Auspicious dates for moving to new house / office in 2016

Here is the list of auspicious dates for moving to new house/office in year 2016, which is produced based on the Chinese almanac Tong Shu. (Click the image to enlarge)

Bear in mind that although the Tong Shu is a compilation of Chinese astrology and calendaring studies gathering wisdom of thousands of years, we should use it wisely and rationally, but not be too superstitious on it.

Using My U Mobile app to check monthly plan quota usage and perform other account management

Nowadays most Telco already have mobile apps for smartphone in Android and/or iOS to check for our prepaid or postpaid subscription plan quota usage and perform other account management, including doing top-up or monthly payment, etc.

Such official Android apps for various Malaysian telcos are:

• U Mobile: My U Mobile
• Digi: MyDigi
• Maxis: MyMaxis
• Hotlink: Hotlink Red
• Tune Talk: Tune Talk
• XOX: MyXOX

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any official Android app for Celcom (either postpaid or Xpax).

Among them, I found that My U Mobile is so far the best mobile app which is very clear and straightforward for checking quota balance with its simple user interface.

In its My Plan screen, you can clearly see what is the subscribed plan, what are included in the subscription package, and each of their individual real time quota usage, all displayed in one screen.

The mobile apps of other telcos also provide similar information, but might be spreading the information into several screens, and/or the user interface is not as straightforward to the user.

In the same My U Mobile app, you can also check your bill statements and perform bill payment with credit card too.

You can also use it to apply for U Card to collect points and enjoy privileges. The U Card can stay virtual inside your smart phone too.

I think My U Mobile is so far the best official Malaysian telco app in terms of design and development. However, it could be the worst in terms of maintenance and support.

Like you can see in the above screen about U Promotion, the same Starbucks 10% discount for U Card members repeated 3 times, showing poor quality control. We would expect it to show only once per item, or if it repeats, there should be some different between each items, and not exactly the same.

In addition, the server of this My U Mobile seems to be pretty unstable. Users can be completely cut off from the server for more than one week, rendering the app completely unusable. Worse still, there is no announcement or information from U Mobile explaining what happened to the downtime, and when will the service be available again, leaving their users in complete darkness.

So, I've experienced the best design and usability, together with the worst maintenance and support for this My U Mobile app. Can't we get the best from both side to have a perfect service?

Switched telco plan of my tablet from Digi Tablet 1GB plan to U Mobile U28 3GB plan

About 2 months ago, Digi started to offer a new RM25 SmartPlan with 1GB monthly Internet data quota.

I contacted Digi to find a way to switch over my Digi Tablet 1GB plan (RM29/month) to this RM25 SmartPlan. Disappointedly, Digi told me there is no way to switch over, unless I terminate the existing Tablet 1GB subscription, and reapply for a new RM25 SmartPlan subscription.

Since there is no flexibility to switch over to the new plan, I wondered if there is any other better postpaid plan from Celcom, Maxis or U Mobile for my tablet, and I found U Mobile U28.

The monthly subscription of this U Mobile U28 is about the same as the Digi Tablet 1GB plan, and is in fact RM1 cheaper.

However, it provides 3GB monthly Internet data quota, which is triple of what the old Digi Tablet 1GB or the new Digi RM25 SmartPlan is offering.

On top of that, there are free voice call minutes and free SMS every month, which is not available in the Digi counterpart plan. Anyhow, it is very rare for me to use the tablet to make phone call or send out SMS, although I do use it to receive SMS.

Similar to Digi SmartPlan, I can listen to KKBox music with U Mobile all day long without using up my Internet quota, with their free music streaming service.

U Mobile also provides free YouTube and Tonton video streaming, but only within the very odd time period from 2am to 10am everyday.

As a result, after terminated my Digi Tablet 1GB plan, I switched over to U Mobile U28 plan to have a try.

Now, after about 2 months of usage, I decided to stay with U Mobile.

I found that in many places in urban area, the Internet speed of U Mobile is about the same with Digi. I some places, it is even better than Digi. In certain rural areas where U Mobile only able to provide EDGE or GPRS data speed, I still have my Celcom First Plan in my smartphone as backup Internet. After all, Celcom is still having the best rural coverage among the telcos now.