Cyza Sector

I discovered blogging 17 months ago. That time, I didn’t know what does the word ‘blog’ means. I soon realized that blog was derived from the a combination of “web” and “log”, which became “weblog”, and finally “blog“. Blogging gave people like you and me a platform to express and share ideas, opinions, thoughts, knowledge and more than that too. Anybody can create a blog and compose whatever they want.

Starting to Blog

I wish I knew about blogging earlier. I love to write and post articles in magazines and bulletins. I was always directly involved in publication since primary, secondary and tertiary education (using my mother tongue language). Now, that my work place does not provide me any means to write, they just want me to work and work and work…. Hence, as soon as I discover blogging, I immediately sign up under Blogger and start posting. My first blog was Chemical Engineering World. That blog progressively received attention from chemical engineering students and fellow chemical engineers around. Initially, it was not easy managing that blog. I never purchase any e-book on how to create and maintain a blog. Slowly, I learned positioning some script code the hard way – by try and error. It took me some time to learn and grasp the technique and skill.

Blog + Money…

A good think (bonus) about blogging is the income that can be automatically generated from it 24/7. Earlier, I never thought that blogging can generate money. I must admit, after some research and reading, a lot of successful blogs out there inspired me to create and produced a good quality content blog. Almost a year ago, I read a post: “I’ve made $4,375.75 online! Here’s how you can too…“, and I discovered more ways and tools to monetize our blog. It really open up my eyes reading Paula’s teachings. If you have not read that article, you can spare 10 minutes reading it. It’s a great post and I’m glad she shared it with her readers.
From time to time, few bloggers proudly display their blog income report. Those figures are really exciting and who wouldn’t want to earn income like John Chow, a genius dot com mogul blogger. Who says local bloggers cannot be as great as international pro-bloggers! 5Xmom proofed that making money via blogging (+some other internet activities) can be worthwhile and full of fun…

Blog Evolution

Ever since blogging appeared this century, it never stop growing. It’s just like a disease, virus… Blogging ‘disease’ definitely have affected a lot of people around the globe. It is an epidemic. Those affected are known as bloggers. A big chunk are part time bloggers while a minute of them successfully emerge as a pro-blogger. Statistics shown that there were 690,000 bloggers since 1998 using LiveJournal as their platform. In 2005, Blog Herald estimated there are more than 60 million blogs. I tried to search for the latest figure (as of in 2008), but I could not find it. Is 500 million blogs a good estimate?

Blogging has become an industry by itself. For the first time ever, BlogWorld Expo 2007 was held in Las Vegas. It is the first and only industry where trade show, conference, and media event dedicated to promoting the dynamic industry of blogging and new media was held. In addition, the expo featured the largest blogging conference in the world including more than 50 seminars, panel discussions and keynotes from iconic personalities on the leading-edge of online technology and internet-savvy business. The expo is the right place for those who are currently blogging, vlogging, podcasting, producing other forms of new media content, entering the new media industry, or simply those just want to know what the blogosphere is all about. BlogWorld Expo 2007 was a massive success and BlogWorld Expo 2008 will be continued.

What Has Blogging Done to Me?

I go to work very early in the morning, and return home when it is already dark. Everyday, I arrive home and have a wonderful home cook dinner prepared by my wife (I’m lucky that my wife’s cooking is marvelous and she loves cooking for me). I play a little bit with my three beautiful kids. Sometimes they’re noisy playing around and sometimes they quarrel with each other. Well, they’re just small innocent kids. Before taking shower, I’ll switch on the laptop and modem. After shower, praying, having dinner, “ajar anak ngaji”, I sit at the table with my right hand initially maneuvering the mouse. My eyes are laser focus reading emails and my favourite blogs. After about an hour or two, both of my hands are one the keyboard, posting something for the two blogs that I maintain.

After work, I spent almost 3 to 6 hours on blogging activities, depending on my physical fitness and my eyes stamina . It’s funny to admit that I think about blogging almost all the time. When I drive, eat, walk, bath, relax….etc. The disease already conquered me. I’ve been infected with the dangerous blog fever!!! I have almost no desire watching the TV accept when there is a Manchester United live telecast. There are those saying: “Makan blog, tidur blog, minum pun… blog…he he…”. At work, I’m spreading the virus and some have been infected. I’m trying to spread it to my brothers and sister as well. My syster (the stewardess) has shown some symptoms. I think she will be infected by the virus soon.I have some general informations and knowledge on how to make money in the internet using various methods. Like everybody else, I want to earn more from the virtual world (besides blogging). However, limited time and priority problem has made the progress delayed. I could not focus on other things. My heart will always urge me to blog…. and blog…and blog…. Do you face that problem too? It seems everything inside me is about blogging… I just hope all my effort and hard work will be worth while. I hope this blog will be appreciated and fancied by my readers. I hope they will subscribe to my content and enjoy all my entries.

I can say those that I mentioned above is my daily routine as a part time blogger, full time process engineer. Not to forget, a full time husband and father. I’m tired and sleepy but I could not sleep without posting to this blog. No Manchester United match tonight. OK, now that I’ve completed this post, I want to have some sleep. Thanks for reading my musing… Adios!

I know I’m not suppose to write this entry now, but I just could not resist. I could not wait till the 1st of March 2008 to write about it. Within a space of 50 days, somehow, I managed to improve the blog performances. I’m going to provide a brief explanation and short analysis on them. Check on the following latest ranks evaluated from Alexa, Google Page Rank and Technorati (the figure in bracket represent data at 1st December 2007).

Alexa: 1,247,029 (5,290,760)

Google PR = 4 (3)

Technorati Rank: 305,717 – Authority 27 (461,534 )

Alexa Ranking

The Alexa rank for this blog substantially increased to 1,247,029 which is an amazing outcome. I know it is still not as good as other blogs which have far better Alexa ranks bellow 250,000, but for me, it is an achievement – A 64% improvement. I hope it can be further improved and establish itself in the top 1,000,000 mark by 1st March 2008.

How actually does Alexa rankings works?

Alexa’s rankings are based on the usage of Alexa Toolbar users over a rolling 3 month period. A site’s ranking is based on a combined measure of reach and pageviews. Reach is determined by the number of unique Alexa users who visit a site on a given day. Pageviews are the total number of Alexa user URL requests for a site. Hence, in order to obtain higher Alexa rankings, we must attract and ensure regular unique visitors to our site. Further explanation on Alexa ranking can be read at its FAQ.

Google PageRank

Another significant and vital improvement is my PR which shifted from 3 to 4. That is a direct 25% improvement. I never expected it to moved up that soon. Having a PR of 3 was also considered a bonus after considering my blog is just 3 months old.

PageRank Basic…

PageRank is Google’s evaluation of how important a site is. The main element in this is the number of sites linking to your site and their PageRank size. PageRank is measured on a scale of 1 to 10 and is determined by the PageRank of links pointing to a given page. The placement of a site in Google search engine results pages is influenced by the PageRank status. Tony Connor gave a simple easy to understand guide on Google PageRank Beginner’s Guide. If you want to improve your PageRank and get better position in Google search engine, you better understand the real PR mechanism by reading Ian Rogers explanation of Google PageRank Algorithm and How It Works.

Technorati Rank

My Technorati rank slightly improve by 33.8%. For me, Technorati rank is not as imperative as Alexa and PageRank but I cannot simply ignore it. It is actually an alternative method of measuring the blog performance. Basically, by using “Technorati Authority”, it ranks the number of blogs linking to a website in the last six months. The higher the number, the more Technorati Authority the blog has.

Technorati Rank is calculated based on how far we are from the top. The blog with the hightest Technorati Authority is the #1 ranked blog (Engadget is ranked #1 in the Technorati Rank having Authority as much as 24,806. The Popular Blogs page under Technorati list down the top 100 blogs. It is worth checking and exploring them). The smaller our Technorati Rank, the closer we are to the top. Since at the lower end of the scale many blogs will have the same Technorati Authority, hence the Technorati Rank will be shared.

Presently, I only managed to earn “Authority” of 27. I need to get more inbound links coming into my blog to improve my Authority and Technorati rank. According to Darion Carroll, the best way to increase Technorati Authority is to write things that are interesting to other so they’ll link to you. He added, “linking to source material when you blog is also a great way to engage in conversation and help others find what you find interesting.”

Conclusion

Despite some improvements in zakiyamani.com, I need to work smarter and harder to produce quality, entertaining and attractive post. By producing good and unique entries, first time visitors can convert to regular visitors. Fraction of them may consider subscribing to my content and get updated via email. Hopefully, the search engine will place my blog/post in better position and thus send more unique and new visitors. Besides that, I hope happy readers/bloggers like you can be kind enough to link to my blog or post. I would like to thank you in advance for that … Good deed will be paid with good deed…

I’m not expecting anything special in my PageRank until the second quarter 2008. I’m hoping my Alexa and Technorati rank to improve at least 15% by that time. In the mean time, there are other blog performance indicators which I’m not going to cover now. I’ll do that in future entry. It will be rather more interesting to see and observe those tools, some of which are already established in the market and those which is brand new.

If you find this post or blog interesting, don’t hesitate anymore…. Get updated by Email.

Finally, a slightly different look for a new Proton Saga codename BLM. For such a long time, Proton has just been improving and modifying their older models. The emergence of Proton Saga BLM gave a fresh look and new dimension. It will definitely going to be a popular choice due to the lower price range.

Earlier, Proton Holdings Berhad managing director, Datuk Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir said at a media briefing that the car is designed from the beginning, as the vehicle for the masses, a rakyat’s car. “With such pricing and value for money proposition, anyone who earns about RM1,300 a month can afford the new Saga,” he added.

New Proton Saga Videos

I believe people with lower to average income family will benefit from the new model big time. Masses have wider choices and more options for lower budget family vehicle. One who wanted to purchase a Perodua Kancil can now opt for a bigger car at Proton Saga BLM which has a price range almost similar to Kancil. For me, I’m just going to stick with my Kancil because of the lower CC and it save me a lot because I traveled minimum 100 km a day for work.

I believe, a lot of people (including me) searched to check out more on the price range, colours, specifications and other features of the new Proton Saga BLM. To my disappointment, I found out that Proton.com website is not updated and uploaded with the PDF brochure or information of the new Proton BML. I guess, I need to go to Proton show room tomorrow to have a better view and feel of this new economical sedan although I’m not going to buy it… We’re considering the new Toyota Camry…

Check tonnes of the new Proton Saga BLM video and other range of Proton’s automobile here.

I think, maybe Proton or other car manufacturers/sellers can also make people order online? Is that possible…?

Later Updates

I intend to include this additional post about the NEW SAGA on Monday night. However, I was too busy and tired.

I visited Proton Edar Pasir Gudang area to have a closer look on the new launched Proton Saga BLM. Two models (Metallic Black and Granite Gray colour) were displayed. One was locked and parked outside the showroom. Another one which was the Black Metallic was crowded with people wanting to see, inspect, feel and test the car. Sincerely, for such a price, I think, it is a good family car for a low to medium income family. The design does not duplicate any of the previous proton models. However, I’m disappointed because other brighter colour such as Mountain Blue, Chilli Red and Zircon Green was not available for display. At least I already sit in it and feel it (but have not drive it yet… … Enjoy the photos.

There’s no doubt that the increase in fuel (petrol and diesel) cost has persuade drivers to seek for methods or mechanism to reduce their fuel consumption. Some people opt to invest and modify their engine to consume liquefied natural gas (LNG). Some people decided to use motorcycle (which is cost saving and faster if traffic jam takes place). Pity, I’m not good in riding a bike!!! Some people like me, chose to use a more economic vehicle like Kancil to go to work. It’s worth it because I cover a distance of 100 km from home to work and back home. Some people installed magnetic stuff inside their engine to make their fuel work more efficiently and thus create some small percentage of saving in their monthly fuel consumption. Rumors say that the price increase is most likely going to happen again. A slight increase in the petrol cost will definitely affect me because of the daily distance that I traveled. Let’s do some mathematics. Don’t worry, it’s simple.

Lets say I work 24 a days a month. 1 day I go to work, I’ll cover 97 km (assume 100 km for the sake of calculation). That means I traveled 26 x 100 km = 2600 km per month.

My kancil fuel tank capacity is about 20 liters only. The current petrol cost is RM1.92 per liter.To fill up the tank, I need to spend RM38.40 per 20 liters.

With a full petrol tank, I can travel 3 days to work. That means, 20 liters (RM38.40) can allow me to go to work for 3 days = 300 km.

Because I work 24 days a month, that means, I have to fill up the petrol 8 times a month in order for me to go to work. (8 times fuelling x 3 days = 24 days). That means the cost of fuel is RM38.4 divide by 300 km = RM 0.128 per km @ 12.8 cents per km.

Last month, a colleague at work introduced a bottle of green fluid called MyGreenOil which he claimed can save petrol. Being nice and because the price is just RM10 (60ml), I bought it from him.

MyGreenOil application is simple. We just mixed 1ml of Mygreenoil to 1 liter of petrol. For my case, I add 20 ml of MyGreenOil liquid into my fuel tank and pour in 20 liters of petrol.

The outcome:

After applying it for the very first time, I was so impressed. An addition of 20 ml gave me extra 80-90 km, which means I can now travel 380-390 km with my Kancil compared to only about 300km previously without MyGreenOil.

The cost of 20 ml is just RM10 / 3 = RM3.33. That means with additional RM3.33 I can get extra 80-90km. The new cost that I have to pay now is RM38.40 + RM3.33 = RM41.73 for every 20 liters of petrol. But when we calculate further, the final cost of petrol per km is now reduced to RM0.107 per km [RM41.73 divide by 380km]. That’s a saving of 16.8%.

After this, I can estimate, the fuel that I have to pay per month is 2600km x 0.107 = RM278.20 per month compared to 2600 x 0.128 = RM332.8. The difference is about RM54.60. Well, those are just an estimate based on my calculations. From it, I know that I can save about RM50 per month and that is before the petrol price increase. The saving will increase when the petrol price rises… God knows when…

What makes me become more convinced that the fluid/additive really work? Before this it took me 3 days before I have to fuel up. Now I can drive my car up to 4 working days. Can that fact lie? I’m not promoting this green liquid. I’m just one of the happy user. Some of my friends bought it as well. Some of them are happy just like me. Some say they don’t see the saving. I don’t give a damn about it…. the most important thing is …… it benefited me…. and…..

….and I want to share them with you. That’s why, as promise, I’m rewarding the top 5 top commentators of the month of January a bottle each. Yes, that’s right. One bottle of MyGreenOil for the 5 top commentators of this month. If you want it…well…I guess you know what to do….

Since I bought a new laptop last month, I added to my collection, a new so called gadget – “wireless router”, in order to (1) reduce messy confusing wires in my house and (2) enable both laptops (me & my wife’s) online at the same time.

After work, I went to Citect IT shop at Taman Universiti, Skudai and asked for the wireless router since I already have the broadband streamyx modem. The not really friendly guy behind the counter offered me Aztech and D-Link. I asked to check on the D-Link wireless router. To be honest, I have very little comprehension and knowledge about the wireless router. I have seen one of the D-Link models at my brother’s apartment and I was very pleased with the signal and performance. Hence, from brother’s recommendation, I chose D-Link DIR-300 wireless G router and paid MYR135 for it.

The router has high speed Wireless LAN connection and support both IEEE 802.11b and 802.11g. It can go up to 54Mbps with wireless G series. As most other wireless router, the internet connection can be shared with 4 build in port switch.

At home, without further delay, I immediately opened the box and worked on the installation together with my other half. We followed the step by step guide in the CD installer and after about 30 minutes, we were done. Both of the laptops were connected to the wireless router and broadband modem. We were very delighted after successfully installing the wireless router.However, we noticed that our line is still not yet secured. I have to figure out how to set the security and password. So far, I have not yet search on how to set the security and password. Anybody want guide me? You can save me some time researching it in Google….

After this I’m aiming for wireless mouse and wireless printer. I wonder if there is wireless power supply for the laptop!!?? What about you? What will be your next gadget?

I was supposed to withdraw my Google Adsense money end of last month. However, I totally forgot about it!!?%$@#*^ Luckily my other half reminded me about it. I went to RHB bank, Pasir Gudang area last Friday to withdraw the money via Western Union. Despite successfully receiving my first payment, I was quite worried because I’ve read about bloggers experiencing problem withdrawing their Adsense payment and end up did not get paid. Well, I hope, it won’t happen to me. After a short que, I approached the counter and gave the bank officer my Western Union form. She looked at me and said the Western Union services were “off line”. Frustrated and due to limited time during office break, I returned for work.Yesterday, I went to the same bank and the response was still the same – “off line”. I went to CIMB which was just next to it. Wow!!! The bank was flooded with people. The Western Union counter was also crowded with foreign contract workers (Philippines, Nepal, Indonesia and various others that I cannot recognize) who wanted to send money to their love ones at home. I was the only one who wanted to receive money. I waited for 25 agonizing minutes. After that, I decided to make a move because I know I won’t be getting my money soon – the lady bank officer went off for lunch!!! Can you believe that!? Your customers are there waiting and queuing… How can she just leave… OK, maybe somebody covered up for her… But I could not wait. My lunch break was already over… I requested for my IC and form.

Today, my 3rd day attempt, I went to RHB bank, asked the officer whether Western Union is online or not? It’s online… Yes!!! So, I handed in the form and my IC. After waiting for about 15 minutes, I was called to sign the receipt and collected the money. Thank God, syukur, the process was silky smooth. It was not as fast as some people claimed, but at least I’m glad I got the hard cash.

What about you? How was your experience withdrawing Adsense payment via Western Union?

p/s: The photo (memang takde kena mengena dengan post nie… – courtesy from Budeen. TQ bro…

I have delayed this post for a while due to the hectic rat race that I’m indulged in. I know this entry is a must since somebody has tagged me and i must put it forward in order to expand the chain of super intelligent network. To be honest, I have not seen this concept before…. yeah…I’m still green in the blogging industry. I’m still informally learning blogging skills at night after work + dinner + watching the news + ESPN sportcenter.

Personally, I think, nobody has to earn a bachelor degree to figure out that this concept can mutually benefit all blogs selected in the growing list. The fact that somebody thought about you and select your blog to be tagged is definitely an amazing feeling. Besides expanding and strengthening the bond, we can indirectly improve our blog Alexa, Technorati and PR ranking. I believe, that is what all of us desire….a better ranking at the end of the day.

Before I proceed further, I want to say thank you to birthday boy, Aizat who tagged me last week. It’s really an honour and I felt…. WOW!!! … I have online comrades… Hey… there are millions of bloggers out there and he chose me, he tagged me… Thanks again bro.

OK, here I’m going to continue the good deed. We don’t want the tag to stop. We want the tag to exponentially grow, breed and multiply. We want the virus to spread as evil as possible!!! For those of you who are not familiar with the concept, check out 1-2-3 step below:

The rules
1. List the original links
2. Add another 5 bloggers’ URL of your own choice
3. Those 5 bloggers to continue the step 1 and 2. After that, the link will grow exponentially 5,25,125…+ until infinity (hopefully)…

OK, here are the tags so far…

1. The Strategist Notebook
2. Link Addiction
3. Ardour of the Heart
4. When Life Becomes a Book
5. The Malaysian Life
6. Yogatta.com
7. What goes under the sun
8. Ubuntu For Malaysian
9. Arsenal Malaysia
10. Malaysian Computer Technical Blog
11. TeqEdge
12. Qubix Blog
13. Silent Blogger
14. Senyuman Sedekah
15. Teranung.blogspot
16. Aku tetap aku
17. Taszara.com
18. Alique
19. Zaki Blogjer
20. Zakiyamani
21. Me YgInsaf
22. Haney

You have been tagged by me. Continue the spirit…

23. NoktahHitam
24. Mmuurrllyy
25. Thushara
26. Webworm
27. Abu

If possible, I want to tag more people, more blogs especially those who are a regular here. However, I noticed some of you have been tagged elsewhere. So, I decided to choose others who have not been tagged yet. I’m also following the rule because I only can tag 5 person.

Let’s pray and do what we can to ensure adik Linie safely returns to her family. We don’t want the same event which happened to adik Nurin repeats. You can play a role to spread this information to others so that the entire nation unites and search for the unfortunate girl. We appreciate real valid informations to assist the parents and the police to organized the search and rescue operation.

To those who kidnapped the girl, please show some mercy to adik Linie. She is still small and she has astma and require proper medications. There are millions of other positive activities that can be done apart from kidnapping a little girl.

To those who have small kids (including me), we better take 110% care of our kids. It seems that our country is not safe until the culprit is totally brought to justice.

Usually I don’t cover this type of story because I’m not that type of entertainment guy or Hollywood person!!! However, the next James Bond movie which will appear on November 7th, 2008 (worldwide) enticed me. After noticing the head line, The new Bond girls, on Yahoo.com homepage, I could not stop myself from getting the answer. I clicked the link and the name Olga appears. The Ukrainian born model and actress is picked as one of the new Bond girls and will feature in the next Bond 22. Bond 22 is the working title for the next James Bond movie, a sequel to the 2006 Casino Royale (which I have not seen yet!!!). To be honest, I don’t like the style of Daniel Craig, the new Bond who replaced the James Bond that I liked, Pierce Brosnan (apart from Sean Connery and Timothy Dalton). That put off me from watching Casino Royale. However, I think, I should give Craig’s debut as James Bond in Casino Royale a try, simply because Bond 22 is the sequel for it.

Olga Kurylenko … the newest Bond girl

Ops….let’s get back to the Bond girl story. With her appearance in Bond 22, Olga Kurylenko joins a long list of leading ladies to cast alongside the super spy including Halle Berry, Kim Basinger, Talisa Soto, Malaysia’s Datuk Michele Yeoh and most recently Eva Green in Casino Royale. In the past, being a “Bond girl” has given actresses massive exposure and launched lucrative careers.

British Gemma Arterton, 22, is the next Bond Girl

Followings are 4 interesting facts about James Bond that you might want to know:

1. Since 1962, six actors have portrayed James Bond in “official” films:

• Sean Connery (1962–1967; 1971)
• George Lazenby (1969)
• Roger Moore (1973–1985)
• Timothy Dalton (1987–1989)
• Pierce Brosnan (1995–2002)
• Daniel Craig (2006–present)

2. The James Bond Movies were inspired and adopted from some of the Original 007-Bond Books:
Ian Fleming

• 1953 Casino Royale
• 1954 Live and Let Die
• 1955 Moonraker
• 1956 Diamonds Are Forever
• 1957 From Russia with Love
• 1958 Dr. No
• 1959 Goldfinger
• 1960 For Your Eyes Only (short-stories)
• 1961 Thunderball
• 1962 The Spy Who Loved Me
• 1963 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
• 1964 You Only Live Twice
• 1965 The Man with the Golden Gun
• 1966 Octopussy and The Living Daylights (short-stories)

Kingsley Amis as Robert Markham

• 1968 Colonel Sun

John Gardner

• 1981 Licence Renewed
• 1982 For Special Services
• 1983 Icebreaker
• 1984 Role of Honour
• 1986 Nobody Lives For Ever
• 1987 No Deals, Mr. Bond
• 1988 Scorpius
• 1989 Win, Lose or Die
• 1990 Brokenclaw
• 1991 The Man from Barbarossa
• 1992 Death is Forever
• 1993 Never Send Flowers
• 1994 SeaFire
• 1996 COLD

Raymond Benson

• 1997 Zero Minus Ten
• 1998 The Facts of Death
• 1999 High Time to Kill
• 2000 Doubleshot
• 2001 Never Dream of Dying
• 2002 The Man with the Red Tattoo

Sebastian Faulks

• 2008 Devil May Care

Young Bond
Charlie Higson

• 2005 SilverFin
• 2006 Blood Fever
• 2007 Double or Die
• 2007 Hurricane Gold
• 2008 Young Bond Book 5

Novelisations
Christopher Wood

• 1977 James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me
• 1979 James Bond and Moonraker

John Gardner

• 1989 Licence to Kill
• 1995 GoldenEye

Raymond Benson

• 1997 Tomorrow Never Dies
• 1999 The World Is Not Enough
• 2002 Die Another Day

3. Bond 23 (the film name for the project) will be played in 2010 with Daniel Craig as the James Bond. Bond Girls for Bond 23 have not yet been announced. The producer might do some selections somewhere end of 2009, I guess.

4. Thunderball (1965), where Sean Connery played Bond is the highest box office among other James Bond movie. It collected a staggering $924,747,936. For comparison, Casino Royale (2006) collected $608,148,153.

My favourite James Bond: Sean Connery, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan

My favourite Bond movie: The Living Daylights

My favourite Bond Girl: Talisa Soto (Licence to Kill ~ 1989)

My favourite Bond Sound Track: Licence to Kill ~ 1989 – Tina Turner

My favourite Bond Gadget: Mobile phone in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) where it have various features:

• a stun gun,
• a fingerprint scanner/analyzer/transmitter that can also be used for opening high-tech fingerprint-identification locks
• Antennae lock pick, which detaches from the phone and when inserted into a keyhole, hitting a key on the phone can then open the lock.
• “Flip-open” remote control for operating his BMW 750iL (Directional steering pad, LCD monitor for the front and rear view, controls to fire rocket launcher and operate the car’s other defense mechanisms)
  • NOTE: This was a concept phone designed by Ericsson. Much of the look of this phone including the “flip-open” design was eventually (a few years) incorporated into Ericsson’s R380 “smartphone” which combined a fully functional mobile phone, PDA-like tools and WAP services.

Hmmm….What about your favourite Bond stuffs? gadgets? movie?

3rd January 2008 – Both of my kids, Ikhwan and Marsya, registered and went to their new school, hmmm kindergarten actually. Both of them were fired up and excited to begin their first day at school. Waking them up in the morning was not troublesome at all. However, the pace was slower because they just woke up and were still sleepy. I took a day off from work to accompany and witness their very first day together with my beloved wife.

Ikhwan and Marsya wore their shoes at the front door.

Tadika Ijazah. This is their English Medium Pre-School (which consists of two unit of houses transformed into a kindergarten) . It cost us RM1100 for registration for both of them. The monthly fees are RM90 per person. Well, it’s cheaper than the well establish Tadika Nuri franchise, which the registration cost about RM1100 per person and from RM150 monthly per person (check out Tadika Nuri website for more accurate figure). Nowadays, enrolling kids to kindergarten is like sending them to local university. The cost and maintenance is so high.

As for primary and secondary school is concern, believe it or not, this year, the entire cost (including uniform + school fees + etc) to send children to school is very high. I knew about this when I chatted with a bunch of friends at work and in my neighbourhood. Most of them complained on how ridiculously high the cost for school registration. I wonder how the lower income citizens can afford the cost!!! Hopefully, in future, we can enjoy totally 100% free education.

Ikhwan and Marsya at their kindergarten

Ikhwan and Marsya playing the puzzle (are those thing called puzzle? I’m not sure). Ikhwan was still uncomfortable. Actually both of them fear us leaving. As we left, we can hear them shouting and crying. But, we have to leave them and let their teachers handle them. After school, they were OK and happy; and eager to go to school the next day.

A New Life, A New Beginning…

3rd January 2008 – A new baby boy was born about 0730 hours after the mother felt the contraction 3 hours before. He is my new nephew and their grand parents’ 2nd grandson. It was a normal birth delivery and the baby weighted 2.7 kg. It seems that the mother experienced an easy and fast delivery – no complications. Thank God. Hmm….at this moment, the baby don’t have a name yet. When are you going to name him Budeen?

Was he thinking? Or having a sweet wonderful dream?

He sleeps peacefully. He’s really cute and small. When will you bring him to JB Budeen?

Budeen, the father embraced his beloved new born son. Thanks for the photos bro.

Oh yea….while waiting at the hospital, it’s good to read zakiyamani.com. Well, after this browse via FireFox Ok….!