The pain of Apple dealers in Malaysia

Apple products in Malaysia cost way much higher than their prices in our neighbor, Singapore. For example, the basic iPod 30GB costs 27% more than it is in Singapore (converted to RM, RM1599 vs RM1260). So why the differences? Price Discrimination. It happens to China too. So I think Apple Malaysia will not do good until this goes away.

Visual Studio 2005 Setup Issue...

Here is the log. And I haven't figured out why this is happening:

[11/26/05,20:52:29] Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition x86: ISetupManager::GetGlobalCustomProperty() failed to find global prop in CGenericComponent::GetGlobalCustomProperty()

[11/26/05,20:52:29] Setup.exe: GetGlobalCustomProperty({BBE1827C-F2FD-4FDA-A6D6-C83B62FFFDCA})

[11/26/05,20:52:29] Setup.exe: GetGlobalCustomProperty({8297A38B-6431-4F1D-9F6E-C3D371CEA383})

[11/26/05,20:52:29] Setup.exe: GetGlobalCustomProperty({8297A38B-6431-4F1D-9F6E-C3D371CEA383})

[11/26/05,20:52:29] Setup.exe: GetGlobalCustomProperty({E0B955BB-9903-4205-9571-38FE435EC256})

[11/26/05,20:52:29] Setup.exe: GetGlobalCustomProperty({E0875D42-A33D-4C64-81C9-167795F29CA4})

[11/26/05,20:52:29] Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition x86: CreateProcess launched with cmd linep:\setup\..\wcu\sse\SQLEXPR32.EXE "p:\setup\..\wcu\sse\SQLEXPR32.EXE" -q /norebootchk /qn reboot=ReallySuppress addlocal=all instancename=SQLEXPRESS SCCCHECKLEVEL=IncompatibleComponents:1;MDAC25Version:0 ERRORREPORTING=2 SQLAUTOSTART=1 /watsongenman=SQL???.mft

[11/26/05,21:56:59] Install_Cancel: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition x86

[11/26/05,21:57:00] vs70uimgr: Entering DisplayMessage() method.

[11/26/05,21:57:00] vs70uimgr: DisplayMessage_START:Would you like to cancel setup? If you choose yes, setup will finish installing the current component and then quit.

[11/26/05,21:57:04] vs70uimgr: DisplayMessage_END:Would you like to cancel setup? If you choose yes, setup will finish installing the current component and then quit.

[11/26/05,21:57:04] Install_Cancel_No:

Treat the printer with respect

Amazing some people just got so impatient with printers. They slam, knock, or even kick the printer when they don't get their printouts. Read the panel dudes...receiving files, paper jam, or they just simply send their jobs to a different printer! Moreover, paper jam can be caused by mismatch paper size. Remember that the tray says A3 and some dudes just try to be smart and put A4 papers in it. How ignorant. READ IT PEOPLE!

Salute to our printers who never complains.

Translation is hard work

Recently I've taken up technical document translation. All I can say is that this is hard work! The amount of time spent is enormous and with my novice experience, I think I'm doing only 2 to 3 pages of translation in an hour. This is not going so well. But I still have to do it, no matter what. Oh sure, yes, and I still have hundreds of pages to go....

Will I be able to complete it before Christmas? I sure hope I will...*sniff*

MyKad...

I must admit I'm one of the last few Malaysians (~2,000,000) that have not applied for the new and advanced Malaysian identity card (IC) - "MyKad" - a Smart Card based identity card for Malaysians. Despite many publications in the newspaper stated that ~free~ applications has been run from the year 2003 to 2005 (I don't need to be reminded since this was announced in the year 2002 National Budget that application would be free for 3 years), I have been thinking: " Well, this is technology stuff...so it's better later than earlier. Who knows whatever problems they have in the earlier versions of these Smart Card system will be gradually and quietly fixed along the way ." I would think that I am right. Security is always getting tighter yet no matter what you do today, there seems to be some way or another for someone to find a way to break it. So guess what, the government then annouced that the old IC will not be valid from year 2006 onwards for many official transactions! Shucks...there leaves me no choice even though in the year 2002 National Budget announcement, it just implied that application will not be free start in year 2006. I figure that the government isn't telling us something now...

Thus, this morning, my sister and I decided visit the Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara (JPN) office in Putrajaya. We arrived at 8.15am, got a number (1038 and 1039) each, and finished our application at 8.45am! That's a record for any kind of official governmental businesses I've ever dealt with. No bad! So I guess we should be able to collect the card two months later, that's what the officers there told us.

Side thought: I actually won't be surprised that the government will want those early adopters -- people that got their MyKad in the early stage -- to upgrade their identifiy card for added security features pretty soon...agree? Just ~wait and see~

The Untold Secret of the Fan

I actually did not realize that when the fan is turned on, it gives a blue glow! Cool looking fan but what's the point when the cover is put on?

p.s. messy wires but don't mind that. I'll arrange them properly I promise (which I reckon should improve air flow so the machine runs cooler and the fans do not need to work so hard which in turns will be more silent...)

The Transparent Big Guy with a Steady Spin

So then I went out and bought a fan that claimed to be less than 24 dBA - Cooler Master Dream III. I took the old one out and replaced it with the Dream III. Ahh...now I can enjoy my music with a better environment.

Bad news is...now either the chassis fan or the video card fan has just climbed to claim its top spot! :( Hmm...what am I going to do next?

The Tiny Little Noisy Fella

The noise from my PC has been given me frustration for months until one day I decided to find out which fan was screaming its lung out. So there are 4 main fans in my system: the chassis fan, the power supply fan, the CPU cooling fan, and the video card cooling fan. Initially I thought the main culprit was the chassic fan. I was wrong. It was the CPU cooling fan which could spin up to more than 4,500 rpm when the PC was busy with activities. This is the one that came originally with the Intel Pentium 4 CPU - tiny little fella but made lots of noise. Grrr.....

It was the birthday of the wife of a friend of mine. The husband got her a cake. Of course we each got to eat a piece of the cake too. Nice. 

Just set up a wireless access point for my house. Now I can network from the comfort of my room, how nice! 

Going Wireless At Last

Recently, I only got myself a wireless access point w/ router. A Linksys Model WRT54G -- although it's more colorful, its configurable settings are not as comprehensive as the Level 1 Broadband router that I used for the past 3 years.

So why did I buy this? Two reasons:
1) It has won quite a number of awards. Just visit their web site to see what these are
2) A friend also has a LinkSys wireless router so I guess it must have been quite good

Great! I'm having a break from work now until next Monday. Hooray!