Hope you won’t be surprised to see zero registration for 4 Nov 2009 then. Cheers~

No doubt about it! When the “have you cut yet?” series of advertisements hit the street, it surely has created just a buzz in the broadband market here in Malaysia. The ads are amusing and entertaining!

Before knowing what the ads are all about, one must be thinking “Why the heck you ask everyone to go sunat!!!???”

Of course, the major (monopolized) broadband player, Streamyx strikes back after a while.

P1 is now Oversubscribed and Complaints are mounting

And thanks to P1 Wimax’s great marketing skill. I believe that they have been overselling broadband services, far exceeding their actual capability. There are lots of complaints being lodged at Low Yat Forum recently. Here’s just a few of them.

come on la P1..i pay every month..
then provide good service la..
i hardly earn the money..
and you guys easily took it by providing bad service..
please respect your customer..
i hate on using harsh words..
but the thing is… i just FED UP with the connection…
please use your brain and think if you subscribe for bad service..
what do you feel…?
will you just pay for that bad service??
will you just keep silent??
please la..i am tired of being in this situation..
i just want you guys to IMPROVE the service..
use OUR MONEY that you guys get every month to enhance your service.

AND DONT JUST JUST SAY `WE WILL GIVE U 1 DAY FREE OF CHARGE,AFTER WE GIVE U TROUBLE EVERYDAY’

I DONT NEED ANY REPLY FROM P1,COZ IM GETTING GASTRIK HEARING/READING THOSE ANSWER.
Quoted from tartputat

And this user needs to use Celcom’s broadband just to do a posting.

Here i have exactly the same problem as lot of P1 Wimax subscriber. The problem is super slow internet speed for 24/7. U can see in my signature below this speed only happened on my 1st week subscription. Then now after almost 7 months of subscription it as night mare for me pay almost rm100/month for speed around 200kbps and this happened for 24/7. For your information I subscribed for 1.2Mbps @ Rm99/month. Only god know how my feeling now. Want to terminate this account but i have contract for 2 years. Now to add this reply also i need to use my backup celcom 384kbps broadband. Pls do something… if u need my details pls pm me. I think P1 Wimax already over subscribed. The P1 tower now can’t handle for its over subscribed customer.
Quoted from mjoe

And how is it compares to 56kbps PSTN line?

have the same problem yesterday midnight…1:30am onwards the line is not responding at all, able to open my gmaill page in 15 mins…(u know, login and go to my shower then come back, the page only show rclxub.gif ) Remind me the worst time during my 56kbps generation…. well this time is worst than that moment
Quoted from taitianhin

And some users decided to fork out extra money to subscribe to another broadband service as backup when P1 Wimax is down.

Now my P1 totally out of service.. freaking slow and always stuck there even google page also!
I have no idea now.. so just purchase another prepaid broadband for temporary use!
Quoted from chung5576

Be sure that you understand the contract before ‘cutting‘ yourself. Inviting troubles and wasting money. Read the fine print in the contract. Here’s some points that you need to take note.

7.10. In the event the Subscriber terminates the Service provided after the seven (7) days
in the COP policy, Subscriber agrees and understand that the Device need not be
returned to Service Provider and Subscriber agrees to pay the sum of Ringgit
Malaysia Nine Hundred Ninety Nine (RM999.00) only being the early termination fee
as per Clause 12.1 hereto.

12.1. In the event the Subscriber wishes to terminate early/cancel the services, the
Subscriber is required to execute a Service Termination Form and forward the
same to the Service Provider by hand, postal mail, email or fax together with the
sum of Ringgit Malaysia Nine Hundred Ninety Nine (RM999.00) being the
cancellation and early termination fee.

16.2. Subscriber may terminate any Service upon providing thirty (30) days written notice
to Service Provider subject to the Subscriber remains liable to pay all fees, costs
and charges due to the Service Provider prior to the termination date and the early
termination fee as stated in Clause 12.1 above.

16.3. Notwithstanding the termination by Service Provider pursuant to Clause 16.1,
Subscriber shall remain liable for all fees due and owing to Service Provider during
the subsistence of this Agreement. Such termination shall not prejudice the right of
Service Provider to recover all charges, costs and interest due and any other
incidental damages incurred thereto.

16.4. Service Provider shall not be liable to Subscriber for any claim for damages or costs
of any nature whatsoever arising out of discontinuance of the Service due to the
termination or expiration of any Service or these Terms in accordance with its term
including but not limited to any claim for loss of profits or prospective profits or for
anticipated loss.

Taken from P1 W1MAX Terms and Conditions

So, if you have already subscribed to the service and screaming like hell now. Try to lodge a complaint at the authorities like FOMCA, Ministry of Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism, Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (SKMM).

If you terminate your contract prematurely, you will need to pay certain penalty fees as what I understood from the agreement. Complication.

So, you still wanna potong?

PS: I’m a proud Streayx user. I’m getting the maximum speed as said in my package plan although it does gets to my nerve sometimes. Very rarely.

Also, we have changed the way information are presented here too. Better!

We can now see the statistics according to a state. Say we need to see the information for Johor, this is what we will get.

That’s it for now! Many more updates to come soon! Behold.

Hope you like it! Comments are most welcomed! =)

JPJStat – Malaysian Vehicle Registrations Tracker

Photo caption fix

First of all, it’s about a bug fix which is actually quite unnoticeable to the masses. There are 4 columns at the bottom of the homepage whereby 2 latest photos shown. The description of the photo has been made to be the same as what is displayed in the photo slide show / stream above. Primarily, we do not want to see “Click on the photo to see larger size” appears in the caption at the homepage which is ridiculously irrelevant, isn’t it? It’s only valid when user goes into the blog entry.

Expand blog entry

Secondly, it’s about serving better and wider range of photos.

Everything has gone wide these days seriously. You want wide wide highway to drive on to getting real big and wide screen display to play your HD videos. Heck, you can’t even buy a proper normal ratio (4:3 ratio with resolution like 1024×768, 800×600, 1280×1024) LCD panel on market as easily as 2 years ago now! Everything is wide, so do the photos and blogs. Okay, back to where we were.

For our case here, in particular, panorama. It’s a pain to the eyes when we are viewing something very wide like panorama like the scale of 5:1 (width:height). Just like the little long panoramic image that you are seeing above!

With just a click of button! Walah~

The blog entry content pane is widened to as much as the template permits. This has made photo viewing much much much more flexible and satisfying. Hope you all like this little update.

Technically, of course, for those who are interested to get wide too on their blog too, read on.

The idea is actually simple. I hide the sidebar and expand the content pane. Typically, most of the blogs run on two column template whereby the first is for the content and the second one is for the sidebar.

We will focus on the left (content) and the right (sidebar) column. Here’s one live example to demo on.

The left column has the id of “leftSample” and the sidebar on the right has the id of “rightSample“.

Try to hit the Expand/Contract link above and see it happens!

And of course, the coding…

//check if the left column is expanded
if(document.getElementById('leftSample').style.width = '300px';){
	//hide the sidebar
	document.getElementById('rightSample').style.display = 'none';
	//expand the content
	document.getElementById('leftSample').style.width = '480px';
}else{
	//show the sidebar
	document.getElementById('rightSample').style.display = 'block';
	//reduce the content's width
	document.getElementById('leftSample').style.width = '300px';
}

That’s the rough idea real Quick and dirty! Go figure!

PS: Endless possibilities, just to name one. You may, of course, make use of the eye-candy-ness of JQuery to make all sorts of sliding and hiding effect.

1. Statistics grouped in weeks

Previously, we have data representation based on “Last X days” and “Overall vehicle registration” only. Now, we have added another kind of graphing so that we can see how things are moving week by week.

Of course, in the long run, we would want you to be able to select the kind of data you want whether you would want to compare other state’s data with yours one and with the date range you desire. For now, it’s still (pathetically) basically one way communication between us and you (You only get to see what we show you).

2. Date format

We did a little bit of tweaking on how date is shown especially. From now on, we will follow DD-MM-YYYY (Eg, 20-10-2009) date format. This would make ourselves clear in interpreting the graphs and data ultimately. This is the official date format Malaysia is using so let’s us stick with this.

Future enhancement

Of course, in the end, we always talk about what we want to do next, how to improve the project and so on. We are not exempted from this.

The project homepage has grown way too much and very long. Finding a specific chart/ information is a painful task. We are now looking in making a major face-lift to make your browsing experience better. This is definitely our next aspect to focus on.

And secondly as what we mentioned above, we are pleased to let you to dynamically select the data you want to see but it’s just plain talk now. Behold.

Head to the project hompage

Alright, this round I’m going to tell you the story about our second stop during our days in Vietnam. As the title can tell, we are heading to Halong Bay on the second day of our 5 days tour.

It started with a 4 hours travel by bus provided by the tour company from Hanoi. It was really an eye opener traveling on the route. Our bus couldn’t really travel fast no thanks to the crazy traffic in Vietnam. Roads are bumpy and there are lots of traffic along the way, particularly when we are crossing a town. I think we were able to travel at only 60km/h maximum throughout the whole journey to Halong City.

After hours of travel time on the bus, we have finally reached the ticketing office for Halong Bay. This is where we boarded a jet boat which later transferred us to Pinta Cruiser. (See discussions on Pinta Cruiser on tripadvisor)

We paid 85USD per pax for this junk. And for 85USD, I think we may be paying a little too much compared to others. Remember that it’s always wise to check the prices around the tour agencies in the Old Quarters back in Hanoi. There are plenty of them there. I overlooked on this point as I made all my arrangements through the hotel counter. It was hassle free though as I only needed to deal with them. The extras are probably for the commissions.

Another thing to note that the junk operator would request to keep our passports with them. I’m not too sure on why they want to do so but I guess it may be for security reasons. Just in case when the ship sinks, the authority will be able to find all of its passengers identity more easily or maybe they just want to make sure that we will clear our bill before leaving the boat (or by jumping and running away).

Prior to all that, the stay in Halong Bay is enjoyable nevertheless though! We need not to worry about not getting TV reception or cellphone network. We are getting satisfactory cellphone reception along the route although it may drops a little some time.

We signed up for 2 days 1 night tour. After our lunch on board, we went to Hang Sung Sot Grotto cave. The entrance ticket the tour operator bought for us back on shore includes the fees to visit one cave.

Situated in the centre of the UNESCO-declared World Heritage area, the Sửng Sôt or Surprise Grotto is on Bồ Hòn Island, and is one of the finest and widest grottoes of Hạ Long Bay.

Ascending to the grotto, the way is covered by trees and foliage, and consists of great paved stone blocks.
Inside, it is partitioned into two chambers; the first one being similar to a wide theatre hall. Many stalactites hang from the high ceiling, with numerous possible forms and shapes.

A narrow passage leads to the second rooms, where a flow of light meets visitors. The chamber is so immense it could contain thousands of people at one time.
At the deepest point of the grotto, a “royal garden” appears with a clear pond and a seemingly fascinating landscape of mountains. Many birds and plants (benjamin figs, cycads and centenary banyan trees) live here. On nice days groups of monkeys might arrive in search of fruit.

It is situated in the central tourism centre of the bay, as well as Ti Tốp Beach, Bô Nâu Grotto, Mê Cung Grotto and Luồn Grotto. French named it “grotte des surprises” (grotto of surprise) From the wharf, you climb 50 steep stone stairs to the mouth of the grotto, which lies 25 m above the sea level. Going down some 10 stone stairs, you reach the mouth of a grotto. The grotto covers some 10,000 m2. Inside the grotto there have thousands of stalactites and stalagmites along the 500-meter paved passage. Light posts line the passage and serve as signposts and ornaments. The lighting system with elegant styles adds more charm to the beauty of the grotto.

Up in the 30-meter roof of the grotto, one can figure out small, soft and even concave spots, which look like patterns in the ceiling of a theater. A huge piece of stone stands up to the ceiling by the grotto’s mouth. This evidences one of the typical karst-style grottoes with high scientific values.

At the side of the entrance, the rock seems to form the shape of a horse with a long sword. Legend has it, that after having defeated the Ân aggressors, Thánh Gióng (the Saint Gióng) helped the population to chase away evil spirits and demons. After this feat, Saint Gióng flew to heaven, leaving a stone horse and sword to continue to keep the demons away.

Quoted from halongtravelguide.com

Along the way to the opening of the cave at the top, we can get a very good view of Halong Bay. Hazy weather hindered us from getting a good shot so I opted for Sephia effect here.

After then, we were just sit back and relax, cruising along the bay for the rest of the day.

On the next day, I went kayaking around Hang Trong. It is advisable to kayak on low tide as we can get higher clearance when kayaking through caves. Going through the cave on high tide may be a little bit riskier but still do-able.

It was another tiring 4 hours trip back to Hanoi after lunch on board. Basically that marks the end of our Halong Bay trip.

If there’s only one place you can go in Vietnam, that would be Halong Bay!

From the jetty, we traveled to hang Song Sat for caving, then stayed overnight at H. Ti Top. On the next day, we went kayak around hang Trong before heading back to the shore.

I have developed a fairly simple data migration script so that you won’t need to go through the pain of re-adding latitude and longitude for the new plug-in in all your posts.

Essentially, you will need a bit knowledge on how to access your database administration. Typically, you will be using phpmyadmin to manage your Wordpress database.

Here is how we do it.

• Go to your phpmyadmin
• Select your Wordpress’s database, by default, it has a suffix/prefix of ‘WP’
• Click on the SQL tab
• Then, execute the following queries below.

Run this for its latitude…

insert into wp_postmeta (post_id,meta_key,meta_value) (select p.post_id, ‘_geotag_lat’, format(left(g.coord,instr(g.coord,’ ‘)-1), 5) lat from wp_postmeta p join wp_geopress g on p.meta_value = g.geopress_id where p.meta_key = ‘_geopress_id’);

And, run this query to retrieve the longitude…

insert into wp_postmeta (post_id,meta_key,meta_value) (select p.post_id, ‘_geotag_lon’ , format(right(g.coord,length(g.coord) – instr(g.coord,’ ‘)),5) lon from wp_postmeta p join wp_geopress g on p.meta_value = g.geopress_id where p.meta_key = ‘_geopress_id’);

I have migrated mine successfully. Hope it helps for you too!

Anyhow, I went on with my parents in the end. It was a 5 days 4 nights trip to the world second largest rice exporter country. The country with over 3 thousands kilometers of coastline. Insane.

We traveled using MAS’s as it offers hassle-free transit and it’s actually slightly cheaper than Air Asia. Furthermore, we don’t need to pay a single cent for the meal served on board.

Flying for 3 hours plus without (FREE) food and drinks can be starving and thirsty.

We had our fist lunch at quan an ngon in the Old Quarters after arrival. It’s a well known place among the locals and tourists. Many have recommended this place so we gave it a try.

What you see on the left is what Vietnamese love to eat. Often, they like to wrap their food around like this. It’s something similar to Japanese’s temaki.

Well, I must say that we are not really “into” the local foods over there. Nevertheless, it is a very good experience!

Just enjoy the photos I took during the trip and I’ll tell you more in the next post.

Staying alive is a key to another great trip, you will know why in the next post.

Till then, take care.

PS: Oh ya, if you are viewing the photos in the photo album, make sure you try the slide show feature ya!

A court in UK ordered photographer Gareth Bowers from Fresh Images to pay a total of 1500 sterling pounds as compensation to it’s rather bad, lower than expected quality photos taken during the big day of the newly wed.

From blurry images to chopped off heads to awkward angles to dark images, they have done almost everything a newbie would expectantly to do with their first camera.

Ironically, the couple had actually gone through 11 wedding fairs to use Bowers’s service.

Something is definitely wrong somewhere. Sometimes, you really can’t just rely on someone’s portfolio to tell how good the photographer is.

Portfolio is one thing, shooting on actual occasion is another. I’m not ready to spoil one’s wedding yet!

Read the actual piece of news here for the photos taken.

Congratulations! It was a pleasent evening yesterday attending Audrey’s wedding which took place in a restaurant opposite St Anne’s church, Bukit Mertajam. Go to full album.

On my Canon 400D, surely this 2 years old body still serves me quite well. The keeper rate is largely controlled by what lens it’s fitted on. The body itself is subjected to ocasional focus confusion and such producing soft images but it’s not too critical. I’ll just have to double check the shots taken and re-take if needed.