From Pandan Village

Success: The truth about it.

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 15:45:00 +0000

(Pic from: here)

I was indeed too busy since the last post that I've made, still busy. Yes, there could be people who are busier than me but for them it might not be a big issue. I would rather describe this phenomenon as the process of learning and adapting to a more 'congested' environment i.e. too many matters to be worried about while coping with increasing responsibilities and duties.

Alhamdulillah, I still manage to steal time to express some of my thoughts while indulging myself in the pleasure of writing. We could sometimes learn a word merely in less than a minute but sometimes it really takes decades or even a lifetime for a person to truely understand a word and the entire concept behind the single word. Hence, one of the most significant and could be also a mysterious word for many people is the word "Success".

Other than the usual dictionary meaning for this word, there could be many different meanings. But, not in anyways I'm going to describe this word as how its mentioned in books nor other media. Just try to run a simple search on Google for this word, you'll find lots of books and articles on personal and corporate success stories and .... tonnes of it.

So, what is success is all about?! Before I start, I would like to clarify that I'm writing this based on my CURRENT understanding on this matter in which I might change in future. 'Success' could be an event, process, state, status, achievement, object, person or almost anything that we humans wants to 'get' individually or in a group, in fact it could be even an entire nation e.g. 1Malaysia and vision 2020.

See, the fact is that success varies to everyone. So, how could books like "The Habits of Successful People", "The Secret of Success" and all these books could explain about success? Actually, those books only documents people's success stories, analyse the cause of their success and tries to prove some concepts of success. However, the truth is that no one can tell you what is success and how you can get there. Over the time, individuals have to identify and recognise their own path of life, what we really want and which one has higher priorities. From that point onwards, we have to determine, configure and set our mind towards getting there.

No matter whatever concept or techniques you may derive from any books pertaining to the so called secret of success, the ultimate path to get there is through hardwork. A quote to be always remembered: Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration by Thomas Edison. Noting comes easy in this world even if it may sound easy. But please do remember, hardwork alone is also useless, there are other factors as well such as techniques, confidences, knowledge and possibly luck, yet hardwork is the main key.

So, whatever you are working on or trying to achieve, I wish you All the best! Even a simple sentence could be your swiss-knife, "use the right tool at the right time for the right purpose" and never forget to put your whole effort, add a pinch of interest, few spoons of confidence and voila!

No cannot! That’s Impossible!

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Tue, 06 May 2008 05:42:00 +0000

Inventors always have one problem. It is the people surrounding them. The first time, Wright brothers said they wanted to fly in the sky, people said they were fools! But, come on! They did it!

It's a norm for inventors to always receive objections until they are bored with it and sometimes don't care if people around them says that they are really crazy! :P But the problem is, people rarely understand that it's not always difficult to break the rules!

On the other side, what happens if the surrounding people responds positively? When someone says something extraordinary which others might have never thought of, never say "no cannot! That's impossible!". Specially when young minds says that. If you realize, indirectly you can be the first motivator for an inventor to realize a brilliant idea!

Anyhow, the inventor should not be de-motivated when someone objects their ideas but for young minds like kids or youngsters, it might take a longer time for them to build and strengthen the determination and courage in them.

If you are free, just get a wacky idea and think how to really do it! Only two advices I can give. First, think how you can break the rules! Second, imagine what type of positive benefits it will return.

Btw, co-incidentally I bought a book on last Friday (2nd May 2008). There was a great event that lead me to buy the book. Since, it was quite cheap compared to other management books, somewhere around RM 20. The title is Weird Ideas that Work. Some of the ideas a really crazy but again never say it's impossible. Even if you say so, it might be impossible for you but not necessarily impossible for others. ;-)

So the next time your friend (or Ihsan) says something different PLEASE don't say "No cannot! That's Impossible!". ^_^

Have a nice day checking-out the new world of innovations!

Further readings:
Malaysian Invention & Design Society
Young Inventors International

Water pollution in Malaysia: How serious it is?

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 07:43:00 +0000

Fyi, I'm publishing this post inconjuction of the "Blog Action Day".
(15 Oct 07)

Before I proceed let me brief you on this Blog Action Day thingy. To be simple, it'a a one-day program where all the participating bloggers will talk about environment related issues to raise the awareness of public on this matters.

All the while, we have been listening to all the TV and Radio advertisements on river pollution in Malaysia. Sadly, most of us are still naive about it until government have to find other funny-but-effective methods like the song "Sungai Oh Sungai" by a little girl which is frequently to air on local radio stations.

To be honest, once I get to know about this Blog Action Day, I was interested to join this campaign and contribute something. But the problem was I couldn't find any suitable topic to discuss. Furthermore, as most of you know, I rarely talk about environment related issues. Eventhough, I had some trouble in publishing this post, Alhamdulillah finally I found something.

There were lots of websites I've been in the quest of finding a suitable topic. Some of the sites are:

Department of Environment, Malaysia

EarthTrends: Environmental
Information

Ecology Asia

Finally, I found a site. The name of the website itself might attract you. It is:

sungaijuru.com

This website is dedicated speciall for a river located in Penang. It has been badly polluted until this website have been launched to get the Malaysian's attention on this serious matter.

See, what else can be bad-er than this? This problem surely would have damaged the whole ecosystem in that area! It's all because of us, humans! Even tyre can get into river!

Well, I'm just speechless. (>_<) Take a closer look by yourself here at:
http://www.sungaijuru.com/en/pollution.php

How to overcome this problem? First, lets stop throwing rubbish into DRAINS because when we throw trash into drains near our homes, it all will finally end up at this kind of rivers. So lets learn to throw rubbish into trash bins. This is the most important step in order to stop this problem.

Secondly, we have to clean those rivers. But Alhamdulillah,in Malaysia, we just have be aware and help the government in preventing problems because they are also doing their job well. Take a look at this.

Lets keep our earth clean! But all you need to do is, keep your housing area clean first. If everyone does that, there is no need to raise hell on these issues. :-)

Eid-ul-Fitr: Mubarak ! or Mubarak?

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 07:19:00 +0000

Assalamualaikum and greetings to everyone.

As I've said many times before this, time and environment can change anyone to anything. I still remember how fun Eid were celebrated when my dad was around. :(

Well, Eid means Hari Raya and mubarak means happy. So, shall I be happy on Eid? or let the past memories slowly 'eat' me?

Actually, why shall we Muslims be happy on Eid? Well, as we've known it's not because of new dress and getting the freedom to eat during daytime. It's all about victory! The joy of winning ourselves by controlling ourselves strictly. The joy of being able to perform the prayers and remind ourselves that we are the slaves of Allah S.W.T .

Of course, the memories will be there forever. Compared to last Ramadhan, this time I spent most of the time lonely. Breakfast alone, work alone and went for shopping to buy some simple clothings for my little sister, also alone. Even today on first day of Eid itself, I went for Eid-Ul-Fitr prayers alone... I even did not visit any of my neighbours, friends or relatives because I don't have the real mood of doing it. I just spent my time as a normal day perhaps a bit relax by updating this blogsite and watching some inspiring documentaries.

So, this question of Happy Eid! or Happy Eid? had made me to sit and talk to myself for a while. The difference is the exclamation mark and the question mark which reflect the expression of the "Happy Eid" statement. Finally, I feel that it should be Happy Eid! Because Alhamdulillah, on this Ramadhan I managed to increase my prayers activities compared to previous years. To add the hapiness to make my self calm, all I need to do is just continue my prayers for my father's peace, thats where I can get satisfactions.

Obviously, life will never be always the same. However InsyaAllah, we can always find the peace of mind through prayers and the satisfaction of completing our responsibilities.

Once again, Eid-Ul-Fitr Mubarak!

50 years of improvements? Yes!

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 02:51:00 +0000

Yahoo! Its my country's 50th independence day!

Well, its one of humans' natural behavior to always give negative comments rather than focusing on the positive side of a matter. However, this is due to the will that always says, everything must be excellent! All of us wants to be perfect, even though we can't we can at least get nearer to perfection!

I'm very proud of my country and always looking forward for further developments of my beloved country.

I'm very amazed by two of the semi-government agencies that I've visited recently. The first is the Companies Commision of Malaysia (SSM) I was very impressed by their online interactive system at http://www.ssm.com.my/en/services_eLodgement.php which reflects a good and a bit of practical usage of IT infrastructures to communicate with the public. However, their crowd management concepts still requires lots of improvements to avoid people spending half of their day to get things done.

Secondly, the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) really has a very efficient way of handling 'big' crowds. Arming themselves with a VERY informative website, I would say it's one of the BEST government agency website.

I understand that there are lots of negatives comments are there in everyone's mind same like what I've expressed about the crowd management at SSM. However, I feel that at certain point it's also important for us to stop and look behind to realise that we do have improvements compared to previous years while NOT FORGETTING that there are countries which is far away ahead then us and indirectly might be a threat for us too.

Therefore, the thruth is over the years we've gone through LOTS of developments and it's extremely important for all of us a citizen of this wonderful multi-racial country to constantly remind ourselves that we can contribute to every success of our country.

If everyone does their duty properly there will be more improvements!

No matter whoever you are, be good in it. Be a good student, father, businessman, employee...etc

Happy 50th Indipendence Day!

Advices for a son...

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 12:50:00 +0000

Well, it's father's day today! (",)

Since my father is not physically around, he still remain in my heart and constantly asking Allah to show me the right path in life. I've really learned LOTS of things from him, he is a Do-It-Yourself type of person, getting his hands dirty on some cool stuff at least once a week is something interesting for me as well, from setting up Buglar Alarm system, CCTV systems, fixing electrical distibution boards, setting up backup electical generators, writing computer programs until fixing those water pipes around a premise.... he is really my guru in every discipline.

Performing one of his technical task...

However the most important is the lessons of life, the experiences that a father has gone through. Hence, I was just thinking about what are the best way that a father may teach the lessons of life to his son... So what crossed my mind was one of the best artwork ever produced, the poem "IF" by Rudyard Kipling.

I sincerely feel that my father has thougt all the things mentioned in this wonderful poem as I've said, he is my greatest hero.

Therefore, what I did was I edited the poem and prepared a printable version of it. Then, printed it, make a photocopy to enlarge on an A3 paper, then laminated it. So, I would like to suggest that you should do the same and stick it in your room or office.

Click here to download the poem which I have prepared.

Happy Father's Day...

Please try to SPEND LOTS of TIME with your father, the lessons that you may learn from him is INVALUABLE and not always you can get back the moment...

My GREATEST Hero

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 16:19:00 +0000

FYI, my father had been called by Allah, on 23rd April 2007 at 1230hrs in CRW, HKL. Al-fatihah

For those who wants to contribute an Al-Fatihah, my father's full name is Saiyed Abu Thahir Bin Mohamed Shariff.
His mother's name is Mariam Ammal

My sister and father

It has been a very long time since I updated this site it was about 3 months ago. Within the last few months, there were lost of ups and downs in my life. In fact, it was a direct lesson from Allah to my mom and me. My father passed away in Hospital Kuala Lumpur.

He was admitted for more than two months in the General Hospital in Kuala Lumpur. The initial problem that he had was too much of diarrhea due to a quite rare disease called Ulcerative Colitis. On the 6th day in HKL (20th Feb 2007), co-incidentally he had stroke (blod clot in his right brain) which paralyzed his left hand and leg. At the moment of the storke attack, he also faced problems in breathing. Therefore, he was admitted in ICU twice.

However, I'm very unsatisfied because he had successfully recovered and finally was in a very critical stage due to a bacteria infection called Pneumonia. Based on my own research and interview with some of the top specialists in HKL, they claim that the factor to this problem was the long-term stay in hospital or liquid/food bits went into the lungs. (due to some openings in larynx). Finally what really had at the last minute (around 1145hrs), he heart stopped and the doctors tried to restart the heart by doing CPR more than the normal procedural timeout, they tried for nearly 25 minutes. I feel extremely sad because I wasn't be able to be with him at the moment, the doctors and nurses in CRW doesn't let me enter the ward.

Then, we brought him to our house and kept him until the next day. On 24th April 2007, around 1100hrs, we started to bathed him and prepare him for burrial.

Alhamdulillah, we managed to successfully leave him in peace at the Cheras Baru Muslim cemetery around 1230pm on 24th April 2007.

However, my confidence exceeds my sadness because my father had brought me up in such a positive way.
I'm ~~very~~ extremely proud of him.

He was a GREAT familyman.
He was a GREAT father.
He was a GREAT businessman.
He was a GREAT friend.

I really respect him.

May Allah bless my father.

Please feel free to contribute an Al-Fatihah for my fathers peace in the eternity life.

If you know my father, please forgive him if he had ever accidentally insulted you in anyways.

Btw, I would like to say thanks to:
1. All my relative/family friends/shop staffs for helping and guiding me to manage the funeral as well as gave me motivations.
2. Dr. Thomas, Dr. Ganesh, Dr. Thien, Dr. Melvin Raj, Dr. Kanmani, Dr. Sabihin and some of the ICU & CRW specialist for trying their best.
3. The sister (Chin Au Siang) and nurses of the ward 26, HKL.
4. The Imam of Nurul-Hidayah mosque.

Wassalam.

Another rival....

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 06:57:00 +0000

Yesterday (11/01/2007), I was atracted by some articles in The Sun and Kosmo. It was something that I really didn't expect.

Looks like Apple has tapped into the mobile phone market as well. Eventhough, I'm quite busy, I just can't be quite about this "invention"! The looks of the smartphone that they have launched, iPhone really got my attention. Let yourself to give a try.

Picture from Apple.com.

Personally, I feel that this is going to effect Palm very much! Looks like Apple going to monopoly another market after mobile mp3 players, iPod.

Okay, I'm going back to work. Too much of college stuffs to handle. :(

Further reference:
http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Welcome to Malaysia!

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 12:03:00 +0000

Again, my computer has some problem in connecting to the internet. I think that the previous installation of Zone Alarm still cause some troubles in my machine! :(
Therefore, I couldn't update my blog. However, I believe that it is not too late though.

So, to all my Muslim friends, Eid-Ul-Azha mubarak. Insyallah, I hope that you would really understand the true meaning of Eid-Ul-Azha that you have to sacrifice something to achieve something else.

Btw, let me come to another important topic that I wanted to highlight.
The sentence "Welcome to Malaysia!" is a favorite sentence of my previous English teacher in PTK (Mr. Murugan). Since we are in year 2007 now, if you remember this is another official "Visit Malaysia" year after 1990 (if I'm not mistaken).

Well, I couldn't deny that Malaysia is a beautiful country however I notice that some people always look at the negative values in our society. Even though it is normal for human to find mistakes, I hope that our Malaysians will still prefer to go for domestic vocations rather that overseas.

What I wanted to highlight is, please feel free to explore this great country.

One of my favorite place in this beautiful country is the Tioman Island. Rated as one of the best ten islands in the world, you will find it like a heaven with it's crystal-clear beaches. Sad to say that the my last trip to Tioman Island was nearly 10 years ago. :(

Hopefully I will be able to go Tioman this year. :D

Btw, please feel free to find out some official travel packages from the Tourism Ministry itself:
http://www.tourism.gov.my/

Merry Christmas!

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 03:56:00 +0000

To all my fellow friends, teachers, lecturers and everyone....

Let me wish you a ...

Enjoy your holidays ya...

INFOSEC.my Knowledge Sharing Session

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 12:33:00 +0000

Wow... once again a FREE ~~seminar~~ knowledge sharing session.

This session is mainly focused on Information Security.

I can't say much. However, you may find more information from here:
http://niser.org.my/infosec-my/index.html

At the same time I would like to introduce a VERY interesting website where you can find the up-to-date info on national ICT security. The National ICT Security and Emergency Response Center (NISER). There are LOTS of published research papers and statistics here.
http://www.niser.org.my

Most probably, I might not be attending this event. :(
If you are going, PLEASE share with me what they've said.

Recovering from disaster, Zone Alarm

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 10:55:00 +0000

All the while I was happy that Zone Alarm freeware was doing great jobs.

It will notify me whenever there are some unauthorized access comming to my computer.

It even blocks the LAN ports such as file and printer sharing. I can't even 'ping' to my own computer. It was great.

Until one day the program starts to show some abnormal characteristics. I booted my computer as usual and noticed that it REALLY slow!. I had no idea as this was my first encounter with program.

So, I waited for some time and take a look on the Windows Task Manager and it shows that the program vsmon.exe was the culprit. Consuming exessive memory until too much of virtual memory being consumed.

The image below shows the system's status after ending the VSMON.EXE process.

This problem really gave me a bad time... :( I can connect to internet and browse for nearly 15 minutes only. After that, the HTTP port will get blocked and I cannot browse anymore. But, I can still chat on YM and MSN....

Then it took me sometime to know that what is this and why is this happening. Finally, I learned that Zone Alarm is the main cause of this problem. The program VSMON.EXE is actually the service so-called TrueVector Internet Monitor.

Therefore, I hope that Zone Alarm will fix this bug in the comming versions.
Well, I can't say much because afterall this is a freeware.

Further info:
http://www.neuber.com/taskmanager/process/vsmon.exe.html

Blog: Updated (1.1)

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 15:09:00 +0000

Alhamdulillah, finally I managed to update the interface of my funny blog.

Among the updates:
- I've selected a new template
- A sneak preview on my photo blog
- Feeds via e-mail (Subscribe updates)
- New links
- More links to my friend's blog(s)
- New feed methods (eg. add to Google, My Yahoo, etc)
- ShoutBox (Feel free to leave messages..) :P

Well, I'm planning to add more useful stuffs.
Its just a matter of time investment.

Feel free to give me your comments and suggestion.

PhotoBlogging: Started

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 13:04:00 +0000

For the past few weeks, I've been snaping lots of pictures using my camera-phone. I think, camera is one of the best function that have been intergrated in mobile phones.

As usual, I don't want to 'miss' any of the invaluable moments on earth. Therefore, for the first time in history, I'm uploading the some of the pictures in my new PhotoBlog:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mdihsan/

Please bare with my photography skills since I'm a noob.

Same like you, I'm in the process of learning too.....

Feel free to teach me some new skills....

Assisgnment tension... [MCIT]

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 15:30:00 +0000

For the past three semester, as usual we had successfully completed our assignments in a very relax mode.

But, this time the assignment was quite different. It was something about mathematics. Mathematics for IT is a killer module for me.

Well, other than tension due to the complexity of questions. Rushing to complete assignments in a class which consist of a large number of students, it was quite exciting and thrilling to compare answers, teaching and learning with "strangers" while rushing to complete it as soon as possible.

I would say that this is the first assignment that made me feel VERY tensed up and EXCITING as well. Even the project on library management system didn't give me such tension because I wasn't confident enough that I will be able to complete it.

So, finally end up doing some question after some GOOD friends taught me how to do some of the challenging questions among the deadly questions.

Some pics:
All very busy...

Serious discussion...
(while searching for "victims")

Palm in action... (actually this picture taken after submission)

Our messy table...

Alhamdulillah, finnaly I and my friends manage to submit my assignment. However, I got to catch up a lot in maths...

Credits:
1. Pte. Neu for staying late to work with us and sending me & Amiri to our destinations.
2. John for lepaking with me, accompanying me to convinient shop.
3. APIIT Library Assistants & Management team for baring our noisy discussion.
4. Fellow smart brains of TP1F0605/09COM.

Is Palm OS dying...?

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 15:53:00 +0000

(Image from Palm Treo 750v's Official Website)

I've been a great fan of Palm OS for the past five years. I successfully bought my first Palm PDA, m100 in 2001 when I was in form 2. It was a great discovery for me at that time because I don't have any close friends, relatives or contacts using PDAs at that time. Controlling TV/VCR using PDA, keeping contact details and retrieve them within seconds, reading e-Books and playing games on board was nice excitement.

After two years, in 2003, my father bought a Palm Tungsten T as a reward for my achievement in PMR examination. Since then, I spent most of my time using Tungsten. Obviously, same as other Palm users I also wanted to keep my self updated with the latest Palmtop, but I decided to take a break because there is no concrete reason for me to use a Palmtop.

Anyway, I still keep my self updated with the usual Tech News by reading In-Tech and Computimes. Recently a shocking news gave me an earthquake, for the first time in the history of PDAs, Palm launched a PDA running Microsoft's Windows Mobile. But, I wonder why on earth Palm need to use Microsoft's OS....? May be due to the demand, I think... :(

Well, I hope that they will use Windows Mobile for Treo series only. Who knows, may be they use Windows Mobile OS for Treo because it gives greater support for SmartPhones...?

Btw, I've some links here for those who are interested on PDAs.
Malaysian PalmX Group (Full of HOW-TOs)
My PDA Cafe (Including Pocket PC and Symbian User Groups)
The Independent Malaysia's Symbian Usergroup

Long live Palm!
Oops, I mean long live Palm OS

Calling the cars for The Xtreme NIghts

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 01:37:00 +0000

(Taken from the official website of The Xtreme Nights)

As usual, today (7th Nov 2006) I was comming out of the Bukit Jalil LRT station and saw a cool banner stating about the competiton of modified cars.

Since I only get the chance to see this kind of cars once in a blue moon even if you are lucky to see them on road, you can find one or two only. I feel that this is a great oppoturnity for those who loves to see normal cars that have been modified into superb and cool cars.

Well, it's just another hobby for those who loves nice cars but have low budgets.

I hope I can go.
Btw, it is also a great chance for noob photographers like me to learn how to take pictures of cars. :P (Not the models )

The competition will be on 10 & 11 November 2006 @ Bukit Jalil from 5pm till 12 midnight.

You can get more information from their official site:-
(Click on the image below)

Any other better blogsites?

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 10:46:00 +0000

I've solved this problem.

Recently after such a long time, I was chatting with my ex-classmate Mr. Wong Seng Yue who is currently studying in Monash Malaysia.

Somehow, we came to the topic of blogging and I told him about my this site.

After a while, he was back on MSN and told me that he had just created an account just for the sake of replying my posts here. Then only I noticed that this BlogSpot requires users to sing-in using their BlogSpot username and password.

This is quire irritating because I feel like talking to a wall. There were few replies only, which means that it defeats the purpose of me having a blog.

I wanted to highlight to people about certain things and get their point of view regarding those things.

So, now I'm looking for some other better blogging site that supports anonymous replies.

So, anyone anyidea? Thank you.

(May be you can consider to getting an Blogspot ID just reply this post as a last reply here, please.)

Selamat Hari Raya

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 04:39:00 +0000

[Edited: Flash card has been removed]
Assalamualikum everyone, :-)

The time has arrived....

I would like to take this oppoturnity (of having a blog) to wish my dear Muslim friends, teachers, lecturers and everyone, Selamat Hari Raya.

Please forgive me if I would have done anything wrong in the past. I hope I will improve myself. So, Maaf Zahir & Batin.

Okay, happy holidays. Attention for those who are driving for long distance, PLEASE becareful while you are driving.

"Driving a car is dangerous than piloting a plane."

Ref: My E-Card...

Wassalam

Happy Deepavali

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 23:09:00 +0000

Well, time flies.

I would like to wish those who are celebrating Deepavali.

I've sent some e-mails and testimonials with the link to an e-card that I've prepared for my friends, lecturers and teachers.

The Deepavali E-card that I've prepared.

Malaysia Boleh, You Boleh Ke?

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 09:29:00 +0000

Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka!

First of all, let me wish to my beloved country, Happy Independence Day! What do I mean by my beloved “country”? You will know later. :-)

Where ever I go, I often hear people say that "Malaysia Boleh!" but, I also hear people saying "Malaysia boleh? Apa boleh?" Therefore, I hope that those people who really look down at the potential of their own country in such a negative perspective will realize that indirectly they are criticizing themselves as well! Try to think, what is Malaysia? Who is Malaysia? It’s all I, you, we, they... It’s all about us!

Some people often loves to compare our country with other developed countries and finally conclude that Malaysian mentality is bad la, that la, this la. As a normal civilian, what I hope is that every Malaysian should try to improve the patriotism and performance of themselves and the people surrounding them. That’s all. If every one can successfully do develop the people around them to produce great performance in business and indirectly increase their patriotism then, the negative thoughts in the public will automatically disappear.

So, please realize that it’s all on your hands.
If you boleh, Malaysia sure boleh!

After this if anyone say "Malaysia boleh? Apa boleh?", ask him back "You boleh ke? Apa boleh?" .

Cyber Terrorism (CT) and Cyber Crime (CC)

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Tue, 30 May 2006 01:24:00 +0000

This short article that I wrote will be focusing on how serious CT and CC can be. It is slightly target for large companies because I know that one day you one of the top guns in a company.

I'm not introducing something new to the world right now. It is the same thing of what those old-time techies keep on mentioning about, cyber terrorism and cyber crime will be raising due to the importance that we give to the information technology in this modern era. As usual, people like to sabotage your most important asset. For instance in a war, the first thing that military will do is attack the most important place such as the military camp in order to cause greater suffocation to the victim.

My definition of cyber terrorism is, exactly same as terrorism but it is done in the cyber world also can be said a cyber war. The same goes to cyber crime as well, it all comes under crime using the modern day communication tools specifically computers. By the way, cyber terrorism is more dangerous compared to cyber crime where cyber terrorism includes larger amount of people.

Therefore, it is not impossible for someone to cause a serious damage in the IT world. Once cyber terrorism happens, it can cause serious communication failure that might lead to the malfunction of the whole organization. Cyber terrorism and cyber crime can happen anywhere. For example, in business environment, people could steal all your financial information thus create a network failure by attacking your company servers. Obviously, your network administrators might have done backups, but it will still take some time for your network to recover because your network administrator and computer emergency response team (CERT) need to do some analysis to know how it happened. In this gap, your company's e-mail will be down causing a communication barrier between you and your customers (applied for large operations).

What about SOHO and SME/SMI users? Well, you are still vulnerable for CT/CC attacks. Hackers can use your bandwidth and information to go anonymous in the Internet. Once they go anonymous, then, they can do anything because no one knows their identification.

Other worst-case scenarios (WCS): These are only few funny examples.

1. Setting up malicious codes in the computers at Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara causing it to automatically edit individuals’ information such as religion and gender silently. After some time, the religion and gender of the entire Malaysians will be different E.g. All Malaysians are Christian and the gender is female. This will cause serious havoc. (CT)

2. Steal health information for business purposes. For instance, the companies hire hackers to steal people’s health information from hospitals and clinics to make a decision whether the candidate can be employed or not. (Business CC)

3. Attack the TM Net Streamyx connection centers (those high-end switches) to disable internet connections for all the streamyx subscribers. This also can cause a massive lost for businesses and organizations. (CT)

Note: I’m not giving you ideas conduct CT or CC okay?

Obviously, the network administrators can detect these kinds of things but hackers still can find ways. I personally feel that these things are possible.

The problem is, as days pass by, we are giving more importance to information technology. Nowadays, everywhere we go there must be a computer for instance schools, clinics and logistics. All these are the goldmines for the hackers out there. Companies are investing large amount of money in it. However, I’m not denying the fact that computers are efficient and essential for corporations but at the same time it is vital to play safe. So, it is good to invest on security as well. For example, the usage of VoIP can be easily captured almost by anyone. Yet, most of the companies are using VoIP because it’s getting more reliable.

No matter who you are, you still have to find a solution for this problem because you are exposed as well. I repeat, a kid who knows how to use Google might cause million dollars loss to your company one day.

Remember:
“There is nothing impossible in the cyberworld anymore!”
(Mohamed Ihsan, 2006)

Is your password hack-able?

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Thu, 18 May 2006 00:29:00 +0000

Yeah, once again I managed to crack another password. Now, it's a password belongs to one of the Technical Assistant (TA) in my college. I able to crack it not because I'm smart or whatever but it's due to the TA's weak password.

Therefore, this posting focuses on how to have a strong password.

The following are the characteristics of a strong password that will take years to crack unless the cracker use a supercomputer to crack it. Your password:

Has to be more than eight charcters
Shall not be a word
Must be the combination of UpperCaSe, $ymbol$ and numb3r5.

The typical password cracking will be something like this:

Searching the dictionary to get the same code that belongs to the password (Hash)
Brute-force cracking: Running combinations with numbers.
If the hacker still can't get it, the last choice will be using brute-force method with the character set including alphabets, numbers and symbols (The longer it is, the more time it takes, probably year(s) except using supercomputer.)

How ever social-engineering also is another manual method. Therefore, no matter what it is, NEVER accidentally give your password's charcteristics to anyone. E.g. the hacker might ask some questions to know more about your password.

Therefore, please follow the guidelines provided. You're identification is very valuable even if you are not in higher positions.

I'm not a hacker. Even a kid who knows how to use Google can be a hacker.

Lost & Found: Pen Drive

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Tue, 16 May 2006 05:32:00 +0000

I say man..... Such a bad experience with a very happy ending. I was sitting in the Computer Lab 3 (Previously Lab1), my position was between Wen Tau (Right) and Wei Kit (Left). I wanted to go to the EPSON Lab. Accidentally, I couldn't find it, so I was searching for it from Epson Lab until Lab3. But failed to find it.

Then, I thought may be Wei Kit and Wen Tau took it for fun. But finally I found it under the chair. The lanyard stuck to the chair's wheels therefore I couldn't find it earlier.

However, I feel that there is a moral behind the story. The following are some of it:

Big problems might have simple solutions
Always backup your pendrive, if possible encrypt the data using with passwords to avoid data from being stolen.
Never blame others, always blame yourself. We are humans, we do mistakes.
Eventough we can never be perfect, we must try our best to be.

May be this posting sounds funny and dumb. But, just try to think in a different perpective. Things do happen....

IndiaMuslim.org

noreply@blogger.com (Mohamed Ihsan) — Tue, 16 May 2006 02:02:00 +0000

I have been thinking of developing a portal for the Malaysian Indian Muslim community for a long time. I got the idea when I was in form four.

Due to extenuating circumstance (normal la right?) such as lack of knowledge on PHP programming, no free time and bad internet connection, I failed to make that dream come true. :-(

However, I was quite happy when one of my relative, Azri from Penang told me about the existance of such a site: http://www.indiamuslim.org

Btw, when I joined the site as member, my first impression was very good. However, after some time, I notice that most of the topics are very boring because most of the members just copy and paste those junk e-mails that they receive in their inboxes.

Anyway, I can't comment too much about the site because the admin also have done a good job. The GUI of the site is quite nice with some prayer times, pictures, statistics and downloads.

Therefore, I would like to thank the admin and moderators for developing the portal and I hope that they will make it better and more interesting.