Malaysian Public Figure Blogs

I'm not sure why I'm reading blogs from the Malaysian politicians, artists, news casters, reporters lately. Maybe I'm wondering how they feel about their latest campaign, movies, programme or perhaps I might find some unofficial information that I don't know yet.

Ok I'm going to list down as many blog that I can find and reveal it here. If you know more perhaps you want add in the list.

Politicians
Lim Kit Siang - Parliamentary Opposition Leader (DAP). Update almost daily.
Shahrir Abdul Samad
Teresa Kok
Tian Chua
K. S Nalla
Anwar Ibrahim
N. Gobalakrishnan
Azmin Ali
Fuziah Salleh

Journalist
Ahirudin bin Attan
Jeff Ooi
Irin Putri - MedikTV Broadcast Journalist

Entertainer
Afdlin Shauki - Comedian, Artist, Singer, Director
Patrick Teoh - Actor, former radio deejay...NIAMAH!

Others
Marina Mahathir

Ok maybe it is not much for now. I'm too tired to read more.

Searching for the top MVC Framework

The last few days has been a very busy days for us all. Our office is now relocated in Kuala Lumpur, so last week we had to pack everything and say good bye to Phileo Damansara. I going to miss the place even though my stay were just 4 months. Within couple of days, all the necessities in our new office are restored. Now I can continue my research on the web application framework.

I can't remember when was the first time I heard about MVC driven framework. But recently I had opportunity to actualy play around with Rails framework. Since then I fell in love with it. Then I look for PHP based MVC framework on the internet and I astonished by the number of ready made framework.
If you want to ask why PHP, not the Ruby itself? Perhaps for now I'm looking for more PHP projects since it is the most popular programing language out there.

I'm looking for a suitable framework for my future projects. I manage to try out quite a number of frameworks but still I can't recommend any of it for a simple reason. There is no single framework that suit all web application.

But I listed it anyway for my own reference or perhaps you might find it usefull too.

1. Ruby on Rails: Ruby language, scaffold method.
2. Symfony: Based on Mojavi and inspired by Rails
3. Mojavi: The first MVC framework I fell in love with
4. CakePHP: Inspired by Rails PHP4/5
5. PHPOnTrax: a Rails port - PHP5 Only
6. Prado: The winner of Zend coding contest
7. Studs: A Java-Struts port to PHP
8. Phrame: A Java-Struts port
9. Achievo: A good RAD framework
10. WACT: Web Application Component Toolkit
11. Ambivalence: A Java-Maverick Port
12. Zend: PHP 5 Only
13. Seagull: PHP 4/5
14. Zoop

Based on my experience on some of the frameworks, to keep your frustration level on the lowest level:

• you must try it first before deciding to build your project
  
• check the changelog or trac (if available), make sure the development are still on
  
• look for the documentation, is it suffiecient enough?
• look for the framework community
• look for tutorials

If you had any idea or experience on some of the framework mentioned above, perhaps you can share it here too.

ChaCha.com - A social search engine

Do you feel lonely while doing your research using your favorite search engine? Guess what. You don't have too anymore because ChaCha.com is here to guide you and it is not any regular search engine. Despite using a complex search result algorithm, ChaCha.com uses human touch to guide your search in a real time.

ChaCha provides two ways of searching method. A normal search that shows a list of results. And their cool service is the search guide driven. They said that every time a query submitted an alert is sent to all appropriate Guides who are currently signed in to the system. Now who are this people and can we trust them. They claim that their Guides is knowledgeable in the topic you're searching but since they are still new most of the time you will be connected less knowledgeable but still an expert in internet search and will most likely find you exactly what you need.

Sound interesting, doesn't it? So I decided to test it myself. I ask a topic about Chinese New Year Zodiac animal and the Guide who accepted the query respond in a few seconds and he/she reveals the results. One of the url of course pointing out to the Wikipedia. After that the guide asked if I like to find out more about the topic and when you satisfied with your result the guide session will end.

I also check the ChaCha underground, a directory of ChaCha's guides group in several categories. Once I browse through the Guides profile page, I'm sure that these Guides are really human. I wonder how much they get paid?

LinguaWeb - Tools to translate from English to Bahasa Melayu

While having my breakfast last new year holiday, I managed to watch the "Malaysia Hari Ini", a morning TV show program by TV3. One of the segment featuring a local IT company, Linguamatix Sdn. Bhd. with their product called LinguaWeb. Basically it's web based translation tool that translate from English to Bahasa Melayu. Wow we don't see any new innovation from our local company recently, do we? So I decided to take a look. When I entered my blog url and hit the "terjemah" button, I cracked.

My entry on YouSendIt and DropSend was like ....

Not long ago Gerg asked me "How on earth I'm going to send 50Mb attachment email without breaking it up into pieces?"

Translated into

Tidak lama dahulu Gerg menyuruh saya "Bagaimana di bumi saya akan menghantar perlekatan 50Mb emel tanpa memecahkan ia atas terbelah?"

Despite the speedy respond on the application side, the translation engine still doesn't really make any sense. The translation is done word per word and not according to its context. But if you look at the footer, the disclaimer warned that this translation tool is just to give a basic idea to the user. This is the same issue haunted me few years ago. There is no translation engine better than the human itself.

However if we look at the bright side, maybe Linguamatix has a plan to sell the library to Altavista's BabelFish. Or perhaps the Text Translation mode can be very useful for student or professional.

How to send 100MB attachment through email?

Not long ago Gerg asked me "How on earth I'm going to send 50Mb attachment email without breaking it up into pieces?" I think I gave him a link to one of my favorite file sharing service "Kotuha". But today I found a service that does exactly what Gerg ask for.

YouSendIt is just like any basic webmail client. The only different is it allows you to upload large single file before sending it to your contact. I try to send 50MB file, it almost like forever. Maybe due to APCN2 cable disruption? And that's it. No fancy stuff, a straight cut app.

DropSend, developed by Carson Systems, has several plan for user to pick ranging from free to $99. It offers both web based and desktop file upload tool for user to choose. Each plan has different features like no of sends per month, storage size, encryption and max users. Neat stuff. If you like the idea, you can contact Ryan Carson the founder of DropSend and offer him $1M for your stake in DrpoSend. Recently he blogs how close he was about to sell DropSend stake to YouSendIt. Based on his long post about the deal, I must say volume does matter. Who knows, maybe some major tweaks and give it some time to mature, DropSend might worth $1 billion.

Happy New Year 2007

Photo by Dunny

Each year when the new year comes, I always look back for what I'd achieved and also what I missed. I never blogged about it before but this year I have the opportunity to share some of it.

2006 Achievement

Being productive
Half of the year I was so productive, working at average 12 hours a day and 7 days a week at least once a month. The work load seems never stop and it is all for the sake of the company and the clients.

Moving on and learn new things
Some said that helping company growth will eventually paid you off. In my case it was that close but I decided to leap of from the company as I realized that what could possibly I learn more if I continue working there. It was never easy for me to simply change job. Lot's of things need to be consider, but I believe what I did was the best for me and for my family.

Once I'm out, I realized how much free time that I could use to discover new things plus now I had time for freelance job. The buff around web 2.0 apps alone overwhelmed me. As you can see in this blog, there are lots of entry talking about web 2.0 apps. It's inspired me to develop my own web 2.0 app, my own masterpiece. I'll share about this later.

Bring home more bread
Believe me money is the best motivator for a family guy. RM90 increment a year couldn't coupe up with the petrol and toll price hikes. By changing job I drastically bringing home extra 40% of income. But to be honest, it will never get enough.


2007 Resolutions

For this year I planned to develop an enterprise level web application. I don't know how much exactly it's going to cost me but at least I could start by collecting some fund through freelance ob and paid off all my credit cards. Yikes !

Malaysia Internet Interruption

It's 26th November again and Taiwan was shaking. Despite the fact that the life lost is small compared to last year tsunami, I'm going to mark this date on my yearly calendar as the "Earth Shaking Day". The earth quake scalled at 7.1 ricther were causing disruption to the Asia Pacific Cable Network (APCN2) underwater cables. Aparently ISPs in the South East Asia region shares the same cable to link all the communication network to the US and to the rest of the world.

What did I do that day? I reboot the server once (old habit), ping and tracert to Google,Yahoo and Utusan (I didn't aware of the quake until I read The Star later that day). With no Google and Yahoo means no internet social life for me (Gmail, Blogger, YM, Meebo, TechCrunch) at least for the rest of the week. So I thought of looking for locally host content and sevices provider. All the local news press site are available Utusan, The Star, The News Starit Time, Berita Harian and of course the local tourism portal VirtualMalaysia.com still up and that was it. Without Google I didn't have a single clue what to do next. So logged to the long lost local search engines cari.com and catcha.com. Both were working but still most of the results will pointed out to abroad.

Well I guess there is no such alternate routes or perhaps no alternates routes could survive the 7.1 richter scale shake. I wonder if there is no internet ever created, what will happen to us all?

Keyboard Hack - How to Display Odd Characters Using Keyboard.

I was searching for a shorcut to display symbol so that I can easily type it while I chat or to be insert in comment box etc. Well I found a bunch of it.

Alt Key + Calculator Number = Symbol

Hold the ALT key & type the number next to the symbol you want on the CALCULATOR part of the keyboard, then release Alt Key. Symbol will appear. And here is the full list.

Alt + 0169 = ©
Alt + 0174 = ®
Alt + 15 = ¤
Alt + 20 = ¶
Alt + 21 = §
Alt + 128 = Ç
Alt + 129 = ü
Alt + 130 = é
Alt + 131 = â
Alt + 132 = ä
Alt + 133 = à
Alt + 134 = å
Alt + 135 = ç
Alt + 136 = ê
Alt + 137 = ë
Alt + 138 = è
Alt + 139 = ï
Alt + 140 = î
Alt + 141 = ì
Alt + 142 = Ä
Alt + 143 = Å
Alt + 144 = É
Alt + 145 = æ
Alt + 146 = Æ
Alt + 147 = ô
Alt + 148 = ö
Alt + 149 = ò
Alt + 150 = û
Alt + 151 = ù
Alt + 152 = ÿ
Alt + 153 = Ö
Alt + 154 = Ü
Alt + 155 = ¢
Alt + 156 = £
Alt + 157 = ¥
Alt + 159 = ƒ
Alt + 160 = á
Alt + 161 = í
Alt + 162 = ó
Alt + 163 = ú
Alt + 164 = ñ
Alt + 165 = Ñ
Alt + 166 = ª
Alt + 167 = º
Alt + 168 = ¿
Alt + 170 = ¬
Alt + 171 = ½
Alt + 172 = ¼
Alt + 173 = ¡
Alt + 174 = «
Alt + 175 = »
Alt + 225 = ß
Alt + 230 = µ
Alt + 241 = ±
Alt + 246 = ÷
Alt + 249 = •
Alt + 250 = ·
Alt + 253 = ²
Alt + 350 = ^
Alt + 352 = `
Alt + 382 = ~

Update
Alt + 0128 = € - Thanks A1 Web Solutions

Some might find this useful while others might thought this is just another geek stuff. As for me, most probably I just want to use "²" for my Malay language chat like "layang²" or "macam²".

Slide Show Presentation Goes Online

There is time when I open up emails from my friends I'm hopping that there is no PowerPoint (with .ppt extension) stuff attached. I hate the idea of opening other application while you're browsing through email. Why? well it's simply annoying and those kind of attachment are prone to be a virus. Similarly, I used to get video attachments through emails but thank to YouTube such attachment is rarely invade my inbox. However this situation has change when SlideShare, an online slide show sharing come to the rescue our needs.

At a glance, SlideShow website look just like YouTube. Even the process flow and services look alike. You PowerPoint presentations can be imported and embedded on your website or blog with a snippet of code - a process now familiar to every blog and web owner. There is the ability to click forward, back, visit the original location of the file on SlideShare and even add tags so others looking for similar topic will find you.



When I first saw it, I realised that the same feeling struck again. Of course the first one was when I use YouTube. However there are still limitation in SlideShare;
- No fancy transition can be transferred, only forward and backward navigation.
- I detect spams in some presentation comments
- Full online editing is not there.

But give them some time to evolve and I'm sure this web 2.0 site is going to be a hit.

Microsoft's New Home Page

If you haven't notice yet or perhaps you are not one of the Microsoft products fans, they have change their corporate website design. The new navigation is aimed at helping their client to quickly find the most sought-after content on Microsoft.com. They start working on it last year and had gather a bunch of beta tester to give feedback on the new design and navigation system since early 2006.

The way I see it, the most significant changes made are on the floating navigation panel and the main content presentation display. If you click on the product menu on the right, the rest of the page will dimmed and can't be click. They must be really want you to concentrate on their products then.

Investigating inside the codes reveals no table layout exist. All layout are controlled by the CSS. Despite the prominent use of Ajax,the site adapts gracefully by replacing the Ajax panel with plain-looking menus on separate pages. However there is no sign of any RSS feeds either button nor the automated "link href=".

Now you might be wondering, does any of the above really matter? Well, the site looks and works great for the most of users. Beside, no matter how good your designs, you still can't satisfy everyone.

Heads Up - Two in three retail PCs are notebooks

Based on current analysis by Best Buy, Radio Shack, Circuit City, CompUSA and Staples in US: Notebook shipments rose 57.7 percent during the first three weeks of the holiday shopping season as compared with the same period last year. These is no surprise, reviewing Dell catalog for December 2006 issue in my hand, the cheapest new notebook with wide display, AMD Sempron 3500+, 512MB DDR-2 SDRAM, 60GB SATA HDD and ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 is for RM2,249.00 it's less than USD1k.

Again despite issues like performance and capacity, technology lag, reliability, expandability, configurability and upgradeability shadowing the usage of notebooks for years, it is clearly demonstrate that price will is always win the users heart.

As if I could only have one computer, though, it would be a notebook, but only because client support is my primary task and I've gotten comfortable doing it in the client site rather than in my office.

Face Recognition Technology by Polar Rose

The way I see it, the web is increasingly becoming visually oriented, progressing from text to photos and other rich media such as video and podcast. Polar Rose claims that close to 10 million new photos are uploaded on a daily basis, a number which is doubling every eight to ten months. We should thanks to the digital camera innovation and internet for the exponential growth. Perhaps a picture does tell a thousand words.

Even so, most of the photo are unreachable due to lack of algorithm that could surface them like the way text search does. Since the day of Altavista, Inktomi, and Google we haven't seen any new revolutionary of photo search technology without the "human" intervention.

To overcome this issue, Polar Rose technology makes photos searchable by analyzing their content and recognizing the people in them. Yeah it's another face recognition technology just like Riya that I've discovered earlier. The Polar Rose's face recognition technology used was originally developed by CTO Jan Erik Solem during his M.Sc and Ph.D. stints at the universities of Lund and Malmö in southern Sweden. It's unique in that they are able to extract 3D information from regular 2D images.

However "human" users are still needed as to help to train the application recognize each individual in the photo. Polar Rose offers a plugin to be installed into your Firefox or Internet Explorer browser. The plug-in detects people in online photos and places their signature rose approximately where the pinhole of their shirt would be. A click on the rose will bring up a tooltip with relevant information, including name and other photos found of the same person. You can apply to become a beta tester but the plugin will be released only during the first quarter of 2007.

Face recognition is cool but like I said earlier in my previous post, if this technology going to be a public tools it does raise some privacy issues. To avoid this, perhaps it can be tune by identify object or item instead.

Riya - A Visual Search Tool

I came across to a similar technology when I interviewed a candidate for my previous company. She develop a colour recognition application by calculating percentage of colours in a photo for her thesis project. But my interest dies as I can't imagine how to monetize the idea. That is before I discovered Riya.

Riya is a facial and text recognition technology with an intelligent interface. Face recognition technology isn't new. You can find it in cameras, cellphones and biometric devices but for the sake of web application, this is really great.

I decided to try out Riya's functionality. The process starts with registration and choosing a privacy setting on your pictures. You then download a client application (around 40MB) that uploads photos you choose to include in Riya. The actual uploading takes a while - about 4 hours for each GB of photos. Instead of waiting around, Riya will email you when the process is complete.

That’s when the fun starts. In my case about 60 pictures were uploaded. I was presented with a view of facial thumbnails of everyone in my photos. Riya asks that you begin to educate it by telling it who the people are. And then click the "Run Rec" button, it then very quickly starts to auto-tag pictures with a surprising level of accuracy.

I could also allow friends to tag and search my photo and let it all searchable in public search. On this extend I realize that Riya might have some privacy issues in the future. Imagine if Riya get so much data on people that I could take a picture of a crowd, upload it to Riya, and instantly have the names of every single person in the crowd. It almost like FBI's backup suspect database.

But if Riya choose client/partner wisely it might benefits us all. Just look at like.com. You can identify a similar accessories or item detected in any photo. You can even select your favorite celebrities photos and copy their style. Paris Hilton wannabe, this is your day.

Ruby - The gems of programming language

I've heard about Ruby for quite sometime. Ruby is a reflective, object-oriented programming language. It combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk-like object-oriented features, and also shares some features with Python, Lisp, Dylan and CLU. Yeah like C wasn't enough.

The language was created by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto way back in 1993. Matz stresses that systems design needs to emphasize human, rather than computer, needs.

"They are focusing on machines. But in fact we need to focus on humans, on how humans care about doing programming or operating the application of the machines. We are the masters. They are the slaves." - Matz

One important part about Ruby is that it is distributed under an open-source license. It is a cross platform. So if you have15 minutes to spare try this web based hands on tutorial to get some ideas.

Malaysia Broadband ISP

How do you browse, if I may ask? Did you subscribe a broadband service from your local ISP? Nowadays you barely can surf with 56kb dial up connection, considering if you are one of the YouTube, P2P services junkie.

Currently I'm using an ASDL from my office and dial up from my home. I'm seriously considering to upgrade my internet service for my home usage, so I dig around. Here is some information about ISP in Malaysia with broadband services:

1. TMnet Streamyx - Wired
   
2. Jaring Broadband Wired/Wireless - Wired/Wireless
   
3. Time Broadband - Various
   
4. Airzed WiMax - Wireless
   
5. DiGi Mobile Broadband - Wireless
   
6. Nasion 1 Wireless Broadband - Wireless
   
7. Maxis Wireless Broadband - Wireless
   
8. Maxis 3G - 3G
   
9. Celcom 3G - 3G
   
10. Smart Ku-Band - Satellite
    
11. Smart C-Band - Satellite
    
12. EB Technologies MyWave24 - Wireless/Wired
    
13. PenangFon - Wired
    
14. AtlasOne - Wireless
    
15. MyKris - Wireless
    
16. ZapZone - Wireless
    
17. GoLightSpeed - Wireless

Wow that much? Currently TMNet taking the most share on the Malaysia broadband pie. The problem with TMNet ADSL broadband services is that you wont get the speed that you subscribed. Look carefully to their terms, TMNet's broadband speed is based on best effort and factors such as; Quality of the copper cable (Yup we still use copper), distance from the supporting TM exchange, weather, electromagnetic effects, PC performance, Internet traffic during the period, and the website that you visit. Recently TMNet caught the copper line thieves which is turn to be their own supplier. Sigh... Coincident?

All and all I just hope the Malaysia's broadband service and penetration should be improved by widening the service using microwave (WiMax) or using Power Line Communication (PLC) technology in near future.