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AMANAH SAHAM BUMIPUTERA (ASB) DIVIDEN IS 7.65 SEN PER UNIT AND BONUS OF 1.15 SEN PER UNIT FOR YEAR 2011

2012-01-20T19:46:00.001+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR : Amanah Saham Nasional Berhad (ASNB), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) has announced an income distribution of 7.65 sen per unit and a bonus of 1.15 sen per unit for Skim Amanah Saham Bumiputera (ASB) for the financial year ended 31 December 2011.

This income distribution is an increase of 0.15 sen per unit compared to the dividend paid out last year (2010: 7.50 sen per unit).

The income distribution portion will involve a total payout of RM7.04 billion by ASNB an increase of 21 percent compared to the RM5.82 billion paid out last year.

The bonus portion will involve a total payout of RM628.29 million by PNB.

PNB Chairman, Tun Ahmad Sarji bin Abdul Hamid said, the payment will benefit 7.3 million unit holders which currently hold more than 95.9 billion units of ASB.

Up to 15 December 2011, ASB has recorded a gross income of RM7.19 billion. Dividend income from investee companies contributed RM4.09 billion or 56.9 percent of the gross income. Meanwhile, profit from the sale of shares contributed RM2.25 billion or 31.3 percent and the rest of the income at 11.8 percent or RM0.85 billion is derived from investments in short term instruments and other investments.

The calculation of income distribution is based on the average monthly minimum balance held throughout the financial year of ASB ending 31 December 2011. The calculation of the bonus on the other hand is based on the average monthly minimum balance held by the unit holders in the past ten years, starting from 2002 up to 2011.

The income distribution and bonus will be automatically credited into the respective unit holders' accounts. Unit holders will be able to update their accounts beginning 3 January 2012.

All transactions for ASB at ASNB head office, ASNB branch offices and agents will be suspended beginning 21 December 2011 until 2 January 2012, to facilitate the calculation of income distribution and bonus.

ASB is a fixed price equity income fund, opened for Bumiputera aged 6 months and above. This fund is aimed at generating long term, consistent and competitive returns to the unit holders whilst ensuring the preservation of capital at minimal risk tolerance level.

AS 1MALAYSIA Dividen is 6.50 Sen Per Unit for Year 2011

2011-11-01T12:12:00.000+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR - Amanah Saham Nasional Berhad (ASNB), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB), today announced an income distribution of 6.50 sen per unit for Amanah Saham 1Malaysia (AS 1Malaysia) for the financial year ended 30 September 2011.

This second income distribution is an increase of 0.12 sen per unit compared with 6.38 sen per unit announced last year.

The income distribution will involve a total payment of RM311.27 million, an increase of 53.32% compared with the previous year's total payment of RM203.02 million.

It will benefit 270,598 unit holders which currently hold 5.49 billion units of AS 1Malaysia.

Up until 20 September 2011, AS 1Malaysia has recorded a gross income of RM405.67 million. Profit from the sale of shares contributed RM205.99 million or 50.78%; dividend income from investee companies contributed RM152.48 million or 37.59%, and RM47.20 million or 11.63 % is derived from investment in short term instruments and other income.

PNB Chairman, Tun Ahmad Sarji Abdul Hamid said the local bourse which had earlier been on an uptrend since the beginning of the AS 1Malaysia financial year, had experienced a marked downturn since early August 2011.

During the period between 1 October 2010 to 20 September 2011, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia Index (FBM KLCI) has recorded a decrease of 3.61% from 1,463.50 points on 30 September 2010 to 1,410.64 points on 20 September 2011, which was the lowest level recorded.

The downturn, according to Tun Ahmad Sarji, is due to the increased uncertainties over global growth prospects in the advanced economies, deteriorating international financial market environment especially in the United States and Eurozone and worries over the worsening sovereign debt crisis which had triggered downgrades for several economies and major financial institutions.

"All these factors has put a damper on investors' confidence of the stock market. The global economy and stock market environment are expected to be more challenging following these latest developments," he added.

The calculation of the AS 1Malaysia income distribution will be based on the average monthly minimum balance held throughout the financial year of the fund.

The income distribution will be automatically credited into the unit holders' accounts on 1 October 2011. All transactions for AS 1Malaysia has been suspended beginning 21 September 2011 to 2 October 2011 to facilitate the calculation of income distribution.

Unit holders will be able to update their accounts at ASNB head office; ASNB branch offices or ASNB agents beginning 3 October 2011.

Investors who participated in AS 1Malaysia through the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) Members' Investment Scheme will have their income distribution credited directly into their respective EPF accounts. AS 1Malaysia was listed as one of the funds approved under the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) Members' Investment Scheme beginning 25 July 2011.

The income distribution statement together with the fund's annual report will be sent beginning mid November 2011.

AS 1Malaysia is a fixed price fund with a size of 10 billion units. Fifty percent of the approved size is open for Bumiputera investors, 30% is allocated to Chinese, 15% for Indians and the rest for other Malaysians.

Malaysian Budget 2012

2011-10-07T18:56:00.003+08:00

Budget 2012, themed Transformation Budget : Welfare For The People, Well Being For The Nation tabled in Parliament by the Prime Minister and Finance Minister, YAB Dato' Sri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak.

Ministry of Finance took the initiative to develop the Official Budget 2012 Web for direct information to Malaysians in respect of the Budget 2012.

MOF web provides live telecast of the 2012 Budget Speech by YAB Dato' Sri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak, the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance from the Parliament of Malaysia through the audio and video.

Budget 2012 Speech

Budget 2012 Speech is available to public on October 7, 2011 at 5:30 pm at the Lobby, Ministry of Finance, Precinct 2, Putrajaya.

Budget 2012 Speech and appendix can be downloaded through the Official Website of the Budget 2012, www.treasury.gov.my at 6.00 pm.

Economic Report 20 /2012

Economic Report 2011/2012 can be downloaded from the Official Budget 2012 Web on 7th October 2011 following the Budget Speech by YAB Dato' Sri Mohd Najib Bin Tun Abdul Razak, Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.

The Economic Report will be available for sale at RM45.00 per copy on 7th October 2011 from 5.00 pm at the lobby of the Ministry of Finance, Kedai PNMB Putrajaya, No 72, Jalan Diplomatik, Presint 15 (Presint Diplomatik), 62050 Putrajaya, Tel: 03-88811970 and Percetakan Nasional Malaysia Berhad (PNMB), Jalan Chan Sow Lin, 50554 Kuala Lumpur, Tel: 03-92366888 or visit www.printnasional.com.my for more information.

Estimated Expenditure

2012 Estimated Federal Expenditure can be downloaded from the Official Budget 2012 Web on 7th October 2011 following the Budget Speech by YAB Dato' Sri Mohd Najib Bin Tun Abdul Razak, Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.

Anggaran Perbelanjaan Persekutuan 2012 (m/s i - 196)

Anggaran Perbelanjaan Persekutuan 2012 (m/s 197 - 408)

Anggaran Perbelanjaan Persekutuan 2012 (m/s 409 - 679)

Official Budget 2012 Officer

Tn. Hj. Rahim Bin Abu Bakar
Director of Budget, Ministry of Finance
03-88823838 | rahim.bakar@treasury.gov.my

YBrs. Dr. Sundaram A/L Annamalai
Under Secretary Economic and International Division, Ministry of Finance
03-88823399 | dr.sundaram@treasury.gov.my

YBhg. Dato' Siti Halimah Binti Ismail
Under Secretary Tax Analysis Division, Ministry of Finance
03-88823330 | halimah.ismail@treasury.gov.my

En. K. Givananadam
Deputy Director Budget Division, Ministry of Finance
03-88823807 | giva@treasury.gov.my

Pn. Khodijah Binti Abdullah
Senior Deputy Under Secretary, Tax Analysis Division, Ministry of Finance
03-88823337 | khodijah.abdullah@treasury.gov.my

En. Gunaseelan Kunjan
Deputy Under Secretary (Direct Tax & Indirect Tax), Ministry of Finance
03-88823378 | guna.kunjan@treasury.gov.my

Unified Remote

2011-09-18T12:48:00.002+08:00

About Unified Remote Full v2.1.1 This is a short guide explaining how you can install an app you found here on your phone. I’m also going to show you a way that’s a lot easier then the standard method everyone uses.

Please make sure your phone has “Unified Remote Full v2.1.1 apk” enabled in it’s settings! To check this go to Settings -> Applications -> Unknown Sources and check the box.

You have two options, either put the Download Unified Remote Full v2.1.1 apk file onto your phone’s SD card or download and install it directly from your phone.

Unified Remote Full v2.1.1

Requirements: for all Android versions, supports App2SD
Overview: Easily the most feature-filled Android-PC remote. Turns your Android figure into a WiFi or Bluetooth far curb for your Windows PC. Control your selection programs, mouse, and keyboard.

DOWNLOAD SERVER V2: http://www.unifiedremote.com

FEATURES

* Custom Remotes
* WiFi (TCP/UDP)
* Bluetooth
* Easy computer and app setup
* Comprehensive computer manager
* Automatic computer detection
* Clear connection troubleshooting
* Custom/Android keyboard support
* Single/Multi touch mouse
* Hardware intensity control
* Quick Switch using swipe gestures
* Quickly modify servers
* Auto-pause media for phone calls
* Homescreen shortcuts to remotes
* Wake On Lan
* Server password protection
* 256-bit AES encryption

REMOTES IN FREE AND FULL VERSION

* Basic Input
* File Manager
* Keyboard
* Media
* Power
* Slide Show
* Spotify
* Start
* Task Manager
* Windows Media Center
* Windows Media Player
* VLC (Keyboard)
* YouTube

REMOTES IN FULL VERSION ONLY

* Custom Remotes
* Boxee (Keyboard)
* Boxee (Web)
* Chrome
* Firefox
* foobar2000
* Hulu Desktop
* Hulu Web
* Internet Explorer
* iTunes
* J River Media Center
* Monitor
* Media Portal
* MediaMonkey
* MPC HC
* Opera
* Pandora
* Picasa
* PowerPoint Advanced
* PowerPoint Basic
* Winamp
* Windows Photo Viewer
* VLC (Web)
* XBMC (Keyboard)
* XBMC (Web)
* XBMC Media

COMING SOON

* Develop completely bespoken remotes
* Improvements for tablets

What's in this version:
Added USB-UIRT support (and helper remote) for bespoken remotes.
USB-UIRT requires a fleshly USB-UIRT figure ( www.usbuirt.com).
Added Japanese and Nordic translations.
Enabled Quick Scroll in Remotes itemize for faster scrolling.
Fixed: SwitchTo bugs for bespoken remotes.
Fixed: "Maximum boat length" bug
Fixed: "Deserialization" bug.
Fixed: VLC (Web) play/pause issue.

ASW 2020 Dividen is 6.50 Sen Per Unit for Year 2011

2011-09-09T11:31:00.001+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR - Amanah Saham Nasional Berhad (ASNB), a wholly owned subsidiary of Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB), today announced an income distibution of 6.50 sen per unit for Amanah Saham Wawasan 2020 (ASW 2020) for the financial year ended 31 August 2011.

This is an increase of 0.15 sen per unit compared with the income distribution of 6.35 sen per unit last year.

The income distribution will involve a total payment of RM909.05 million, an increase of 17.72% compared with the previous year's total payment of RM772.19 million.

It will benefit 906,340 unit holders which currently hold 13.94 billion units of ASW 2020.

Up until 15 August 2011, ASW 2020 has recorded a gross income of RM1,158.16 million. Profit from the sale of shares contributed RM526.07 million or 45.42%; dividend income from investee companies contributed RM442.82 million or 38.24%, and RM189.27 million or 16.34 % is derived from investment in short term instruments and other income.

PNB Chairman, Tun Ahmad Sarji Abdul Hamid said throughout the ASW 2020 financial year up to July 2011, the local bourse had performed commendably following a stream of positive announcements of the main economic data both locally and globally.

The FTSE Bursa Malaysia Index (FBM KLCI) recorded a gain of 5.43%, from 1,422.49 points recorded on 30 August, 2010, to 1,499.74 points recorded on 15 August 2011. During the same period, the lowest level recorded by the KLCI was 1,431.96 points on 1 September, 2010 and the highest was 1,594.74 points on 8 July 2011.

"However, the local bourse took a beating since mid August 2011, following the crash in Wall Street triggered by the Standard & Poor's downgrade of US's credit rating from AAA to AA+,"

"The performance of the world's economy and stock market are expected to be challenging with this latest development," he said during a press conference to announce the ASW 2020 income distribution here, today.

The calculation of income distribution this year will be based on the average monthly minimum balance held throughout the financial year of ASW 2020, beginning 1 September 2010 to 31 August 2011.

The income distribution will be automatically credited into the unit holders' accounts on 1 September 2011. All transactions for ASW 2020 will be suspended from 25 August 2011 to 1 September 2011 to facilitate the calculation of income distribution.

Unit holders will be able to update their accounts at ASNB head office; ASNB branch offices or ASNB agents beginning 2 September 2011.

Investors who participated in ASW 2020 through the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) Members' Investment Scheme will have their income distribution credited directly into their respective EPF accounts.

ASW 2020 unit holders will receive their income distribution statement together with the fund's annual report beginning mid October 2011.

ASW 2020 is an all-Malaysian fixed price equity fund in which 51% of its size is open for Bumiputera investors while 49% is open for non-Bumiputera investors aged 6 months and above. It is also listed in the Employees Provident Fund Members' Investment Scheme.

Gold Price and Charts History in Gram MYR

2011-09-08T10:37:00.001+08:00

24 Hours Gold Price in MYR/g (Charts Update Every Minute Automatically)

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All Data Gold Price in MYR/g

EPF declares 5.8% dividend

2011-02-21T07:45:00.001+08:00

PETALING JAYA: The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) has declared a dividend of 5.8% for 2010, up from 5.65% declared the year before.

It will pay out a total of RM21.61bil to members, an increase from the 2009 dividend payout of RM19.37bil.

EPF declared that the rate, which was approved by the Finance Minister, was the “highest dividend payout amount ever”.

EPF’s total investment assets stood at RM440.52bil as at Dec 31 last year while its gross investment income was RM24.06bil.

“The dividend rate underscores an impressive year in which gross investment income reached a historical high of RM24.06bil, reflecting a 39.76% increase over the RM17.22bil recorded in 2009,” EPF chairman Tan Sri Samsudin Osman said in a statement yesterday.

Samsudin said last year’s investment income was especially driven by the performance of equity investments boosted by improved financial and economic conditions.

“The dividend amount paid out is derived after deducting net impairment allowance on financial assets, investment expenses, operating expenditure and statutory charges as well as dividend on withdrawals,” he said.

Equities, the statement said, was EPF’s largest investment income contributor at 45.45% or RM10.94bil, followed by loans and bonds, Malaysian Government Securities, money market instruments and property and miscellaneous income.

According to the statement, two-thirds of EPF’s total investment assets last year remained in low risk fixed-income instruments with stable streams of income.

“As a retirement fund, our primary objective is the preservation of capital while adding value to members’ retirement savings.

Members may check their EPF account statement for the crediting of the 2010 dividend via EPF Kiosks, counters or i-Akaun, from today.

Top 20 Richest Man in Malaysia from 2006 ~ 2010 Ranked by Forbes Asia

2011-02-19T15:34:00.006+08:00

Who are the top 20 richest men in Malaysia for the past 5 years? Sugar King Robert Kuok, Maxis Ananda Krishnan, IOI Boss, Public Bank tycoon Teh Hong Piow, YTL Yeoh Tiong Lay… hmm… who else?

Below is the compilation list of Malaysia’s richest man for 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 ranked by Forbes Asia.
Comparison: List of the Richest People in Malaysia

10 Mistakes That Start-Up Entrepreneurs Make

2010-09-15T11:06:00.004+08:00

When it comes to starting a successful business, there's no surefire playbook that contains the winning game plan. On the other hand, there are about as many mistakes to be made as there are entrepreneurs to make them.

Here are the top 10 mistakes that entrepreneurs make when starting a company:

1. Going it alone. It's difficult to build a scalable business if you're the only person involved. True, a solo public relations, web design or consulting firm may require little capital to start, and the price of hiring even one administrative assistant, sales representative or entry-level employee can eat up a big chunk of your profits. The solution: Make sure there's enough margin in your pricing to enable you to bring in other people. Clients generally don't mind outsourcing as long as they can still get face time with you, the skilled professional who's managing the project.

2. Asking too many people for advice. It's always good to get input from experts, especially experienced entrepreneurs who've built and sold successful companies in your industry. But getting too many people's opinions can delay your decision so long that your company never gets out of the starting gate. The answer: Assemble a solid advisory board that you can tap on a regular basis but run the day-to-day yourself. Says Elyissia Wassung, chief executive of 2 Chicks With Chocolate Inc., a Matawan, N.J., chocolate company, "Pull in your [advisory] team for bi-weekly or, at the very least, monthly conference calls. You'll wish you did it sooner!"

3. Spending too much time on product development, not enough on sales. While it's hard to build a great company without a great product, entrepreneurs who spend too much time tinkering may lose customers to a competitor with a stronger sales organization. "I call [this misstep] the 'Field of Dreams' of entrepreneurship. If you build it, they will buy it," says Sanjyot Dunung, CEO of Atma Global, Inc., a New York software publisher, who has made this mistake in her own business. "If you don't keep one eye firmly focused on sales, you'll likely run out of money and energy before you can successfully get your product to market."

4. Targeting too small a market. It's tempting to try to corner a niche, but your company's growth will quickly hit a wall if the market you're targeting is too tiny. Think about all the high school basketball stars who dream of playing in the NBA. Because there are only 30 teams and each team employs only a handful of players, the chances that your son will become the next Michael Jordan are pretty slim. The solution: Pick a bigger market that gives you the chance to grab a slice of the pie even if your company remains a smaller player.

5. Entering a market with no distribution partner. It's easier to break into a market if there's already a network of agents, brokers, manufacturers' reps and other third-party resellers ready, willing and able to sell your product into existing distribution channels. Fashion, food, media and other major industries work this way; others are not so lucky. That's why service businesses like public relations firms, yoga studios and pet-grooming companies often struggle to survive, alternating between feast and famine. The solution: Make a list of potential referral sources before you start your business and ask them if they'd be willing to send business your way.

6. Overpaying for customers. Spending big on advertising may bring in lots of customers, but it's a money-losing strategy if your company can't turn those dollars into lifetime customer value. A magazine or website that spends $500 worth of advertising to acquire a customer who pays $20 a month and cancels his or her subscription at the end of the year is simply pouring money down the drain. The solution: Test, measure, then test again. Once you've done enough testing to figure out how to make more money selling products and services to your customers than you spend acquiring those customers in the first place, roll out a major marketing campaign.

7. Raising too little capital. Many start-ups assume that all they need is enough money to rent space, buy equipment, stock inventory and drive customers through the door. What they often forget is that they also need capital to pay for salaries, utilities, insurance and other overhead expenses until their company starts turning a profit. Unless you're running the kind of business where everybody's working for sweat equity and deferring compensation, you'll need to raise enough money to tide you over until your revenues can cover your expenses and generate positive cash flow. The solution: Calculate your start-up costs before you open your doors, not afterwards.

8. Raising too much capital. Believe it or not, raising too much money can be a problem, too. Over-funded companies tend to get big and bloated, hiring too many people too soon and wasting valuable resources on trade show booths, parties, image ads and other frills. When the money runs out and investors lose patience (which is what happened 10 years ago when the dot-com market melted down), start-ups that frittered away their cash will have to close their doors. No matter how much money you raise at the outset, remember to bank some for a rainy day.

9. Not having a business plan. While not every company needs a formal business plan, a start-up that requires significant capital to grow and more than a year to turn a profit should map out how much time and money it's going to take to get to its destination. This means thinking through the key metrics that make your business tick and building a model to spin off three years of sales, profits and cash-flow projections. "I wasted 10 years [fooling around] thinking like an artist and not a business person," says Louis Piscione, president of Avanti Media Group, a New Jersey company that produces videos for corporate and private events. "I learned that you have to put some of your creative genius toward a business plan that forecasts and sets goals for growth and success."

10. Over-thinking your business plan. While many entrepreneurs I've met engage in seat-of-the-pants decision-making and fail to do their homework, other entrepreneurs are afraid to pull the trigger until they're 100% certain that their plan will succeed. One lawyer I worked with several years ago was so skittish about leaving his six-figure job to launch his business that he never met with a single bank or investor who might have funded his company. The truth is that a business plan is not a crystal ball that can predict the future. At a certain point, you have to close your eyes and take the leap of faith.

Despite the many books and articles that have been written about entrepreneurship, it's just not possible to start a company without making a few mistakes along the way. Just try to avoid making any mistake so large that your company can't get back on its feet to fight another day.

Chargeable Real Property Gain Tax (RPGT) – 5%

2010-08-18T14:14:00.000+08:00

Property(s) that are disposed within/less than 5 (Five) years are subject to pay the RPGT of 5%. However, the chargeable amount can be calculated as follows:-

Example:

Cost of Purchase A property is RM150,000

Dispose of A property within 5 years time at price of RM200,000

Gain of profit of Property A is RM50,000

Minus Rebate RM10,000

Minus Legal Fees Assume is RM4,000

Minus Property Agent Commision RM6,000 (3%)

Minus Renovation RM7,000

Nett Profit will be RM50,000 – RM10,000 – RM4,000 – RM6,000 – RM7,000 is RM23,000

Therefore, the RPGT to government for Property A is RM23,000 x 5% = RM1,150

How to make your car profitable

2010-08-15T20:14:00.003+08:00

Cars are quite accomplished at spending your money for you, but they're not usually much good when it comes to generating cash. Buying the thing, road tax, insurance, an MOT and fuel aren't exactly kind to your bank account, but it's possible to recoup the costs and make a little extra on the side while you're at it.

We've scoured the web and found four novel ways of making your car rack up some notes for you. Some require more effort than others, but they're all worth a look if you could use a little extra at the end of the month.

Advertise
Seen those cars in town that are plastered with slogans? They're making money for their owners, so there's no reason you can't do the same. If you don't mind having your car covered with bright, self-adhesive stickers, then you could earn over £200 a month by turning your car into a moving billboard.

Autocarwraps.com will pay £200 a month if you agree to completely cover your car (aside from the windows, obviously) in advertising. Agree to have half of it covered and you'll get £150 a month. Comm-motion.com offers a similar service with up to £220 per month for covering the whole car.

If you're interested, it's worth checking with your insurance company to find out if your premiums are affected by this. Read the small print too, as you will be contracted to keep the adverts on the car for a certain amount of time.

Lease it
It's not particularly well known, but you can lease your car out to other drivers. Whipcar.com allows other motorists to rent your car while you're not using it. The site works by matching people with a car to those who need one for a certain amount of time. If you use your car in the week, but not at the weekend - or vice versa - then it's worth a look.

All drivers and cars are checked out by Whipcar before any transactions go ahead, so it's perfectly safe - you can even set your own rental price, but you'll need to be realistic if you want the business. The service is open to anyone with a car under eight years old with a valid MOT, road tax and insurance.

Car share
Strictly speaking, you won't make money by car sharing, but you can save a tidy sum. If you and one or more colleagues travel a similar route to work then you can effectively halve your fuel bills by splitting the cost.

If there's no-one in your neck of the woods that you can ask then check out Carshare.com. The site helps you to find budding journey pals in your area - its operators reckon that you could save up to £1,000 a year.

Be a courier
If you do big miles then it's worth dropping off packages for a profit while you're at it. That might sound a little dubious, but Stuff2send.com is a safe and legal site that allows you to register as a courier and start delivering for cash.

Membership is free and you can pick and choose what items you want to deliver and when via a bidding system not unlike eBay. If you win the bid, the job is yours.

10 Ways Small Businesses Can Compete With the Big Boys

2010-08-07T07:33:00.006+08:00

You may not be able to compete with the big boys head-on, but who says you can’t make big money? The key is to do things that they do not do. Here are some strategies your “little” business can survive and thrive against the big boys:

1. Provide exceptional customer service. Treat every customer as your best customer and you will be BETTER than the big guys. As a small business owner, you can concentrate on small details — every client is important, every suggestion is heard, every phone call is important. A larger company can afford to throw away clients if they complain. They may also not feel the pinch of losing three or four clients a week; since they figure that they will get them back next week — or so they think.

2. Pamper your existing customers. When the big boys and mass merchandisers come to town, now is the time to strengthen the loyalty of your existing customers. One way is to develop loyalty programs designed to increase overall satisfaction and customer loyalty. You can focus on rewarding customers who have repeat purchases, such as discounts for frequent purchases, special “loyal customer only” sales, or gifts to frequent buyers.

However, it is important to realize that not all freebies will work a free t-shirt may work for one business but customers of another business may not find it meaningful. You must choose a program that your clients would want and respond to positively.

3. Consider collaborating with similar businesses. Join with small rivals to form a ‘cluster’ that can act as one body to rival bigger competitors. Forming an alliance or partnership with other businesses, even your rivals, is one of the best way to level the playing field and compete with major players without being at a disadvantage because of their superior size. As an alliance, you can harness some of the buying power of mass merchandisers by teaming up with other businesses, even just for basic supplies. This will allow you to cut down your costs and get cheaper inventory. By teaming up with other small operators, you can compete with big rivals by sharing the cost of marketing, such as getting a stand in a major industry trade show something that you may not be able to afford on your own.

4. Use “loss leaders”. A “loss leader” is defined as a product on which you lose money-but through which you also generate sales of other products in your mix. The idea is to price selected items at cost (or even below) in order to entice customers to go to your store; and then hope that these customers will buy more once they are inside the store. Another approach would be to sell a product at a loss, bundled with another that is profitable, such as offering “two for the price of one.” The goal is to entice customers in with irresistible offers, that they will buy other things more profitable to your business.

5. Develop a niche and focus on it. Big Boys like Wal-Mart or Best Buy have a little of everything; while you can have a little of most things and everything of one or two types of products. This will establish your store as the place to go when buying those items. The way small businesses can compete is to carry extensive items in one or two product areas. Specialize or focus on a narrow, deep but profitable niche. You can win against the giants by looking for gaps in the market that are either neglected or poorly covered by big companies. For example, you can be the only florist in your area that has all the supplies necessary for elegant parties — and the staff that knows how to pull it together.

6. Take care of your employees. Pay attention to your employees and treat them right. Treating employees fairly is much more crucial for a small firm. Even with the rising unemployment, finding quality personnel is not fairly easy for a small business. If one decides to leave your business, there is no reserve or pool of talent. Even with a complete staff, you may find that numerous aspects of management or operations may fall into the lap of one person, which tends to make extreme time demands on that person.

7. Use technology to your advantage. Technology, now more advanced and affordable to small and large companies, provides the tools and power for small businesses to compete on an equal basis wit the big boys. It is the biggest improvement to level the field between the big and small boys. Voice mail, broadband Internet access and two-way radios, for examples, can increase efficiency by allowing small business owners to get more done in a timely and professional manner. Computers also allow for more efficient and professional customer invoicing, job pricing, and inventory tracking. If you are still not on the Web, better start now as a web site can provide you with an inexpensive, comprehensive, and professional advertising in front of your customers.

8. Present a very professional image. Small firms competing with big businesses will find that first impressions are vital. Image is crucial to winning the trust of potential customers and retaining the ones that you have. You must be professional, even if you are working from your kitchen table. Professionalism should be seen from every aspect of your business from the way you dress, answer the phone, or design your business cards. Plus, always give the impression that your business is thriving, well established and efficient. Many customers do not mind that they are dealing with small specialist firms; as long as the business has the credibility that they are looking for. Think big and chances are your customers will too.

9. Emphasize the uniqueness of your products. People are often attracted to the idea of getting something unique from a smaller, independently owned business, but are used to the larger selection a chain store can offer. In your marketing and advertising messages, highlight the originality of your stock as compared to the universal stock a chain store offers.

10. Give your store character. Most big retailers have the same look, often impersonal, in every city. Make your store stand out by giving it an inviting character. Make shopping in your place relaxing. Greet customers as they enter the door, and let them know that you and your staff are nearby if they need any help. Never let customers wander around the store not finding what they need and no one to help them.

When a big boy moves into town, don’t be afraid. You may not be able to fight big rivals on their own ground because you simply don’t have the resources; but you can often steal a march on them by being more agile, creative and committed.

PIKOM PC Fair 2010 (II)

2010-08-03T23:41:00.004+08:00

How to Run Office 2007 In Safe Mode

2010-06-21T08:19:00.003+08:00

Launching Office 2007 in Safe Mode comes in handy when troubleshooting problems with the application. If Office 2007 starts successfully in Safe Mode, it can indicate that third party applications are causing the issue.

Example: To run MSWord in Safe mode, use the /safe switch. You can accomplish this a couple of ways.

1. Press the Windows Key + R to bring up the Run dialog and type winword /safe in the box and click OK.

2. Create a shortcut that points to the location of the Word application.

* Right-click the desktop and select New > Shortcut.
* Click Browse and select the location where Microsoft Word is installed. On my computer it was “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\winword.exe”.
* Click OK once you have selected where the winword.exe file is.
* The path should now be in the field for Type the location of the item:.
* At the end of this line, put a space and then type /safe. So it should read “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\winword.exe” /safe
* Click Next and type in a name for the shortcut. Click Finish when you are done.

Your shortcut for running Word in Safe Mode should now be created on the desktop. Try it out. You can verify if Word is running in Safe Mode by the title bar, which should read Microsoft Word (Safe Mode).

Contact Lenses That Change Color To Alert Diabetics of Glucose Levels

2010-06-03T12:23:00.001+08:00

Jin Zhang, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, is developing contact lenses that change color with the user’s blood sugar level. This could allow diabetics to monitor themselves without frequent blood samples. The technology:

” …uses extremely small nanoparticles embedded into the hydrogel lenses. These engineered nanoparticles react with glucose molecules found in tears, causing a chemical reaction that changes their colour.”

How to chat someone up in 5 minutes flat

2010-05-24T07:21:00.001+08:00

Whether you’re flirting in a bar or meeting an online date for the first time, those first few minutes of chat are crucial. Get it right, and you’ll have them at “hello” – or at least within a few minutes of it.

But chatting someone up is a tricky skill. Some people have the gift of the gab; others wouldn’t chat to a stranger if they were stranded on an island together. Follow these tips and you can go from chat-phobic to flirting champ.

1. Picture the scene

Before you approach that gorgeous creature or meet your date, run through some chatty scenarios in your head. Think about things you might say and how they might reply. Picture yourself responding with calm wit and fluency.

You probably won’t stick to these mental rehearsals, but the exercise will boost your confidence. It’s like the “visualisation” tricks sports stars use to calm their nerves before a game or a race.

2. One beer good, six beers bad

A drink or two can ease your shyness and help you mingle, but booze is not a magic confidence bullet. Alcohol on an empty stomach can turn you into a one-woman stag or hen party, and that won’t do your romantic chances any good at all.

3. Be a lone shark

Girls and guys who hunt in packs* are terrifying. If you want to pull a potential keeper, strike out on your own. (Numerical note: “a pack” means two or more. We’re easily intimidated.)

4. Flirt with your eyes

Intense eye contact is one of the strongest bonding signals humans can send out. So if you meet someone’s eye and they seem willing to maintain that eye contact until your backbone tingles, you’ve already done five minutes’ worth of chat in a few seconds of silence.

5. Make your move

If you see someone you want to talk to, don’t procrastinate – especially if you’ve made eye contact with them. Approach them before the moment is gone. If this one doesn’t work, there will be 100 more opportunities in the future.

6. Start small

The best chat-ups aren’t chat-ups at all, they’re small talk. So strike up a conversation, and keep the opener brief and casual. Make a comment or ask a question related to your surroundings, because that’s what you already have in common. For example if you’re at a party, ask if he or she has seen the bottle opener, and follow up with a comment about the choice of booze.

7. Cheese can work – in small doses

Don’t dismiss cheesy chat-ups completely. If you’ve already spent half the evening making eyes at each other, all you need say is “do you come here often?” – and they’ll laugh, and you’ve pulled. Humour is one of the best seduction strategies around.

8. Make sure they’re available

You’re wasting your time if they’re taken. First, the no-brainer – if there’s a wedding or engagement ring on the third finger of their left hand, don’t even think about it.

It harder to find out whether they have a girlfriend or boyfriend. Light humour is your best tactic, especially when combined with a flirtatious look. “So, will your boyfriend/girlfriend kill me if I buy you a drink?” is all it takes.

9. Watch your body language

If you seem to be at ease around the person you’re chatting to, they will feel more relaxed as well – and that’ll help your connection along no end. So relax your facial muscles and shoulders, and keep that lip-twich under control. To reel in your catch, subtly mirror their posture and behaviour. For example, sip your drink just after they sip theirs, or giggle at the same thing. Don’t be too obvious, though, or they’ll think you’re making fun of them.

10. Listen

If you find them interesting, they’ll find you interesting. Listen to what they say, even if it’s small talk about the weather, and respond to it. Don’t bombard them with questions, though – this isn’t a job interview. Overdoing the questioning will make you seem inexperienced.

11. Don’t brag

Bragging makes you sound both arrogant and insecure. What really attracts people is being passionate about your interests, but even passion can be overstated if it means telling someone how much you love your car within a minute of meeting them.

12. Avoid heavy topics

Politics and religion are no topics for chat-ups. You’ll seem overly earnest, and you may even start an argument. Save it for a longer conversation.

13. Breathe

You're nervous. Of course you’re nervous. So focus on your breathing and try to slow it down. Rapid breathing makes you babble, and that will make you feel worse.

14. Don’t admit that you’re nervous

Apologising for your nervousness, or even making a joke about it, will make the other person feel uncomfortable. Keep the conversation going, and the flow of chatter will distract you from the thump-thump of your pulse.

15. Let them know you’re interested

Forget about playing hard to get. If the person you’re talking to didn’t find you attractive, they would have made their excuses quickly. Seal the deal by maintaining eye contact and touching them gently on the arm as you talk. They’ll get the message. Chances are they’ll respond by showing their interest, too.

16. Leave them wanting more

Don’t outstay your welcome. Make your break as soon as there’s a lull in conversation. Ask for their number and vanish alluringly into the night. If they don’t want to give you their number, cut your losses and move on.

OLD NAMES OF ROADS IN KUALA LUMPUR

2010-05-01T19:40:00.003+08:00

Ampang Road - Jalan Ampang
Ampang Street - Leboh Ampang
Batu Road - Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman
Birch Road - Jalan Maharajalela
Bluff Road - Jalan Bukit Aman
Brickfields Road - Jalan Sambanthan
Bulatan Edinburgh - Persimpangan Edinburgh
Campbell Road - Jalan Dang Wangi
Cecil Street - Jalan Hang Lekir
Church Street - Jalan Gereja
Circular Road - Jalan Pekeliling - Jalan Tun Razak
Clarke Street - Jalan Mahkamah Tinggi
Club Road - Jalan Parlimen
Cross Street - Jalan Silang
Dickson Street - Jalan Masjid India
Davidson Road - Jalan Hang Jebat
Foch Avenue - Jalan Cheng Lock
Hampshire Drive - Persiaran Hampshire
High Street - Jalan Bandar - Jalan Tun H S Lee
Holland Road - Jalan Mahkamah Persekutuan
Hospital Road - Jalan Chendersari
Java Street - Mountbatten Road - Jalan Tun Perak
Klyne Street - Jalan Hang Lekiu
Malacca Street - Jalan Melaka
Market Street - Leboh Pasar Besar
Old Market Square (Macao Street + Hokkien Street) - Medan Pasar
Parry Road - Jalan P Ramlee
Petaling Street - Jalan Petaling
Pudoh Street - Jalan Pudu
Rodger Street - Jalan Hang Kasturi
Shaw Road - Jalan Hang Tuah
Station Street - Jalan Balai Polis
Sultan Street - Jalan Sultan
Swettenham Road - Jalan Mahameru
Theatre Street - Jalan Panggong
Treacher Road - Jalan Sultan Ismail
Venning Road - Jalan Perdana
Victoria Avenue - Jalan Sultan Hishamuddin
Weld Road - Jalan Raja Chulan

How to Customize the Windows 7 Shut Down Button

2010-04-26T15:14:00.005+08:00

One of the things that annoyed me the most when I first used Windows Vista was the exclusion of the Shut Down button as the default action in the Start menu. Luckily Microsoft listened and they added an option for users to customize the default action available when the Start Menu is opened. The guide below will walk you through the simple process of finding this option so that you may customize it to your liking. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them below.

Note: I used Windows 7 RC1 for this tutorial

1. Right-click on the task bar and select Properties from the menu.

2. Click on the Start Menu tab and click on the Power button action: drop-down, select the default button action you wish to set. Click OK when you are done.

The Top 10 Billionaires in the World

2010-03-12T08:13:00.004+08:00

1) Carlos Slim Helu

Net Worth: $53.5 billion

Source: Telecom

Residence: Mexico

• Telecom tycoon who pounced on privatization of Mexico's national telephone company in the 1990s becomes world's richest person for first time after coming in third place last year. Net worth up $18.5 billion in a year.

• Recently received regulatory approval to merge his fixed-line assets into American Movil, Latin America's biggest mobile phone company.

• His construction conglomerate, Impulsora del Desarrollo y el Empleo, builds roads and energy infrastructure.

• Son of a Lebanese immigrant also owns stakes in financial group Inbursa, Bronco Drilling, Independent News & Media, Saks and New York Times Co.

• Newspaper outfit's stock popped in early March on talk he might buy a controlling stake; he denies the rumor.

• Donating $65 million to fund a research project in genomic medicine with American billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad.

2) Bill Gates

Net Worth: $53 billion

Source: Microsoft

Residence: U.S.

• Software visionary is now the world's second-richest man. Net worth still up $13 billion in a year as Microsoft shares rose 50% in 12 months, value of investment vehicle Cascade swelled.

• More than 60% of fortune held outside Microsoft; investments include Four Seasons hotels, Televisa, Auto Nation.

• Stepped down from day-to-day duties at Microsoft in 2008 to focus on philanthropy.

• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation dedicated to fighting hunger, improving education in America's high schools, developing vaccines against malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS.

3) Warren Buffett

Net Worth: $47 billion

Source: Investments

Residence: U.S.

• America's favorite investor up $10 billion in past 12 months on surging Berkshire Hathaway shares; says U.S. has survived economic "Pearl Harbor," but warns recovery will be slow.

• Shrewdly invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs and $3 billion in General Electric amid 2008 market collapse.

• Recently acquired railroad giant Burlington Northern Santa Fe for $26 billion.

• "We've put a lot of money to work during the chaos of the last two years. When it's raining gold, reach for a bucket, not a thimble."

• Berkshire Hathaway book value was up 19.8% to $21.8 billion in 2009.

• Son of Nebraska stockbroker met value investor Benjamin Graham while studying economics at Columbia.

• Took over textile firm Berkshire Hathaway in 1965, used company as a vehicle to invest in insurance (Geico), food (Dairy Queen), utilities (MidAmerican Energy) and recently green tech (electric-car maker BYD).

4) Mukesh Ambani

Net Worth: $29 billion

Source: Petrochemicals, oil and gas

Residence: India

• Global ambitions: His Reliance Industries, already India's most valuable company, recently bid $2 billion for 65% stake in troubled Canadian oil sands outfit Value Creations.

• Firm's $14.5 billion offer to buy bankrupt petrochemicals maker LyondellBasell was rejected.

• Since September company has sold Treasury shares worth $2 billion to be used for acquisitions.

• Late father, Dhirubhai, founded Reliance and built it into a massive conglomerate. After he died, Mukesh and his brother, Anil, ran the family business together for a brief time. But siblings feuded over control; mother eventually brokered split of assets, with Mukesh getting oil, gas and petrochemicals businesses.

• Still at odds with Anil over gas supply agreement; awaiting Supreme Court's final ruling.

• Owns cricket team Mumbai Indians.

5) Lakshmi Mittal

Net Worth: $28.7 billion

Source: Steel

Residence: India

• London's richest resident oversees ArcelorMittal, world's largest steel maker. Net profits fell 75% in 2009.

• Mittal took 12% pay cut amid slump but improved outlook pushed stock up one-third in past year.

• Looking to expand in his native India; wants to build steel mills in Jharkhad and Orissa but has not received government approval.

• Started in family steel business in India in 1970s; branched out on his own in 1994.

• Initially bought up steel mills on the cheap in Eastern Europe.

• Earned $1.1 billion for selling his interest in a Kazakh refinery in December.

• Sits on the boards of Goldman Sachs, EADS.

• Upped stake in struggling British soccer team QPR in February.

• Funding 400-foot sculpture to be built in London's Olympic Park in time for 2012 Olympics.

• Owns 12-bedroom mansion in London's posh Kensington neighborhood.

• Daughter-in-law Megha recently bought insolvent German fashion house Escada.

6) Lawrence Ellison

Net Worth: $28 billion

Source: Oracle

Residence: U.S.

• Oracle founder's fortune continues to soar; shares up 70% in past 12 months.

• Database giant has bought 57 companies in the past five years.

• Completed $7.4 billion buyout of Sun Microsystems in January; acquired BEA Systems for $8.5 billion in 2008.

• Studied physics at U. of Chicago; didn't graduate.

• Started Oracle 1977; took public a day before Microsoft in 1986.

• Owns 52% stake in business-software company NetSuite; shares worth $480 million.

• Racing junkie owns 453-foot yacht Rising Sun with pal David Geffen. Won America's Cup in February, besting longtime rival billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli.

7) Bernard Arnault

Net Worth: $27.5 billion

Source: Luxury goods

Residence: France

• Bling is back, helping fashion icon grab title of richest European as shares of his luxury goods outfit LVMH--maker of Louis Vuitton, Moet & Chandon--surge 57%.

• LVMH is developing upscale Shanghai commercial property, L'Avenue Shanghai, with Macau billionaire Stanley Ho.

• Renaissance man owns French tour operator Go Voyages, yacht builder Royal Van Lent; has a stake in French retailer Carrefour.

• Built Le Cheval Blanc in ski resort town of Courchevel, France, where he likes to spend New Year's Eve.

• Father, Jean, who died in January, made small fortune in construction; sale of that business later helped fund Arnault's move into real estate and eventually into luxury goods.

• Still a family affair: son Antoine, 32, and daughter Delphine, 34, sit on LVMH's board.

• Wife is a concert pianist; Arnault himself reported to be an excellent piano player.

8) Eike Batista

Net Worth: $27 billion

Source: Mining, oil

Residence: Brazil

• Vowing to become world's richest man--and he may be on his way. This year's biggest gainer added $19.5 billion to his personal balance sheet.

• Son of Brazil's revered former mining minister who presided over mining giant Companhia Vale do Rio Doce got his start in gold trading and mining. Insists Dad didn't help: "All my businesses started from zero. My father was a problem for me because he never let me near Vale."

• Made a pile in resources and other services, but two-thirds of his fortune comes from relatively new source, OGX Petróleo e Gas Participações, the oil-and-gas exploration company he founded in 2007 and took public a year later.

• Police raided his home in 2008, alleging Batista smuggled gold and unfairly influenced the acquisition of a railroad. He denied all wrongdoing, emerged unscathed.

• Onetime champion offshore powerboat racer.

• Formerly married to Playboy cover girl.

• Provided financing to Rio de Janeiro's Olympic committee, helping the city win its bid for 2016 Olympic Games.

9) Amancio Ortega

Net Worth: $25 billion

Source: Fashion retail

Residence: Spain

• Style maven lords over Inditex; fashion firm, which operates under several brand names including Zara, Massimo Dutti and Stradivarius, has 4,500 stores in 73 countries including new spots in Mexico and Syria.

• Set up joint venture with Tata Group subsidiary to enter India in 2010.

• Betting on Florida real estate: bought Coral Gables office tower that is currently home to Bacardi USA.

• Also owns a luxury apartment complex in Miami; properties in Madrid, Paris, London and Lisbon, a horse-jumping circuit, an interest in a soccer league; has investments in gas, tourism and banks.

• Railway worker's son started as a gofer in a shirt store.

• With then-wife Rosalia Mera, also a billionaire, started making dressing gowns and lingerie in living room.

• Shuns neckties and fanfare.

• Daughter Marta works for Inditex; speculation has it she's being groomed to eventually replace her father.

10) Karl Albrecht

Net Worth: $23.5 billion

Source: Supermarkets

Residence: Germany

• Owns discount supermarket giant Aldi Sud, one of Germany's (and Europe's) dominant grocers.

• Has 1,000 stores in U.S. across 29 states.

• Estimated sales: $37 billion.

• Plans to open New York City store this year.

• With younger brother, Theo, transformed mother's corner grocery store into Aldi after World War II. Brothers split ownership in 1961; Karl took the stores in southern Germany, plus the rights to the brand in the U.K., Australia and the U.S. Theo got northern Germany and the rest of Europe.

• Retired from daily operations.

• Fiercely private: little known about him other than that he apparently raises orchids and plays golf.

EPF Declares 5.65% Dividend For 2009

2010-03-11T21:11:00.000+08:00

Highest Total Dividend Paid Out of RM19.63 billion

The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) Board, with the approval of the Minister of Finance, has declared a dividend rate of 5.65 per cent for the financial year ended 31 December 2009. The dividend rate was declared on the back of the highest ever net income achieved of RM19.63 billion.

The net income represents an increase of 34.82 per cent compared to RM14.56 billion recorded in 2008 while the dividend rate for 2009 is a significant improvement of 115 basis points over the rate of 4.50 per cent paid out for 2008.

In a statement issued today, EPF Chairman Tan Sri Samsudin Osman said, “2009 was a significant year for the EPF as it rode out the impact of the global financial crisis. While the EPF continues to be challenged by the fragile economic environment, our investments nonetheless delivered a sound performance for the year.”

During the year under review, a total of 72.53 per cent of investments were devoted to Fixed Income Instruments in line with EPF’s prudent approach to investment, while 27.05 per cent was in Equities, and the remaining in Property.

As at 31 December 2009, EPF’s investment portfolio grew 8.55 per cent or RM29.25 billion to RM371.26 billion compared to RM342.01 billion in 2008.

I love you but can't marry you..sorry!!

2010-02-16T19:53:00.004+08:00

After seeing the title you all might surely think that this is about how people get cheated in love.

No it is not.. you all have misunderstood it completely..

So let me proceed with what it really is...

You must have seen in films that the hero and the heroine have to face so many obstacles to marry their love...but at last they do marry....do you think it happens in real life? No it doesn't ..it really doesn't.

As we all know that love just happens its kind of out of our consciousness...I know here I sound stupid...but isn't that the truth....

what I am trying to say is people fall in luv..many do..but does the society accept them if they aren't of the same culture and same religion and many other bloody similarities...It sounds a bit idiotic to me that when two people are in love then why the hell are they stopped to marry...

The beautiful feeling becomes a curse for all...ah! in that case we should all fall in love only after knowing the details of the person.....why don't people look for a nice human being rather than looking for the person of same culture or religion...

'1Malaysia' Impresses French Ambassador

2010-02-07T23:37:00.001+08:00

As France debates on a national identity, the '1Malaysia' concept has drawn the interest of its ambassador here, Dr Marc Barety.

"How you manage when you are a diverse country with many different communities and how everybody is working together towards the same goal is interesting," he told Bernama in an interview at the embassy in busy Jalan Ampang here.

Noting that France was also a diverse country, he said the French Government had launched a debate on national identity, calling on citizens to express their views about what being French means.

"So, the answers are, of course, very diverse...we are not at the end of the process.

"For us, to see that Malaysia is also thinking of 1Malaysia and what it means to be one country when you have various communities is, of course, very interesting," noted Dr Barety.

According to a media report, the French Government launched a website last November for the people to give input in the project carried out by its ministry of immigration and national identity.

In the interview on France-Malaysia relations, Dr Barety said the increasing number of reciprocal visits by ministers of both countries was a step forward in bilateral relations.

"We have had more French ministers visiting Malaysia in the past year than we had before," he said.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, his deputy, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and Defence Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi visited Paris for talks with French leaders and counterparts.

"Of course, the prime minister met with our president (Nicolas Sarkozy) but more important than that, they decided to engage in strategic partnership which is really an upgrade...it means a lot for the future," he said.

The ambassador, who met representatives of top French companies here last week, said Malaysia was a very attractive place for them.

"They told me they are happy here and they want to develop their business here...For me, this is very positive, when you compare this with what you read in some newspapers and talk to the people who know the business, it is very satisfying," added Dr Barety.

According to him, there are now 200 French companies in Malaysia while the number of French living in the country has grown to 2,300.

He said France was also keen to tap on Malaysia's expertise in Islamic finance and halal food.

"Malaysia is becoming (a) hub for (the) halal industry and we are trying to develop this.

"We have the French Muslim community who are already producing halal food," he said.

PIKOM PC Fair 2010 (I)

2010-01-18T08:28:00.009+08:00

2 - 4 APRIL 2010 (11:00am - 9:00pm)
Persada Johor International Convention Centre, Johor Bahru, Johor
Dewan 2010, Kangar, Perlis
Village Mall, Sungai Petani, Kedah
Batu Pahat Mall, Batu Pahat, Johor
8 - 10 APRIL 2010 (11:00am - 9:00pm)
KB Mall, Kota Bharu, Kelantan
Terengganu Trade Centre, Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu
9 - 11 APRIL 2010 (11:00am - 9:00pm)
Penang International Sports Arena (PISA), Penang
Melaka International Trade Centre (MITC), Melaka
16 - 18 APRIL 2010 (11:00am - 9:00pm)
Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur
Berjaya Megamall, Kuantan, Pahang
Dewan Perbandaran Taiping, Taiping, Perak
Dewan Tunku Ibrahim Ismail, Kluang, Johor
30 APRIL - 2 MAY 2010 (11:00am - 9:00pm)
Stadium Indera Mulia, Ipoh, Perak
Dewan Jubli Intan, Muar, Johor
Permata Car Park, Kuching, Sarawak
Sibu Trade & Exhibition Centre, Sibu, Sarawak
Dewan Masyarakat, Sandakan, Sabah
7 – 9 MAY 2010 (11:00am - 9:00pm)
Dewan Merdeka, Seri Manjung, Perak
Dewan Suarah, Bintulu, Sarawak
Miri Indoor Stadium, Miri, Sarawak
1 Borneo, LG Car Park Exhibition Hall, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah
Dewan Masyarakat, Tawau, Sabah

Meebo Bar for everyone

2010-01-17T10:14:00.004+08:00

A few months back, I partnered with Meebo to implement the Meebo Bar, which allowed users to login to their IM accounts directly from my blog. It also allowed users to quickly share content on the site itself via social networks and other services such as Facebook, Twitter, Email, IM, and Yahoo Updates. I received a lot of questions about the Meebo Bar from users who typically wanted to know where to get it or how I implemented something like that on my site. Unfortunately, the only answer I could provide at the time was that it was done through a partnership with Meebo and that it was not available to the public.

However, as of today, that has changed. Meebo is opening up their Meebo Bar to the public. The public version of the Meebo Bar includes all of the same features as the one provided to Meebo Partners. It even includes in-depth analytics so you can track shares and other data. It is extremely easy to setup the Meebo Bar too. If you are unfamiliar with the technology, it’s just a JavaScript plug-in, which means essentially all you have to do is copy and paste a snippet of code into your site and you’re off.

Additionally, Meebo Bar users can easily customize and add buttons to their bar from the online control panel on the Meebo website. I would highly recommend any blog or content-driven site jump on this opportunity. The Meebo Bar is an extremely great tool (that’s so easy to use) for quickly sharing content to some of the web’s most popular services.

Sporting rich list 2009

2009-12-30T08:26:00.002+08:00

Eurosport takes a look at sport's top-20 earners in 2009, with a certain Tiger Woods comfortably topping the list ahead of his recent scandal.

It's impossible to say what Tiger Woods's serial womanising will do to his bank balance, but the world's number one golfer was the highest-earning sportsman in 2009 before his altercation with a fire hydrant.

Already one sponsor has parted company with Woods, and his agents will surely need to renegotiate with those sticking by their former cash cow after his decision to take a break from golf and lie low for the foreseeable future.

The following rich list was compiled before the Woods scandal broke, when he was clearly sport's biggest fat cat for the fifth year running, while David Beckham is the highest-earning non-American at number three on the top-20 list that includes six athletes from the NBA, and three each from the worlds of football, formula one and golf.

1. Tiger Woods - £59.3m

As mentioned, Woods's earnings will doubtless take a hit following his "transgressions", but probably not enough to stop him becoming the world's first billion dollar sportsman in the next couple of years. Already his career earnings are close to $800m and, assuming he returns to golf in the next few months, he is likely to pass the magic billion dollar mark before he breaks Jack's record of 18 Majors. Nike and Upper Deck have promised to stick by Woods, Gillette, AT&T, Pepsico and Tag Hauer are still assessing the situation, while Accenture have dropped him altogether.

2. Phil Mickelson - £31.6m

With Woods out of the way for the time being, Mickelson will hope to take advantage by increasing his on-course earnings, but Lefty still has some way to go before he can match his great rival's pulling power - despite the scandal. However, the likes of Rolex and Callaway must be delighted that they chose a man who has remained loyal to their values, and whose popularity is growing steadily.

3. David Beckham - £26.9

Golden Balls is the highest non-American athlete on the list and a sportsman whose earnings from endorsements and advertising far exceed his salary for playing football. That said, Beckham has the potential to earn £128m from his five-year deal with LA Galaxy in MLS, and if he achieves his aim of making the England squad for the 2010 World Cup then 'brand Beckham' will continue to bring him vast riches.

4. LeBron James - £25.3m

James is approaching the end of his contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers and, after finishing last season as the NBA's MVP and a five-times first-team All Star, he is in a powerful position to renegotiate his salary. Endorsement deals with the likes of Nike and State Farm Insurance are said to boost the 6'8" small forward's coffers by twice the amount of his salary.

5. Kimi Raikkonen - £23.9m

Ferrari were clearly hoping for a better return on their investment as Raikkonen finished a lowly sixth on the 2009 drivers' standings. They had, after all, made him the highest-paid driver in Formula One on the back of his 2007 world title and 18 grands prix victories. The Finn and Ferrari had issues with their relationship and he was replaced at the Italian marque by Spain's double world champion Fernando Alonso before announcing he was taking a break from F1 to compete in the World Rally Championship with Citroen next year.

6. Manny Pacquiao - £23.8m

The Filipino pugilist has defeated all before him of late and if the rumours of a showdown with Floyd Mayweather Jr are to be believed then his bank balance is set for an even bigger boost next year. Indeed, he would be higher up the list had his earnings from his latest victory over Miguel Cotto been included. Pacquiao is a true hero in the Philippines - so much so he has very real ambitions to go into politics - and is the perfect role model for the likes of sponsors San Miguel and Nike.

7. Lionel Messi - £23.7m

The best footballer on the planet: that's what most fans think and certainly what the powers at Barcelona thought when they offered him a massive contract at Camp Nou through to 2016. The Argentine is said to be paid £8.5m-a-year by the Spanish giants, who think so highly of their prized investment that they included a whopping £222m buy-out clause in his contract. Messi's earning potential could increase considerably now that Argentina have secured a World Cup stage on which he can display his remarkable talents.

8. Alex Rodriguez - £23.3m

The baseball star enjoyed a £19.7m salary in 2009 as part of a massive 10-year deal with the New York Yankees said to be worth $275m in total, the richest is baseball history. And while he picked up several more millions in endorsements, this income stream could be limited after he admitted this year that he had taken steroids earlier in his career.

9. Valentino Rossi, Fernando Alonzo and Shaquille O'Neill - £20.9m

All three have highly-lucrative deals with their respective teams, as well as healthy endorsement incomes. Shaq received an £11.9m salary, Rossi £9.5m and Alonso a reported £12.5m as part of a two-year contract with now former team Renault.

12. Kevin Garnett - £20.7m

13. Yao Ming - £19.7m

14. Lewis Hamilton - £19.6m

15. Kobe Bryant - £18.6m

16. Roger Federer - £17.6m

17. Allen Iverson - £17.3m

18. Vijay Singh - £17.1m

19. Derek Jeter - £16.9m

20. Ronaldinho - £16.3m

ASB Dividend is 7.30 Sen Per Unit for Year 2009

2009-12-14T23:33:00.003+08:00

Amanah Saham Nasional Bhd (ASNB) announced that for the financial year ending Dec 31, 2009, Amanah Saham Bumiputera (ASB) unit holders will receive
- Income distribution of 7.30 sen per unit and
- Bonus of 1.25 sen per unit
- Total is 8.55 sen per unit

Last year income distribution was
- Income distribution of 7.00 sen per unit and
- Bonus of 1.75 sen per unit
- Total is 8.75 sen per unit

The total dividend yield for this year is 0.20 sen lower than last year and there is 6.78 million unit holders who currently hold more than 70 billion ASB units.

Even tough the yield is lower than last year but the total payment for this year is RM5.48 billion compared to total payment of RM4.79 billion last year

According to PNB group chief executive and president Tan Sri Hamad Kama Piah Che Othman ASB is capable of paying more than 11 sen per unit but decided to paying 7.30 sen per unit and bringing forward the balance of 3.70 sen for 2010.

The quoted reason is to ensure that the money could be use to buy more shares and do more investment.

Financial Result of ASB
- Gross income for year 2009 - RM5.46 billion up to 10 December 2009 (year 2008 - RM5.28 billion)
- Dividend income - RM1.48 billion, or 27 per cent
- Profit from the sale of shares - RM3.67 billion, or 67 per cent
- Investments in short-term instruments and other investments - RM309 million or 6.0 per cent

From the data, it shows that more than 60% of the income was generated by share trading.

The income distribution and bonus will be automatically credited into the unit holders' accounts. All transactions for ASB will be suspended from Dec 21 until January 3 to enable the calculation of income distribution and bonus. Unit holders will be able to update their accounts from January 4.

ASB is a fixed price equity income fund, opened for Bumiputera aged 12 years and above.

Normally the ASW 2020 and ASM dividend is slightly lower than the ASB dividend. Since the ASB dividend is at the range of 7 percent excluding the bonus units.

Do wait and see whether next April and next September the ASM and ASW 2020 dividend is still maintain at 6 percent plus range (ASM and ASW 2020 Dividend Rate). Besides, on next October the AS 1Malaysia will declare the first maiden dividend.

The 6 to 8 percent per annual return rate from the ASNB fixed price unit trust product could be used as a return rate benchmark to beat if we want to invest on other investment tools.

Are Facebook bosses trying to trick us?

2009-12-11T08:14:00.037+08:00

If you've logged into Facebook in the last 24 hours you will have noticed that the social networking site has changed its privacy settings. The move, which could dramatically increase the amount of personal information people display online, has outraged digital rights groups and civil liberties campaigners.

The changes make more information, photos and videos visible to everybody on the web unless you specifically edit the settings yourself - status updates can now also be picked up by search engines.

The pop-up message that greets members asking them to change their privacy settings appears to be different depending on how engaged that person was with Facebook. We would urge all members to log on and double-check their privacy settings now, if they haven't already done so.

Facebook said the changes, which were introduced on 9th December, help members manage updates they want to share, not to trick them into revealing more information than they are comfortable with.

So why then are status updates now automatically made public unless specified otherwise by the user?

"These new 'privacy' changes are clearly intended to push Facebook users to publicly share even more information than before," said Kevin Bankston, a senior attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Even worse, the changes will actually reduce the amount of control that users have over some of their personal data."

Facebook began testing the privacy changes during mid-2009 before introducing them site-wide. The changes let people decide who should see updates, whether all 350 million Facebook members should see them, and if they should be viewable across the web.

Barry Schnitt, a Facebook spokesman, said users could avoid revealing some information to non-friends by leaving gender and location fields blank. Any suggestion that we're trying to trick them into something would work against any goal that we have," said Mr Schnitt.

Facebook is encouraging users to share their updates because, he said, that was in line with "the way the world is moving". But the important differentiator is that these changes are more in line with how Facebook wants the world to move forward, not necessarily how its users want the world to move forward.

As blogger Marshall Kirkpatrick said, this is not what Facebook users signed up for. This issue isn't about privacy for Facebook, it's about increasing traffic and the visibility of activity on the site.

Many users have left comments on the official Facebook blog criticising the changes.

Windows 7 Command Prompt Commands

2009-12-05T12:26:00.004+08:00

Note: Windows 7 Command Prompt commands are fairly similar to classic MS-DOS commands. However, the Command Prompt is not actually MS-DOS even though the commands are similar.

Below is a complete list of commands available in the Command Prompt in Windows 7:

Append
The append command can be used by programs to open files in another directory as if they were located in the current directory.

Arp
The arp command is used to display or change entries in the ARP cache.

Assoc
The assoc command is used to display or change the file type associated with a particular file extension.

At
The at command is used to schedule commands and other programs to run at a specific date and time.

Attrib
The attrib command is used to change the attributes of a single file or a directory.

Auditpol
The auditpol command is used to display or change audit policies.

Bcdedit
The bcdedit command is used to view or make changes to Boot Configuration Data.

Bitsadmin
The bitsadmin command is used to create, manage, and monitor download and upload jobs.

Bootcfg
The bootcfg command is used to build, modify, or view the contents of the boot.ini file, a hidden file that is used to identify in what folder, on which partition, and on which hard drive Windows is located.

Break
The break command sets or clears extended CTRL+C checking on DOS systems.

Cacls
The cacls command is used to display or change access control lists of files.

Call
The call command is used to run a script or batch program from within another script or batch program.

Certreq
The certreq command is used to perform various certification authority (CA) certificate functions.

Certutil
The certutil command is used to dump and display certification authority (CA) configuration information in addition to other CA functions.

Change
The change command changes various terminal server settings like install modes, COM port mappings, and logons.

Chcp
The chcp command displays or configures the active code page number.

Chdir
The chdir command is used to display the drive letter and folder that you are currently in. Chdir can also be used to change the drive and/or directory that you want to work in.

Chglogon
The chglogon command enables, disables, or drains terminal server session logins.

Chgport
The chgport command can be used to display or change COM port mappings for DOS compatibility.

Chgusr
The chgusr command is used to change the install mode for the terminal server.

Chkdsk
The chkdsk command, often referred to as check disk, is used to identify and correct certain hard drive errors.

Chkntfs
The chkntfs command is used to configure or display the checking of the disk drive during the Windows boot process.

Choice
The choice command is used within a script or batch program to provide a list of choices and return of the value of that choice to the program.

Cipher
The cipher command shows or changes the encryption status of files and folders on NTFS partitions.

Clip
The clip command is used to redirect the output from any command to the clipboard in Windows.

Cls
The cls command clears the screen of all previously entered commands and other text.

Cmd
The cmd command starts a new instance of the command interpreter.

Cmdkey
The cmdkey command is used to show, create, and remove stored user names and passwords.

Cmstp
The cmstp command installs or uninstalls a Connection Manager service profile.

Color
The color command is used to change the colors of the text and background within the Command Prompt window.

Comp
The comp command is used to compare the contents of two files or sets of files.

Compact
The compact command is used to show or change the compression state of files and directories on NTFS partitions.

Convert
The convert command is used to convert FAT or FAT32 formatted volumes to the NTFS format.

Copy
The copy command does simply that - it copies one or more files from one location to another.

Date
The date command is used to show or change the current date.

Debug
The debug command starts Debug, a command line application used to test and edit programs.

Defrag
The defrag command is used to defragment a drive you specify. The defrag command is the command line version of Microsoft's Disk Defragmenter.

Del
The del command is used to delete one or more files. The del command is the same as the erase command.

Dir
The dir command is used to display a list of files and folders contained inside the folder that you are currently working in. The dir command also displays other important information like the hard drive's serial number, the total number of files listed, their combined size, the total amount of free space left on the drive, and more.

Diskcomp
The diskcomp command is used to compare the contents of two floppy disks.

Diskcopy
The diskcopy command is used to copy the entire contents of one floppy disk to another.

Diskpart
The diskpart command is used to create, manage, and delete hard drive partitions.

Diskraid
The diskraid command starts the DiskRAID tool which is used to manage and configure RAID arrays.

Dism
The dism command starts the Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool (DISM). The DISM tool is used to manage features in Windows images.

Dispdiag
The dispdiag command is used to output a log of information about the display system.

Doskey
The doskey command is used to edit command lines, create macros, and recall previously entered commands.

Driverquery
The driverquery command is used to show a list of all installed drivers.

Echo
The echo command is used to show messages, most commonly from within script or batch files. The echo command can also be used to turn the echoing feature on or off.

Edit
The edit command starts the MS-DOS Editor tool which is used to create and modify text files.

Edlin
The edlin command starts the Edlin tool which is used to create and modify text files from the command line.

Endlocal
The endlocal command is used to end the localization of environment changes inside a batch or script file.

Erase
The erase command is used to delete one or more files. The erase command is the same as the del command.

Eventcreate
The eventcreate command is used to create a custom event in an event log.

Exe2Bin
The exe2bin command is used to convert a file of the EXE file type (executable file) to a binary file.

Exit
The exit command is used to end the Command Prompt session that you're currently working in.

Expand
The expand command is used to extract a single file or a group of files from a compressed file.

Fastopen
The fastopen command is used to add a program's hard drive location to a special list stored in memory, potentially improving the program's launch time by removing the need for MS-DOS to locate the application on the drive.

Fc
The fc command is used to compare two individual or sets of files and then show the differences between them.

Find
The find command is used to search for a specified text string in one or more files.

Findstr
The findstr command is used to find text string patterns in one or more files.

Finger
The finger command is used to return information about one or more users on a remote computer that's running the Finger service.

For
The for command is used to run a specified command for each file in a set of files. The for command is most often used within a batch or script file.

Forfiles
The forfiles command selects one or more files to execute a specified command on. The forfiles command is most often used within a batch or script file.

Format
The format command is used to format a drive in the file system that you specify.

Fsutil
The fsutil command is used to perform various FAT and NTFS file system tasks like managing reparse points and sparse files, dismounting a volume, and extending a volume.

Ftp
The ftp command can used to transfer files to and from another computer. The remote computer must be operating as an FTP server.

Ftype
The ftype command is used to define a default program to open a specified file type.

Getmac
The getmac command is used to display the media access control (MAC) address of all the network controllers on a system.

Goto
The goto command is used in a batch or script file to direct the command process to a labeled line in the script.

Gpresult
The gpresult command is used to display Group Policy settings.

Gpupdate
The gpupdate command is used to update Group Policy settings.

Graftabl
The graftabl command is used to enable the ability of Windows to display an extended character set in graphics mode.

Graphics
The graphics command is used to load a program that can print graphics.

Help
The help command provides more detailed information on any of the other Command Prompt commands.

Hostname
The hostname command displays the name of the current host.

Icacls
The icacls command is used to display or change access control lists of files. The icacls command is an updated version of the cacls command.

If
The if command is used to perform conditional functions in a batch file.

Ipconfig
The ipconfig command is used to display detailed IP information for each network adapter utilizing TCP/IP. The ipconfig command can also be used to release and renew IP addresses on systems configured to receive them via a DHCP server.

Irftp
The irftp command is used to transmit files over an infrared link.

Iscsicli
The iscsicli command starts the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator, used to manage iSCSI.

Label
The label command is used to manage the volume label of a disk.

Loadfix
The loadfix command is used to load the specified program in the first 64K of memory and then runs the program.

Lodctr
The lodctr command is used to update registry values related to performance counters.

Logman
The logman command is used to create and manage Event Trace Session and Performance logs. The logman command also supports many functions of Performance Monitor.

Logoff
The logoff command is used to terminate a session.

Mem
The mem command shows information about used and free memory areas and programs that are currently loaded into memory in the MS-DOS subsystem.

Mkdir (Md)
The mkdir command is used to create a new folder.

Mklink
The mklink command is used to create a symbolic link.

Mmc
The mmc command can be used to open Microsoft Management Console in author mode or to a specific snap-in console, all from the Command Prompt.

Mode
The mode command is used to configure system devices, most often COM and LPT ports.

More
The more command is used to display the information contained in a text file. The more command can also be used to paginate the results of any other Command Prompt command.

Mountvol
The mountvol command is used to display, create, or remove volume mount points.

Move
The move command is used to move one or files from one folder to another. The move command is also used to rename directories.

Msg
The msg command is used to send a message to a user.

Msiexec
The msiexec command is used to start Windows Installer, a tool used to install and configure software.

Mstsc
The mstsc command starts the Remote Desktop Connection tool from the Command Prompt.

Muiunattend
The muiunattend command starts the Multilanguage User Interface unattended setup process.

Nbtstat
The nbtstat command is used to show TCP/IP information and other statistical information about a remote computer.

Net
The net command is used to display, configure, and correct a wide variety of network settings.

Netcfg
The netcfg command is used to install the Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE), a lightweight version of Windows used to deploy workstations.

Netstat
The netstat command is most commonly used to display all open network connections and listening ports.

Nlsfunc
The nlsfunc command is used to load information specific to a particular country or region.

Nltest
The nltest command is used to test secure channels between Windows computers in a domain and between domain controllers that are trusting other domains.

Nslookup
The nslookup is most commonly used to display the hostname of an entered IP address. The nslookup command queries your configured DNS server to discover the IP address.

Ocsetup
The ocsetup command starts the Windows Optional Component Setup tool, used to install additional Windows features.

Openfiles
The openfiles command is used to display and disconnect open files and folders on a system.

Path
The path command is used to display or set a specific path available to executable files.

Pathping
The pathping command functions much like the tracert command but will also report information about network latency and loss at each hop.

Pause
The pause command is used within a batch or script file to pause the processing of the file. When the pause command is used, a Press any key to continue... message displays in the command window.

Ping
The ping command sends an Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) Echo Request message to a specified remote computer to verify IP-level connectivity.

Pkgmgr
The pkgmgr command is used to start the Windows Package Manager from the Command Prompt. Package Manager installs, uninstalls, configures, and updates features and packages for Windows.

Pnpunattend
The pnpunattend command is used to automate the installation of hardware device drivers.

Pnputil
The pnputil command is used to start the Microsoft PnP Utility, a tool used to install a Plug and Play device from the command line.

Popd
The popd command is used to change the current directory to the one most recently stored by the pushd command. The popd command is most often utilized from within a batch or script file.

Print
The print command is used to print a specified text file to a specified printing device.

Prompt
The prompt command is used to customize the appearance of the prompt text in Command Prompt.

Pushd
The pushd command is used to store a directory for use, most commonly from within a batch or script program.

Qappsrv
The qappsrv command is used to display all Remote Desktop Session Host servers available on the network.

Qprocess
The qprocess command is used to display information about running processes.

Query
The query command is used to display the status of a specified service.

Quser
The quser command is used to display information about users currently logged on to the system.

Qwinsta
The qwinsta command is used to display information about open Remote Desktop Sessions.

Rasdial
The rasdial command is used to start or end a network connection for a Microsoft client.

Recover
The recover command is used to recover readable data from a bad or defective disk.

Reg
The reg command is used to manage the Windows Registry from the command line. The reg command can perform common registry functions like adding registry keys, exporting the registry, etc.

Regsvr32
The regsvr32 command is used to register a DLL file as a command component in the Windows Registry.

Relog
The relog command is used to create new performance logs from data in existing performance logs.

Rem
The rem command is used to record comments or remarks in a batch or script file.

Rename (Ren)
The rename command is used to change the name of the individual file that you specify.

Replace
The replace command is used to replace one or more files with one or more other files.

Reset Session (Rwinsta)
The reset session command is used to reset the session subsystem software and hardware to known initial values.

Rmdir (Rd)
The rmdir command is used to delete an existing and completely empty folder.

Robocopy
The robocopy command is used to copy files and directories from one location to another. The robocopy command is superior to the more simple copy command because robocopy supports many more options. This command is also called Robust File Copy.

Route
The route command is used to manipulate network routing tables.

Rpcping
The rpcping command is used to ping a server using RPC.

Runas
The runas command is used to execute a program using another user's credentials.

Sc
The sc command is used to configure information about services. The sc command communicates with the Service Control Manager.

Schtasks
The schtasks command is used to schedule specified programs or commands to run a certain times. The schtasks command can be used to create, delete, query, change, run, and end scheduled tasks.

Secedit
The secedit command is used to configure and analyze system security by comparing the current security configuration to a template.

Set
The set command is used to enable or disable certain options in Command Prompt.

Setlocal
The setlocal command is used to start the localization of environment changes inside a batch or script file.

Setver
The setver command is used to set the MS-DOS version number that MS-DOS reports to a program.

Setx
The setx command is used to create or change environment variables in the user environment or the system environment.

Sfc
The sfc command is used to verify and replace important Windows system files. The sfc command is also referred to as System File Checker and Windows Resource Checker.

Shadow
The shadow command Is used to monitor another Remote Desktop Services session.

Share
The share command is used to install file locking and file sharing functions in MS-DOS.

Shift
The shift command is used to change the position of replaceable parameters in a batch or script file.

Shutdown
The shutdown command can be used to shut down, restart, or log off the current system or a remote computer.

Sort
The sort command is used to read data from a specified input, sort that data, and return the results of that sort to the Command Prompt screen, a file, or another output device.

Start
The start command is used to open a new command line window to run a specified program or command. The start command can also be used to start an application without creating a new window.

Subst
The subst command is used to associate a local path with a drive letter. The subst command is a lot like the net use command except a local path is used instead of a shared network path.

Sxstrace
The sxstrace command is used to start the WinSxs Tracing Utility, a programming diagnostic tool.

Systeminfo
The systeminfo command is used to display basic Windows configuration information for the local or a remote computer.

Takeown
The takedown command is used to regain access to a file that that an administrator was denied access to when reassigning ownership of the file.

Taskkill
The taskkill command is used to terminate a running task. The taskkill command is the command line equivalent of ending a process in Task Manager in Windows.

Tasklist
"Displays a list of applications, services, and the Process ID (PID) currently running on either a local or a remote computer.

Tcmsetup
The tcmsetup command is used to setup or disable the Telephony Application Programming Interface (TAPI) client.

Time
The time command is used to show or change the current time.

Timeout
The timeout command is typically used in a batch or script file to provide a specified timeout value during a procedure. The timeout command can also be used to ignore keypresses.

Title
The title command is used to set the Command Prompt window title.

Tracerpt
The tracerpt command is used to process event trace logs or real-time data from instrumented event trace providers.

Tracert
The tracert command sends Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) Echo Request messages to a specified remote computer with increasing Time to Live (TTL) field values and displays the IP address and hostname, if available, of the router interfaces between the source and destination.

Tree
The tree command is used to graphically display the folder structure of a specified drive or path.

Tsdiscon
The tsdiscon command is used to disconnect a Remote Desktop session.

Tskill
The tskill command is used to end the specified process.

Type
The type command is used to display the information contained in a text file.

Typeperf
The typerperf command displays performance data in the Command Prompt window or writes the data to specified log file.

Tzutil
The tzutil command is used to display or configure the current system's time zone. The tzutil command can also be used to enable or disable automatic Daylight Saving Time adjustments.

Unlodctr
The unlodctr command removes Explain text and Performance counter names for a service or device driver from the Windows Registry.

Ver
The ver command is used to display the current Windows version.

Verify
The verify command is used to enable or disable the ability of Command Prompt to verify that files are written correctly to a disk.

Vol
The vol command shows the volume label and serial number of a specified disk, assuming this information exists.

Vssadmin
The vssadmin command starts the Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command line tool which displays current volume shadow copy backups and all installed shadow copy writers and providers.

W32Tm
The w32tm command is used to diagnose issues with Windows Time.

Waitfor
The waitform command is used to send or wait for a signal on a system.

Wbadmin
The wbadmin command is used start and stop backup jobs, display details about a previous backup, list the items within a backup, and report on the status of a currently running backup.

Wevtutil
The wevtutil command starts the Windows Events Command Line Utility which is used to manage event logs and publishers.

Where
The where command is used to search for files that match a specified pattern.

Whoami
The whoami command is used to retrieve user name and group information on a network.

Winrm
The winrm command is used to start the command line version of Windows Remote Management, used to manage secure communications with local and remote computers using web services.

Winrs
The winrs command is used to open a secure command window with a remote host.

Winsat
The winsat command starts the Windows System Assessment Tool, a program that assesses various features, attributes, and capabilities of a computer running Windows.

Wmic
The wmic command starts the Windows Management Instrumentation Command line (WMIC), a scripting interface that simplifies the use of Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and systems managed via WMI.

Xcopy
The xcopy command can copy one or more files or directory trees from one location to another.

Did I Miss a Command Prompt Command?

SIGMATEL STAC 92XX C-Major HD Audio Drivers on Windows 7

2009-12-01T17:47:00.004+08:00

I've been upgrading a few of our PCs and Laptops with Windows 7 this evening and hit upon a problem with the SIGMATEL STAC 92XX C-Major HD Audio device that came with my Dell XPS M1330 laptop. A quick google confirmed I wasn't the only one having problems.

Since I have now solved the problem I thought I'd post it here on my blog as I'm sure it will be a popular search on Google in the coming months as the masses move to the new OS.

The symptom
Following a fresh install of Windows 7 (I haven't tried an in place upgrade as I just don't trust 'em !) the OS sees the Sigmatel device and reports it to be working, but the sound just doesn't work. Any attempt to download and install the latest Vista drivers also fails to cure the issue.

The fix Audio
Download the latest x32 or x64 (as appropriate for your computer) Vista driver from the Dell website and leave the EXE in a folder somewhere
Or get them direct from us, click for the 32 bit driver or for the 64 bit driver
Right click computer, and choose manage, then device manager. In the Sound, Video and Game controller group you will see a device called "Windows High Defintion" - delete this by selecting and pressing delete. Now having removed this device from your system you should run the Dell Sigmatel Driver EXE you downloaded previously
Your system will prompt for a restart upon install. When you restart you will get the reassuring sound of the Windows 7 start up tune and all will now be well !

Base System Device problem (Inspiron 1420)
http://ftp.us.dell.com/chipset/R141246.EXE

Hope this helps someone, took me an hour today to figure it out.

Maybank Announcement On Credit Card and Charge Card Service Tax

2009-10-31T21:58:00.006+08:00

Maybank had issued a statement to its' credit card holders related to the recent announcement of the annual RM50 service charge on each principal credit card and RM25 on each supplementary card.

Maybank urged the credit card holders not to take any action now as Maybank is obtaining further guidelines from the authorities on this matter. Besides the annual service tax is only take effect from 1 January 2010 onwards.

With this statement from Maybank, it is believed that other credit card issuers are seeking on the details of the credit card service tax issue as well. Definitely there will have some counter measures by all the credit card issuers

Based on the recent Budget 2010 announcement, it seems that the RM 50 or RM 25 service tax is applicable to the new credit card holders and during the time the exiting credit cards renewal date from 1 January 2010 onwards. The service tax will not imposed immediately on January 2010 for all credit cards or charge cards.

Hence, if you are an existing credit card holders and your renewal date is at the end of the years. It is best that retaining the credit cards and enjoy the provided privileges. Wait till next year renewal date only decide on whether to continue using the credit cards by judging whether it is worth to pay the service tax.

Do make sure that the prudent use of the credit cards and do not over spend beyond your affordability by using the credit cards. Credit cards facility supposed to provide convenience to the card holders and definitely you do not want to be the "Credit Card Loan Holder" that pay only minimum amount every month.

If the credit card holders facing the problem of paying back the credit card bills, it is better to stop using the credit cards till the time you are able to payback in full every month in order to avoid the high interest charges.

Freida Pinto & Dev Patel: Lilac in London

2009-10-23T08:31:00.004+08:00

Slumdog Millionaire stars Freida Pinto and Dev Patel wear complementary purple hues as they walk through London on Tuesday (October 20).

Dev, 19, held hands with Freida, 25, as they walked together. They’ve been spotted in public being more affectionate recently after post-Slumdog speculation ran rampant about their relationship.

Both stars will have movies out next year - Freida recently finished shooting a still untitled Woody Allen movie, while Dev will appear as Zuko in The Last Airbender, directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

FYI: Freida is wearing boots by Roger Vivier.

PIKOM PC FAIR 2009 (III)

2009-10-21T10:56:00.002+08:00

PIKOM PC FAIR 2009 (III) LAUNCH ALERT

Thank you for supporting the PIKOM PC Fair.

We are pleased to notify that we will conduct the PIKOM PC Fair Balloting as follows:

Date	Tuesday, 6 October 2009
Venue	Hall 4, Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre

PC Fair 2009 (III) locations and venues are:

26-28 November 2009	Seri Manjung
27-29 November 2009	Kluang, Alor Star & Seremban
4-6 December 2009	KL, Penang & Melaka
11-13 December 2009	JB, Ipoh, Kota Kinabalu & Bintulu

Hire purchase agreements versus loan agreements

2009-10-07T12:14:00.007+08:00

Hire Purchase or Loan

There is a lot of difference when you choose to buy something with the help of a loan and when you do it on hire purchase basis. In the former case, the ownership passes to you but in the later case you are just in possession and not a legal owner. It means that a person who has bought a car on hire purchase cannot sell it. Simple enough, he is not an owner of the car and, therefore, he has no such right.

Let us take an example.

You want to buy furniture and you go to a lender asking for an unsecured loan. Any furniture or whatever that you buy with the loan amount is legally yours and, in the event of failure to repay, the lender cannot ask you to return the goods. Yes, the lender always has legal remedies available to him for getting back the loan amount. In case of hire purchase, the creditor can ask you to return the goods if you don’t make regular payments.

A hire purchase creates a ‘debt’ and you have to pay it. Once you fully pay your debt then only ownership passes to you. As far as reclaiming of goods under the hire purchase agreement is concerned, there may arise two situations. If you have paid more than one-third of the total debt, the creditor has to go through the County Courts. But, in case you have paid less than one-third of your debt, a creditor only needs a court order to remove goods from your property. Even this court order can be dispensed away if the property is lying in a public place. It means that if you have taken a car on hire purchase, the creditor can remove it from the street without court’s order. So, there is a lot of difference between purchasing a car through unsecured loan and through hire purchase agreement.

Remedies in case of non-repayments

In case of loan agreement, the lender can take legal remedies in case of non-repayment of loan. In case of hire purchase, the creditor can take you to the court for non-payment of debt. There is a specific procedure to be followed by both the creditor and the purchaser. If creditor wants to get back the goods, he is required to obtain a ‘Return Order’ from the court.

Terminating agreements

A loan agreement comes to an end when you repay all your installments and other dues. You can repay before the loan period agreed in the loan agreement. This may or may not involve early repayment penalty. In case of hire purchase agreement, you can normally terminate it by handing back the goods to your creditor. The creditor may ask you to pay up to half of the original agreement price, irrespective of when you terminate the agreement. The hire purchase agreement contains the conditions upon which you can terminate the agreement.

So, you can now decide whether unsecured loans meet your requirements or would it be better to go for a hire purchase agreement.

Note: Law, Rules and Regulations may differ in your country. Get professional advice and ask friends who may have hire purchase experience.

Christian Huygens (1629 - 1695)

2009-09-30T14:40:00.004+08:00

Christian Huygens was a Dutch physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and inventor who was the leading proponent of the wave theory of light. He also made important contributions to mechanics, stating that in a collision between bodies, neither loses nor gains "motion'' (his term for momentum). In astronomy, he discovered Titan (Saturn's largest moon) and was the first to correctly identify the observed elongation of Saturn as the presence of Saturn's rings.

Christian Huygens was born at the Hague on April 14, 1629, and died there on July 8, 1695. He generally wrote his name as Christiaan Hugens, and it is also sometimes written as Huyghens.

Telescope Lenses
In 1654, his attention was directed to the improvement of the telescope. Together with his brother, Christian Huygens devised a new and better way of grinding and polishing lenses. As a result of these improvements, Huygens was able during 1655 and 1656 to resolve numerous astronomical questions of the day including the fact that Saturn's rings were made of rocks and the presence of Titan.

Pendulum Clock and Watches
In 1656, Huygens invented the first pendulum clock, as described in his 1658 article "Horologium". The time-pieces previously in use had been balance-clocks, Chris Huygens' pendulum clock was regulated by a mechanism with a "natural" period of oscillation and had an error of less than 1 minute a day, the first time such accuracy had been achieved. His later refinements reduced his clock's errors to less than 10 seconds a day.

Around 1675, Huygens developed the balance wheel and spring assembly, still found in some of today's wrist watches. This improvement allowed 17th century watches to keep time to 10 minutes a day. Watches or portable clocks had been invented early in the sixteenth century, however, they were clumsy and unreliable, being driven by a main spring and regulated by a conical pulley and verge escapement. The first watch whose motion was regulated by a balance spring was made in Paris under Huygens' directions, which he gave as a gift to Louis XIV the King of France.

Achromatic Eye-Piece
The increasing intolerance of the French Catholics for his science led to Christian Huygens' return to Holland in 1681. He then devoted himself to the construction of lenses of enormous focal length. Three telescopes he made with of focal lengths of 123 feet, 180 feet, and 210 feet, were given to the Royal Society of London where they remained. It was about this time that Christian Huygens discovered the achromatic eye-piece (for a telescope) which is named after him.

Other Achievements
The most important of Christian Huygens' written works was his "Horologium Oscillatorium" published in Paris in 1673, it discussed the mathematics surrounding pendulum motion and the law of centrifugal force for uniform circular motion.

In 1680, Christian Huygens designed (but never built) an internal combustion engine that was be fueled with gunpowder. In 1689, he traveled to England in order to meet with Isaac Newton, whose Principia had been published in 1687. Christian Huygens fully recognized the intellectual merits of the work, however, he thought that Newton's theory was incomplete because it did not explain gravitation by any mechanical means.

In 1690, Christian Huygens published his treatise on light in which the undulatory theory was expounded and explained. The general idea of the theory had been suggested by Robert Hooke in 1664, however, not in great detail. Up to that point in time, only three theories have been suggested about the mechanics of light.

Either the eye sent out something, which feels the object (as the Greeks believed);
or the object perceived sent out something which hits or affects the eye (as assumed in the emission theory);
or there was some medium between the eye and the object, and the object caused changes in the form or condition of this intervening medium affecting the eye (as Robert Hooke and Christian Huygens supposed in the wave or undulatory theory).

According to this last theory space is filled with an extremely rare ether, and light is caused by a series of waves or vibrations in this ether, which are set in motion by the pulsations of the luminous body. From this third theory, Christian Huygens deduced the laws of reflection and refraction, explained the phenomenon of double refraction, and gave a construction for the extraordinary ray in biaxial crystals; while he found by experiment the chief phenomena of polarization.

Before he died Christian Huygens wrote "Cosmotheoros, or Conjectures Concerning the Planetary Worlds", a non-fictional premise on life on other planets.

Sir Sandford Fleming (1827-1915)

2009-09-28T08:41:00.008+08:00

Sir Sandford Fleming was born in Kirkaldy Scotland and emigrated to Canada in 1845 at the age of seventeen. Sir Sandford Fleming first worked as a surveyor and later became a railway engineer for the Canadian Pacific Railway.

According to WebExhibits: Sir Sandford Fleming advocated the adoption of a standard time or mean time and hourly variations from that according to established time zones. He was instrumental in convening the 1884 International Prime Meridian Conference in Washington, at which the system of international standard time - still in use today - was adopted.

A few of Sir Sandford Fleming's many achievements:

Designed the first Canadian postage stamp. The three penny stamp issued in 1851 had a beaver on it (the national animal of Canada).
Establishment of Universal Standard Time, Fleming recommended the standard to the Royal Canadian Institute in 1879. Standard Time was accepted universally in 1884. Sir Sandford Fleming was behind the adoption of the present time meridians in both Canada and the U.S.
Designed an early in-line skate in 1850.
Founded the Royal Canadian Institute in Toronto in 1849.
Surveyed for the first railroad route across Canada
Was the head engineer for most of the Intercolonial Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Sir Sandford Fleming - Father of Standard Time

In 1876, Sir Sandford Fleming missed a train he was supposed to travel on in Ireland. The train's schedule had misprinted the departure time as p.m. instead of a.m. Fleming was inspired to create a 24-hour international clock based on the world globe meridian of Greenwich (Greenwich mean time).

Standard time in time zones was instituted in the U.S. and Canada by the railroads on 18 November 1883. Before then, time of day was a local matter, and most cities and towns used some form of local solar time, maintained by some well-known clock (for example, on a church steeple or in a jeweler's window).

Standard time in time zones was not established in U.S. law until the Act of March 19, 1918, sometimes called the Standard Time Act.

THE HISTORY OF SINGAPORE

2009-09-25T16:09:00.006+08:00

On 29 January 1819, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles landed on the main island. Spotting its potential as a strategic geographical trading post in Southeast Asia, Raffles signed a treaty with Sultan Hussein Shah on behalf of the British East India Company on 6 February 1819 to develop the southern part of Singapore as a British trading post and settlement.

Until August 1824, Singapore was still a territory controlled by a Malay Ruler. Singapore only officially became a British colony in August 1824 when the British extended control over the whole island. John Crawford, the second resident of Singapore, was the one who made Singapore a British possession.

He signed a treaty with Sultan Hussein Shah on 2 August 1824 in which the Sultan and the Temmenggong handed over the whole island to the British East India Company thus marking the start of the island's modern era.

Raffles's deputy, William Farquhar, oversaw a period of growth and ethnic migration, which was largely spurred by a no-restriction immigration policy. The British India office governed the island from 1858, but Singapore was made a British crown colony in 1867, answerable directly to the Crown. By 1869, 100,000 people lived on the island.

The early onset of town planning in colonial Singapore came largely through a "divide and rule" framework where the different ethnic groups were settled in different parts of the South of the island.

The Singapore River was largely a commercial area that was dominated by traders and bankers of various ethnic groups with mostly Chinese and Indian coolies working to load and unload goods from barge boats known locally as "bumboats". The Malays, consisting of the local "Orang Lauts" who worked mostly as fishermen and sea-farers, and Arab traders and scholars were mostly found in the South-east part of the river mouth, where Kampong Glam stands today. The European settlers, who were few then, settled around Fort Canning Hill and further upstream from the Singapore River. Like the Europeans, the early Indian migrants also settled more inland of the Singapore River, where Little India stands today. Very little is known about the rural private settlements in those times (known as kampongs), other than the major move by the post-independent Singapore government to re-settle these residents in the late 1960s

Sejarah Pengagihan Pendapatan Dan Bonus ASB (Amanah Saham Bumiputera)

2009-09-18T16:01:00.005+08:00

Pengagihan Pendapatan & Bonus untuk Amanah Saham Bumiputera (ASB) mempunyai sejarah yang agak menarik. Berikut adalah jadual dan carta pengagihan pendapatan, bonus dan perbandingan dengan Kadar BLR Malaysia dari tahun 1993 hingga 2008.

Pengagihan pendapatan ASB tertinggi yang pernah diperolehi ialah pada tahun 1999 dan Bonus yang terbanyak diperolehi pada tahun 1993 & 1994. Namun begitu, negara juga pernah mencatat kadar BLR tertinggi pada tahun 1998 iaitu 10.50% lebih tinggi daripada pendapatan dividen ASB. Pada tahun 2004 hingga 2006 kadar BLR negara adalah antara terendah sejak 16 tahun sebelumnya iaitu pada kadar 6.00%.

President Obama Calls Kanye West a "Jackass"

2009-09-16T12:27:00.005+08:00

President Obama has inadvertently put his name into the Kanye West/Taylor Swift controversy after stating that Kanye is a “jackass” for what he did at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday.

When asked about the incident, President Obama said, “I thought that was really inappropriate. You know it was like she’s getting an award. Why are you butting in? The young lady seems like a perfectly nice person. She’s getting her award. What he’s doing up there? He’s a jackass!”

Check out the audio here!

Support Group Civil Servants To Get RM500 Aid

2009-09-09T16:27:00.000+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 9 (Bernama) -- A total of 860,000 civil servants in the support group will receive RM500 special cash assistance in two payments, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said on Wednesday.

The special cash assistance to be paid before Hari Raya and in December was to help them through the festive celebration and preparation for the new school term at the end of the year, announced Najib in a statement here.

-- BERNAMA

Download Yahoo Messenger 10 Beta [with Direct Download Link]

2009-09-01T22:22:00.005+08:00

Yahoo Messenger 10 alpha has been spotted for a few months and now, Yahoo! finally decided to release the Beta version for public use and it comes with a lot of new and exciting features.

Video Calls - New high-quality video calling enables full-screen, face-to-face chats at no cost, using the familiar and easy-to-use Yahoo! Messenger environment.

Updates Tab - A new tab helps people easily discover Updates from friends and family, including status updates, recent Flickr uploads, Yahoo! Buzz stories, Twitter updates and more.

New Yahoo! Insider - Now customizable by zip code, this re-designed welcome window provides Messenger users with easy access to localized news and weather, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Buzz and Yahoo! Search.

Language Selector - Yahoo! Messenger now lets people choose from more than 16 languages without having to download a different version.

Improved iPhone App - People can now receive messages from Yahoo! Messenger contacts even when they are using a different app on their iPhone.

Messenger is also more getting social as we roll out new features to help you stay in closer contact with friends and family. A new “Updates” tab gives you a quick glimpse of what your contacts are up to – including status updates, Flickr uploads, Yahoo! Buzz stories, Tweets and more.

With this beta release, Yahoo! is expecting back some feedback on Yahoo! Messenger 10. Try this out and let Yahoo! know what you think of it. You can download ! Messenger 10 from here

Download Yahoo! Messenger 10 Beta

How to create a custom Windows Vista Installation DVD

2009-08-25T01:03:00.001+08:00

Using the free software vLite, you can create a completely custom, bootable Windows Vista install DVD. Remove the parts of Vista you don’t want/use, change some of the default settings, include Service Packs and Windows Updates, and more. Keep reading for complete step-by-step instructions on using vLite.

1. First up, download and install vLite. At the end of the installation you’ll be asked if you want to run it. Go for it, but expect an error.

2. Navigate to the vLite folder (C:\Program Files\vLite), right-click vLite.exe and select Run as administrator from the pop-up menu.

3. Accept the agreement by clicking I agree.

4. If prompted to install some Dependencies, click the Install button.

5. And now vLite will launch. A window will pop up asking where your Windows Vista install disc is located. Select the DVD drive that has your copy of Vista in it. Now click the Browse button.

6. Click OK on the Copy Files window, and then navigate to the folder you want to save your Windows Vista files in. It’s a good idea to create a new folder to save the files in - I opted for C:\Vista Backup\

7. Click OK when you’ve selected the folder.

8. Now vLite will copy your Vista disc to your hard drive. This can take some time (but probably not the 20 minutes displayed in the screenshot below).

9. Once vLite has copied all the files to your hard drive, it will analyze them to determine the copy of Vista that you’re running. The info will be displayed right below the Status section of vLite. When you’re ready, click Next.

10. Now you have to decide what exactly you want to change/add to Vista. You might as well select all of the possibilities - you don’t actually have to make changes in each section. You’ll probably want to leave Enable before apply unchecked.

11. In the first section, Integration, you can add hotfixes, drivers and language packs to your Vista install disc. This is also the place you can add SP1. If you want to include Hotfixes that you’ve downloaded from Windows Update, you can probably find them in C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download. Click Next when you’re ready to move on.

12. The Compatibility window will appear. Select each of the features you want to keep in your custom Vista install disc. If you hover your mouse over each select, you’ll see (at the bottom) what will be affected by not including a particular feature. Unless you really know what you’re doing, you’ll probably want to make sure everything is checked.

13. On the Applications tab you can select the applications you expect to use in Vista. I know for certain that I won’t be installing Halo 2, so I left that unchecked. When you’re done, click OK.

14. In the Components section you can place check marks in the boxes next to the components you do not want included on your Vista install disc. After you’ve reviewed all of the components - and there are a lot of them - click Next to continue.

15. In the Tweaks section you can enable, disable or leave as default some of the Vista settings. In the Security section of the Tweaks, you can disable AutoPlay (yay!) or change things like Hibernation, Power schemes etc.

16. Select System from the Tweaks section, and review the changes you can make. One that I appreciated was to set the Control Panel to Classic View by default.

17. If you’re absolutely sure you know what you’re doing, you can take a look at the Explorer section of the Tweaks, but I’d suggest leaving them alone. In the Internet Explorer section you can disable the IE Phishing Filter and/or the IE Phishing Verification Balloon Tips.

18. Once more, click Next. To enable Vista to install while being unattended, fill in all of the required fields. This allows for a fully automated installation - just put in the Vista installer DVD, click start, and you won’t need to interact with the installation at all.

19. Make sure to check the Regional tab if you’d like to specify a default Timezone, Keyboard layout, Time and currency format etc. Click Apply when you’re done.

20. Now you’ll be asked how you want to save the changes made to Vista. I’d suggest Rebuild one. Click OK.

21. And now watch as vLite rebuilds your version of Vista.

22. It isn’t particularly entertaining.

23. Once the process has completed, click Next.

24. From the Make bootable ISO for testing or burner screen, click Make ISO.

25. And select a location to save your new Vista ISO.

26. Watching the ISO being created isn’t much more interesting than watching the “new” version of Vista being built.

27. Once it’s done, click Exit.

28. Now burn your ISO to a DVD, and you’ll have your custom, bootable version of Vista ready to install on your PC, the next time the need arises.

What's new in Microsoft Office 2010 ?

2009-08-18T09:19:00.002+08:00

Microsoft Office 2010 (codename Office 14) is the next version of the Microsoft Office productivity suite for Microsoft Windows. It entered development during 2006 while Microsoft was finishing work on Microsoft Office 12, which was released as the 2007 Microsoft Office System.

It was previously thought that Office 2010 would ship in the first half of 2009, but Steve Ballmer has officially announced that Office 2010 will ship in 2010. The new version will implement the ISO compliant version of Office Open XML which was standardized as ISO 29500 in March 2008.

The software giant plans to offer a Web-based version of its Office productivity suite, known as Office Web that will debut with the release of Office 2010. Office Web will include online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. The next versions of Microsoft Office Visio, OneNote, Microsoft Office Project, and Publisher will feature the ribbon interface element used in other Office 2007 applications.

Builds
Earlier this year, on April 15, 2009, Microsoft confirmed that Office 2010 will be officially released in the first quarter of 2010. They also announced on May 12, 2009 at an event, that Office 2010 will begin technical testing during July. It will also be the first version of Office to ship in both 32-Bit and 64-bit versions.

New features
At present, the technical preview of Office 2010 would not be available as it will be starting from July onwards, but when Microsoft used it to show improved integration with Windows 7 at its event this week, various experts find out some of the new features of the new Office.

• The ribbon surface was introduced in Office 2007 and it is here to stay, but now the Office 2010 ribbon gets the flatter Windows 7 look. Ribbon is a form of toolbar, combined with a tab bar.

• In the new application, instead of the round Office icon, there is a button in each app that looks like the buttons for the different tabs on the ribbon, in the signature colour of that application (green for Excel, blue for Word, red for PowerPoint, yellow for Outlook and so on).

• The app windows, which were removed in Office 2007, get their window menus back. The app let you restore, move, size, minimise, maximise or close the window.

• Now with a right-click on the Outlook icon on the taskbar, user can create a new email message, appointment, contact or task, or open the inbox, calendar, contact or tasks window.

• In the new office, you can drag a file from the jump-list of any application onto the navigation pane in Outlook to create a new mail message with the file as an attachment. Outlook can automatically ignore all the replies of the messages you are not interested in.

• The company says user can create his own Quick Steps, making them sound like a combination of the Quick Access Toolbar and macros. For e.g., common tasks like filing a message, creating a meeting, marking a flagged message and deleting it at the same time. Also, user can create quick steps for things he do over and over again in Outlook.

• In new Office outlook, voice mail can be converted to the text and sent as an email. Also, it can sync text messages from a Windows Mobile 6.1 phone into user’s inbox and reply to them.

• When you reply all to messages you were BCC on, a warning is displayed on the desktop. Redmond based company claims that starting, searching and shutting down Outlook are all much faster and also promises that Outlook will run and search faster than the 2007 release.

• At present, there is no news on the next version of Office for the Mac, but the next version of Outlook Web Access will run on Safari and Firefox with all features, rather than in a Lite version.

How To Choose a Laptop

2009-08-11T01:00:00.011+08:00

Buying and using a laptop can be a liberating experience. You will have the ability to take your work wherever you go, take your computer to class, a coffee shop, on a trip - anywhere. You may end up spending a bit more for a laptop than you would for a desktop - after all, the individual components need to be smaller to fit in a laptop chassis - but the convenience is worth the extra cost.

1. Decide what screen size you need. If you are used to a larger-sized desktop monitor, you'll want to choose a laptop that has a larger screen. A 15" screen is usually standard, but there are 17" screens available, which may be worth the extra investment. Dell even offers 19" and 20" screens on certain models. If you need or want a large screen, you may want to consider this, especially if you are choosing a laptop as a desktop replacement. Also, consider if you want a wide screen monitor or a standard monitor. A wide screen monitor is good if you would like to watch movies on your laptop, or if you frequently need to have two applications open side by side.

2. Decide what kind of networking features you want. One of the most popular current features of laptops is wireless Internet access. With wireless access, you can get on the Internet wherever there is a "hotspot" - an area that the public is allowed to use an Internet signal, whether it's for a fee or free. You can also set up a home network and access the Internet anywhere in your house. Most laptops have slots for network cards, but if you want built-in network access, then make sure your laptop has a built-in network card. It's a nice feature if wireless Internet access appeals to you.

3. Determine your battery needs. You'll want to look for a laptop with a battery that lasts a long time if you will be taking your laptop on the road (or on the patio with no electrical outlet). Starting up your laptop is a big drain on a battery, and you may not get much time - perhaps only an hour or two - on a standard battery. So if you will be using your laptop away from a power source a lot, make sure that your laptop features a long battery life.

4. Look into the warranty and service plan. Computer companies and resellers have varying warranties and service plans for laptops. Some companies have you send your laptop back if anything goes wrong, some want you to take it to a service depot (which may be inconveniently located up to 50 miles away), and others will come to your home or business and repair it on the spot. Also, make sure that you can afford to wait the length of time promised for service; Dell has a great next business day plan, whereas some others take weeks to get issues resolved. If your business, school or other activities can't wait an indeterminate amount of time for resolution, make sure to get a next-day (or two day) service plan. Be sure to also check what both the warranty and the service plan cover; some cover very little, while others cover hardware and sometimes software as well. Certain warranties and service plans are voided if you spill on or drop your laptop (even accidentally), while others fully cover anything that could go wrong for any reason. Some companies offer secondary service plans if you have a drop or spill. Count on one of the two happening at some point, so consider this secondary policy if it is offered. Also check your homeowner's or renter's insurance; it may cover accidental spills and drops, so you may not need to purchase an extra service plan for that.

You may already have a favorite brand of desktop computer - it's likely that if you like a particular desktop, the same brand will produce a laptop you like. Just like a desktop, those little upgrades that seem expensive when you are buying a laptop are worth it. Whether you are looking for a laptop as your main computer or as a secondary computer for work or school, you'll love the ease and portability of a laptop. Have fun with your new computer! Oh, an check out Dell's latest Netbook, the Dell Adamo.

Quick Tips:

Consider what you need in terms of screen size by analyzing how you will use your laptop.
Decide if you want a wireless network card built in.
Make sure your laptop has a long battery life if you will be using it away from a power source a lot.
Read the warranty and service plans carefully.

How To Reset, Remove, Clear or Reveal CMOS BIOS Security Password

2009-08-07T07:14:00.013+08:00

There are times that we need to reset the computer’s BIOS security password. Yesterday I was at the local government technical school facility and the person who is in charge of the computer told me that they are not able to reinstall Windows because they are not able to get in the BIOS to set the boot order as it is password protected. The lecturers do not know the password as it is not set by them, but by some unknown student.

The most common way that most of us know on how to reset or clear the BIOS password is to physically remove the power from the computer by disconnecting the power plug and then removing a battery for 30 minutes from the motherboard. Another way is to reset the clear CMOS jumper on the motherboard itself. Both of the 2 methods mentioned works because most motherboards use a battery to sustain the BIOS/CMOS settings for the motherboards PROM chip. So by cutting off the battery power, the BIOS/CMOS settings will be erased.

If for some reason you’re unable to reset the computer’s BIOS or CMOS security password by removing the battery or clearing the CMOS jumper (using a laptop), here are few tools which you can try to use it to clear the BIOS password.

AMI Backdoor or Default BIOS Passwords

A.M.I.
AAMMMIII
AMI
AMI SW
AMI?SW
AMI_SW
BIOS
CONDO
HEWITT RAND
LKWPETER
MI
Oder
PASSWORD

Award Backdoor or Default BIOS Passwords

589589
589721
595595
598598
1322222
_award
ALFAROME
ALLY
ALLy
aLLy
aLLY
aPAf
award
AWARD PW
AWARD SW
Award SW
AWARD?SW
AWARD?SW
AWARD_PW
AWARD_SW
awkward
AWKWARD
BIOSTAR
CONCAT
condo
Condo
CONDO
d8on
djonet
HLT
HLT
J256
j256
J262
j262
j322
j332
J332
J64
j64
KDD
KDD
lkwpeter
Lkwpeter
LKWPETER
PINT
pint
SER
SKY_FOX
SYXZ
syxz
szyx
TTPTHA
ZAAAADA
ZAAADA
ZAAADA
ZBAAACA
ZBAAACA
ZJAAADC
ZJAAADC

Phoenix Backdoor or Default BIOS Passwords

This is probably the most up to date and popular CMOS decryption tool. CmosPwd decrypts password stored in cmos used to access BIOS SETUP. It works with the following BIOSes: ACER/IBM BIOS, AMI BIOS, AMI WinBIOS 2.5, Award 4.5x/4.6x/6.0, Compaq (1992), Compaq (New version), IBM (PS/2, Activa, Thinkpad), Packard Bell, Phoenix 1.00.09.AC0 (1994), a486 1.03, 1.04, 1.10 A03, 4.05 rev 1.02.943, 4.06 rev 1.13.1107, Phoenix 4 release 6 (User), Gateway Solo - Phoenix 4.0 release 6, Toshiba and Zenith AMI. With CmosPwd, you can also backup, restore and erase/kill cmos. You will have to logged in as administrator, run ioperm -i command and then run cmospwd_win.exe

Download: Download CmosPwd 5.0

!Bios by eleventh alliance

!Bios is a tool originally developed for a brute, blunt removal of passwords from BIOSes. Through its development it has been severely extended. !Bios can decrypt the passwords used in some most common BIOS (including various bioses/versions by IBM, American Megatrends Inc, Award and Phoenix). !Bios can do crude, brutal attacks (blasters) which removes password from a lot of Bioses. A bit dangerous though, can give unexpected and unwanted results.

Download: Download !Bios

PC CMOS Cleaner

PC CMOS Cleaner is an easy-to-use tool to recover, delete, decode and display the superior passwords stored in BIOS whatever the brand is. Most types of BIOS such as AWARD, AMI, Compaq, Phoenix, Samsung, IBM, Compaq, DTK, Thinkpad, Sony, Toshiba are supported. It’s an bootable CD that runs on x86 and x86_64 computers. It can display the superior passwords of the BIOS, remove BIOS password(will set the BIOS to default status, need reset date).

Download: Download PC CMOS Cleaner

Windows 7 RTM Cracked With OEM License Key

2009-08-05T01:24:00.002+08:00

Well, that didn't take long.

With every release of Windows is the inevitable race by the pirate community to crack it. Even with activation schemes, which make things considerably more challenging, hackers were able to find a way to activate Windows Vista with a special OEM key. This very same hack has now made its way to activate Windows 7 RTM.

Such a key allows OEMs to pre-activate machines – something definitely not meant for the consumer market. The OEM activation system relies on a special BIOS that identifies itself to Windows. A software hack is all that's required to fool Windows into thinking that any machine is an authorized one that can be activated using the OEM license key.

The OEM license key this time around was extracted from a Windows 7 Ultimate DVD image from Lenovo, which contained the data that hackers needed to make the activation tools.

This type of hack is particularly difficult for Microsoft to stop because it means that it would lock out and greatly inconvenience Windows 7 integration processes already underway at one of its OEM partners – in this case, Lenovo.

Microsoft wasn't able to block out the OEM BIOS hack for Windows Vista until it released Service Pack 1, leading us to suspect that the same could apply for Windows 7.

Intel: First Time PC Buyers Don't Get Netbooks

2009-08-01T09:22:00.002+08:00

Apparently, netbooks aren't the real deal.

Entry level computers for first-time computer buyers are usually inexpensive, no-frills, and usually just perform basic functions. The same descriptors could be applied to netbooks, Intel says that the little machines aren't appealing to those buying his or her first PC.

"I don't think first-time buyers are going to buy netbooks," Sean Maloney, Intel's general manager of sales and marketing, Intel Technology Summit on Wednesday in San Francisco, quoted by Reuters. "The first time you buy something you want the real deal. It's consistent not just in China, but all around the world."

"Netbooks are predominantly... a second or third purchase from someone who's already got a notebook," he said, according to Engadget. "The first time you buy something, you want the real deal. It's a human behavior thing... it's [the same] all around the world."

"If you're going to spend your hard-earned money for the first time, you're going to put a computer in your house," Maloney added.

This doesn't represent any change in stance at Intel, as it always maintained that netbooks were always a supplementary purchase for those who already owned a computer.

Netbooks are adequate machines for those only looking from a computer the ability to surf the internet and email – and this represents a large portion of internet users. Regardless of whether or not netbooks are attractive or viable first PC purchases, Intel's probably going to be pleased as long as it's one of its chips.

7 things to do after installing kubuntu

2009-07-26T00:32:00.003+08:00

I installed Kubuntu and tried it for few days, here are some tips for you if you are planning to instal Kubuntu. Kubuntu is the distant cousin of Ubuntu and uses KDE as its desktop environment. Canonical doesn't pay as much attention to Kubuntu, Kubuntu is generally regarded as one of the worst KDE based distros. I've heard that OpenSuse is a better option to try KDE. Here are few quick things to setup in Kubuntu:

1. Install Flash 10
To install the official Adobe Flash plugin (Flash 10) for Firefox, install the adobe-flashplugin package:

sudo apt-get install adobe-flashplugin

2. Install Java 6.0
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin

3. Install GIMP: I don't know why KDE doesn't ship with GIMP. It is obviously the best image editor other than Photoshop. One of the reasons for this could be that GIMP is an GTK based app.
sudo apt-get install gimp
Initially GIMP will look ugly but we can change that easily later on.

4. Turn off Wallet: The wallet must be one of the most irritating thing ever made for PC. It keeps on nagging for your password after every 5 min. So here is how you stop it.
K Menu > Applications > Settings > Wallet Management
Now look in your System Tray (it is normally at the extreme right side on your panel) for one brown colored icon. Right click on it and select configure wallet and then uncheck Enable KDE wallet subsystem.

5. Play DVDs:
sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2

if this doesnt work for some reasons use this command:
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh

6. Make GTK Apps Beautiful: If you try installing Gnome apps like GIMP, Firefox in KDE they will look ugly because they are based on GTK. To make them look like a normal (and beautiul) KDE app type this in a terminal:
sudo apt-get install gtk-qt-engine-kde4
Now got to K Menu > System Settings > Appearence > GTK Styles and Fonts

Here select the option Use my KDE style in GTK applications
also select Use my KDE fonts in GTK applications

Now your Gnome apps will start looking pretty too. After using the above settings my GIMP started looking good before using that GIMP looked like some Windows 98 software :P
[thanks Tombuntu]

7. Add Avatar: You can add cool avatars for your account.
Go to Settings > About Me > Password and User Account

Well KDE 4.1 motto says 'Don't look back' well I have decided that from now on I won't ever try KDE. On the very next day Plasma crashed and I had to reinstall Ubuntu.

Civil Servants Want Bonus Incorporated In Service Scheme

2009-07-16T08:35:00.000+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, July 15 (Bernama) -- The Congress of Union Employees in the Public and Civil Service or Cuepacs, is seeking to incorporate the bonus element in the service scheme of civil servants to ensure it is paid annually.

Currently, bonus is paid at the discretion of the government based on its ability to pay, unlike in the private sector where it is an annual practice.

In good times, the 1.2 million civil servants have enjoyed a bonus of a month's salary or a minimum of RM1,000.

The congress is also proposing that the interest rate on housing loans be reduced from the current four per cent to one per cent annually.

These are among Cuepacs' new proposals to the government, as part of its review of the service conditions of civil servants, in a memorandum to be submitted to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak soon.

Cuepacs sources told Bernama today that the memorandum -- approved by the congress' general council meeting in Ipoh recently -- would also seek to change the "golden hand shake" payment from the present maximum 150 days to the actual number of unused leave the officers had accumulated.

The "golden hand shake" is monetary payment for unused leave accumulated by an officer throughout his government service.

Another major change Cuepacs is seeking is in the calculation of pensions.

It is proposing that the present pension formulae based on the last drawn basic salary be changed to also include all allowances.

What this means is that when calculating the pension, all housing, cost of living, meal, mileage, driver, hardship and entertainment allowances should also be added to the last drawn basic salary.

Cuepacs is also seeking a new benefit in the form of leave to look after a sick child, with the duration depending on the length of the sickness.

Another new benefit it wants is reimbursement for dental implants and eye treatment.

On the various service schemes, it wants the present matrix promotion system to be replaced with a linear system, with additional five incremental steps.

It also wants to create a sub-professional scheme for diploma holders.

The sources said Cuepacs leaders were optimistic that the government would consider their proposals with an "open mind".

"We realise that the proposals, if accepted in toto, will increase the administrative cost of the government tremendously, but what we are hoping is that our request be met in stages," they added.

-- BERNAMA

2009-07-15T23:07:00.003+08:00

Just a nine months after the Apple [AAPL] iPhone App store launched, Apple announced that they had hit 1 Billion application downloads from the App Store, today they have hit another milestone with a massive 1.5 Billion downloads.

“The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up."

That is a serious amount of downloads, although it is still not clear how many of the downloads are for paid apps and how many are for free Apps.

The 1.5 Billion downloads is still very impressive, and Apple have sold a total of over 40 million iPhones to date.

Press Release

The Brand Keyboard

2009-07-15T22:50:00.003+08:00

Here is an interesting keyboard design from designer Ignacio Pilotto, which rather than featuring the alphabet it features brands replacing each letter.

"The repetition of the logos used by the advertising psychology, causes us to systematically recognize the brands, getting us to recognize the logos rather than our own alphabet."

It certainly is an interesting idea, it would probably take me a while to learn how to type on this thing, as I still spend most of my time looking at the keys when I am typing.

PIKOM PC Fair 2009 (II)

2009-07-01T01:01:00.000+08:00

PIKOM PC FAIR 2009 (II) LAUNCH ALERT (click here)

31 July - 2 August 2009 (11:00am - 9:00pm)

· KL Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur - Kuala Lumpur City Centre, 50888 Kuala Lumpur

· Village Mall, Sungai Petani - Kedah

· Dewan Perbandaran Taiping - Perak

· Batu Pahat Mall, Batu Pahat - Johor

7 August - 9 August 2009 (11:00am - 9:00pm)

· Penang International Sports Arena, Penang - Jalan Tun Dr Awang, 11900 Relau

· Mahkota Parade Melaka, Melaka - Jalan Merdeka, 75000 Bandar Hilir

· Sabah Trade Centre, Kota Kinabalu - Sabah

· Berjaya Megamall, Kuantan - Pahang

13 August - 15 August 2009 (11:00am - 9:00pm)

· KB Mall, Kota Bharu - Kelantan

· Terengganu Trade Centre, Kuala Terengganu - Terengganu

14 August - 16 August 2009 (11:00am - 9:00pm)

· Persada Johor International Convention Centre, Johor Bahru - Jalan Abdullah Ibrahim, 80000 Johor Bahru

· Stadium Indera Mulia, Ipoh, Perak - Jalan Ghazali Jawi, 31400 Ipoh

Exhibitor Information - Venue Layouts

KL Wedding Expo 2009

2009-07-01T01:00:00.000+08:00

Do not miss this great opportunity to participate in
the city's most established wedding exposition.

The KL Wedding Expo is the best platform to promote wedding services to Malaysian pre-nuptial couples. In order to make sure that the quality of the exhibition for both exhibitors and visitors remained at the customary high standards like our past shows, the organizer will meticulously inviting the rare breed of high caliber wedding suppliers that visitors will hardly be able to meet them in any other typical bridal fair and gather them all under one-roof.

The Exhibition :	9^th KL Wedding Expo 2009
Venue :	Hall 3, Level 3, Mid Valley Exhibition Centre, Kuala Lumpur, West Malaysia.
Date :	10^th - 12^th July 2009
Time :	11:00am - 9:00pm
Admission :	Entrance is FREE
Major Exhibit :	Bridal Boutique, Beauty & Health, Bakeries & Culinary Services, Décor & Rentals, Gift & Premium, Fashion & Flowers, Fashion Jewelries, Hotels & Restaurants, Honeymoon & Travel, Photography & Videography, Publications & Printing services etc.

Megan Fox Apologizes for Snubbing Child's Rose

2009-06-26T06:54:00.000+08:00

Kodak is offering $5,000 to the first person to identify the boy who unsuccessfully tried to hand a rose to Megan Fox as she was whisked down the red carpet at the London premiere of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Fox has since apologized, saying she didn’t see the young fan - and Kodak has offered to arrange a rose exchange. Send an email to yellowroseboy@gmail.com if you have any info or can help turn the rose boy’s dreams into reality.

2009-06-21T13:59:00.001+08:00

More Heroes at Comic Con Info, Claire’s College Set Pics

So are the guys of Heroes attending Comic Con ‘09 or not? We’ve heard a lot of mixed messages from the crew, in particular producer Tim Kring, but hopefully this will clear it up. According to E! Online, they have gotten confirmation from NBC that Heroes will now front a small panel on Saturday, with Tim Kring and some of the cast (but not all of them) attending. So there you have it.

Meanwhile, more set pics from Heroes Season 3 with Claire and her new college roommate, new castmember Madeline Zima, playing Claire’s roommate, Gretchen (via):

Zune HD versus iPhone 3.0?

2009-06-08T07:10:00.000+08:00

Next week we expect to hear announcements about the iPhone 3.0 release. We have some of the basic knowledge points already but if Apple is up to their usual ways, there will be some surprises - and we're looking to see/hear what they are.

BTW, we're hoping Microsoft is holding a few aces up her sleeve as well when she releases the Zune HD. How cool would that be?

Obviously (at this point), since we're pretty sure no Zune Phone is coming, a comparison between the Zune HD and the iPhone isn't fair - it really is more of a Zune HD versus iPod Touch question but … the question is this …

Will the Zune HD grab any market share away from the iPhone (or iPod Touch) 3.0?

Celeron Scorches Past 8GHz, Second Highest Clockspeed Ever Achieved

2009-05-30T15:43:00.000+08:00

There's a reason Intel's Celeron line has consistently proven popular among overclockers. Out of CPU-Z's top 20 list of highest clocked CPUs, Celeron chips -- most of them of the Celeron 347 variety -- occupy 12 spots, or 60 percent of the list. And recently setting a new record for the No. 2 spot, Belgian overclocker 'Blind' from Madshrimps pushed his Celeron 352 chip (Cedarmill core) to 8.116GHz.

In order to ramp up that high, Blind used the Dragon F1 Extreme Edition LN2 cooler with gum filling the gaps around the socket to prevent condensation. It took nearly 1.9V to coax the Celeron past 8GHz, well above its stock 1.3V rating.

Such high voltages and extreme cooling methods limit the usefulness to chasing overclocking records as opposed to any kind of day-to-day operations, but we'll admit to being impressed at seeing a 3.2GHz Celeron achieve almost a 5GHz OC. And hey, reaching 5.7GHz on air isn't too shabby either.

Plenty of pics and more info here.

New iPhone in June?

2009-05-24T10:37:00.002+08:00

Apple has a habit of refreshing its iPod and iPhone-type products on a pretty regular schedule, so a new iPhone in June really wouldn't be the surprise of the century, but now we've got word to that effect from the United Arab Emirates. Etisalat is picking up the iPhone 3G over there, along with providing support for existing iPhones sold on the gray market, but the writeup in Business 24/7 makes mention of a brand new iPhone hitting in June, which Etisalat will also get at launch. This could easily be a misunderstanding on the part of the reporter, a misquote, or a combination of signs, portents and omens, but it's certainly an interesting little tidbit. We'd have to think that anyone liable to get this story right would also be aware that a brand new iPhone would be worth more than a passing reference, but we suppose we'll just have to wait and see. Apple Insider also mentions rumblings of an upcoming iPhone having a fairly significant architecture overhaul -- that's mostly conjecture at this point, but might make sense (or room) for an iPhone nano. And you know how we love the iPhone nano.

Camilla Belle Hottest in Elle Italia Magazine - May 2009

2009-05-17T19:33:00.000+08:00

Camilla Belle Routh, better known simply as Camilla Belle (born October 2, 1986), is an actress. Some of her works include The Lost World: Jurassic Park, When a Stranger Calls and 10,000 B.C. She has dual US-Brazilian citizenship.

Checkout Here Camilla Belle is posted on Elle Magazine Italy for the month of May 2009.

Muslim woman appointed as Obama's advisor

2009-05-11T21:10:00.001+08:00

USA, the land of opportunities, keeps on proving the great values which form basis of it's greatness. It's true that United States of America isn't great in all respects, only Guantanamo Bay is enough to validate this fact. However, it's also a fact that it's values, which it continues to practice and strengthen are phenomenal.

I quite remember those words of Obama in which he described his struggle as a continuance of what Rosa once sat for and what Martin once walked for and he ended with quite an optimistic words, something that he and the people of America always keep on proving by virtue of their acts.

Dalia Mogahed, an Egyptian-born American, has been appointed to a position in President Barack Obama's administration becoming the first Muslim woman to have this honor. She would be advising President Obama on prejudices and problems faced by Muslims. The Muslim world, including the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, has welcomed this move.

We, the Muslims, hope that this will help paving a way towards inter-faith dialogue and harmony.

The Egyptian-born American who heads the Gallup American Center for Muslim Studies, a non-governmental research center providing data-driven analysis on the views of Muslim populations around the world, became the first Muslim veiled woman to be appointed to a position in the White House.
"I am very honored to be given this opportunity to serve my country in this way," Mogahed, who will be Obama's window into the Muslim American community, told media.

Multi-processor support coming for Firefox

2009-05-10T19:29:00.002+08:00

The project, which lacks a catchy name like other Mozilla projects (like TaskFox, Ubiquity, or Chocolate Factory) is coordinated by long time Mozillian, Benjamin Smedberg; and also integrated by Joe Drew, Jason Duell, Ben Turner, and Boris Zbarsky in the core team.According to the loose roadmap published, a simple implementation that works with a single tab (not sessions support, no secure connections, either on Linux or Windows, probably not even based on Firefox) should be reached around mid-July. Phase II will deal with the interactions between the two process types (chrome and content), and is aimed for November.Phase III will take on adapting the APIs for extensibility, accessibility, and performance. By this time (not even guesstimated), we could see a release to play with. Finally, Phase IV will extend the previous development to support several content processes at a time. Security sandbxing will be covered in a later phase.So it seems we won’t see a multiprocess Firefox for at least a year or so. However, some decisions like taking Chromium’s networking stack to replace Necko, could accelerate the process. As you may know, Chromium is the open source version of Google’s Chrome.Another consideration is that changes would come at the platform level, so in reality, any Mozilla-based application would be able to create independent processes when web content rendering is required.

Intel launches new chip logos, rating system

2009-05-05T12:32:00.002+08:00

Intel has revamped its processor badging and rating system. Consumers are the main target, though business systems will get new badging too.

The new badges include a die (the chip minus the packaging) accent in the upper right hand corner, a prominent main brand (e.g., "Core"), and the modifier (e.g., "i7").

Intel has also instituted a star system that rates chips from five stars (best performance in class) to one star (lowest performance). "So when a consumer goes into a Best Buy store they can distinguish between Centrino, Core, Celeron, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad," said Intel spokesman Bill Calder.

That may be a little easier said than done, however. Some consumers (but not including "tech savvy" Giampaolo, of course) will still need help from the sales person to decipher the badging. A daunting challenge in the case of consumer laptops, which are typically plastered with a hodgepodge of stickers from Intel, Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, AMD's ATI graphics chip unit, and other companies.

Intel is in the process of moving to a "pretty aggressive brand simplification plan," Calder said. "When we launched Core i7, we said we're moving to a single primary client brand, which is Core. We're moving in that direction," he said.

The Atom processor will not get a modifier. In the future, the Nehalem server processor, currently branded only as "Xeon" with a letter and number suffix, may also get new branding to make it more readily identifiable as part of the Nehalem architecture like its desktop sibling the Core i7, Calder said.

New Intel processor badges with "die" accent

(Credit: Intel)

Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope Has Been Released

2009-04-29T11:14:00.004+08:00

New features include:

1) Gnome 2.26 desktop environment, which includes the following new features:

a) brasero, an all-in-one CD burning application.
b) Improved multi-monitor handling.

2) X.Org server 1.6, which supports several new video cards, as well as ATI-specific performance improvements including EXA acceleration by default, 2D support for R6xx/R7xx, 3D support for R5xx cards, along with an updated -fglrx proprietary driver for R6xx/R7xx 3D support.

3) New notification style and preferences.
4) Boot performance is "significantly improved".
5) Linux kernel 2.6.28-11.37, which is based on 2.6.28.8.
6) Ext4 file system support.

7) Server edition includes support for cloud computing via Eucalyptus, an open source technology which is included in Ubuntu as a technology preview, enables you to use your own servers to deploy, experiment and test your own private cloud that matches the Amazon EC2 API.

8) Turn-key mail servers with the dovecot-postfix package, which supports SMTP, POP3 and IMAP with TLS and SASL.

Ubuntu has published upgrade instructions for those wishing to migrate from 8.10 (the previous release).

"To upgrade from Ubuntu 8.10 on a desktop system, press Alt+F2 and type in update-manager -d into the command box. Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release '9.04' is available. Click Upgrade and follow the on-screen instructions.

"To upgrade from Ubuntu 8.10 on a server system: install the update-manager-core package if it is not already installed; edit /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades and set Prompt=normal; launch the upgrade tool with the command sudo do-release-upgrade; and follow the on-screen instructions."

Google's Matt Cutts shows us how fast JJ can load using an Intel X25-E Etreme Single-Level Cell (SLC) SDD. The X25-E has a 75 microsecond latency, and up to 250 MB/s read speeds, and 170 MB/s write speeds. From notebook power-on to Firefox launched and running Google, it was 23.0 seconds, with about 5.5 seconds being the notebook's BIOS. At 18 seconds it had a mouse pointer and at around 22 to 23 seconds Firefox was loaded with the Google page.

Change Case in MS Word 2007

2009-04-28T11:05:00.000+08:00

If you have recently upgraded from Word 2003 it would be difficult to find things you could do by clicking the menus. It took some time for me to find the “change case” option and was surprised to find it was right in front of me all the time.

First let me tell you the easier and faster way.

Type or copy-paste following sentence in Word 2007:

the quick brown dog jumped over the lazy dog.
Selecting it and one press of Shift+F3 changes it to

The quick brown dog jumped over the lazy dog.

Another press of Shift+F3 changes it to

THE QUICK BROWN DOG JUMPED OVER THE LAZY DOG.

Now remove the full-stop (dot) at the end and repeat the Shift+F3 again you will also get the title case conversion like:
The Quick Brown Dog Jumped Over The Lazy Dog

That was short-cut method. The usual way to do the same thing is either by menu or toolbar. As you know there is no menu in Word 2007, you can use the toolbar in the home ‘ribbon’

The procedure:

1. Select the text you’d like to change
2. Click the Change Case button in the Font section of the Home ribbon (the button has an upper case and lower case A)
3. You have a variety of options from which to choose. For example, you can choose lowercase, uppercase or toggle case (as shown in figure)
4. Select the option you want

Your text will change to match your selection.

Installing Flash Player Plugin on Firefox without having Administrator Access or Permissions

2009-04-22T12:26:00.001+08:00

This is how I managed to install it without administrator permissions:

Download the XPI archive of the Flash Player Plugin to your hard disk (right click on the download link then "Save link as.."). XPI archives are only ZIP files containing the files used by the plugins.
So you can safely rename the file you just downloaded, called flashplayer-win.xpi, into flashplayer-win.zip (you are changing its extension from .xpi to .zip)
Extract the files in the archive. You can use any program capable of opening .zip files (WinZip, WinRAR or the free and great 7-zip). There are also websites which can uncompress archives: wobzip.org.
Copy the files flashplayer.xpt and NPSWF32.dll to %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Plugins\
- %APPDATA% is the folder which holds your applications profiles and settings.
- You can open this folder simply choosing "Start → Run → Type in %APPDATA% → OK".
- In case you don't have a Plugins folder you can create one and place your files there.
Restart Firefox
Enjoy your flash websites!

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi DVD-VCD Release

2009-04-19T08:21:00.001+08:00

MUMBAI: Post 26/11 when venturing into a movie hall was seen as being unsafe by everyone, this movie got them all out of their homes and into the theatres and it helped bring back the much needed smiles and laughter into their lives.

This movie continued to grow from strength to strength and became the highest grossing film for both Yash Raj Films & Shahrukh Khan and the second highest grossing movie of all time.

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi was truly a miracle in itself.

YRF Home Entertainment is happy to announce the release of the film’s much anticipated DVD/VCD and this is your chance to bring home the magic of the most beautiful love story ever!

Directed by Aditya Chopra, starring the superstar Shahrukh Khan who was instantly adored by millions as the immensely lovable Suri and as the fun loving Raj and the talented Anushka Sharma who played the role of Taani to perfection.

Enjoy the movie with your entire family and you will fall in love again with the winning music, the simplicity of the characters and heart warming tale of the extraordinary love story - Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi.

The two-disc edition features a host of exclusives. Along with the making of the film, trailers and promos, you can watch never seen before deleted scenes, SRK unplugged and the wonderful jodi of Shahrukh Khan & Anushka Sharma in conversation.

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi has evoked a sensational response from audiences all over the world, which is clearly reflected in its record-breaking collections and continues to win hearts across the globe.

And now, Surinder-I-work-for-Punjab-Power and Taani are coming to your home to light up your lives, ji!

Is New Tata Nano the World’s Most Fuel Efficient Petrol Car?

2009-04-16T19:42:00.008+08:00

Struggling Indian car company Tata Motors has announced the commercial launch of the Tata Nano, the most fuel-efficient petrol-driven car in India, and quite possibly the world.

The Tata Nano, keenly anticipated across India since its unveiling early last year, is capable of an incredible 23.6km/litre (55.5 mpg) and ultra-low carbon emissions of 101 g/km, one of the lowest in India. Oh, and with prices starting at about 100,000 rupees ($2,050), it’s also the cheapest car in the world.

Speaking at the launch, Chairman Ratan N. Tata said, “The Nano represents the spirit of breaking conventional barriers. It is to the credit of the team at Tata Motors that a car once thought impossible by the world is now a reality. I hope it will provide safe, affordable, four-wheel transportation to families who till now have not been able to own a car.

The four-seater Nano is powered by a 2-cylinder engine capable of delivering a top speed of 105 km/h (65 mph), more than enough for many of India’s congested cities.

The cars, on display across India from April 1st, are currently being manufactured at the company’s Pantnagar plant in Uttarakhand in limited numbers. A new dedicated plant, at Sanand in Gujarat, will be ready in 2010 with an annualised capacity of 350,000 cars.

Writer’s Note - Tata are claiming that the Tata Nano will become the most fuel efficient car in India. I’d be really interested to hear your comments on whether or not it will also be the most efficient in the world, or whether you’re aware of any more frugal cars in the US or elsewhere?

MSC Malaysia Job Camp

2009-04-08T10:09:00.002+08:00

MSC Malaysia Job Camp
Job camp is designed specifically for any Knowledge worker who wants to improve or expand their current ICT skills and knowledge. This program seeks to help knowledge workers with the support and access to courses and trainings to stay aligned with the current needs of the ICT industry.

Objective:

To equip K-workers with the relevant training for available positions such as Java Application Developers, Animators, Server Administrators, etc.

Opportunities Created through the MSC Malaysia Job Camp

Available K-Workers and the Malaysian ICT industry can benefit from the Job Camp programme. This is achieved by:

Available K-Workers
*Enhance employability in the job market.
*Improve their knowledge and skill sets and also stay abreast of the latest trends and best practices.

ICT Industry
*Readily available talent pool.

Programme Details
Job Camp period ranges from one to six months of training
Cost of programme:
*FREE training for successful applicants.
*Note: Does not include food, transportation and accommodation.

Who can participate

*Available K-Workers (currently unemployed, in-between jobs, changing fields, retrenched)
*Malaysian graduates.
*Must obtain CGPA 2.5 and above
*Hold at least a Diploma in IT-related fields
*Anyone who is interested to pursue a career in the ICT industry.

How to apply
It’s easy, just:
Fill up the online application form here
And wait for approval from us. Our system will notify you of your status.

For more information

CliC MSC MALAYSIA CLIENT CONTACT CENTRE

E-mail: mailto:clic@mdec.com.my

Tel: 1-800-88-8338 (within Malaysia)

Tel: +6 03 8315 3000 (outside Malaysia)

Fax: +03 8315 3115

A Memorable Day In My Life

2009-03-31T20:32:00.003+08:00

52-pound Lego Mon Calamari Star Cruiser Can Kill Darth Vader on Impact

2009-03-21T18:18:00.006+08:00

If this 7-foot long model of the Mon Calamari flagship from Return of the Jedi—complete with integrated lighting—doesn't impress you on first sight, consider this: It uses 30,500 bricks valued in $5,500.

The stunning Lego model—created by Thomas Benedikt—was created to scale with the official Lego Star Destroyer, which is an impressive 3,104 pieces beast on its own. According to Thomas, the ship was almost impossible to recreate in Lego because of the difficulty of its surfaces: There's no right angles at all.

On top of being difficult for creating the CAD plans, in a Lego model the curved surfaces make it extra difficult. After considering many building techniques, he decided to use studs joined by hinges, with transparent yellow studs to let the light from the star cruiser's interior to shine through.

The resulting model is beautiful, bigger than many apartments in New York, and the final effect when lighted up is simply amazing, as you can see in this gallery.

Extracting SATA driver from their EXE without Floppy Disk(FD) drive.

2009-02-25T15:34:00.003+08:00

Options:
Obiously, you don't have any option to use Floppy Disk.

Materials needed:
1) SATA drivers(from your respective chipset manufacturer website, for me it's intel http://downloadcenter.intel.com)
2) WinImage(30 days trial copy from http://www.winimage.com)

Steps:
1) Download the intel SATA drivers. Make sure you get the correct file by downloading something called "Floppy Configuration Utility".

2) Extract the file and you will get green icon "f6flpy32".

3) Extract the "f6flpy32" again and you will get this a file with .IMA extension.

4) Ok, now you need to open up WinImage and browse to the latest extracted folder "f6flpy32" to load the .IMA file.

5) TATA, you will see all the SATA driver files needed for slipstreaming WinXp using nLite. Before you can use them, extract them to any folder(I name it "SATA driver" on my desktop) by selecting all of the files and choose "Extract".

6) You will be prompted, choose "Extract all files into the same folder".

7) If you open up the "SATA driver" folder, the content is exactly the same with the content Floppy Disk. The difference is that you don't need a FD.

Proceed to?
A) Guide for "Slipstreaming SATA driver into WinXp boot cd using nLite"

Shrink Vista Partition for WinXp Installation

2009-02-25T15:34:00.001+08:00

Options:
A) If you have an available partition for WinXp installation, go to "WinXp Installation".

Materials needed:
1) PerfectDisk 2008(30 days trial version, download here).

Steps:
*make sure you backup the drive you going to shrink just in case anything goes wrong.
1) In Windows Vista, go to "Start", right click on "Computer" and choose "Manage". You will be prompted, just click "Continue".

2) Click on "Disk Management" and you will see the information of your hardisk installed.

3) Right click on the "VistatOS" drive, in my case it's "(C:)" and choose "Shrink Volume...".

4) By default Vista will give you the largest amount of space that you are able to shrink, it's not the free space that you have on that drive. Why?(If you want to find out, please refer to Query 1 or you are satisfied with the amount of space that you can shrink, just proceed to Step 5).

*Steps below followed after I use "PerfectDisk 2008" to empty more usable space for my XP drive. Need help on it? Go here: Get more usable space out of free space using PerfectDisk 2008
5) Please input the amount of space(in MB) for the new drive and allocate wisely, as you need to take into consideration of programs that you will install on this new drive, data storage and so on. I input "1000"(in MB) then only you click "Shrink".

6) Wait for new partition to be created. Then right click on it to choose "New Simple Volume...".

7) Click "Next".

8) Click "Next".

9) Now assign the drive letter(for my case, it's F).

10) Input the "Volume label" as "WinXp" for easy identification later and check "Perform quick format" as well.

11) Choose "Finish" and you have a new partition ready for WinXp installation. Proceed to normal WinXp installation procedure.

Proceed to?
A) If you have an empty partition for WinXp installation, proceed to "WinXp Installation".

Installing Windows Xp on Laptop/Notebook without Floopy Disk

2009-02-17T07:56:00.004+08:00

Options:
A) If you don't have Floppy Disk Drive especially on a notebook. You still can install Win Xp but you need to follow the steps below using nLite.
B) If you have FD drive, skip this step and go to "Shrink Vista Partition for WinXp Installation".
C) If you have an empty partition for WinXp installation, proceed to "WinXp Installation"

Materials needed:
1) nLite(download here), a free tool to help you slipstreaming(integrate) your SATA drivers into WinXp installation disk.
2) Extracted SATA drivers(if you are using Intel chipset Intel 82801GR/GH, 631xESB/632xESB, 82801GHM, ICH8R/ICH9R, 82801HEM SATA RAID Controller, get the drivers from here)

Steps:
1) Get your Windows XP installation disk and copy the contents to a new folder(I named it "WinXp").

2) Extract the SATA drivers you downloaded into a folder, namely "Floppy 32Bit". (Need help for "Extracting SATA driver from their EXE without Floppy Disk(FD)")

3) Run nLite->choose "Next".

4) Now, locate the Windows folder(for me, it's "WinXp").

5) Next again and you will come to "Presets". Ignore this by choosing "Next" again.

6) In "Task Selection", choose "Drivers" and "Bootable ISO" by high-lighting them.

7) Choose "Insert"->"Single driver"

8) Browse to the SATA driver folder(I named it "Floppy 32Bit") and select either one of the .INF file, I choose "iaahci.inf".

9) A screen like below will pop-up, make sure it's "Textmode driver" and select all of them by holding CTRL+A key and choose "OK"

10) You shall see something like this. Choose "Next" and you will be prompted.

11) Choose "Yes" to start the process.

12) Let it finish and choose "Next".

13) Finally, you can create your project as ISO image or burn it directly to CD-R under "Mode". I choose "Direct Burn". You can put anything for "Label" but not too long. Choose "Burn" and you will be prompted again.

14) Choose "Yes" to burn it to CD-R. Wait for it to finish and choose "Next"

15) Choose "Finish" to exit nLite.

Proceed to?
A) Go to "Shrink Vista Partition for WinXp Installation" if you don't have any partition to use.
B) If you have an empty partition for WinXp installation, proceed to "WinXp Installation"

If Software still Shipped on 3.5″ Floppy…

2009-02-15T12:15:00.003+08:00

Do you remember the days when you installed Windows 3.1 from something like 5 floppy disks and a couple more that contained printer drivers… or when Doom could be squished on to a floppy disk. Well, if CD’s hadn’t been invented or any other larger storage then these days we could be looking at 100’s, if not 1000’s of floppy disks for the size of software we see these days. Designers at Antrepo Design Industry have created a bunch of art prints based on the floppy disk.

Photoshop CS4, a cut down version at that, would take up 358 floppies, while a copy of the Sims 3 game would take up a whopping 1760 floppy disks. Check out the prints below. Oh and by the way, Technabob points out that the stack of floppies for Sims 3 would stack over 19 feet tall. Wow.

LaCie's d2 Blu-Ray Burner Hits 8x

2009-02-11T08:01:00.002+08:00

We're pretty sure that blank Blu-ray discs will never be as popular as blank DVDs, largely because of the heart-stopping price. After all, why bother backing up your movies to blank Blu-ray discs that cost almost as much than the original Blu-ray movie? Hmm, maybe that's how the movie studios plan to crush piracy....

Still, there are more legal uses for blank Blu-ray discs [HD video, document back-up] which is why some folk will be interested in the new external Blu-ray burner from style-storage outfit, LaCie.

The d2 External Blu-ray Burner doubles the speed of burning to 8x on both single and dual-sided Blu-ray discs.

Windows XP and Acer Aspire 4520

2009-02-07T12:35:00.002+08:00

Yesterday, my friends ask me to install Windows XP on his new Acer Aspire 4520 . But when I tried to install win xp , this laptop cannot detect the harddisk... Ups... this is happen again like when I tried install windows XP to Aspire 4710.

Should I use nLite to integrate ahci sata driver like this tutorial ?

No! because in Acer Aspire 4520 we just need to change "SATA mode" setting :

1. Turn on aspire 4520

2. Press F2 to enter bios, -> "Main" -> select "SATA mode"

3. Change AHCI Mode to IDE Mode

4. Finally, windows xp will detect the HDD.

Driver for Windows XP :
UPDATE :
169.21_forceware_winxp_32bit_english_whql.exe (VGA) December 19, 2007
14.10_nforce_630a_winxp_english_whql.exe (Chipset)
Atheros wireless win xp driver (WiFi)

Other drivers from Acer CD is compatible with windows XP (except CIR - I still have problem with it)
sorry for my english.. im still learning ;)

UPDATE :
Download complete driver acer aspire 4520 : Download link

This is my device manager :)

click on picture to enlarge

UPDATE :

Acer Aspire 4520 Windows XP Drivers :

AMD Phenom II Overclocked to 6.5GHz - New World Record for 3DMark

2009-02-01T19:43:00.005+08:00

The liquid cooling system - which involved five hundred litres of liquid nitrogen and helium - helped keep the Phenom II X4 cool as it hit 6.5GHz.

If you're wanting to smash benchmark records like they don't exist, you might want to take a leaf out of Team Finland's book: take a Phenom II quad-core processor and overclock it to a blistering 6.5GHz and beyond.

As reported over on Engadget yesterday, the team – in conjunction with Pete Hardman and Sami Makinen from AMD – took an honestly-not-special Phenom II quad-core processor and started applying some major cooling before the overclock attempt. Well, I say 'major cooling': I mean five hundred litres each of liquid nitrogen and liquid helium.

By pushing the core temperature down to a nippy -232 degrees Celsius – that's 41.15 Kelvin, or just a handful of degrees above Absolute Zero – the team were able to tweak the processor to run at an FSB of 280MHz and a multiplier of 22.5, giving a whopping 6.3GHz speed across all four cores. This rather impressive feat allowed Team Finland – and AMD, of course – to snatch the world record for benchmarking suite 3DMark 05 with a mind-boggling top score of 45,474.

While the speeds achieved in this particular experiment aren't really within the reach of your typical gamer – unless your typical gamer works for CERN and has access to large quantities of liquid helium – it's a good indication of just what can be achieved from the new Phenom II chips if you really put your mind to it.

For the “pictures or it didn't happen” crowd, AMD has uploaded a video of the entire event to YouTube for your drooling pleasure. Just don't be tempted to ring around chemical supply shops looking for liquid helium or nitrogen – they have government watchlists for people like that these days...

Dual-Sim Android Phone - The DSTL1

2009-02-01T19:10:00.003+08:00

The DSTL1 is an Android based phone that can take 2 SIM cards allowing you to switch between networks without switching the phone off.

The DSTL1 is powered by a Marvell PXA 310 processor that runs at 624MHz. The phone supports 800/1800 and 1900MHz making it triband compatible. The screen measures 3 inches and runs at a WQVGA resolution at 400 x 200 pixels.

DSTL1 Specifications

* Dual-SIM cards with dual-Standby mode
* 624MHz Marvell PXA 310 processor
* Tri-band GSM/EDGE support (900/1800/1900MHz)
* 3-inch WQVGA touchscreen display, 260k colors
* 802.11b/g WiFi support
* Bluetooth
* 135g (4.75oz), 112 x 54 x 16mm (4.4 x 2.1 x .6 inches)
* 5 megapixel autofocus camera with flash (made by Sharp)

Overall a fantastic looking phone and could be a great step up from the G1.

Installing XP with MassStorage(SATA/RAID) Drivers

2009-01-30T16:18:00.002+08:00

My friend bought a brand new HP Compaq Presario V3000 laptop(came with FreeDOS) last weekend during PC Fair (III) Kuala Lumpur trip.

FreeDOS? How to use? My friend ask me a stupid question, he didn't know it came without Microsoft Windows OS. So I was suggest Ubuntu to him and he told me don't be crazy. Too bad! Another fellow not willing to try Linux

He hand over the laptop to me yesterday and I used to installed Ubuntu 7.10 and it work perfectly. Hey! Please do not said Linux don't have drivers anymore. Let's me tell you why?

After the fun, I have to continue with my task - install Windows XP. WTH? The Windows XP installation failed because lack of SATA /RAID drivers that couldn't found any hard disk. What to do? Solution - "Installing XP with MassStorage(SATA/RAID) Drivers", But i can't find HDD in XP Setup ? How?

Please follow the step by step as below:

1. download Intel Mass Storage(Intel 3600) from HP Compaq Presario driver page.

2. extract the 'SP32492.exe' in any other machine(it will go to c:\spsetup\SP32492 by default).

3. copy c:\spsetup\SP32492\*.* into your USB thumb drive.

4. attach your USB floppy drive into HP Compaq Presario V3000 laptop.

5. boot up from Windows XP installation disk.

6. look at bottom of the installation screen and hit F6 when it said F6 blah blah….

7. insert a floppy disk into external USB floppy drive, press "S" for supplier hardware device support disk. Select Intel 82801HEM/HBM SATA AHCI Controller(iaStor.sys).

8. basically the Intel Mass Storage SATA/RAID drivers loaded.

9. Windows XP installation continue for now.

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi Review

2009-01-06T07:50:00.003+08:00

Movie Review: Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi;

Star Cast: SRK, Anushka sharma, Vinay Pathak, Kajol, Rani, Preity Zinta, Priyanka and Others;

Director: Aditya Chopra;

Rating: ****

Destiny plays a cruel joke on an extremely enthusiastic young girl Taani (Anushka) as she loses her fiancé and his family in a road accident on the eve of her marriage. Her father, a retired professor, on his death bed requests her to marry his old favorite student, Surinder Shahani (SRK). Taani obeys his last wish and thus begins the start of this extraordinary love story between an otherwise ordinary jodi.

The shy, somewhat geeky Surinder has already fallen for Taani since the first time he has seen her but alls his hopes crash when Taani tells him the day they arrive at his house that she won’t be able to give him any love as that’s one feeling she has lost forever with the sudden turn of events in her life. The rest of the film is about how Suri transforms himself into a very hep flirtatious dude Raj to win her love using a dancing school as a platform for his antics. He is well aided with his childhood buddy Bobby (Pathak) who brings on the physical transformation in him. But what happens is Taani who is unaware of Raj being Suri himself ends up falling in love with Raj. Suri is now again in a fix but then he finally decides to take a bold step

Rab Ne has been definitely amongst the most awaited films of 2008 and there have been great expectations riding on it especially because it is Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge maker Aditya Chopra’s comeback film after a long gap of 8 years. The script has its moments and master craftsman Adi keeps you engaged initially with some really beautifully handled moments between SRK and Anushka. But as SRK’s character’s transformation comes in the grip slowly loosens and you start feeling restless with the pace slumping down considerably. What follows is a criss-cross between some really well penned and executed scenes and some really drab moments with badly placed songs acting as speed breakers. But Adi’s terrific dialogues deserve a special applause for touching the right chords.

Shah Rukh Khan is simply superb as first the shy Suri and then the flamboyant, full of energy, Raj. Newcomer Anushka gets a really well etched character to perform and it despite being her first film, she comes across an absolute natural. Vinay Pathak is fun and provides good comic relief.

Music of the film is good but the problem is apart from a very well tuned and picturised Haule Haule number, the rest songs appear wrongly placed. The picturisation of the number featuring Kajol, Preity Zinta, Bipasha Basu, Lara Dutta and Rani is mind blowing but again it coming at a wrong juncture doesn’t really make it work.

Installing MySQL on Windows XP

2009-01-03T11:03:00.004+08:00

This tutorial will show you how to install MySQL 5.0.41 on machine running Windows XP.

To start with we will download all of the necessary applications which can be found at the following locations:

MySQL: MySQL download page

File to download: Windows (x86) ZIP/Setup.EXE

Create a folder on your desktop and place all downloaded files inside of it.

Now go the the C:\ drive and create a folder with a name webserver.
This will be the folder where all of our apache, php and mysql files will be kept. Inside of this create another folder: mysql.

Installing MySQL
Go to your desktop and inside the folder you have initially created find file mysql-5.0.41.win32.zip. Extract the content of this file to the same folder on the desktop. Now go inside mysql-5.0.41-win32 folder and double click Setup.exe. Follow the steps:

Fig. 18 - Click next.

Fig. 19 - Select Custom and click next.

Fig. 20 - Click Change button to change the path of the installation.

Fig. 21 - Navigate to C:\webserver\mysql and click OK, then click next.

Fig. 22 - Click Install to start installation.

Fig. 23 - During installation a new window will pop up introducing MySQL Enterprise. Simply click next twice to continue with your installation.

Fig. 24 - Your installation is finished. You are now ready to configure your MySQL Server. Click Finish to start configuration.

MySQL Configuration

Fig. 25 - On the first screen click next.

Fig. 26 - Select Detailed Configuration and click next.

Fig. 27 - Select Developer Machine and click next.

Fig. 28 - Select Multifunctional Database and click next.

Fig. 29 - Leave everything as default and click next.

Fig. 30 - Select Decision Support (DSS)/OLAP and click next.

Fig. 31 - Leave two options checked and port number as 3306 and click next.

Fig. 32 - Select Standard character Set and click next.

Fig. 33 - Select Include Bin Directory in Windows PATH and leave other options as default. Click next.

Fig. 34 - Tick Modify Security Settings and type in a password you want to use to access MySQL server, then click next.

Fig. 35 - Click Execute to apply configuration settings.

Fig. 36 - Click Finish to exit configuration wizard.

The last thing you need to do is to open php.ini file located in C:\webserver\php and uncomment the line extension=php_mysql.dll by removing semicolon ; at the beginning. Save the file and close it. Restart the computer.