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!