Su Sheng Loong dot com

Richard Buckland on Uni Stress

2010-08-11T10:20:00.000+08:00

If you're a stressed-out undergrad like me, watch this video and you'll feel much better!

Richard Buckland is a senior lecturer at UNSW. Though I am not a student from UNSW, I love his lecture series posted on Youtube.

This video clip was extracted from the original video at http://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=AXiqJaNcOI4 so I do not own copyright of the video.

This video clip is solely for education purposes.

Classic JPop - "Lion Heart" by SMAP

2010-08-02T12:26:00.002+08:00

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yip5DtHUU2M

English Translation

You're always my medicine box
How do you heal me?

Laughing beside me, look at that smile
And when you cry, tears really do fall

What's with this ordinary love?

To protect you, that's why I was born
You'll be amazed at how I stay by your side
Your sleeping face, my heart shivers, lion heart

If someday I have a child
I'll love him second best in all the world and tell him

Someday you'll meet someone
Just like I met your mother

Your past filled with the lies of false loves

I'll make up for everything, everything you lost
The warmth that taught me love
The unchanging morning is your tiny heart, angel heart

Your past filled with the lies of false loves

I'll make up for everything, everything you lost
The warmth that taught me love
To protect you, that's why I was born
You'll be amazed at how I stay by your side
Your sleeping face, my heart shivers, lion heart

Source: http://www.jpopasia.com/lyrics/7375/smap/lion-heart.html

A very old yet classic JPop song by SMAP. "Lion Heart" is the theme song of the classic Japanese drama "Food Fight" starring Kusanagi Tsuyoshi who is also a member of SMAP. I didn't really watch the drama because I was still a primary school student back then. But I love this theme song and if I have time I will watch the drama. Hope you enjoy the song!

Inception

2010-08-01T16:02:00.001+08:00

Yesterday night was my very first time to cinema in Australia. I went with Bryan and some friends from CCM club. We watched the very much anticipated movie - "Inception". I had been wanting to watch it because of the fancy and astonishing trailer. "The Matrix + James Bond" couldn't be cooler and more exciting.

Cinemas in Australia normally have free seating. So we all just went in on time, hoping to get the good seats. A witty Singaporean friend, Jeremy said it's time to unleash our Singapore-Malaysia "kiasu" (afraid of losing) spirit and "chiong"! But eventually we ended up in a long queue before entering the theatre. Fortunately we managed to get some good seats and I was sitting at the most behind seat.

Back to the movie, "Inception" was really nice, in terms of storyline, effects, casts, etc. Though I fell asleep for about a few minutes because I usually sleep early and it was already a bit late. Luckily I didn't miss much and I actually still managed to understand what was happening in the movie.

So is it worth the ticket? Absolutely yes. I hope there will be more mind-boggling movies like this in the cinema.

周杰倫 Jay Chou-好久不見 MV

2010-07-26T08:29:00.000+08:00

Just a song dedicated to all the friends whom I haven't met for a long time. Hopefully you guys are doing great now. Enjoy!

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul26b4fwJpw

The History of Hacking

2010-07-07T14:42:00.000+08:00

Via: Online MBA

OMG, Facebook Badge Does Not Work!

2010-05-06T14:56:00.001+08:00

For the past few months, I noticed that the Facebook badge was not working on my blog. If you visited my blog in that period of time, you should have seen a broken image in my blog sidebar. Initially I thought it was the Facebook servers or my Linux operating system that caused the problem. Today I decided to search for the solution online and I found Naishe's blog post which came out with a short and simple solution to the problem. The problem is with the image URL given by Facebook. After tweaking the code a bit, it worked flawlessly for me and now my Facebook badge is visible again!

If you are having the same problem with your Facebook badge, just visit http://naishe.blogspot.com/2009/07/facebook-badge-does-not-work.html.

The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

2010-05-05T22:49:00.000+08:00

Taken from: http://guim.co.uk/

Last Sunday I wrote an article to discuss whether the web would kill desktop application development in the future. Just a while ago, I stumbled upon a great article by Charlie Stross and it was titled "The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash". I have not verified his article with any reliable sources yet but I would agree with the arguments and rationale he presented in the article, which actually pointed out why the traditional computer industry is dying due to the PC market saturation and the proliferation of electronic devices with networking capabilities as well as cloud computing. Enjoy!

The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

By Charlie Stross
There has been some ... interesting news from the tech sector this week.

Firstly, the Apple vs. Adobe vendetta gets even nastier, with a public letter from Steve Jobs explaining why Adobe's Flash multimedia format will not ever be allowed into the garden of pure ideology that is the iPhone/iPad fork of OSX.

Secondly, Hewlett-Packard are buying Palm, apparently for Palm's WebOS — with rumours of plans to deploy a range of WebOS tablets to rival the iPad — at the same time, they're killing their forthcoming Windows 7 slate, just as Microsoft are killing the Courier tablet project.

Finally, gizmodo (not, perhaps, an unbiased source in this regard given current events) have a fun essay discussing Apple's Worldwide Loyalty Team, the internal unit tasked with hunting down and stopping leaks.

It's probably no exaggeration to say that Apple's draconian security policies are among the tightest of any company operating purely in the private sector, with a focus on secrecy that rivals that of military contractors. But even so, the control freak obsessiveness which Steve Jobs is bringing to bear on the iPad — and the desperate flailing around evident among Apple's competitors — bears some examination. What's going on?

I've got a theory, and it's this: Steve Jobs believes he's gambling Apple's future — the future of a corporation with a market cap well over US $200Bn — on an all-or-nothing push into a new market. HP have woken up and smelled the forest fire, two or three years late; Microsoft are mired in a tar pit, unable to grasp that the inferno heading towards them is going to burn down the entire ecosystem in which they exist. There is the smell of panic in the air, and here's why ...

We have known since the mid-1990s that the internet was the future of computing. With increasing bandwidth, data doesn't need to be trapped in the hard drives of our desktop computers: data and interaction can follow us out into the world we live in. Modem uptake drove dot-com 1.0; broadband uptake drove dot-com 2.0. Now everyone is anticipating what you might call dot-com 3.0, driven by a combination of 4G mobile telephony (LTE or WiMax, depending on which horse you back) and wifi everywhere. Wifi and 4G protocols will shortly be delivering 50-150mbps to whatever gizmo is in your pocket, over the air. (3G is already good for 6mbps, which is where broadband was around the turn of the millennium. And there are ISPs in Tokyo who are already selling home broadband delivered via WiMax. It's about as fast as my cable modem connection was in 2005.)

A lot has been said about how expensive it is to boost the speed of fibre networks. The USA has some of the worst domestic broadband in the developed world, because it's delivered over cables that were installed early — premature infrastructure may give your economy a leg up in the early years, but handicaps you down the line — but a shift to high-bandwidth wireless will make up the gap, assuming the frequencies are available (see also: shutting down analog TV and radio to make room). It's easier to lay a single fat fibre to a radio transciever station than it is to lay lots of thin fibres to everybody's front door, after all.

Anyway, here's Steve Jobs' strategic dilemma in a nutshell: the PC industry as we have known it for a third of a century is beginning to die.

PCs are becoming commodity items. The price of PCs and laptops is falling by about 50% per decade in real terms, despite performance simultaneously rising in real terms. The profit margin on a typical netbook or desktop PC is under 10%. Apple has so far survived this collapse in profitability by aiming at the premium end of the market — if they were an auto manufacturer, they'd be Mercedes, BMW, Porsche and Jaguar rolled into one. But nevertheless, the underlying prices are dropping. Moreover, the PC revolution has saturated the market at any accessible price point. That is, anyone who needs and can afford a PC has now got one. Elsewhere, in the developing world, the market is still growing — but it's at the bottom end of the price pyramid, with margins squeezed down to nothing.

At the same time, wireless broadband is coming. As it does so, organizations and users will increasingly move their data out into the cloud (read: onto hordes of servers racked up high in anonymous data warehouses, owned and maintained by some large corporation like Google). Software will be delivered as a service to users wherever they are, via whatever device they're looking at — their phone, laptop, tablet, the TV, a direct brain implant, whatever. (Why is this? Well, it's what everyone believes — everyone in the industry, anyway. Because it offers a way to continue to make money, by selling software as a service, despite the cost of the hardware exponentially dropping towards zero. And, oh, it lets you outsource a lot of annoying shitty admin tasks like disk management, backup, anti-virus, and so on.)

My take on the iPhone OS, and the iPad, isn't just that they're the start of a whole new range of Apple computers that have a user interface as radically different from their predecessors as the original Macintosh was from previous command-line PCs. Rather, they're a hugely ambitious attempt to keep Apple relevant to the future of computing, once Moore's law tapers off and the personal computer industry craters and turns into a profitability wasteland.

The App Store and the iTunes Store have taught Steve Jobs that ownership of the sales channel is vital. Even if he's reduced to giving the machines away, as long as he can charge rent for access to data (or apps) he's got a business model. He can also maintain quality (whatever that is), exclude malware, and beat off rivals. A well-cultivated app store is actually a customer draw. It's also a powerful tool for promoting the operating system the apps run on. Operating system, hardware platform, and apps define an ecosystem.

Apple are trying desperately to force the growth of a new ecosystem — one that rivals the 26-year-old Macintosh environment — to maturity in five years flat. That's the time scale in which they expect the cloud computing revolution to flatten the existing PC industry. Unless they can turn themselves into an entirely different kind of corporation by 2015 Apple is doomed to the same irrelevance as the rest of the PC industry — interchangable suppliers of commodity equipment assembled on a shoestring budget with negligable profit.

Signs of the Macpocalypse abound. This year, for the first time, the Apple Design Awards at WWDC'10 are only open to iPhone and iPad apps. Mac apps need not apply; they don't contribute to Apple's new walled garden ecosystem.

Any threat to the growth of the app store software platform is going to be resisted, vigorously, at this stage. Steve Jobs undoubtedly believes what he (or an assistant) wrote in his thoughts on flash: "Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe's goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps." And he really does not want cross-platform apps that might divert attention and energy away from his application ecosystem. The long term goal is to support the long-term migration of Apple from being a hardware company with a software arm into being a cloud computing company with a hardware subsidiary — almost like Google, if you squint at the Google Nexus One in the right light. The alternative is to join the PC industry in a long death spiral into irrelevance.

Let's peer five years into the future ...

LTE will be here. WiMax will be here. We will be seeing pocket 4G routers similar to the MiFi but featuring 50-100mbps internet connectivity. (Meanwhile, fibre-in-the-ground speeds will be mostly topped out at 50-100mbps, except where new construction in high-value areas has permitted the installation of gigabit and faster links.) Internet access will be increasingly mobile. Phone screens are okay, but a 7-8cm diagonal screen is too small for anyone aged over 40-45 to be comfortable squinting at: hence the market for larger pads/tablets.

The availability of 50+mbps data everywhere means that you don't need to keep your data on a local hard drive; it can live on a server elsewhere, streamed to your pad as you need it.

Apple is known to be investing heavily in data centres suitable for cloud hosting. There are persistent rumours that "iTunes 10" will be some kind of cloud service, slurping up your music and video library and streaming it out to whatever device you've registered with Apple. There's MobileMe for email, and iWork.com for office documents. There will be more — much more.

The iPad by 2015 will have evolved. There will be smaller models with 7"/18cm screens, and larger desktop models. Most importantly they'll be using newer processors, either a descendant of today's Atom CPU (remember, Apple's demand that developers only use Apple's compiler toolchain mean that Apple can shift the app store to a new CPU architecture quite easily) or Cortex A9 class ARM cores — dual core, 2GHz, and up, vastly faster than the current machine ... or vastly more energy-efficient at the same performance level. But where it will really shine — the value proposition that will keep punters forking over huge gobbets of steaming money, in the midst of a PC industry that's cratering — will be the external benefits of joining the Apple ecosystem.

If you're using an iPad in 2015, my bet is that you won't bother to have home broadband; you'll just have data on demand wherever you are. You won't bother yourself about backups, because your data is stored in Apple's cloud. You won't need to bother about software updates because all that stuff will simply happen automatically in the background, without any fuss: nor will worms or viruses or malware be allowed. You will, of course, pay a lot more for the experience than your netbook-toting hardcore microsofties — but you won't have to worry about your antivirus software breaking your computer, either. Because you won't have a "computer" in the current sense of the word. You'll just be surrounded by a swarm of devices that give you access to your data whenever and however you need it.

This is why there's a stench of panic hanging over silicon valley. this is why Apple have turned into paranoid security Nazis, why HP have just ditched Microsoft from a forthcoming major platform and splurged a billion-plus on buying up a near-failure; it's why everyone is terrified of Google:

The PC revolution is almost coming to an end, and everyone's trying to work out a strategy for surviving the aftermath.

Will HTML5, WebGL and Cloud Computing Kill Desktop Based Software Development?

2010-05-02T20:54:00.005+08:00

If you are not an IT savvy, you might not know what these three cutting-edge technologies are. I know we hate reading facts and theories with full of jargons and binary digits. So just sit back and watch the following video before we proceed to the main discussion.

Fascinating isn't it? Imagine you can now fire up your favorite web browser and run the FPS game right in it without any plugin like Flash, Java or Silverlight. This is the power of HTML5, WebGL, cloud computing, etc. I am not going to explain what each of the technologies is since you can easily google them up. What I want to discuss is will these bleeding edge technologies kill desktop software development in the future? When I say desktop based software I am referring to your MS Word, Photoshop, Media Player, Warcraft, Left 4 Dead and even Windows.

With the rapid growth of world wide web, more and more applications are moving to the server side and the users simply can access them from a web browser. I mean as a developer why bother to create desktop applications which can be easily pirated when you can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars from the monthly subscriptions to your web applications which can hardly be cracked? Plus, the users would prefer to use an application without having to install the enormous size of files on the computer. I believe most of you have your web browser running when you log onto your computer and Facebook applications seem more appealing than the old-school mini desktop games to you guys.

Google is smart. In fact, Google has been promoting the concept. They claimed that operating systems are old and obsolete and they believe that powerful server side with thin or weak client mode of applications is the way to go in the future. While Microsoft has the widely-used Office, Google has the web based version of it, called Google Docs. While Microsoft Windows is so prevailing, Google has introduced its own operating system, Google Chromium OS (or Chrome OS) which is meant for browsing web applications. How can Microsoft ever slack while its opponent is trying to shift the market away to another platform?

Having said that, I believe it takes some time to make the changes. After all, the network coverage and bandwidth is still an issue, especially in many developing countries like Malaysia.

What do you guys think? Write down your opinion and we shall discuss.

Java founder James Gosling leaves Oracle

2010-04-11T20:55:00.001+08:00

James Gosling, the creator of the Java programming language, has resigned from Oracle, he announced in a blog entry on Friday.

Gosling resigned on April 2 and has not yet taken a job elsewhere, he reported.

"As to why I left, it's difficult to answer: just about anything I could say that would be accurate and honest would do more harm than good," he wrote.

Gosling was the chief technology officer for Oracle's client software group and, before that, the chief technology officer of Sun's developer products group.

In 1991, he led a small group of engineers in a project, then called Oak, to build an object-oriented programming language that would run on a virtual machine, which would allow programs to run on multiple platforms, such as television set-top boxes. This work evolved into Java, which took off in conjunction with the growing use of the Internet, thanks in part to its inclusion into the Netscape browser.

Gosling follows a number of other noted ex-Sun employees out the door since Oracle's purchase of the company was finalized in January, including CEO Jonathan Schwartz, and XML co-inventor Tim Bray.

Less than a month ago, Gosling had stressed the importance of Java to Oracle. "Oracle has certainly been incredibly committed to keeping Java and the whole ecosystem as strong and as healthy as can be," he said, during a talk at a Java symposium in Las Vegas.

But around the same time he also expressed dismay over the growing politicization of the Java Community Process.

Fellow ex-Sun alumni Bray tweeted that he was "astounded that Gosling held on so long."

Copyright IDG News Service\New York Bureau

Source: http://www.businessweek.com/idg/2010-04-10/java-founder-james-gosling-leaves-oracle.html

Want to Be Your Code

2010-04-02T09:28:00.001+08:00

This is the promo video for the launching of the latest Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 in China. I find it very creative and interesting compared to other IT teaser ads. Check it out!

Link: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTYwMjk0ODA0.html

How to Pronounce Linux

2010-03-28T14:05:00.000+08:00

I am a huge Linux fan and so you are, I hope. There are a variety of Linux distributions and you can find more information about them at http://distrowatch.com/. In the IT field, you always come across with many weird, peculiar, special names with different pronunciations and meanings. "Linux" is the typical example. My lecturers pronounce it as "Lee-Naks". Some of my friends pronounce it as "Line-Nuks" or "Line-Naks". Most of the time, I hear computer scientists and software engineers read it as "Lee-Nix" and they are kind of associating Linux with its ancestor, Unix. This has always puzzled me. So I did a quick search on youtube to look for the proper pronunciation and I striked the following video. In the video, you will learn how Linus Torvald, the father of Linux pronounces "Linux".

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAEsoKiZTvk

Google Summer of Code™ 2010

2010-03-23T14:59:00.000+08:00

Google Summer of Code is a global program that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source software projects. We have worked with several open source, free software, and technology-related groups to identify and fund several projects over a three month period. Since its inception in 2005, the program has brought together nearly 2500 successful student participants and 2500 mentors from 98 countries worldwide, all for the love of code. Through Google Summer of Code, accepted student applicants are paired with a mentor or mentors from the participating projects, thus gaining exposure to real-world software development scenarios and the opportunity for employment in areas related to their academic pursuits. In turn, the participating projects are able to more easily identify and bring in new developers. Best of all, more source code is created and released for the use and benefit of all.
To learn more about the program, peruse our 2010 Frequently Asked Questions page. You can also subscribe to the Google Open Source Blog or the Google Summer of Code Discussion Group to keep abreast of the latest announcements.
Source: http://code.google.com/soc/

That should save me some time and efforts in describing the program. I actually stumbled upon Google Summer of Code last year. Though I was only a first year undergraduate student back then so I did not have sufficient knowledge and skills to participate in the program. Nevertheless, I have been waiting and anticipating for this year's Google Summer of Code.

The accepted list of organizations have been made available online. There are many well-established organizations and companies in the list and this is what makes me feel very excited. Apart from gaining hands-on experience in working on open-source project with great mentor, the monetary reward of USD5000 is also very appealing to me. Now I am selecting an organization and I will have to write them a proposal. Hopefully my application will be approved.

Back to College Tomorrow

2010-02-21T22:09:00.002+08:00

After an approximately five-hour journey, I finally came back to my hostel in Kuala Lumpur from my hometown. Today is the last day of my semester break. New semester will start from tomorrow onwards. After resting for about one month, it is time to resume my college life at HELP University College.

(Wake up Sheng Loong. It's time to go school!)

Few days ago, I checked out the new timetable posted on the college e-Learning website. Well, I found nothing surprising since I already knew what subjects I will be taking and who the lecturers are. The three subjects that I will be doing are Data Structure and Algorithms, Computer Systems Engineering and Software Engineering. I really have to study hard now because this semester is the last semester of my second year. If I can maintain my grades - to score at least straight A- (85 marks and above) for the remaining subjects, I will have much better chance to secure a scholarship to study in University of Queensland, Australia for my final year. So wish me good luck!

There are plenty of things that I have to do. Luckily I have no class tomorrow because no tutorial class is held in the first week and I happen to have only one tutorial class on Monday. I need to ask the department regarding the subject clash and scholarship stuff and I have to walk to the PTPTN building nearby to inquire about the loan disbursement. Plus I need to help my girlfriend to look for a single room near to UTAR in PJ. Anyone staying the area have room to let please contact me!

That's it. I am not sure if I will still have time to update the blog frequently. But I will continue to post anything that i find interesting and informative in my life. Stay tuned!

JTranslator Desktop v1.0 - Desktop Version of Google Translate Made by Me

2010-02-16T18:47:00.003+08:00

Today is the third day of Chinese New Year. I had some time to code a small software with my immature programming skill. Here you go, JTranslator Desktop v1.0, the desktop version of Google translate!

This application is nothing special. I believe anyone with some programming experience could make it better. I just want to practice more so that I will be able to program something big in the future.

If you have used Google translate, you should know that it is a very handy tool for translating text in different languages. The drawback of using it is you cannot always expect the translated text to be precise and human-readable. After all it is just a piece of software and it does not really understand grammar and semantics. Note that you must be online in order to perform the translation function since my application retrieves translated text from Google Translate itself.

There are still a lot of things waiting to be improved such as user interface, exception handling, functionality, etc. But I don't want to spend my whole day on coding this application.

The application is programmed in Java. So you have to make sure that you have Java Runtime Environment installed on your computer. If you cannot run my application, you may download the latest Java Runtime Environment installer for free at http://www.java.com/. If you find any bug or if you have anything to say about the application, leave your comments on this post so I can view them.

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?ggdkjwb24zg
I am hosting the application on Mediafire since Blogger does not allow me to host any executable file. Simply download the file and once it is done, double-click it to launch the application. No installation is required.

Enjoy!

Happy Chinese New Year and Happy Valentine's Day!

2010-02-14T10:40:00.002+08:00

How to Invent Your Own Computer Games for Absolute Beginners

2010-02-12T12:45:00.001+08:00

I believe most guys love playing video games. I am not sure if you ever want to create your own game, but for me it has always been one of the coolest things I would want to do. Despite doing a degree course in Information Technology, I rarely have the opportunity to learn how to develop graphical games. During the semester break, I tried to learn to write some simple games in Java by watching the video tutorials posted on Youtube. Today morning, I discovered a website which offers a free ebook for download that teaches people how to write computer games without prior knowledge or experience in programming. And so I want to share it with you!

The website is called "Invent with Python" and is located at http://inventwithpython.com/. If you are figuring out how the snake can help you develop a computer game, Python is actually a programming language. We need to write codes in programming languages to give instruction to the computer. You know, the computer can barely understand anything else besides binary numbers, 0's and 1's. There are tons of programming languages out there. If you have ever heard of Java, Visual Basic, C++, PHP, etc, these are programming languages and each of them has its own pros and cons. Some people might argue that C or C++ should be used to develop games. While it is true that C/C++ is the industry de facto standard, learning to program games in other programming languages does not make any difference for the beginners. What is important is to learn how to program a game.

I know C/C++ is powerful and fast, because my friends and I did witness how faster C/C++ is compared to other modern programming languages. However, C/C++ has probably the steepest learning curve, apart from Assembly and some other legacy programming languages. On the other hand, Python is more beginner-friendly and the codes are much simpler and elegant. Python might not be very widely used in Malaysia, but it is already one of the most hottest programming languages in overseas, especially when Google made Python as one of their official programming languages, in addition to C++ and Java. You might not understand what I am talking about so just forget it.

Anyway, I took a quick glance on the table of contents and several pages of this ebook and I thought, wow, this ebook is really valuable plus it is free! In addition, the author also provided the source codes and some useful resources on the website to ease your learning process. If you are interested in learning how to program games in python, you must not miss it!

Invent with Python: http://inventwithpython.com/

Google Buzz - Should Facebook and Twitter be Worried?

2010-02-11T13:33:00.000+08:00

If you haven't seem Google Buzz yet, it is actually a new social networking platform introduced by Google. You probably need to have a Gmail account in order to try it. I have been using Gmail as my primary email account. So when I logged into my Gmail account today morning, I was prompted to enable this feature.

I think it's easier for you to understand what Google Buzz is by watching the following video.

It seems that Buzz is Google's weapon to fight against already well-established social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. Hickey posted an article on ChannelWeb in which he listed out 5 reasons Google Buzz has Facebook and Twitter worried. It is a very well-written article. However, I doubt that Google Buzz would have any significant impact to Facebook and Twitter at least in the near future. Google needs to have some strategies to make what the users would want and what Facebook and Twitter have overlooked available on the Buzz platform. After all, Internet users are usually reluctant to make a change to another social networking platform unless there is a big reason to do it. And the reason is never because it is a Google's product.

As an Information Technology student, I am more interested in finding out whether Google will make Buzz an open platform for developers to create applications. While Google already has its own social application platform - OpenSocial, making application available for Buzz users is also very crucial. My girlfriend would never spend so much time on Facebook if she could not have fun playing all kinds of game applications.

Check out more about Google Buzz at http://www.google.com/buzz.

Blog Overhaul

2010-02-10T22:04:00.003+08:00

I had not touched my blog for a couple of months. Lately Teddy urged me to update the blog since I am having semester break now. Today afternoon I had some time so I decided to start working on this blog again.

It was another blog overhaul. I actually did it a few times, probably once a year if I am not mistaken. Yet, I did not change the server or domain name like wad I did previously. Well, I did plan to move my blog to another platform because I just hate the limitations imposed by Blogger. After searching for several alternatives, I convinced myself to stick to what I have now because I don't feel like want to spend my Paypal credits. Renovation is always cheaper than moving to a new house, isn't it? So I just changed the template and add in some widgets. I spent a few hours on hacking the code to make sure that every part of the template is fine and clean. It was pretty challenging since I don't have the documentation of this template but I just enjoyed it.

In addition, I removed all the labels applied to my previous posts and made the posts labeled as "Archives" so you will know those posts are old.

So how do you think about the design of my blog now? Is it much cleaner and neater? Is it easier to navigate and view now? Give me your comments!

Go for business, grads urged

2009-08-10T08:48:00.001+08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Universities should encourage students to get involved in entrepreneurial development programmes such as the Global Entrepreneurship Week 2009, which starts on Nov 16.

Higher Education Deputy Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah said this would increase the number of fresh graduates venturing into business. Only 2.4 per cent of them venture into business.

He said between 10 and 15 per cent of fresh graduates at established universities of the world entered business.

GEW was founded by USA-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and British-based Make Your Mark. Warisan Global Sdn Bhd is the event host in Malaysia.

Speaking to reporters after launching the countdown to GEW 2009 here yesterday Saifuddin said: "The various public and private higher learning institutes should take advantage of this event as it is a platform for unleashing ideas.

"Entrepreneurial skills are not only meant for use in business but can be a soft skill to develop creative thinking among graduates."

Saying youths were rich with entrepreneurial potential, Saifuddin added: "They should be allowed to search for opportunities and seize the moment in making a difference in their lives and the lives of others, through entrepreneurial ventures."

On a related matter, Saifuddin said the ministry was talking with local business schools to encourage them to become premier institutes of learning.

"The lecturers should either have corporate experience or be actual businessmen teaching on a part-time basis.

"Business lecturers should be allowed to sit on the board of companies or hold stakes in businesses so that they can share their experience with students."

Saifuddin also called on banks to be more flexible in providing start-up financing to young entrepreneurs.

Warisan Global chief executive officer B. Dhakshinamoorthy said: "GEW 2009 aspires to cultivate a new breed of entrepreneurs in line with the national agenda of 1Malaysia in distributing the fruits of progress and prosperity to all Malaysians."

Source: http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Malaysia/Story/A1Story20090809-160021.html

Penang: Glimpses of Hope (with English Subtitle)

2009-07-30T21:08:00.002+08:00

If you are a Malaysian, make sure you watch all the three videos below. It's good for you to know a bit about what has happened and what is still happening in our country.

Hong Kong TVB Special Programme on Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng
香港无线电视节目- [檳城在望]

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three:

Jolin蔡依林 - 妥協

2009-07-27T08:15:00.002+08:00

Nice song from Jolin Tsai. I once heard it on radio and thought the song was quite nice. And I just found the music video while rambling around Youtube virtually. Enjoy!

China Focus: China prepares for the total eclipse

2009-07-21T22:15:00.000+08:00

Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/21/content_11746972.htm

BEIJING, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Many Chinese people were busy Tuesday getting preparing for the longest total solar eclipse visible in Asia in a century.

According to Li Jing, a research fellow with the National Astronomical Observatories (NAO), some astronomy fans even planned to watch the eclipse in their cars. If weather conditions are not favorable, they will change their observation venue.

This was unimaginable to the ancient Chinese people, who viewed the solar eclipse as an apocalyptic act of God.

SUPERSTITION AND HISTORY

In ancient China, people believed that a solar eclipse occurred when a celestial dog swallowed the sun.

One of China's old history Shangshu, the Book of Documents, recorded a story from China's Xia Dynasty (21st-16th century BC).

Once in an autumn, when farmers were working on the fields, they saw a darkness swallow the sun. People ran and knocked on their basins or gongs in an attempt to scare the "celestial dog" away.

The emperor ordered his ministers to kneel and beg the gods to pardon them for their mistakes.

When the eclipse was over, the emperor immediately ordered the governor in charge of astronomy be beheaded.

In the Han Dynasty, the emperors would reflect on their policies in case of solar eclipse. They reduced or exempted the taxes, helped the impoverished and remitted the criminals, said Yan Feng, editor-in-chief of the magazine Science & Vie.

Solar eclipses were also seen as a sign of loss in battles, Yan said.

Ancient astronomers began to understand the cause of solar eclipses in the Han Dynasty (202 BC - 8 AD), when they knew that when the moon moved between the sun and the earth, it cast a shadow. Those people in the shadow would see the sun as eclipsed.

TOURISM AND PREPARATION

The Yangtze delta, one of the best venues of watching the eclipse, attracted tens of thousands of watchers from foreign countries or other parts of China.

According to sources with the Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, more than 200,000 foreign tourists entered China via the airport from Thursday to Saturday. On Monday alone, more than 40,000 passengers entered China.

Passenger liner companies launched Solar eclipse tours to bring tourists to the sea to watch the eclipse.

In the southern Guangdong Province, two eclipse-watching tourism lines were opened to astronomy fans. According to local tourism agencies, more than 10,000 people will leave for east and central China to watch it.

The enthusiasm of watchers pushed up prices of equipment for watching the eclipse.

Ji Shisan, 32 and founder of the science club Scientific Squirrel, remembered that when he was young, he brushed ink onto apiece of glass and watched the eclipse with it.

Now glasses used for watching the eclipse have been sold out in many stores.

"It was astonishing," said Yin Jian, a staff with a Tesco Supermarket in Shanghai. "We began to sell the 3.9-yuan glasses since Saturday and by Sunday evening, more than 1,000 were sold."

Unable to buy a pair in the supermarkets, many fans logged online to order the glasses.

On Taobao.com, one of the biggest consumer-to-consumer electronic commerce sites in China, more than 30,000 items valuing1.5 million yuan were sold in a week. Prices of solar-eclipse watching glasses spanned from 2.5 yuan to 165 yuan.

To ensure people's safety on Wednesday when the eclipse occurs, the zoo of Yichang city in central China's Hubei province planned to check the cages in advance so as to prevent the animals being scared by the sudden darkness.

Night mode will be used in the Sanxia Airport, said local sources.

Although Beijing will be able to see a partial eclipse, the city is ready to turn on its 183,000 street lamps if necessary.

EXPECTATION AND SIGNIFICANCE

Ji Haisheng, a research fellow at the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that they will try to get some data so as to resolve any issues, such as the influence of solar movement on the radiation of sun, and the search for asteroid within the mercurial orbit.

Li Jing with NAO noted that the solar eclipse provided a chance for the youngsters to know more about astronomy.

The 81-year-old scientist remembered that he was fascinated by sciences when he was a fifth-grader and heard the story of Albert Einstein validating his theories by watching the solar eclipse.

"Young people had a natural eagerness to learn, so long as their curiosity was ignited," he said.

In the Beijing Book Building, books about astrology became bestsellers recently according to a man surnamed Yin who worked in the popular science section of the book store.

"The solar eclipse just lasts several minutes, but many people spent several months to prepare, and it might influence their whole life," he said.

Backgrounder: Timetable of solar eclipse in China major cities

Michael Jackson's Neverland "Ghost" Mystery Solved By CNN

2009-07-20T00:01:00.001+08:00

You Are Not Truly Happy

2009-07-19T10:35:00.002+08:00

Definitely not a new song. But I just watched the MV recently on Youtube. I found both the lyrics and MV very meaningful and touching so decided to publish it here. Too bad I am not good at translating Chinese lyrics into English lyrics.

五月天 - 你不是真正的快樂

人群中哭著你只想變成透明的顏色
你再也不會夢或痛或心動了
你已經決定了你已經決定了

你靜靜忍著緊緊把昨天在拳心握著
而回憶越是甜就是越傷人了
越是在手心留下密密麻麻深深淺淺的刀割

你不是真正的快樂你的笑只是你穿的保護色
你決定不恨了也決定不愛了
把你的靈魂關在永遠鎖上的軀殼

這世界笑了於是妳合群的一起笑了
當生存是規則不是你的選擇
於是妳含著眼淚飄飄盪盪跌跌撞撞的走著

你不是真正的快樂你的笑只是你穿的保護色
你決定不恨了也決定不愛了
把你的靈魂關在永遠鎖上的軀殼

你不是真正的快樂你的傷從不肯完全的癒合
我站在你左側卻像隔著銀河
難道就真的抱著遺憾一直到老了然後才後悔著

你值得真正的快樂你應該脫下你穿的保護色
為什麼失去了還要被懲罰呢
能不能就讓悲傷全部結束在此刻重新開始活著

Protesters want MACC probed, 7 arrested

2009-07-18T08:54:00.003+08:00

July 17, 2009

The police this morning dispersed about 300 protesters who gathered outside the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Selangor office in Shah Alam demanding that MACC be investigated for the death of an opposition politician's aide.

As they shouted 'Siasat, siasat, siasat' (investigate, investigate, investigate), top Pakatan Rakyat leaders submitted a protest memorandum to MACC.

At least seven protesters were arrested in the melee. They included Kapar parliamentarian S Manikavasagam and Selangor exco Dr Xavier Jayakumar.

Camera: Mohd Kamal Ishak
Editor: Lydia Azizan
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMjYgso2yOg