for more than a decade.

Recently, BBC has published a ranking of rough wage figure of 72 countries based on ILO's data of year 2009.

According to the report, Luxembourg topped the average world wages in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) dollars. The top 20 are:

1. Luxembourg ($4089)
2. Norway ($3678)
3. Austria ($3437)
4. United States ($3263)
5. United Kingdom ($3065)
6. Belgium ($3035)
7. Sweden ($3023)
8. Ireland ($2997)
9. Finland ($2925)
10. Korea ($2903)
11. France ($2886)
12. Canada ($2724)
13. Germany ($2720)
14. Singapore ($2616)
15. Australia ($2610)
16. Cyprus ($2605)
17. Japan ($2522)
18. Italy ($2445)
19. Iceland ($2431)
20. Spain ($2352)

The world average wage is at $1480 and Malaysia ranked 45 in the list with average wage at $961.

In their website, you can key-in your country and your pre-tax monthly wage in local currency, and they can immediately calculate for you your wage in PPP$, and how many percent it is above or below your country average as well as the world average.

Why don't you go there and have a try?

Emergency SOS phone number that all GSM phones can dial: 112

Nowadays, all mobile phone has a feature enabling you to dial an emergency SOS phone number, even without SIM card in the phone, and even when the phone is locked.

Once the number is dialled, the mobile phone will try to connect to any available GSM network operator, and use the service to connect you to the local emergency respond center. The call is free of charge.

Do you know what is that emergency number?

Yes, it is 112 for all GSM mobile phone and is applicable worldwide. This number will connect you to the respond center of emergency services including police, ambulance, fire & rescue.

In Malaysia, this 112 emergency number will automatically redirect to the local emergency number 999. If your mobile phone is a local set, you can also dial 999 as the emergency number as well. However, if you are using AP set, 999 might not work, but 112 will still work.

If you are in Malaysia, remember these 2 numbers for emergency SOS:

• 112 for all GSM mobile phones
• 999 for all wired phones

Islamic fixed deposit that pay upfront profit (interest) immediately when certificate is issued

I have sold a little shares recently, and thought that I am quite unlikely to reinvest the money into share market for the next 1 month. Short term fixed deposit is in my mind.

There is a kind of short term Islamic fixed deposit (Murabahah) that will pay upfront profit (interest) immediately when certificate is issued or account is opened. You will get your fixed deposit return immediately, without having to wait for its maturity date.

Such product in Maybank is called "Profit Now! Account-i (PNA-i)" and the one available in CIMB is called "Fixed Return Investment Account-i (FRIA-i) - WhyWait". Both their profit rate for 1 month deposit is 3% per annum, which is the same rate as most other 1 month fixed deposit products in Malaysia now.

I have chosen Maybank Profit Now! because it is very convenient. The account can be opened with Maybank2u online banking eFixed deposit placement function, and I don't even need to visit the bank to open this account.

I put in RM10,000 for 1 month fixed deposit, and immediately get back RM25.41 in return.

Of course, if I make an upliftment (take out the FD money before maturity date), I won't get back the full RM10,000 principal as the upfront paid profit will be deducted from it.

In this way, I could get triple-tiered interest for the short term deposit, which are:

• 3% per annum for the FD
• 0.3% per annum for the interest of the FD which was deposited back to my savings account
• 5% bonus interest on interest

It is better than leaving the money in my share trading trust account, isn't it?

80% discount for Advanced SystemCare Pro (3 PCs license) @ $12.97 only

From the 1st release of Windows 95 to the latest release of Windows 7, it is a common issue of all computers (regardless PCs or servers) running on Microsoft Windows OS that over time, the OS will become slower and slower, and the harddisk storage will also filled up with more and more junk files.

Advanced SystemCare by IObit is the tool to restore and maintain the performance of your Windows OS close to the moment it is freshly installed. There are 2 versions of it, the Free version with basic function, and the Pro version with tonnes of functions to clean, fix, optimize and tune up your Windows computer.

I have been using Advanced SystemCare Pro for more than a year, from Version 3 until Version 5 now. For each new version release, they introduced more and more functions, and it never fail in tuning up my Windows computers so far.

One of the beauty of this software is it can automatically and quietly perform its scan, fix and clean tasks when your computer is idle.

Just to share with you that now, there is a promotion for this software until 31 March 2012. You can get Advanced SystemCare Pro license for 3 computers, and a Windows Tweaks Guide eBook in PDF format, at the price of $12.97 only, which is 80% of their normal price. This price is even cheaper than my Norton Internet Security annual subscription fee.

The license will last for 1 year, and you get unlimited software update and upgrade as well as technical support along the period.

Accessing Citibank Online website during weekends

Citibank Online user using Internet Explorer 9, do you notice that every weekend you will have problem accessing to that website? You will get the error message as below, and this problem has been around for a few weeks, yet remains unfixed.

Luckily, there is a workaround. Do you see the Citigold tab on top? Well, you can successfully login to the website using Citigold login page. That's the trick.

Alternatively, you can also access to Citibank Online website using other web browser like Firefox.

It is somehow weird that this problem only occur during weekends, but not weekdays.

Let's see how long the Citibank folks will take to get their website fixed this time.

Garmin releases MalFreeMaps NT 2012.10 for free update

Good news to all MalFreeMaps (MFM) supporters!

Garmin has worked together with the MalFreeMaps community to come out with its first release of MalFreeMaps NT 2012.10 map for Malaysia / Singapore / Brunei.

This MFM NT map supports Junction View (JCV), compared to the community version of MFM.

Its map file gmapsupp.img is 52.03 MB, much larger than the gmapprom1.img map file of MSM NT 2011.40 (38.87 MB).

You can click here to download the installation file of MalFreeMaps NT 2012.10 from Garmin server.

5 Qualities of Remarkable Bosses

After writing about the 8 Qualities of Remarkable Employees,  Jeff Haden continues to write about the 5 Qualities of Remarkable Bosses, which I would also like to share with you.  The original article is published in Inc. website which you can find it here.

Here we go...

Remarkable bosses aren’t great on paper. Great bosses are remarkable based on their actions.
Results are everything—but not the results you might think.

Consistently do these five things and everything else follows. You and your business benefit greatly.
More importantly, so do your employees.

1. Develop every employee. Sure, you can put your primary focus on reaching targets, achieving results, and accomplishing concrete goals—but do that and you put your leadership cart before your achievement horse.

Without great employees, no amount of focus on goals and targets will ever pay off. Employees can only achieve what they are capable of achieving, so it’s your job to help all your employees be more capable so they—and your business—can achieve more.

It's your job to provide the training, mentoring, and opportunities your employees need and deserve. When you do, you transform the relatively boring process of reviewing results and tracking performance into something a lot more meaningful for your employees: Progress, improvement, and personal achievement.

So don’t worry about reaching performance goals. Spend the bulk of your time developing the skills of your employees and achieving goals will be a natural outcome.

Plus it’s a lot more fun.

2. Deal with problems immediately. Nothing kills team morale more quickly than problems that don't get addressed. Interpersonal squabbles, performance issues, feuds between departments... all negatively impact employee motivation and enthusiasm.

And they're distracting, because small problems never go away. Small problems always fester and grow into bigger problems. Plus, when you ignore a problem your employees immediately lose respect for you, and without respect, you can't lead.

Never hope a problem will magically go away, or that someone else will deal with it. Deal with every issue head-on, no matter how small.

3. Rescue your worst employee. Almost every business has at least one employee who has fallen out of grace: Publicly failed to complete a task, lost his cool in a meeting, or just can’t seem to keep up. Over time that employee comes to be seen by his peers—and by you—as a weak link.

While that employee may desperately want to “rehabilitate” himself, it's almost impossible. The weight of team disapproval is too heavy for one person to move.

But it’s not too heavy for you.

Before you remove your weak link from the chain, put your full effort into trying to rescue that person instead. Say, "John, I know you've been struggling but I also know you're trying. Let's find ways together that can get you where you need to be." Express confidence. Be reassuring. Most of all, tell him you'll be there every step of the way.

Don't relax your standards. Just step up the mentoring and coaching you provide.

If that seems like too much work for too little potential outcome, think of it this way. Your remarkable employees don’t need a lot of your time; they’re remarkable because they already have these qualities. If you’re lucky, you can get a few percentage points of extra performance from them. But a struggling employee has tons of upside; rescue him and you make a tremendous difference.

Granted, sometimes it won't work out. When it doesn't, don't worry about it. The effort is its own reward.

And occasionally an employee will succeed—and you will have made a tremendous difference in a person's professional and personal life.

Can’t beat that.

4. Serve others, not yourself. You can get away with being selfish or self-serving once or twice... but that's it.

Never say or do anything that in any way puts you in the spotlight, however briefly. Never congratulate employees and digress for a few moments to discuss what you did.

If it should go without saying, don't say it. Your glory should always be reflected, never direct.
When employees excel, you and your business excel. When your team succeeds, you and your business succeed. When you rescue a struggling employee and they become remarkable, remember they should be congratulated, not you.

You were just doing your job the way a remarkable boss should.

When you consistently act as if you are less important than your employees—and when you never ask employees to do something you don’t do—everyone knows how important you really are.

5. Always remember where you came from. See an autograph seeker blown off by a famous athlete and you might think, “If I was in a similar position I would never do that.”

Oops. Actually, you do. To some of your employees, especially new employees, you are at least slightly famous. You’re in charge. You’re the boss.

That's why an employee who wants to talk about something that seems inconsequential may just want to spend a few moments with you.

When that happens, you have a choice. You can blow the employee off... or you can see the moment for its true importance: A chance to inspire, reassure, motivate, and even give someone hope for greater things in their life. The higher you rise the greater the impact you can make—and the greater your responsibility to make that impact.

In the eyes of his or her employees, a remarkable boss is a star.

Remember where you came from, and be gracious with your stardom.

The trick of installing all software in Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 successfully

Recently when I tried to install Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Design Standard into a PC, 2 of the software were having error during the installation process, and unable to be installed. They are: Acrobat X Pro and Photoshop CS 5 (64-bit).

After some trial and error, I finally found the way to get all the software in the Adobe CS 5.5 suite to completely installed into the PC running Windows 7 Professional (64-bit).

The error encountered during the installation of the 2 software above was caused by the latest version of Adobe Reader and Flash Player already installed in the PC, resulting in dependency problem to some of the older version components in Acrobat X Pro and Photoshop CS 5 (64-bit). The 32-bit version of Photoshop CS 5 is successfully installed though.

The trick is, uninstall Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Shockwave Player, Adobe AIR and any other Adobe software newer than CS 5.5 (released in early 2011) from the PC, and reboot the Windows system.

Then, install all software in the CD of Adobe CS 5.5 to the PC. The error encountered before should be eliminated by now.

After installation, run the software update to update the installed Adobe software to latest version.

Then, reinstall the latest version of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Shockwave Player from Adobe website. If you still need the Adobe Reader to read PDF files despite you are having the more powerful Acrobat X Pro, you can install it from Adobe website too. Adobe AIR should be installed along the CS 5.5 installation process, you can check and update it to the latest version as well.

Disabling/Enabling touch screen function of multi-touch screen monitor

It is cool to have a multi-touch screen monitor, but sometimes we just need to temporary switch off the touch screen function of the monitor to avoid disruption, especially when there is flying insect hitting the screen at night.

In fact, toggling the touch screen function is pretty easy in Windows 7.

Go to Windows > Control Panel > Pen and Touch and select its "Touch" tab.

Uncheck the "Use your finger as input device" option as shown above and click OK, your monitor's touch screen function will be toggled off immediately. To get back the touch screen function, just check back this option and click or tap on OK.