Is this the Malaysia I knew? Me and my dad used to watch the news on TV and talk about how stupid the MP behave when it comes to other countries and we were always proud that Malaysia does not have such problem. Never once I thought what happen in Perak today would have happen to Malaysia.

It is such a shameful event to all! I wonder where is the “1Malaysia” when you can forcefully drag someone of his chair and it was reported that the chair broke.  I am truly disappointed with what had happen; I still can’t believe that it happened to Malaysia!

At this point of time, I just want to wait and see.

mon

I have been hearing a lot about our local graduates; some say they are too choosy, some say they are not up to level needed, some say they are lazy and the list goes on. So for the last few weeks I have been meeting many local graduates for tea and coffee and started asking them why they are being blamed in such a manner.

Are they really choosy?

Well, from what I gathered, yes they are choosy. They have to be very luck to know that the government is doing everything they can to support this people and they are just too choosy and not interested in what is offered to them. I know a recruitment consultant friend who is working on one of the “Train & Place” programme which is fully paid by the government together with monthly allowance, anything from RM 400 to RM 1000, and I can’t believe that this graduates can say no to such offers just because they live in Sungai Buluh and the training is provided in Genting Highland. Reason given was that the place is too far from family as they have to stay in Genting for 1 or 2 month to undergo the training.

Language

Yes, language is a big problem when it comes to our local graduates. I have interviewed as many as 100 to 150 of them and they hardly can make a proper sentence in English and the sad part will be that this people are having a CGPA of 2.5 to 3.5. They really have to improve on their English; almost 70% of the students I interviewed asked me if they could talk in Bahasa when I was asking them questions in English. I really hope their English will be improved in University itself.

Are they really lazy?

Not all of them but they are certain group who are lazy, they graduated in middle of 2008 and when we offer then a job in the beginning of 2009, they don’t want to take the offer and when asked why “Nak lepak dulu la..” was the answer. Parents are to be blamed here to as most of them are supported by their parents for pocket money, which brings another question to my mind, does the parents know that their children are rejecting the job offers?

Leave it to me, I will talk to some parents and write about that.

Mon

I have been using this phone for about 8 months now. Most of the review talks about the good and bad of the phone but i am just going to talk about the bad part as i am so unhappy with the peformance of the phone.

First the touch screen, yes when you test it out for 1 or 2 days it feels great but once you start using it the screen sucks big time, does not respond to your touch most of the time. Then comes the the phone itself, after using it for about 2 weeks i realise that the phone switch off by itself as and when it likes. I was trying everything i could download updates and stuff and the issue was never resolved. I decide to bring it to the Toshiba, gave it to them and explain what is the issue about and after 3 days they called me and told me that it was due to the battery as it was lose, they changed the battery, back cover and also updated the phone to the latest firmware which is no availbale on the internet. Picked it up and started using it again and within a week the problem came back, and until today nothing can be done to solve this issue.

Second, was the speed of the phone once you start using it for few days you can see the respond speed sucks, it takes for ever to load a screen up and when you answer a call it will just hang and you will not be able to do anything other then hitting the reset button which will take about a minute to get the phone back to normal. I tried everything uninstalled some application, reset the phone and load all data again send it to Toshiba and again nothing helped.

Finally the 3G settings, even if you are in area where 3G signal is good the phone keeps on jumping from 3G to 2G and back and forth. First i thought it was because of the service provider, called them up and they did all test and even came to my house to do some testing and finally it was concluded that it was because of the phone, when we testing with other phones which is running windows mobile 6.1 everything seem to be ok, the signal stays connect with 3G for hours and the moment i swap the phone back to 810 the 3G signal will last for few minutes before it jumps back to 2G then with in a minute it will jump back 3G.

After 8 month i gave up with the phone and changed to Iphone and todate no issue.

So if you are considering to buy a Toshoba G810, think again.

It will be good if you could leave your comments if you had any issue with the phone like me.

Mon

Content from external source:

Golden Age to begin in 2012
From David Hedges

In the “Brahma-Vaivarta Purana”, Lord Krishna tells Ganga Devi that a Golden Age will come in the Kali Yuga – one of the four stages of development that the world goes through as part of the cycle of eras, as described in Hindu scriptures. Lord Krishna predicted that this Golden Age will start 5,000 years after the beginning of the Kali Yuga, and will last for 10,000 years.
Mayan Calendar Matches Hindu Calendar
It is interesting that this prediction of the emergence of a new world is prophesied to appear about the same time that the Mayans predicted it to come! The Mayan calendar began with the Fifth Great Cycle in 3114 BC and will end on 21 December 2012 AD. The Hindu Kali Yuga calendar began on 18 February 3102 B.C. There is only a difference of 12 years between the Hindu’s beginning of the Kali Yuga and the Mayan’s beginning of the Fifth Great Cycle.

Golden Age Could Begin in 2012
The ancient Hindus mainly used lunar calendars but also used solar calendars. If an average lunar year equals 354.36 days, then this would be about 5270 lunar years from the time when the Kali Yuga started until 21 Dec 2012. This is the same year that the Mayans predict rebirth of our planet. It is also about 5113 solar years of 365.24 days per year, and is day number 1,867,817 into the Kali Yuga. By either solar or lunar years, we are over 5,000 years into the Kali Yuga and it is time for Lord Krishna’s prophecy to happen according to the ancient Hindu scriptures. Lord Krishna’s Golden Age could easily begin in 2012!

Mayan Prophecy Matches Hindu Prophecy
It is amazing that both calendars began at about the same time over 5,000 years ago and both calendars predict a totally new world and/or golden age after about 5,000 years into their calendars! We are definitely on to something with these Mayan and Hindu 2012 predictions. Historically, this is an amazing fact since these two ancient cultures did not have any contact.

Mon

Been reading about this topic for the last few days, thought i should write about it.  How many of you think that human kind can predict when will the world end? Keep on reading, it seem very interesting how Mayan Calendar ends on 21 December 2012.

The Maya civization was known for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-columbian. So why do people say the world will end on 21 December 2012?

So what does the calendar say? You see the calendar was design around 250 – 900 AD. They use many type of calendars and view time as a meshing of spiritual cycles. The problem starts when the base year for the Mayan Long Count starts at “0.0.0.0.0”. Each zero goes from 0 – 19 and each represent a tally of Mayan days.  Example as the first day of the calendar starts as 0.0.0.0.1 and the 10^th days would show as 0.0.0.0.10 and when the 19^th days is reached it goes up 1 level and it will change from 0.0.0.0.19 to 0.0.0.1.0. The level moves on which mean 0.0.1.0.0 will be about 1 year, 0.1.0.0.0 will be about 20 years and 1.0.0.0.0 will be about 400 years.

Now coming the end of the world, the Mayan calendar starts from 0.0.0.0.0 and it will end when it reach 13.0.0.0.0 which is 5126 years and the Mayan calendar started on August 11^th 3114 BC, which mean the Mayan calendar starts on August 11^th 3114 BC (0.0.0.0.0) and will end on 13.0.0.0.0 which is 21^st December 2012. This can be seen in 2 ways, when the calendar ends at 13.0.0.0.0 it can just reset its self and start all over again from 0.0.0.0.0 but us being human something innocent like can be think as the most extreme possibilities for the end of human kind.

In short this is what the Mayan calendar means, do we have any such calculation or calendar in Hindu?

Mon

Yes!, i am getting married in the next 9 weeks and to tell the truth i am already having that “butterfly feeling” in my stomach. Let me share how the process went about finalizing my imam for the nikah. Although i was not happy at all with the processes i had no other choice but to follow.

It started with me and my fiancée going for the HIV test with one of the government hospital or clinics. So as planned in the afternoon me and my fiancée took leave and went to the nearest Pusat Kesihatan, which was located at Plaza Pantai. It was on the guideline that all HIV test will be done daily from 2PM to 4PM, so we were there sharp at 2PM and the clinic was still empty and I was happy that we were the first couple for the day, to my surprise when we approach the girl at the counter and told her that we are here for our HIV test, she asked me “Do you have an appointment?” and I asked her back “Where in the guide its says that I need to make an appointment, it says that we can walk-in to any government clinics from 2PM till 4PM to get it done” . She pointed to the notice board in their clinic which has a notice saying that we need to make an appoint for HIV test as they will only conduct 12 test a day. Rather then wasting my time arguing with them I just got myself an appointment for the next day.

The next day the HIV test was quick, and we got the result within 30 minutes. Next was for us to go to JAWI to sort out the certificate for “”Kursus Kahwin”. The issue was that they have misspelled my father in law name in the cert as well as typed in my fiancée IC number wrongly. In the first place it was their mistake to type it wrongly when the form we submitted was correct, but again I was told that in order for them to reprint the cert I need to pay RM5, again I asked why do I have to pay when the mistake is yours, the answer was simple “macam itu, you bayar dulu la…”. Well again I have to just do it as I wanted to get married. After the RM5, waited for about 30 minutes and it was printed correctly.

Next was my trip to the masjid to book the Imam for my marriage. Here it was fast, meet the Imam and filled in all the form needed a quick check by the Imam and he signed it. Next he told us to take the forms to JAWI to get it approve from them before he could confirm the date with us. We reached JAWI at about 1030AM, took our numbers and waited to be called. Within 10 minutes our number was called and I spoke to them and submitted the forms to them, again we was ask to wait while they process the forms. As I was sitting and waiting I was just looking at where my forms was moving to, first it moved to a guys table where he just flip through the pages and put in into a tray, a data entry girl picked it up and she was at the front desk computer keying the information into the system, the about 11 they called my name and told me to go to the counter to make my paying, which I did happily. Once payment is done I was asked to wait again, and within 5 minutes they called me and gave me a computer generated form which has the same information that I have submitted in the form, to my surprise again! My father in law’s name was spelled wrongly which I have to tell them and had to wait for another 10 minutes for before it was fixed and reprinted.

Finally, we submitted the form to the Imam and got the date confirmed!, and now I have 9 more weeks before I get married… and I can feel the butterflies coming…..

Leave me your comments on how you feeled when you got married…

Mon

WHAT IS SWINE FLU ?

Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza viruses (H1N1 subtype) that causes regular outbreaks in pigs.People do not normally get swine flu, but human infections can and do happen Swine flu viruses have been reported to spread from person-to-person, but in the past, this transmission was limited and not sustained beyond three people.

SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS

The symptoms of swine flu in people are similar to the symptoms of regular human flu and include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Some people have reported diarrhea and vomiting associated with swine flu. In the past, severe illness (pneumonia and respiratory failure) and deaths have been reported with swine flu infection in people. Like seasonal flu, swine flu may cause a worsening of underlying chronic medical conditions.

The symptoms of swine flu in people are similar to the symptoms of seasonal flu in humans and may include:

• Fever (greater than 100°F or 37.8°C)
• Sore throat
• Cough
• Stuffy nose
• Chills
• Headache and body aches
• Fatigue

HOW DOES SWINE FLU SPREAD ?

Spread of this swine influenza A (H1N1) virus is thought to be happening in the same way that seasonal flu spreads. Flu viruses are spread mainly from person to person through coughing or sneezing of people with influenza. Sometimes people may become infected by touching something with flu viruses on it and then touching their mouth or nose.

MINIMISING THE RISK OF AN EPIDEMIC

HOW CAN SOMEONE WITH THE FLU INFECT SOMEONE ELSE ?

Infected people may be able to infect others beginning 1 day before symptoms develop and up to 7 or more days after becoming sick. That means that you may be able to pass on the flu to someone else before you know you are sick, as well as while you are sick.

WHAT SHOULD I DO TO KEEP FROM GETTING THE FLU ?

First and most important: wash your hands. Try to stay in good general health. Get plenty of sleep, be physically active, manage your stress, drink plenty of fluids, and eat nutritious food. Try not touch surfaces that may be contaminated with the flu virus. Avoid close contact with people who are sick.

SAFETY PRECAUTIONS

• Avoid live animal markets, poultry and pig farms in affected countries
• Always maintain high levels of personal hygiene, especially before and after food preparation and in-out of toilets. Regular wash your hands
• Cook pork thoroughly
• Do not consume half-done pork
• While in an affected region, seek immediate medical attention if you develop influenza-like symptoms. (High Fever, body pain, coughing and red nose)

TRAVEL HEALTH

• WHO does not recommend any travel restrictions to areas experiencing outbreaks, including countries, which have reported, associated cases of human infection.
• WHO does not, at present recommend the routine screening of travelers coming from affected areas.

Spreading Country as on April 27, 2009 are ; Mexico, US, New Zealand, Israel, China

WHAT CAN I DO TO PROTECT MYSELF FROM GETTING SICK ?

WHAT SHOULD I DO IF I GET SICK ?

In children emergency warning signs that need urgent medical attention include:

• Fast breathing or trouble breathing
• Bluish skin color
• Not drinking enough fluids
• Not waking up or not interacting
• Being so irritable that the child does not want to be held
• Flu-like symptoms improve but then return with fever and worse cough
• Fever with a rash

In adults, emergency warning signs that need urgent medical attention include:

• Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath
• Pain or pressure in the chest or abdomen
• Sudden dizziness
• Confusion
• Severe or persistent vomiting

IS THERE A HUMAN VACCINE TO PROTECT FROM SWINE INFLUENZA ?

There are no vaccines that contain the current swine influenza virus causing illness in humans. It is not known whether current human seasonal influenza vaccines can provide any protection. Influenza viruses change very quickly. It is important to develop a vaccine against the currently circulating virus strain for it to provide maximum protection to the vaccinated people. This is why WHO needs access to as many viruses as possible in order to select the most appropriate candidate vaccine virus.

WHAT DRUGS ARE AVAILABLE FOR TREATMENT ?

Antiviral drugs for seasonal influenza are available in some countries and effectively prevent and treat the illness. There are two classes of such medicines, 1) adamantanes (amantadine and remantadine), and 2) inhibitors of influenza neuraminidase (oseltamivir and zanamivir).

Mon

How many of you who are reading this thinks that divorce is something very simple to be done? Well first of all i am not married,but planning to be married in the next 9 weeks, anyway thats not the topic here today. During the weekend my uncle & aunty who lives in Johor Bharu came to do visit us. So as usual we had our chat, how are you? how is business and all that.

Then there i was sitting in the garden having my tea, and my aunty walked in to the garden and started talking about her daughter, she is 27 and she have been going out with this guy for 6 years and everyone was happy that they have been together for 6 and and finally they were ready to tie the knot end of the year. All of sudden 2 weeks back my aunty receive a call from her daughter and the news was “mum, i think i dont want to get married now, lets wait 2 more year i want to see how it goes”. So being a caring mum she told the daughter to take leave and get down to JB so they can have a chat.

The conclusion of the chat was simple. The daughter told that even after 2 year she will marry him and if she thinks its not working out she will file for a divorce and she left to KL. Now my aunty asked me, How can i advice my daughter? Why is she taking it so lite about divorce that even before she could get married she already had the idea of divorce in her mind?

If you were in my shoes, what will you advice be?

mon

Again it have been sometime i have not write, anyway have you always wonder why, no matter how much you earn its never enough. Read the list below and you might find an answer for it.

1 Financial Ignorance

It seems almost fashionable for some to plead ignorance over finances with the result that we either make the wrong choices or abdicate responsibility to some kind of adviser who may or may not act in (or even fully understand) your best interests. You don’t have to be Warren Buffett, but acquaintance with the basics is within most people’s grasp. Spend a few hours with a book such as Personal Finance For Dummies by Eric Tyson.

2 Inertia

Though money is pretty important to most people we don’t always act like it. By taking a little time and trouble to find the best deal you can save a small fortune on insurance renewals, savings rates,  credit cards, mortgage etc etc. And with the Internet, and the many comparison sites, it’s never been easier to find the bargains.

3 Failing to Follow the Fundamental Financial Formula (FFF)

ie Money Gained (Lost) = Income – Expenditure

Dickens’ Mr Micawber expressed it thus: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

Yet burgeoning credit card debts show many of us continue to spend beyond our means with the inevitable problems tomorrow. A simple but effective exercise is to calculate your total income and expenditure  for just one week or month, and if the FFF’s in the red you know you’d better make some changes.

4 Lack of Planning

You wouldn’t start a journey without knowing where you’re going and having a (vague idea of a) route. But many people’s financial `goal’ is just to have plenty of money some unspecified time in the future. You need to set specific goals, eg a vacation, car, house deposit, school fees, an amount you’d like to retire on…

Once you’ve done this, you can work out how much you need to save/invest, at what rates, in order to realize your dream. of course, when you do the math you might find some of the goals need scaling back (or you need to raise the amount you save) at the level of risk you’re willing to assume. But at least you’ll end up with a specific and realistic plan.

5 Mental Accounting

This describes the tendency to treat some money differently than the rest. You might, for example, be over-cautious with an inheritance from a loved one, over-reckless with an unexpected lottery win, or maybe you hold large balances on low rate savings while keeping expensive debts on a credit card… Mental accounting can be a good thing if it encourages you to budget better, but beware you don’t lose sight of the big picture.

6 The Sunk Cost Fallacy

Or throwing good money after bad. For example, you’ve spent a small fortune fixing up your old car, yet it still keeps breaking. Though logic tells you to buy another one you’re reluctant to do so because of the amount you’ve spent on repairs. The same tendency can make us reluctant to get out of a bad stock. Remember, what’s gone is gone, and shouldn’t sway your analysis in the present.

7 Paying Too Much in Fees

Time and again research has shown the average managed mutual fund underperforms the market (index) after fees. Sure, some do come out on top, trouble is you can’t identify them in advance. Low cost index trackers or ETFs are a much wiser choice for most investors.

8 Impatience

This manifests itself in frequent buying and selling of stocks, dumping those that don’t provide instant gratification in the ceaseless quest for those elusive winners. The only person this is likely to benefit is your broker as counts your commission fees. Impatience is evident in our spending habits. The desire to have everything now means we often pay twice as much by getting it on credit. You can save a bundle by doing without while you save up to buy cash. Also by spending less on “things” today and instead investing in quality assets we can have a lot more “things” tomorrow.

9 Failure to Diversify

Markets fluctuate – fact! We need to protect ourselves from this roller coaster by not putting all our eggs in one basket. Something to particularly guard against is investing too much in your employer’s stock. This is good for employers as stock-holding workers are likely to be more motivated, but could be very bad for you. If your employer goes bust you lose your savings and your livelihood. Other ways to diversify are through different asset classes (cash, stocks, bonds, real estate) and geographically, most people hold most assets in their own country, but these days it’s easy to invest elsewhere (most easily through an appropriate index tracker).

10 Not Understanding Your Risk Tolerance

Risk and reward go hand in hand. The higher the returns, the greater the risk. There’s no right answer to the amount of risk you should assume, it’s an individual thing. Generally though, the younger you are the more risk you can take. You can allocate different portions of your funds to different levels of risk, eg keeping most of your money in a broad index tracker with, say, 10% in penny stocks. The choice is yours, just be sure you make it consciously.

Mon

The compounding effect of money is extremely important when making any financial decision. The compounding effect of money is often overlooked or underestimated by people when making decisions. When applied to all of your financial decisions, this effect is the KEY to  long-term success! To illustrate the compounding effect of money, let me use some financial examples:

Suppose you had invested $1,000 today in a 5% savings account. In one year, that account would be worth $1,050 [$1,000 + ($1,000 x 5%)], yielding a $50 gain. However, in year two, that same initial  investment would be worth $1,102.50 [$1,000 + ($1,000 x 5%) + ($1,050 x 5%)], yielding a $52.50 gain. And in year three, the same $1,000 would be worth $1,157.63, yielding a $55.13 gain. By year ten, the  initial $1,000 investment would be worth $1,629 and by year 25 it would be worth $3,386.

From looking at this example, you can see that investing $1,000 today is much more valuable than investing $1,000 even a couple of years from now. To accumulate wealth, you MUST use the time value of money and the compounding effect of money to your advantage. Click here to  see how long it will take to save a million dollars.

This second example shows how the compounding effect can work against you:

Suppose you borrowed $20,000 to purchase a car and your auto loan was at a 10% interest rate (for 5 years). Your monthly payments would be $424.94. Because the $20,000 loan continues to compound over the life of the loan, you actually pay $25,496.45 over the five-year period, meaning that you’ve in essence paid$5,496.45 because you spent the money before you had it. In fact, in your initial payments, the interest alone will account for almost 40% of your monthly payments. In this case, the bank or lender that gave you the loan uses the time value of money to their advantage.

Now look at this scenario, where instead of making the $424.94 car payment, you invest that payment at the same rate as what your car loan was (granted it’s a little high for a savings rate, but not unreasonable for other investments) . Now, instead of paying the bank, you are actually earning interest and compounding the benefit yourself. After one year you will have saved $5,340 and have earned $240 in interest. After two years, you will have saved $11,239 and have earned $1,039 in interest. By the third year, your investments will be worth almost $18,000 and you will have earned $2,457 in interest. By month 40, you will have enough money to purchase a $20,000 car in cash!

So let’s weigh the differences between the two scenarios above. In the first case you paid the bank $5,496 to borrow the money and in the second case you earned $2,457 and could buy the car in cash after just 40 months (just over 3 years)! The opportunity cost of the first alternative versus the second alternative results in a net difference of $7,953 (a $2,457 gain versus a $5,496 loss). That means that by making a simple deferral decision (buying the car in 3 years versus today), you can get ahead by almost $8,000!

Mon