Business Model Generation - A handbook for visionaries, game changers and challengers

• Are you an entrepreneurial spirit?
• Are you constantly thinking about how to create value and build new businesses, or how to improve or transform your organization?
• Are you trying to find innovative ways of doing business to replace old, outdated ones?

If you've answered "yes" to any of the above, I would like to recommend you the Business Model Generation book the you could learn about the 9 building blocks of the Business Model Canvas, 5 patterns of business model, etc.

Below is a short video explaining the famous Business Model Canvas:

If you like the idea, you can download a 72 pages preview of the book here.

Visit the Business Model Generation website to find out more.

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

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.

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.

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/

Creating cool zooming presentation slides with Prezi

Still using your MS PowerPoint or OpenOffice.org Impress to create your presentation slides? Here is something different, something new and cool called Prezi.

Prezi introduced the Zooming User Interface (ZUI) whereby the presentation materials (text, images, videos, etc.) are placed on a big virtual canvas, and it allows you to zoom in and out the area of discussion (i.e. the frame) along the presentation. This makes your presentation standout from the traditional MS PowerPoint or OpenOffice.org Impress presentation slides.

The zoomable canvas makes it fun to explore ideas and the connections between them. It results in visually captivating presentations that lead your audience down a path of discovery.

You can see it in action here:

The tool to make Prezi presentations is available on their website as a kind of Cloud-based SaaS service. The public access license is free, while licenses with additional features are chargeable on subscription basis. There is special discount for educational use.

Checking the Selangor state Quit Rent payment status online

If you are having property in Selangor state, you can check the Quit Rent (Hasil Tanah) bill and payment status online at this website: http://hasil.selangor.gov.my/

Just input the information of your property which are printed on your Quit Rent bill, and you can immediately check your account information, the address where your Quit Rent bill was sent to, the amount due, and your last payment detail.

This is particularly useful if you made your payment using online banking method, to ensure that the payment was successfully made and recorded. If you haven't received your Quit Rent bill, you can also check to which address the bill was sent to.

What can you do with QR Code

QR code (QR = Quick Response) is a kind of commonly used 2-dimensional barcode nowadays.

This is the QR code of my blog. I'm sure you have seen other QR codes elsewhere as well.

QR code is originally created by Denso Wave (a subsidiary of Toyota) to keep track of vehicle parts along the manufacturing process. It has been around since 1994. Today, it has been internationally adopted and used for many different purposes, especially in the Advertising and Promotion sector.

What makes QR code so interesting and commonly used?

• It can store much more information (as much as several thousands characters) than the traditional 1-dimensional barcode. 
• Other than alphanumeric, it can also store binary data, which can be unicode (such as Chinese characters), image, and almost anything that can be represented in binary data. And it directly supports Japanese encoding (Kanji and Kana).
• It has small printout size compared with 1-dimensional barcode.
• It has error correction capability, and still can be read without problem even when partially dirty or damaged.
• It can be read pretty fast, and from any angle (360 degree omni-directional capability).
• Other than black-and-white, it can also be printed in multiple colours.

QR code is readable by barcode scanner which support 2-dimensional barcode. Some airlines and cinemas have installed QR code readers at their check-in point and make use of QR code in their customers' self-printed tickets.

However, what make it so popular nowadays is that, there are plenty of QR code reading apps available for smartphones including iPhone, Android Phones, Windows Mobile Phones, etc. and most of the apps are free for download and use.

QR code is also easy to generate, because there are also plenty of software and web-based generator available. One of my favourite online QR code generator is QR Stuff.

You can encode the following into QR code:

• Website URL
• YouTube Video Link
• GPS Coordinate / Google Maps Location
• Twitter Profile / Status Update
• Facebook Profile / Like
• LinkedIn Profile / Share
• FourSquare Venue
• iTunes Link (music, album, artist, app, etc.)
• Any Plain Text
• Telephone Number
• SMS Message to a number
• Email Address
• Email Message to an address
• Contact Details (VCARD)
• Calendar Event (VCALENDAR)
• Wifi Login Information for Android device
• Paypal Buy Now Link
  

Feel free to visit to the QR Stuff website and generate your own QR codes for fun and perhaps profit.

The mobile view of this blog

Google Analytics shows that about 15% of my visitors to this blog are actually reading with mobile device. Last month, 37.37% of the mobile visits are from iPhone, 29.43% from Android, 27.31% from iPad, 1.86% from Symbian, and the rest from others.

If you are accessing this blog (or any other blogs hosted in Google's Blogger a.k.a. Blogspot platform) with your mobile device, you will be able to browse its mobile view, which is a simpler, faster loading version. Here is how it looks like:

Scroll down to the bottom of the page, you can find the "View web version" option to switch to its web view.

Actually, web view is also pretty nice when browsed with my favourite mobile browser - Dolphin Browser.

It is even better if you rotate your phone to read in landscape mode.

Actually, there is a trick in the blog's URL to switch it to mobile view and vice versa.

• Mobile view - http://voyager8.blogspot.com/?m=1
• Web view - http://voyager8.blogspot.com/?m=0

If you are also blogging on Google's Blogger a.k.a. Blogspot, you can check how your blog looks like in its mobile view by accessing it with your mobile phone, or by accessing from any browser using the mobile view URL as above. There are several templates and settings which you can configure in the Settings > Email & Mobile tab.

Citibank finally got their Online website fixed for IE 9

If you are a Citibank Malaysia customer and have been using their Citibank Online website for online banking, you might be aware that there is a major revamp to Citibank Online 1 month ago.

If you are using Internet Explorer 9 (IE 9) to access that website, you would find the webpages after login all got screwed up. This problem would not happen if you access it with  other browsers such as Firefox.

Well, it is a long known issue that Microsoft's IE browser does not follow the general standard in rendering webpages, especially in later versions of IE 7, 8, and 9 in handling Web 2.0 components. Web developers always find they need special treatments in their codes to make the webpage in IE to be appeared as the same looks-and-feels in Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, etc.

However, it is the QA issue with Citibank and their web vendor for failing to test and assure the accessibility of their new website in all major browsers, which should include IE 9 (as it is pre-installed in all Windows 7 computers).

I am among the users who had provided feedback to Citibank regarding their web accessibility problem. After waited for about 1 month, finally they fixed this issue by today. Citibank and their web vendor should be more careful in handling the QA of their website, and should not simply roll out something without thorough QC. Luckily, this is just an accessibility issue. If this is a security issue, happened to a bank website, you imagine what would be the impact and lost incurred.

Live traffic condition updates in Twitter by Malaysian Highway Authority (Lembaga Lebuhraya Malaysia, LLM)

In this festive season, a lot of us are taking a long break and travelling back to hometown or going on vacation. It is anticipated that the traffic volume on PLUS highway will increase tremendously.

Do you know that you can check the live highways traffic condition updates in Twitter by Malaysian Highway Authority (Lembaga Lebuhraya Malaysia, LLM)? The landing page is http://twitter.com/#!/LLMinfotrafik.

Its gonna be very handy and convenient for you if you can access Twitter with your smartphone, like this:

Also, Twitter loads much faster than the LLM Traffic website (http://www.llmtrafik.gov.my/), another place for you to check the highway traffic conditions.

You can also make a call to 1800887752 (7am - 10pm) for live traffic update.

May your journey be safe and smooth. Enjoy your holiday!

(Click the share button below to share this info with your friends...)

How to check if your HTC smartphone is genuine original (under SiS warranty)

Since SiS Corporation is the sole distributor of HTC smartphones in Malaysia, the HTC phones imported by SiS to Malaysia and under their warranty are generally called "genuine original set". Those imported by other vendors, not going through the official HTC distribution channel, and not under HTC/SiS warranty (probably warranty by the import vendors themselves), are generally called "AP set".

Because there is a price difference between genuine original set and AP set, if you are buying a genuine original set (which is normally more expensive than AP set), you might want to check if your HTC smartphone is really a genuine original set, officially supported and warranty by HTC through SiS.

You might also want to ensure that you are getting a brand new unopened set, instead of otherwise a display set, etc.

Here is the way to check it. A new HTC genuine original set must fulfil all the criteria below:

• The packaging box should be sealed with SiS sticker (photo as below)

• The phone's serial no. and IMEI no. should be the same as printed on the box and at the back of the phone (in battery compartment)
• You can check if the serial no. and IMEI no. is under SiS warranty here
• Inside the box, there should be 2 stickers with same serial no. and IMEI no. for you to stick on the warranty card
• All accessories should be sealed in plastic bag, except the battery charger. There should be a cut opening on the battery charger's plastic bag, for SiS to paste the warranty sticker onto the charger
• Beside the charger, there are also SiS warranty sticker on the phone and on the battery
• The battery is already inside the phone, but the circuit is blocked with a piece of plastic, which you need to remove in order for the battery to function
• The battery should be partially charged
• At the side of the box, you can find a sticker providing instruction about HTC/SiS online product warranty registration (photo as below)

• At the other side of the box, you can find another sticker about free introductory training provided for the phone
• If you are getting an HTC Incredible S phone, the free 8GB microSD memory card should be pre-installed in the phone's memory slot
• You can register the HTC phone for warranty here. Need to scan and upload your receipt of purchase during the registration process

Checking the HSDPA/3G/EDGE/GPRS coverage area of Celcom, Digi & Maxis

Before you sign up for a new data plan with either Celcom, Digi or Maxis, I think it is wise for you to check up their HSDPA broadband coverage availability in your favourite areas. Otherwise, you might regret to later find out your frequent visit area only has low speed GPRS coverage.

All Celcom, Digi and Maxis provide a "coverage map" for you to check for their broadband data service coverage easily. Celcom and Digi provide a more detail and precise map, while Maxis map is not so detail.

The URLs to check for their HSDPA/3G/EDGE/GPRS coverage online are:

• Celcom: http://coverage.celcom.com.my/CelcomCoverageIIPub/faces/CelcomCoverage.jsp
• Digi: http://www.digi.com.my/internet/coverage.html
• Maxis: http://www.maxis.com.my/3G/coverage_local.asp

Below are their HSDPA broadband coverage around SS2 area.

Celcom:

Digi:

Maxis:

Three of them also let you search for the coverage area using location keywords. The  keyword search webpage of Celcom and Digi is the same URL as above, while the keyword search webpage of Maxis is http://www.maxis.com.my/3G/coverage_search.asp.

Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) today

After about 1 year of public testing since its 1st release of Platform Preview to developers on March 2010, Microsoft finally releases Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) today, in conjunction with the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSW) 2011 in Austin, Texas.

IE9 improves on support to the latest web technologies nowadays, including HTML5, CSS3, SVG, XHTML, and a new Javascript engine called "Chakra" (is this developed by Indian developers??). It also features GPU-powered hardware acceleration for better and faster graphical and video support.

However, IE9 is only made available for Windows 7 and Windows Vista, and is not supporting Windows XP. This means that if you are still using Windows XP and want to use a modern web browser, you are forced to upgrade to later version of Windows, or you better change your favourite browser to the upcoming Firefox 4 or Chrome 9, which will also support for the latest web technologies, and at the same time still available to Windows XP.

Click here to download Microsoft Internet Explorer 9.

How to pay Unifi bill online using credit card

Unifi bill payment account is different from Telekom or Streamyx payment account.

There are 2 places in the Internet where you can make payment to your Unifi HSBB bills with your credit card.

If you have a Maybank credit card, you can login to Maybank2u, go to Bill Payment section and make a payment to the payee named as "Telekom Malaysia Berhad - Unifi". Of course, you can also pay with your balance in your Maybank account there.

Another place in the Internet to make payment to your Unifi HSBB bills with your credit card is in the My Unifi Online Customer Centre - http://occ.unifi.my.

After login to MyUnifi OCC, go to the MyBill tab, you will see a blue "Make Payment" button at the bottom of the page.

There is a trick here. Before you click on the "Make Payment" button, you need to set your web browser to allow for pop-up within occ.unifi.my as the payment form is a pop-up page.

After clicking on "Make Payment" button, this is what you will see. You can then make payment with any of your credit cards there.

Note that your credit card information will be sent via secured HTTPS channel.

Online registered my kid to Standard 1 in primary school

If your family has a child at the age of 5 or 6, now it is the time to register your kid to Standard 1 in local primary school for year of entry 2012-2013. The registration is open from March until April 2011.

If you are staying in Selangor, you can register your kid online with the web registration service of JPN Selangor: Pengurusan Murid Tahun 1 Online JPN Selangor - Permohonan Penempatan Murid Tahun 1

You will need to key-in the parents detail as well as the kid's detail. Then, you can pick the primary school of your choice for application. At the end of the process, you'll be given a PIN number.

The website could be quite slow. If the page jammed for more than 10 minutes, you can try to click the Back button to go back to previous step, and resubmit again.

The online registration is only half of the whole process. After that, you will need to bring the following documents to the school you wish to register your kid for verification. Acceptance of the registration will depend on JPN Selangor.

• Birth certificate (original & photocopy)
• MyKid (original & photocopy)
• Parents' MyKad (original & photocopy)
• Marriage certificate of parents (original & photocopy)
• Utility bill with your address (TNB/water/telephone)
• Health record card of the child with vaccination records
• Self-addressed envelop of 4"x9" with 60 sen postage stamp

You can check for the processing and acceptance status at the same website above (with the 4th link in the menu).

Facebook going to shutdown on 15 March 2011? True or not?

I believe by now you might have gotten the shocking message saying that Mark Zuckerberg announced in a so-called "press conference outside his Palo Alto office" announcing the shutdown of his popular social network website Facebook on 15 March 2011 as "managing the site has become too stressful".

Are you concerned?

Well, I believe the possibility for this to really happen is only 0.5%, and 99.5% chance for it to be a hoax.

Why I say so?

• If it is really announced in a press conference, this news is not likely to be only reported by a single not-so-famous website (originator). Perhaps that website intended to gain publicity by starting this kind of rumours.
• Although Facebook is not public listed, it has quite a number of investors and shareholders, and Mark Zuckerberg only holds about a quarter of the total shares. As such, Mark Zuckerberg cannot simply end the business of Facebook for whatever reason, without nods from the other shareholders and investors.
• There is no such official announcement in Facebook website at all.

Anyhow, think about it, if Facebook is really to be gone, how are you going to be affected then? If you really can't live without it, this is really an alarming sign. Beware...

Online checking your election voting area registered in electoral roll database

This is not something new to Malaysian, but just a reminder for voting citizen who has already registered with the Election Commission (Suruhanjaya Pilihan Raya, SPR) that you can check your election voting area registered in the electoral roll database online.

The latest URL for the electoral roll checking website is http://daftarj.spr.gov.my/.

Just key in your IC number, and the system will show your basic information, registered locality, polling district, state assembly,  parliamentary and state info.

This online checking is useful for you to confirm your area, and in case you wish to change your voting area, now might still have the opportunity to get it done before the next election come.

Sadly, there is no privacy measure in that website, and if you know any IC number, you can actually find out the person's name, gender, birth date and electoral roll information as well.

Using Dropbox service to sync, backup, share and publish files

Nowadays most of us have more than one computing devices - desktop, laptop, netbook, smartphone, tablet (eg. iPad), etc.

It would be nice if we can seamlessly synchronize some of our commonly accessed data files across those computing devices, so that the file will store in each (or some) of them, and always be accessible to us regardly we are at home, at work, at other place, or even on the road.

If the file is updated by us in one of the computing devices, we would like the same file storing in our other computing devices to also be updated to the latest. Technically, we call this as "synchronize" or "sync".

Dropbox is among the services that can answer that need. It uses cloud computing technology to enable users to store and share files and folders across the Internet with synchronization.

Data transmission of Dropbox is encrypted with SSL, and data stored in Dropbox cloud service is encrypted with AES-256. Dropbox uses Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) for storage, which is the same cloud backend storage used by Ubuntu One.

One of the advantage of Dropbox is it supports multiple platform, including Windows, Macintosh, Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.), Android devices, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, etc.

All files stored in Dropbox cloud storage are automatically backup. You have the option to undelete the files in your Dropbox folder. If you make changes to the files, you can also retrieve back earlier version of the files. For free account, Dropbox keeps 30 days of your files undo history. You can opt to have unlimited undo history by subscribing to their Pack-Rat service.

Beside synchronizing files and folders among your own computing devices, you can also share out one or more folders in your Dropbox with other Dropbox user(s). You control who to share the folder with by inviting them with a special link, and the invitee has to Accept your invitation to initiate the sharing.

There is no special ACL in Dropbox sharing. Everybody who is sharing the folder can make changes in that folder. Anyhow, all the changes will be versioned and kept in history, and can be undone if necessary. In the event 2 or more persons are editing the same file in the shared folder, Dropbox will save the file in different filename to avoid overwriting.

Once you installed Dropbox, you'll notice there are 2 default special folders automatically created - Public and Photos. Files and folders resided in the Public folder can be shared out even to non-Dropbox users. This is made possible as the file there is accessible with a unique special URL, which you can disclose in email, instant message conversations, blogs, etc. However, the files will not be searcheable by search engine like Google.

The sharing concept of the Photos folder is similar to Public. In addition to that, Photos sharing enables you to have an online gallery of your shared photos with unique special URL to each of the folders inside as individual Album.

Dropbox provides 3 account options. The Basic account is free, and started with 2GB online storage. The other 2 are paid Pro account with 50GB or 100GB online storage.

The Basic account storage is expandable for another 8GB up to a total of 10GB by:

• Creating your account with a referal link (add 250MB once you installed your Dropbox client)
• Inviting your friends to create their own Dropbox account (add 250MB each after they've installed their Dropbox client)
• Becoming a Dropbox Guru (add 250MB, refer to the "Get Started" tab in your Dropbox web interface)

Microsoft has just released Windows Live Mesh 2011 (after long period of beta of Live Mesh, Windows Live Sync and Windows Live FolderShare) with similar function and providing 5GB free online storage in SkyDrive. However, Windows Live Mesh 2011 does not support Linux. Worse still, it also does not support Windows XP and earlier version of Windows. Currently, it also doesn't support any mobile devices.

Therefore, if you are upset with the limitation of Windows Live Mesh 2011, perhaps Dropbox is your alternative.

Click here to open your free Dropbox account with 2.250 GB free initial Cloud storage.

Click here for a list of interesting Dropbox Addons. For example, Dropbox Folder Sync can make your live easier to sync folders into Dropbox, and they can still reside in their original location. This is useful for you to sync your IE Favorites, Firefox Profiles, etc.