Travel to China

I was doing the most traveling hours in my life last week, starting from 16th Dec to 24th Dec and traveling based on the following routes:

KLIA --> [air: 4 hours] Guangzhou --> [air: 1 hours 15 min] Wuhan --> [air: 1 hours 45 min] Kunming --> [highway: 2 hours] Shilin --> [highway: 2 hours] Kuming --> [railway: 8 hours] Dali --> [highway: 4 hours] Lijiang --> [highway: 4 hours] Dali --> [railway: 8 hours] Kunming --> [air: 4 hours] KLIA

This trip was considered as part of my “fulfillment” to my dear. I was excited to meet her in Wuhan which she studied. I was having my first bowl of beef noodle in the winter season in a Muslim restaurant near my girl friend’s hostel. Spent two days in Wuhan and tasted a number of delicious foods, such as “Tang Pao”. Headed to Kunming and we went to Shilin, the “stone forest”. I was amazed with the beauty of the shapes and structure of the stones. Then, we headed to Dali and Lijiang in Yunnan Province and stayed in the old towns. I was not too impressed with these two old towns since they were purposely developed for the tourists. Huh…. I had to spend almost all my time doing window shopping in these two old cities. Lijiang old town is considered as the world's relic by the World Cultural Heritage Commission of the UNESCO. It is occupied by the Naxi ethnic minority. However, you will be surprised that you can even find the pubs and bars in this old town. You were experience the same staying in Dali old town which is indeed occupied by Bai ethnic minority. Back to Kunming, spent one-day time in the ethnic village and hanging around in the downtown before heading back to Malaysia.

My thoughts on China after the visit:
- A fast developed country better than what I have had in my mind
- A huge market to penetrate (when I saw the crowd in Carrefour)
- Not too difficult to find Muslim restaurants in Wuhan and Yunnan Province
- Prepare yourself to bargain all the time
- Prepare to do a lot of walking so better to travel to China when you are young
- Ask properly before you accept any offers otherwise you will be frustrated with the hidden cost and protection fares
- Bring your pen because it is hard to borrow from the peoples there
- Chinese there will always said that we are Chinese migrants but they forget that their government said that all the Chinese abroad are none of their business

Photos taken during the trip…

At the Wuhan Airport

With My Girlfriend

Lijian Old Town

Dali Old Town

"Tang Pao" at Hundred Years Old Restaurant in Wuhan

Hawker Stalls at Wuhan

Shilin

Dali Old Town

Protest the Microsoft-Novell Patent Agreement

Just recently installed the Open SuSe on my system. Now, peoples are working against it. Show your support and sign this petition!

http://techp.org/petition/show/1

Open Source Beer

Attention! We are moving into a whole new world, called “Open Source” world. Someone might think about other products. I am thinking of Linux of Char Keow Teoy. Anyone want to share his/her recipe?

Open Source Beer: http://www.voresoel.dk/main.php?id=70
with their Creative Commons License

You are free:
to Share -- to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
to Remix -- to make derivative works

Under the following conditions:
Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one.

"Free software" is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of "free" as in "free speech", not as in "free beer".

KL Revisit

First time in my life that I can visit the Tourist hotspots during my office hours. Last Friday, there were guests from Korea and I was asked to bring them to visit KL. First, I brought them to KL Tower. For your information, KL tower is the property of Telekom Malaysia and all the staffs enjoy the discount. ^__^ But for foreigners, they have to pay RM20 for entrance. Upon the request from them, I also brought them to the national museum. It was my second visit this year. During my last visit, I still remember that there was Cheng Ho’s exhibition in the main hall but this time was “Ramadan Special”. At night, we had dinner at Fatty Crab restaurant. Then, we headed towards Petaling Street, the so called “China Town” in KL which I strongly disagree. They surprised to find out that there are more foreigners than Chinese there. The last destination was Bintang Walk. We ended up having coffee in Coffee Bean.

Field Testing

We have conducted the field testing on the Flat Plane Antenna, using Spectrum Analyzer and Packet Generator in the area of PutraJaya and UPM. The operating frequency is 5.2GHz and 5.8GHz. My colleague and I were asked to setup the antenna for receiving site and collecting the measurement in dBm with 5.2GHz and 5.8GHz center frequency. This antenna is a bidirectional type. When we moved the holder of the antenna away from the transmission site, the signal was lost. Anyway, I was not too aware of the antenna gain and loss of transmission line. According to my colleague who is in charge of the testing, the 10dB transmission loss will happen in every 1km distance. We made the measurement in 3 different spots, which estimation distance around 500m, 700m and 1km.

Tired, I had to drive the "Rusa" all the day......

Antenna for Testing

Bandung Trip

Arrived at LCCT from Bandung 6 hours ago.

Again, this was an opportunity for me to travel to our neighboring country. This trip was purposely to study the wireless solution in one of the leading company in Bandung, Indonesia. I have heard the prestigious Institute Technology Bandung before but hardly have any knowledge on the standard of Wireless technologies there. After visiting that company, I have been a little bit worry about Malaysia. Country like Indonesia, their government is putting faith on their own local company for providing their own solution, although they are not developing from the scratch. But credit to them since they are working hard to get the things done. Here, peoples are depending too much on foreigners’ technologies and seems reluctant to give opportunities to local peoples. I am sorry to say that the Indon guys are much better than us in terms of their work rate. I have had the time to talk to one of fresh graduate from ITB and he said that those who graduate from IBT are encouraged to go oversea for their study. I can say that his technical skill is much better than any fresh graduate from our local university. Sigh of worry! I can’t imagine but I think that I have to believe that Indonesia will soon overshadow Malaysia in technology if we do nothing.

I had arrived at the Bandung airport on Sunday morning. Stayed in Jayakarta Hotel and it is quite near to the city center. Bandung is famous for its textile industry. My colleagues and I had spent our time in Rumah Mode and Cihampelas Street (famous for its Jean) looking for some clothes and etc. It is a paradise for those shopping kaki since there are a lot of factory outlets there. During this short stay, I had found out quite a number of foods which are synonym to Chinese foods, such as CapCay, Siomay (Siu-mai in Cantonese) , Mie Dago (like watan mee here) and etc. Some of the interesting snacks are Durian with ice cream, Batagor (fish ball mixed with Taufu), Siomay ( ), Mie Baso (noodle served with beef meat ball) ….But if you are talking about hygiene, than you probably won’t dare enough to taste these! Anyway, try to understand what the peoples are saying is difficult, especially when the terms can be interpreted as different meaning, such as:

lumayan – jauh
bisa – biasa
ceker – kaki
pak – cik
….

Here the Photos

A View on Hill Site

Jayakarta Hotel

Rumah Mode - A Famous Factory Outlet in Bandung

Durian mixed with Ice Cream

Batagor - A Famous Snack there

They are selling rifles openly


Taking picture at Bandung airport

Too much assumption.....

Worked on the protocol stacks integration, combining both two signaling stacks, NBAP (Node-B Application Part) and ALCAP, with the user plane protocol, FP (Framing Protocol). The FP is resided in peripheral card with PowerPC core while the signaling stacks are both running in main card with Intel Pentium core. Both of these two cards use different operating systems, one is RTOS and another one is traditional UNIX-based OS. The channel cards are not ready and this coz the implementation work based on too much assumptions. It’s really difficult…

Welcome the New Comer

My sister gave birth to a baby last Saturday. Probably will pay a visit within one or two weeks time. Guess whether is a girl or a boy?

Last Week Activities

Technical talk about Inter-Vehicular Communication (IVC) was held in UNITEN last Wednesday. We have invited Dr. Daniel Wong, one of the guest editors from IEEE Wireless Communication Magazine for special issue on “Inter-Vehicular Communications” and his student, Miss Bhawani. There are many similarities between the ad-hoc networks and vehicular-to-vehicular communication. However, there are different problems faced in VANET, such as rapid changing of topology. The speakers addressed two important research issues, security and routing algorithm. More on IVC can be found here.

Last week, I have been assigned a temporary task regarding WiMax solution. This solution consists of three main boards: processor board, modem board and RF board, connected via passive PCI backplane. I am asked to reengineer back the processor board. This board comes along with Intel IXP425 network processor running Timesys Linux. Since the tools are not ready for the time being, I worked most of time identifying the mechanism for re-loading the binary. The board contains a 16M Bytes boot flash that is used to store the bootloader, kernel image and root file system. The bootloader, Redboot was successfully built using the available tar package. However, the linux image is not built for the time being due to the unavailability of Timesys SDK. The JFFS2 root file system was built using the buildroot by choosing the uClibc library which is smaller than the libc. I found out that this tool is really helpful and you can add any new modules to your root file system pretty easy. Anyway, you have to add all the necessary device nodes by yourself. The Abatron BDI2000 will be used to download the bootloader. Subsequently, the redboot contains the command to transfer the image and root file system via TFTP. There are 5 MTD partitions in the flash and thus the root file system is mapped to root=/dev/mtdblock/2. To ease the development phase, mounting the file system is done via NFS.

Name FLASH addr Mem addr Length Entry point
RedBoot 0x50000000 0x50000000 0x00020000 0x00000000
zImage 0x50040000 0x01600000 0x00120000 0x01600000
RfsLinux 0x50160000 0x50160000 0x00E60000 0x00000000
RedBoot config 0x50FC0000 0x50FC0000 0x00001000 0x00000000
FIS directory 0x50FE0000 0x50FE0000 0x00020000 0x00000000

Twin Tower at Night and My Recent Photos

These photos were taken at KLCC Twin Tower last Wednesday. There were 6 trainers from Korea coming to our premise to conduct the training. They eagerly want to have a look on our Twin Tower – a mega project by our desperate Dr. M. So, we spent around 1 hour time there and had a cup of coffee at Coffee Bean.....

UMTS LTE

Recently, our local mobile operators are busy of launching the 3G services and also the HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access). 3G offers the data rate of 384 kpbs while HSDPA offers a 2 Mbps. However, the current research on UMTS Long Term Evaluation are looking for more high speed data rate and can be considered as 4G after all. One of the major different of UMTS-LTE compared to the current 3G is the radio interface technology. UMTS-LTE applies OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) and not CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access). If this is really the case and our mobile operators is going to shift to the new technologies maybe in 20 years time, then we all need to buy a new handphone again. Anyway, I am more concern about the research opportunities...

Attractive Peoples = Non-Productive

A light moment on the weekend....... what do you think :-)

Weekly Update - Working on BTS

Spent almost the entire week on the new arrival BTS system. Study the technical specification. Figure out the mechanism of message exchanging between the channel card and main controller. Try to understand the software resided in the channel card and main controller. Manage to dig out the information on how the information elements in the signaling message are applied to actual configuration of the modulator/demudalotor and encoder/decoder. This week, start to plug the visionICE emulator on the 8260 board and have to figure out the HRCW and correct memory mapping for SDRAM, EEPROM and Flash. After manipulating OR and BR registers, manage to inspect the original dumped image in the flash. Then, bring out the board with my own downloadable image. So, this will ensure the re-loading of the new firmware and software for future enhancement. Still need to figure out the correct flash algorithm since the part number of the flash memory used in the board is not available in the visionICE.

Watched the match between England vs Macedonia and I was not convinced with their performance under the new coach. Again, they failed to impress with too many long ball to Peter Crouch. If you have ever watched the England vs Crotia match on Thursday, you will then laugh at the disgraceful moment by Robinson. You won’t believe that he can let a back-pass to defeat him. Gary Neville scored his first international goal not for his country but for Croatia. He should be proud of that ;-) Hope that he will not do the same to ManU. But I am quite sure that Van dar Saar is not Robinson. See the EPL league table and you will find out why.....

Badminton Friendly Match

Yesterday, we had a friendly match in SRJK© Serdang 2. It was an invitation from Goi friend. I had met with one of ex-schoolmate who I used to play football with. He said that he just took up this sport 2 or 3 month time. Actually, he asked me to join him while we met at Maybank ATM machine. However, I lost his phone number which I stored in the handphone. So, each team was allowed to form 5 double pairs. I had been asked to partner with John. Keke… just to cover me up. We played really bad and made too many unforced errors. We lost the first game after leading 7-4 and were behind 13-0 in the second game. But all of sudden, we managed to steal the game beating them 15-13 after exchanging three services. Maybe we had not enough warm up before the match. Just an excuse…

1st pair – GoiBM/Dr Lee - Lost
2nd pair – GoiBJ /SL - Draw
3rd pair – Ronney/Lam - Win
4th pair – John/Yeoh - Draw
5th pair – Kelvin/LipNgee - Lost

It was really tough yesterday. At the end, our team lost. Maybe we are not used to play in a competitive environment ;)

Presentation at IEEE Conference

Did my presentation at IEEE conference on RF and Microwave in Palm Garden Hotel, PutraJaya yesterday. The paper entitled “Performance Evaluation of FP/ATM Integration in MPC8260” is discussing the effort of putting the 3GPP Framing Protocol in the Motorola SBC8260 supporting AAL2 SAR and calculating the number of simultaneous DCHs affordable by the system. I had been assigned to make the presentation at Microwave Photonic session, which is irrelevant to my paper topic. At the end, there is no question and no response from the attendee. Anyway, I had did my job.

Curry Sausage

Curry sausage, have you all heard about it before? I was amazed to find out that it has been listed as one of the 50 groundbreaking inventions in German History by Partner fur Innovation. So, what is curry sausage all about? It is just a bite-size pieces of sausage covered with tomato-curry sauce. Imagine that 800 million are consumed throughout Germany each year. I have tasted it before in Berlin, because it is cheap and yes it taste delicious. So, do you all think that we can make this as one of the popular fast foods here? The main problem that I think is probably getting the main ingredient, the “pork” sausage. By the way, Herta Heuwer is the inventor for this favourite fast food. She made this culinary dish in 4th September 1949.

Look at the picture of curry sausage. Would you like to taste it?

IEEE Teacher In Service Program

Spent the weekend in Mariot PutraJaya for IEEE Techer In Service Program (TIPS). This program is the initiative of IEEE Educational Activities Board (EAB). The major purpose of this program is to increase the number of student in Engineering by facilitating the volunteer-teacher mechanism. This 2 days program provides the platform for me to contribute to my society based on my profession. We will be called out to be the presenter or “coaches” for future TISP presentation. A small number of teachers attended this conference and found out that the lesson plans are indeed very useful as part of their teaching materials. We have exposed to two lesson plans: “Building the Robot Arm” and “Design a Candy Bag”. The lessons are designed to provide an early exposure for any pre-university students to engineering world. We all have to think how to first meet the design specification, costing issues, testing method, redesign and etc. All of these lesson plans are carefully planned to use low-cost materials, not more than USD100. Besides, the organizer invited the Curriculum Development Center director from Ministry of Education and he has said that it is possible that part of the lesson plans can be included as Living Skill modules. Anyway, we believe that we should start in small scale or pilot projects first. Try out the lesson plans yourselves in www.tryEngineering.com

Mr. Doug Gorham gave TISP Introduction

I'm back

Back to work after 1 week off. The longest leave since I have joined this company. There are several peoples who I would like to thank; first, my surgical doctor, Dr. Khor, who had carried out my operation, second, my beloved gf who takes good care about me throughout the healing week, third, my family members, friends and colleagues who support me. Alright, time for work first.....

Sinus Surgery

I will undergo Sinus surgery tomorrow morning, taken the CT scan on last Saturday and doctor’s opinion is better to have the surgery. Hope that everything will be fine then. Need around several days to fully recover from the general anesthetic. Probably, expect some bleeding as well, hopefully not a heavy one. It’s quite funny that I don’t even care about medical insurance before. My agent pursued me to buy it last year. Thinking just to entertain him, I bought one and continued it for this year. Now, I found out that you need a GL letter obtained from the insurance company before you can make any claims. One thing that worth to point out is that the clinic would not want to accept the PM Care medical card. The doctor claimed that the company is yet to release their payment for previous patient.

Pressure on Ethnic Relationship Talks

" Greetings of solidarity and peace from Y4C!
This afternoon, we received a call from the Masjid management. He told me that they received the pressures from the authority for not rent the hall to our Alternative Course on Ethnic Relationship. We are very disappointed with such unnecessary and high handed ways to stop the civil society to conduct a rationale, mature and important discussion on the ethnic relationship. The government should encourage more open dialogue and discussion on the ethnic relationship. Instead of compulsory the course in the university, the government should allow Y4C to hold the activity in the hall. Although Y4C faced these difficulties, we will continue our program as usual. We are going to move to Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall. "

I had received the email from my friend regarding the ethnic relationship talks which I posted last week. Alright, it mentioned that “pressures coming from the authority”. Who pressure the Masjid management? This is indeed a big question mark. I have attended the talk for less than 20 minutes last week. A huge crowd had turned up for the event. One SB just sat beside me and kept busy writing his notes. I won’t blame him since he was carrying out his normal duty. “Was it because of his report”, question mark again. Overall, I don’t think that the contents of the talk pose any threats to current authority. At the same time, it was organized in a peaceful manner with majority of Malay and Chinese participants. Our nation will celebrate its 49 birthday at the end of this month and to discuss those ethnic issues openly and academically under the roof of the university is banned. I probably believe that we are going nowhere!

Photo at Morib Beach

Photo taken at Morib Beach a month ago!

Ethnic Relationship

My friend, Khailoon, has recently setup a youth organization, known as Youth for Change (Y4C). Y4C urges the public to attend a series of activities for strengthen the ethnic relationship in our country. He threatened me that, “our friendship will end here if you are not coming for the first talk in UIA today”. Please circulate the news to those who are interested:

Venue: Dewan Masjid UIA Matrikulasi, Petaling Jaya
Time: 8.30 p.m. – 10.30 p.m.

4 Ogos 2006 - Dasar Ekonomi Baru dan Hubungan Etnik - Dr Syed Husin Ali
10 Ogos 2006 - Peranan Mahasiswa dalam Hubungan Etnik - Hishamuddin Rais
17 Ogos 2006 - Agama dan Hubungan Etnik - Prof. Osman Bakar
24 Ogos 2006 - Isu Bahasa dan Hubungan Etnik - Lee Ban Chen, Arumugam
7 Sept 2006 - Masa Depan Negara dan Hubungan Etnik - Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim

If you still believe, please come.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Martin Luther King Jr.

Mid-week

It has been sometimes since my last writing. Work as usual but not feeling well since Monday. Thanks, for my dear who take care about me. Bought two books from MPH bookstore last Saturday, and MPH is having “Mega Sale” now, up to 30% of discount. But I wonder how many books had been sold compared to clothes, shoes and etc. keke…

So, anyone who believe in this phase:

- “Anything that can go wrong, will."

I strongly believe that this is true. I always make a worst case assumption in my works or my daily life. Maybe it looks like a pessimistic approach. Actually, I just have a kind of thinking not to put too much expectation on others. You can put a huge pressure on yourself to deliver but not the same to the peoples surrounding you. Have they put the same amount of efforts as you? Unless you are a project leader or the one who pay their salaries, otherwise what else can you do?

- “If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it”

The above quotation is the Murphy’s Law and people have used it to relate to programming:

- “The difficulty of debugging software is directly proportional to the number of people who will ultimately use it.”

Hmm, I think that it should be written as:
The number of bugs to be found in software is directly proportional to the number of people who will ultimately use it.

So did you all read the news (www.thestar.com.my) today?

Bloggers beware
UNTRUTHS: If information in blogs, websites and online portals were incorrect, bordered on slander, caused disturbance or compelled the public to lose faith in the nation’s economic policies, their authors would be detained for investigation, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Sooner or later those in the Ministry of Internal Security will have to design a Blog crawler. But probably they will seek help from Google. Keke……

Continue my work on STREAM IO…

Market Analysis

A market survey and analysis presentation from Frost and Sullivan on “WiMax” and “Wireless Sensor Network” were conducted in my company this morning. A hugely disappointment, nothing special and nothing new, the presentation was mainly for top management peoples without any technical knowledge. It seems that the presenter thought that the target audiences are all marketing peoples. It must be a joke! He said that he doesn’t know the operators in Malaysia which offers cellular service.

Well, the conclusion for his presentation:
WiMax – 802.16d (fixed) will be died and look for research in 802.11e (mobile and fixed)
WSN – ZigBee will be in leading position compared to the other standards.

ZigBee Protocol is similar to the one used by WiFi, known as CDMA/CA. Find out more from this web-site. Interesting stuff.....

Weekly Update

I had been robbed by a Chinese guy at SS2 this Monday. I lost my RM300++ and my handphone while my gf had her handphone “taken” by the guy as well. He came with his Wira and a knife. Without thinking twice, I just fulfilled his unexpected request. We had made a police report and gave our statement. Luckily, both of us were safe but what concerns me is the safety of our country. We can use all the excuses but it seems that Klang Valley is not safe. It’s hurt and terrible!

Studied the Real Time Linux used in the current market. I managed to incorporate the patches of RTAI (a community effort for open source developer) for my host system running 2.4 kernel. Just simply run the test suite but the system crashed if running LXRT processes. For those who like to try it out, get the patches, tools and test samples from this web-site.

This week was really busy. Migrated the BSPs for two different processor architectures from older version of Tornado to the current version in my company. Then, resume my works on Linux PCI. Today, I succeeded to add the PCI-to-Local DMA transfer in my IO call with interrupt driven mechanism. The size of DMA transfer is limited to only 128K bytes from my host system’s RAM to the local device.

That's all! Enjoy the weekend

Collaborative Citizen Journalism

How does this concept work? The advent of Blogging.. Anyone who would like to contribute can access the following web-sites:

OhMyNews - http://english.ohmynews.com/
WikiNews - http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page

Can we trust the news? How can a person make a judgment based on his/her limited knowledge and nowadays too much information access? No answer …..

Newstrust - http://www.newstrust.net/

Earliest Sign in Time 2006

Alright, I had signed in as early as 8:05:26 AM today. After fetching my gf to her school, I had started my “sleepy” journey to my office. Apply multitasking concept on my journey, reading the report, typing the SMS….. All my colleagues (in the same lab) kept asking me, “Tak boleh tidur keh”, “Mimpi awal”. Based on my previous record, the earliest sign in time was registered on 6 March 2003. Guess? as early as 7:37:00 AM!

Have a look on head-butted Zidance. :)

PCI & World Cup

Writing the PCI driver for two different FPGA boards embedded with PCI bridge chip for my current assignment. Doorbell Interrupt, Mailbox Registers, I2O FIFO, DMA…..blah, blah, blah. Based on my previous experience, I was able to complete the “template” driver for Linux platform within two days. But care must be taken to provide the mechanism for accessing the unique features which is not common across all the PCI bridge chips. Both of the PCI bridges come with different features. These are the tricky parts. A glance on our testbed for E1 testing:

After all, the finalists for this year World Cup are France and Italy. How come these two teams entering the final? Italy beat Australia with a late late penalty. It will not given by Graham Poll (English Referee). Again, they beat German with a late late goal with a beautiful curling shoot from a defender. It’s a bit of luck. France, almost knock up in early group stage, beat the World Champion, Brazil.

It was pity that German could not enter the final, anti-climax. I actually don’t favor German because of the way they play the game. I still remember that I had to sacrifice my sleep just to watch them converting the penalty in 1990. Anyway, under the guidance of Juergen Klinsmann, German starts playing attractive football with a lot of pace and attacking minded. Much, much entertaining compared to last time. Hmm…there was a debate on the first choice goalkeeper during the start of the tournament. Oliver Kahn or Jens Lehmann? At the end, the long term No 2 became the No 1 and long term No 1 became No 2. Could this happen in our country? It was strange and unacceptable from Kahn’s point of view. Lehmann did say that he didn’t know the reason why he had edged out Kahn. My personal view is that Klinsmann would like to challenge the mentality of his squad and intend to reform the German football. I heard today that Lehmann is willing to offer his starting place to Kahn. Just wonder whether Lehmann will do the same if German enters the final.

Registered my second level of German course yesterday. Borrow three books (stufe 1) from the library after librarian persuaded me to do so.

World Cup Quarter Final

Today and Tomorrow Quarter Final:
England vs Portugal
France vs Brazil
Germany vs Argentina
Italy vs Ukraine

My prediction for the semi-finalists:
England vs Brazil
Germany vs Italy

Both Portugal and Ukraine haven’t won the World Cup before. So, I won’t think that they are good enough for this competition. Germany plays a very offensive style compared to the previous tournaments. They seem to pick up the momentum when times go on. However, they need to overcome Argentina which is full of talented players but always tumble in the last hurdle, same as Spain. Anyway, I believe that Germany stands a better change with home ground advantage. Unless Pekerman is brave enough to start with Messi upfront. This young talent with one or two magical moments can shape the game. Then, I pick England again. Sven and Scolari, who is better? The records favour Scolari’s team. But with Rooney in England team, everything is possible. He probably will make a big impact in the coming match. Boring tehnique but if they win, who care! Don't forget the Greece plays boring game in Euro 2004. Ukraine simply doesn’t have enough experience against Italy. With all the old folk, France is going nowhere. Even Brazil plays under par, they can simply overcome France. So, what’s your prediction?

One of two World Cup theme songs which I received from my love one, “times of our lives” from Il Divo and Toni Braxton

there was a dream
a long time a ago
there was a dream
destined to grow
into a passion
a fire within
a will to give everything
a desire to win

for the lifetime of heartbreakes
that brought us here today
we'll go all the way
It feels like we're having the time of our lives
Let there be sunshine let it rain
Let's come together as one and the same
Cause it feels like we’re having the time of our lives
We'll find the glory in the end
For all that we are
For all that we are
For the time of our lives

This is the moment
This is our chance
To do what we love and to be
What we're ment to be

for the lifetime of heartbreakes
that brought us here today
we'll go all the way

It feels like we're having the time of our lives
And I'll never forget
For as long as I live

Time for my new assignment!

Weekend Approaching....

Hardly have time to write my blog this week. I was able to solve the problem for my E1 board on Monday. Combine eight 2MHz data stream into one 16MHz data stream. Thanks God. By observing the Logical output from the PC-based logic analyzer on all the channels, I was able to understand my system and trace the correct pattern. Have a view on the diagram captured using the logic analyzer. Further verification has been done using the pattern generator developed by my colleague.

World Cup Update…. All the group matches will be ended this Friday. No Asian teams had been qualified for the knock-out stage for the time being, unless you want to include Australia. Australia joined the AFC and will be part of the Asian Family. Just to improve their changes for the next World Cup qualification. Saudi Arabia and South Korea both will play tonight. South Korea stands a better change for knock-out stage provided they can beat Switzerland, a draw simply not good enough. France will beat Togo, a team surrounded with players’ payment problem. Just hope that at least one Asian team makes it.

Countries qualify for the knock-out stage:
Germany – Europe
Ecuador – South America
Argentine – South America
Netherlands – Europe
Portugal – Europe
Mexico – North America
Italy – Europe
Ghana – Africa
Brazil – South America
Australia – Ocean
Spain - Europe
Ukraine – Europe

Couldn’t believe it if there is no Asian team in the Last 16…..

Finally, receive my German Language result from my teacher, Frau Lenz. I managed to score “Gut”. For your information, mark given in Germany is as listed below:

1 – sehr gut (very good)
2 – gut (good)
3 – befriedigend (satisfactory)
4 – ausreichend (sufficient)
5 – ungenügend (insufficient)

You must score at least 4 to pass your examination. Not bad… Yeh

Endlich

Finally, I finished my German EI level by sitting the Examination on Saturday morning. The day after German had won its group match, 4 – 2. Vemal said that we should have the luck since German won that day. The exam is composed of five sections: Listening, Comprehension, Writing, Grammar and Dictation. Each section takes about half an hour. The most difficult part for me was the Listening section. It was a conversation between an interviewer and a student about her study, living and etc. I hardly understand what they are saying and making a lot of wild guess. But quite confident that I can at least pass the exam and moving up to EII which will starts during the end of July.

Now, I had to wake up early on Saturday and Sunday morning since I have to be more discipline on my life now. FYI, I usually have my lunch as my first meal on Sunday. Anyway, I am willing and more than happy to do so. The answer is simple. Girl can make a guy change! Keke…..

I only managed to watch the match between England and Paraguay. Not an interesting match in my opinion. England seems desperate to field Wayne Rooney in the upcoming match. They need the inspiration from him. Tomorrow, there will be a match between South Korea vs Togo. Hope that Ji-sung and co. play well. Iran was beaten yesterday 1-3 by Mexico. How about Japan today?

Or “desperate” former PM said that his press statements are hardly seen in newspaper nowadays. Then, I heard from my colleague that he has a Blog. But I couldn’t find it in Google search engine. Anyone knows that? Perhaps, he also had his blog been googlewashed! He should be felt sorry for himself…..

Mid-week

Received a new E1 board and started my task on providing the correct setting for interfacing with baseband module. We have managed to bring up the previous E1 board but due to the limitation on the development tools, it is hard to modify the firmware to suit to our application. I am delight with this new E1 board since the development tools, such as the user interface to the chip, the portable device driver, the scripts and etc. are more powerful compared to the previous E1 board. Once we are able to solve the system interface, then we can start putting up more features for our product.

I am invited to join a sharing section on “football mania for upcoming World Cup” in Dema house. I don’t know why they asked me to do so. I just can talk about all the players, staffs, issues, and many others associated to my beloved club, Manchester United. :)

Alright…. List all the venues of the upcoming World Cup, which cities that you love?

Hamburg
Hanover
Berlin
Gelsenkirchen
Dortmund
Leipzig
Cologne
Frankfurt
Kaiserslautern
Nuremberg
Stuttgart
Munich

I will pay most of attention on the following teams:

South Korea, Japan, Iran, except Saudi Arabia - Carry the Asian hopes

England - Watch too much EPL, and recognize all the players

Netherlands - I love Total Football, and I love their Orange color!

That’s all….. Hmm… a lyric to share with you all, a Scottish folk song, recommended from the one who I love. Hope to share the rest of my life with her!

When I've done the work o day,
And I row my boat away,
Down the waters o Loch Tay,
When the evening light is fallin',
And I look towards Ben lawyers,
Where the after glory glow,
And I dream on two Bright eyes,
With a merry mouth below,
Shes my beauteous nigh-ean ruadh,
Shes my joy and sorrow too,
And although she is untrue,
Well I cannot live without her,
For my hearts a boat in tow,
And Id give the world to know,
If she means to let me go,
As I sing hee-re, ho-ro

Nighean ruadh your lovely hair,
Has more beauty I declare,
Than all the trasses fair,
From Killin and Aberfeldy,
Be they lint white, Brown or gold,
Be they blacker than the sloe,

They mean not as much to me,
Than the melting flake of snow,
Her dance is like the gleam,
O the sunlight on the stream,
And the song the wee folks sing,
Oh, they're the songs she sings at milking,
But my heart is full of woe,
For last night she bade me go,
And the tears begin to flow,
As I sing Hee-ree,Ho-ro

Light Moments

Attended a patent drafting seminar in Menara TM on Monday. It was my first experience to be in 50th floor of Menara TM, my parent company. The training is conducted by an oversea firm. Anyway, it is not easy to understand all the presented contents and materials. Reading the material is similar to reading the terms inside a contract. Conclusion from the patents drafting seminar is “Any inventory must not based on the hindsight”. Dilbert's comic strip to share....



I found a good web-site for those who like to take up German language.

And if you feel boring and want to test yourself on the maps quiz although I don’t find this interesting!

I can’t stop laughing with this Dilbert comic strip. If you can punch anyone in your office, that’s great!!!!!

~_~ -- @_@ -- *_* -- ^__^ -- o_o

A teacher’s pet is a student who is favoured and given special attention by the teacher. “I am worried that the other kids might get jealous if they think I am teacher’s pet,” Teddy said. I don’t think Teddy has to worry, for even though the students can see that he is teacher’s pet, they know there are serious disadvantages to that. “That’s because Professor Oxbridge can be pretty difficult to please!” Teddy explained.

World Cup Fever!

World Cup is approaching. There will be three more weeks before we all have the football fever. It’s hard and ridiculous to miss the match. The simple excuse is “once in 4 years time”. The first match of the day will kick off at around 9 p.m. Malaysia time and the second match at 3 a.m. morning Malaysia time. The major problem now is that Astro gets the right for exclusive telecast for certain matches. I hate this! Why we need to pay to watch WC matches? Yes, Astro is not free! Astro also gains the income for all sorts of advertisements during the matches so why we as the consumers need to pay double. Seem that my only choice is watch the matches in the Mamak stall again. As Vemal said, once we finish our German final exam, we will celebrate with the opening match in Munchen.

Share a really good posting on the Internet :)

ATTENTION all women –
this story just might save your marriage, relationship or boyfriend's sanity during the World Cup. Below is a list of vital rules for girls wanting to share a home with a footie-mad fella this summer. In an emotional plea, the men of the world have laid out the dos and don't-you-bloody-dares of tournament viewing which you can print out and stick by your telly.
These include vital pieces of etiquette from beer-in-fridge planning to schoolboy rules like when not to say 'it's just a game'. And here we've picked the best - doing the rounds on the web as an open letter to the world's women - to ensure the nation's guys and girls make the perfect team this summer.

LIST OF RULES

1. From 9 June to 9 July 2006, you should read the The Sun's sport pages so you are aware of what's going on regarding the World Cup and will be able to join in conversations. If you fail to do this, you'll be looked at in a bad way or be totally ignored. DO NOT complain about not receiving any attention.

2. During the World Cup the television is mine at all times - without any exceptions.

3. I don't mind if you have to pass by in front of the TV during a game - as long as you do it crawling on the floor and without distracting me. If you decide to stand naked in front of the TV, make sure you put clothes on right after because if you catch a cold, I won't have time to take you to the doctor or look after you during the World Cup month.

4. During the games I will be blind, deaf and mute - unless I require a refill of my drink or something to eat. You are out of your mind if you expect me to listen to you, open the door, answer the telephone, or pick up the baby that just fell from the second floor....it won't happen.

5. It would be a good idea for you to keep at least two six packs in the fridge at all times, as well as plenty of things to nibble on. And please do not make any funny faces to my friends when they come over to watch the games. In return, you will be allowed to use the TV between 12am and 6am, unless they replay a good game that I missed during the day.

6. Please, please, please if you see me upset because one of my teams is losing, DO NOT say "get over it, its only a game" or "don't worry, they'll win next time". If you say these things, you will only make me angrier and I will love you less. Remember, you will never ever know more about football than me and your so called "words of encouragement" will only lead to a break-up or divorce.

7. You are welcome to sit with me to watch one game and you can talk to me during half-time but only when the adverts are on, and only if the score is pleasing me. In addition, please note I am saying "one" game, hence do not use the World Cup as a nice cheesy excuse to "spend time together".

8. The replays of the goals are very important. I don't care if I have seen them or I haven't seen them, I want to see them again. Many times.

9. Tell your friends NOT to have any babies, or any other child related parties or gatherings that requires my attendance because: a) I will not go, b) I will not go, and c) I will not go.

10. But, if a friend of mine invites us to his house on a Sunday to watch a game, we will be there in a flash.

11. The daily World Cup highlights show on TV every night is just as important as the games themselves. Do not even think about saying "but you have already seen this...why don't you change the channel to something we can all watch?" The reply will be: "Refer to Rule #2 of this list".

12. And finally, please save your expressions such as "Thank God the World Cup is only every 4 years". I am immune to these words, because after this comes the Champions League, Italian League, Spanish League, Premier League, etc etc.
Thank you for your co-operation.

Regards,
Men of the World

Interesting Debate on Kernel

I believe that most peoples recognize the name of Linus Benedict Torvalds better than Andy S.Tanenbaum. Maybe I am wrong in this. Linus is the one who created the Unix-style operating system known as Linux, a monolithic OS. Tanenbaum is the one who created the Minix, a micro-kernel based operating system. I still have Tanenbaum’s book ”Computer Networks” on my desk. It was well written and easy to understand. Anyway, I just recently dug out the debate between Linus and Tanenbaum in 1992. I just cannot believe that these two smart guys are so defensive and hot-headed.

Tanenbaum:
Be thankful you are not my student. You would not get a high grade for such a design. Writing a new OS only for the 386 in 1991 gets you your second 'F' for this term. But if you do real well on the final exam, you can still pass the course.

Linus:
Well, I probably won't get too good grades even without you: I had an argument (completely unrelated - not even pertaining to OS's) with the person here at the university that teaches OS design. I wonder when I'll learn.

Why all of sudden Tanenbaum popped up with the comment that Linus won’t get a higher grade? Is this some kind of old mentality that we should do thing according to our professor or else we won’t get a higher grade? Anyway, Tanenbaum has a good advice to the public “use it before making any comments”. He looked frustration that a lot of peoples haven’t used his MINIX and kept on complaining that it was sluggish. I observed that many claims from the Linux developers (1992) have solved by minix developers. Read the latest posting from Tanenbaum about the Minix vs Linux.

Life

Received the E1 Evaluation board last week. Took three days to bring up the board and there are still plenty of features to explore! I spent time reading the data sheet which provides insufficient information (according to my perception). This company seems not too good in preparing the technical documents. You always find one or two mistakes, such as the block diagram, pin direction and etc.

There was a three-day break last week due to the Wesak day. Had a basketball game with the Church’s friends in the playground not too far away from my home in PJ. Not a good game for me. I was merely a spectator throughout the match. I couldn’t know how to position myself and get myself into the game. Since I cannot jump high enough, so I cannot get the rebound. My shooting was also terrible. I shot six or seven times and some of them could not even reach the basket. Sigh…… But it’s glad to meet some new friends. Then, we went to MidValley for Japanese food. It costs me around RM60++. Ended up in my senior home watching a Korean movie entitled “Lover”. The movie was all about a guy cheated and dumped by a girl.

A bad new from my ex-housemate, Yungyit, his father passed away on last Wednesday and I was not able to attend the funeral. My deep condolences to his families. I really understand how the feeling losing someone who is particularly important to your life. I had experienced it before - my dad who gives his undivided support throughout my life. I miss him …..

New Scoring Format

This was the first time that we applied the new 21-point scoring format in our badminton games. I am excited with this format since it was first time that I had beat Goi and his co.! ;-) A very close match, 21-19, it can go either way. For your information, this is the third time that IBF has changed the scoring format for badminton. IBF had implemented the 7-point format before (best-of-five), then switch back to old 15-point format and the latest one the 21-point format (best-of-three). With this new scoring format, those who lost the match 10-15, 11-15, 12-15 or etc., has a better change against the same opponents now. Anyways, players have to stay focus from the start until the end of the match. If you make too many unforced errors, I don’t think that you have an opportunity to win the match at all. This format will probably give a higher probability for the weak players to score more points, at least, at least 1 point ;). I heard that Indonesia and South Korea has objected this new scoring format, but China’s coach, Lee Yongbo claimed that China will not be affected no matter how the IBF changes the scoring format. A strong sense of confident from the China camp and they justified themselves by winning both the Thomas and Uber Cup. Malaysia lost to Denmark in the semifinal. Thanks to BengHong who was so nervous in the match and Hafiz who let himself down once again! Their body languages show that they are not capable to conquer the world. Hope that ChongWei can win his first ever world championship in Madrid.

Have fun with this new scoring format! You always stand a change to make an upset even though you are not good in service….

Jinho’s Farewell Party & Fraser Hill Trip

It was the time to say goodbye to our friend, Jinho after his nine months stint in Malaysia. He is such a lovely, caring and straight forward guy. Because of him, I have the opportunities to get to know more about my neighbors, making one and two new friends, visiting the night market in Batu Ferringhi for the first time (Shame of that ~_~) ….. and etc. Coming from different background, culture, and having the language problem, I believed that it’s not easy to understand each others in such a short period. Anyway, I have learned a couple of things from him and hope the same with him. All the best, my brother!

Alright, back to the Fraser Hill Trip. It was a good opportunity to get out from the hectic KL city. We spent two days one night there with a group of 11 persons. Having Korean style BBQ, watching ManU lost to Chelsea (sorry for England, you are now outsider), having a cup of coffee in Smoke House, enjoying a crazy moment in the waterfall… a really wonderful and enjoyable trip with a group of friends! According to my senior, KP, Fraser Hill is a place where the assassination of British ambassador by the communist members happened. Pity, I could not even recall this history. Some photos to share...

A Morning View

At the KLIA
Future Wife for Jinho?

SmokeHouse

Waterfall Moment

Jinho alone prepared the BBQ

Dining Time

“Not expecting to have an easy life, but expecting to have more courage and confident”.
eine Postkarte von Deutschland

May Day Declaration

If you are somewhere around the Merdeka Square on 1st of May, join the parade starting at 10 a.m.

DEKLARASI MEI 1, 2006

Sempena dengan Sambutan Hari Pekerja, 1 Mei 2006, kami para pekerja yang berhimpun di sini menuntut kerajaan Malaysia dengan segera:

Ø Hentikan Penswastaan Perkhidmatan Bekalan Air.
Ø Hentikan Penswastaan Perkhidmatan Hospital.

Selain itu, kami menuntut kerajaan Malaysia membuat undang-undang baru untuk menjamin dan membela hak rakyat tertindas:

1) Hentikan rancangan untuk mengimplementasi Cukai Perkhidmatan dan Barangan (GST)
2) Ambil langkah-langkah untuk memiliknegarakan (nationalisation) semua kemudahan asas seperti institusi pendidikan, bekalan letrik, kesihatan dan air kerana adalah tanggungjawab kerajaan untuk menjaga kepentingan pekerja-pekerja Malaysia dan keluarga mereka.
3) Gubal AKTA GAJI MINIMA untuk semua pekerja Malaysia dan mansuhkan polisi gaji murah.
4) Gubal undang-undang pembentukan kesatuan sekerja secara automatik.
5) Pastikan tempat kerja bebas daripada diskriminasi terhadap pekerja wanita, termasuk dalam sektor informal.
6) Mengubal undang-undang Anti Gangguan Seksual yang melindungi pekerja wanita di tempat kerja
7) Hak saksama kepada pekerja migran dan perlindungan dari dianiyai oleh pihak majikan, polis dan imigresen.
8) Mansuhkan segala undang-undang yang menindas dan mendiskriminasi para pekerja, antaranya ISA,OSA, Akta Universiti & Kolej Universiti, Akta Pertubuhan, Akta Mesin Cetak dan Penerbitan
9) Skim Perumahan Rakyat pada harga yang mampu dibeli, di bina di lokasi strategik, saiz rumah yang sesuai, sistem rumah campuran serta tabung perumahan untuk memberi bantuan kepada pembeli yang kurang mampu.
10) Iktiraf Hak Tanah Adat Orang Asal di Malaysia dan berikan hak milik kekal serta kukuhkan status tanah Rizab Orang Asli di Malaysia. Rancangan pembangunan tanah Orang Asli hendaklah berasaskan kehendak, keperluan dan aspirasi Orang Asli.
11) Beri kepentingan kepada sektor pertanian dengan peruntukkan tanah dan subsidi yang cukup, demi menjamin produktiviti dalam negara yang mampu menampung keperluan makanan asas rakyat. Elakkan pengkopratan sektor pertanian dan galakkan sistem koperasi petani.
12) Pastikan pemuliharaan sistem alam sekitar yang menyeluruh. Kami membantah apajua usaha menswastakan sumber alam semulajadi. Sistem ekologi mestilah dipelihara tanpa motif keuntungan dan komersil.
13) Menuntut suatu model pembangunan yang saksama, yang memberi kepentingan kepada rakyat setempat di mana segala rancangan pembangunan mestilah dibincang dan dipersetujui oleh semua.
14) Menuntut suatu sistem kerajaan yang benar-benar telus, bersih, kredible dan bebas dari segala bentuk rasuah, kronisme dan penyelewengan.

ICM - the future of Malaysia? and Updates

Just back from German class. I haven’t improved my pronunciation until now. The situation is getting worse. Maybe, I should find more German friends to practice. How about getting a German girlfriend? Was glauben Sie?

Received the phone call from my ex-roommate, who is now in Bohn, on Wednesday night. Thanks to him. I know that the “Playboy” channel in German is available until 5 a.m. Hmm… Indonesia government asked the publisher to stop publishing the magazine with the title “Playboy” because of the huge protest from the Muslim groups. So, how about Malaysia? Do you think that our government will legally allow that? The answer is obvious!

Met my insurance agent on Tuesday night. Yes, I still owe him RM300 ++ since he paid for my medical card. I said to him that I wouldn’t pay him until I have enough money to do so. Then, he kept coming with his new proposal “retire plan”. Save your money for 10 years and you get the cash back starting at age of 40 until 80… or 70... or 60 …. ???!!!!

Completed my first Linux driver framework to access the register and memory of the PCI bridge this week. Thanks to the open source, I can able to obtain sufficient information to kick start my job. Now, I am concentrating on understanding the PCI bridge architecture which provides various communication mechanisms between the IOP CPU and the system CPU. This is part of the tasks in the board to board level communication in cPCI backplane.

Some interesting facts from our MyICMS 886 Strategy drafted by Ministry of Energy, Water and Communication Malaysia to share:





What is 886? Our country luck number! No, it’s all about 8 new services, 8 essential infrastructures and 6 areas to stimulate our country’s Information, Communication and Multimedia service. A great future for Malaysia in ICM technologies if we can succeed!

SMS - Happy Birthday

Received a couple of SMS from my friends wishing me “Happy Birthday”. My brother sent me a message asking me to find a girlfriend and emphasizing that I am 28 years old! He and his girlfriend have a long relationship, almost 10 years, and yet to get marry. I think that he should marry first. The first two messages which I received were actually from my insurance agents. I bet that they used some automatic SMS generation machine since both the messages arrived almost at the same time. My mum did not know how to SMS so she had to make a call. Caught by surprise! Celcom in Northen region also sent an SMS to me…..

A Terrible Week for the Games

A terrible week for the games! First, our ladies were whipped by Australia and China. Lost to Australia 16 – 0 and China 22 – 0. Can you imagine that both teams score against us in every 5 minutes time? Then, our hockey team which won the bronze medal in Commonwealth Game put up a terrible performance in World Cup Qualification in GuanZhou. They lost to Japan 1-0 and lost to Korea 3-1. To qualify for the World Cup, they need to at least get the fifth place in the tournament. Then, Josiah Ng, a promising cyclist in the Keirin competition, could not even qualify for the final round. Maybe or just maybe, Malaysians are not good in any game. We can only be proud as best organizer of the game!

Most unexpected result came from ManUtd. They drew with the bottom team in EPL which is the worst record team so far in EPL history. No change to catch Chelsea any more ....... Maybe Bolton, the neighbouring team for ManUtd, can do us a favour!

AFC U20 Women Football Tournament

After completing the German class, headed back to my office to solve the interrupt problem. I am currently doing the board to board communication via cPCI backplane. After crashing my Linux host for several time, I found out that I forgot to mask out the IRQ generated from the 2nd board. Done!

Next, it’s time for the football match. This time, the venue was KLFA stadium in Cheras. Heavy rain started around 4.30 p.m. It’s hard to find the way towards the stadium. Managed to reach the stadium 5 minutes before the kickoff time. These were actually U20 women football matches. The first match was South Korea against India and the second match was between North Korea and Japan. South Korea is the former champion. At the end, South Korea thrashed India 11 nil. You wouldn’t believe that whenever the Korean player shot outside the penalty box, it was a goal. India is too weak to be in the competition. No pace, no stamina, no skill and …… North Korea put up a much respective performance against the Japan and lost 3 nil. Japan seems to have improved tremendously in the tactical area. At least, they knew how to apply the time wasting technique. The coach made three substitutions at the last 10 minutes. One player came on during the injury time when Japan had comfortably leading 3 nil. I think that the North Koreans are not too behind in terms of physical and stamina. But they lacked the exposure and I just wonder whether the peoples there have the opportunities to watch the football match.

Actually, there is no publicity for this tournament at all. So you can see in the picture that the players play in a almost empty stadium. Same old strory again. Even the World hockey tournament in Bukit Jalil two years ago, the stadium was half empty for the final match. Luckily, the South Korea and Japan participate in this tournament and are able to attract their “hard core” supporters.

Malaysia enters this tournament as the host nation. Our coach said that, “If I said to you that our team can beat China. I am telling lie. Just imagine, our team plays only for one month, like festive season, and eleven months doing nothing”. So, what do you expect from them? Bottom of the table without any goal, same with France in 2002 World Cup…..

Empty stadium just before the kickoff time

South Korea's Cheerleader

South Korea's Decoration

Small group of South Korean supporter

Japanese kids waiting for the kickoff

Japanese kid waving the flag

Japan's Decoration