ICIAS

There was an IEEE conference in KL Convention Center organized by UTP. I had made my presentation on “Real-Time Reconfigurable Embedded System for Remote Monitoring and Controlling” around 2 p.m on Tuesday. I rushed to the conference at last minute from my office. Since a lot of presenters are come from hardware design background, so the questions from the audience were mainly to clarify their personal understanding. This paper is intended to propose a NMS system using soft core processor in FPGA with real-time capability. It is grouped under the VLSI and Embedded System category. I also attended the training on “Hardware Design Exploration for Embedded Computing Systems” conducted by Dr. Pramod Kumar Meher from NTU. It’s great to learn some tips and hints on the hardware design, such as pipelining, and etc.

For those who are interested in MicroBlaze processor, a new release version (v7) comes with MMU support, so it is possible to use Linux instead of uClinux.

Public Transport

I was asked to attend a training at Maju Junction Mall in Jalan Sultan Ismail for the last three days. Since the venue is located in center of Kuala Lumpur, I decided to take public transport instead of driving. I parked my car at the nearest Taman Jaya station and this cost me around RM3. Then, take the Putra LRT to KL Sentral cost me RM1.60. Huge crowd and you almost have to wait for 6 minutes. Lastly, I had to take KL Monorail to Media Tunku and this cost me RM2.50. So, the total cost for going to and back from my training is RM11.20. Too much….

But I really could not accept that such a short distance costs around RM2.50 for taking KL Monorail. Furthermore, it was a bad experience on the first day while the train stuck for almost 5 minutes just before it reached Media Tunku station. Yes, there was no complaint from passengers including me. This remembers me that once I almost missed my bus back to Penang when the KTM stuck at KL Sentral for almost 30 minutes. Pricing for petrol is going to raise next year after all our Ministers keep making noise that our government could not further subsidy. More and more peoples will start taking public transports. But “Suka-Suka”, it can simply delay your trips so who are going to trust our public transport?

SIP Testbed with WiFi Phone

This testing was conducted before the unfortunate things happened to my brother.

I had the opportunity to setup the SIP phones testbed in my office. It was not too difficult as first I thought. A lot of information can be gathered from the internet. I choose the openSER SIP Server since it was initially developed by German Institute ;-). I setup the phone call within a local area network. All the IP nodes are connected behind the NAT (Network Address Translation) device. Using SIP Softphones, such as Ekiga in Fedora machine and Linphone in SuSe machine, I managed to make a phone call after setting up the SIP server. But to my surprise, the quality of sound is not as good as I think. Then, I tested with two WiFi IP Phones from Linksys. Hmm… the quality of sound is as good as the normal GSM phone. I did a quick check on the Codecs used by the WiFi phone. Two ITU standards Codecs are available: G.711 and G.729. G.711 is the 64kbps high bit rate codec with no compression similar to the regular phone. G.729 offers toll quality speech with a low bit rate 8kbps but require more CPU processing time. I couldn’t get the ADSL modem and phone line with streamxy support at this moment. Then, by using a PSTN gateway, a SIP phone can call to any regular phone in our homes. But until now, no testing is conducted. Based on the documentation, the openSER SIP Server with additional tools can support all the above services. I found out that the handover of the WiFi phone is a bit frustrating. Although it can auto-detect the neighboring Access Point based on the configured network profile, but you always need to wait for about 5 seconds before getting the IP address and also re-associate with new Access Point. Perhaps, mobile IP can solve this issue. While you are in the middle of your conversation, you will probably lose you counterpart’s voice when you are switching from one AP to another AP. If you have more control on your network and APs, I believe that we can solve this problem. Much works to do!

Time and Life

Almost 4 weeks after my brother passed away, but I still feel the pain of losing him. During this period, I have received quite a number of calls, SMS and also supports from my colleagues, friends and relatives. Thank you. If I could do it, I would like to personally thank everyone. I believe that I will be strong enough to take up my responsibility.

Anyway, I reserved my special thank to my special one; my girlfriend who is always with me throughout my difficult time …

This email was from my Indonesian colleague:

I feel sorry about that and I can share the emotional feeling because for me also even though my brother died many months ago but I also still feel sad. But those thing going to happen to all of us and we have to prepare it and I believe the life in the next world much more joyful.. rather than this world May God the Mighty Who His Mercy encompasses everything pouring His abundant Love n Mercy to your brother and all of us...

Sincerely Yours
Hadi S

"You cannot control time. What you can control is your actions"

My Brother - 楊駿鴻

My brother passed away on 4^th October 2007 due to car accident. I could not accept the fact when I first heard the news in the early morning. Until today, I still miss him. He was such a lovely guy to me. Never ever say “no” to me whenever I need him. Although we are totally two different characters, we have had a lot of good memory in the past. A lot of peoples said to me that it was a fate, but I just wonder why two of my family members leave me in such a way…..

All I can do now is to ensure my mum lives happily for her remaining life…..

This was the last SMS message that I received from my beloved brother:
"I got diving trip to trang, thailand. For my diving advance license. Mom not yet know."
25-Sept-2007
21:14:16

He never ever had the opportunity to do so....

Rotiboy in South Korea

Rotiboy opened 6^th outlet in Seoul. Why choose Korea? I don’t know???!!!!

Rotiboy @ Jongro-Gu,
246-2, Kwanchul-Dong, Jongro-Gu
Jonggak Station Exit No. 5

http://www.rotiboy.com/

Trip to South Korea 大韓民國 and not North Korea 朝鮮民主主義人民共和國

I had again traveled to South Korea or Republic of Korea after the last visit two years ago. I still remember that I started this blog after coming back from that trip. A “three days two nights” trip was always too short and it likes going back to my hometown on weekend. My advice to those who would like to travel to Daejeon: Not to take any transit flight unless you have plenty of time to spend during the transit.

KLIA -> Shanghai Pudong -> Cheongju

We had only two hours for the arrival and departure procedures at Pudong airport before catching the flight to Cheongju. Luckily, I am able to speak Mandarin and immediately asked the official to let my colleagues use the special counter to avoid the crowd. Huh…. then, we also need to fill up the Immigration forms and Customs declaration forms. We should fill them in-flight but the flight attendant said that we are exempted. A mistake! My colleague lost her luggage at Cheongju Airport because the MAS official informed her that her luggage will transfer directly. Another mistake!

At Daejeon, I stayed in the Spapia Hotel, a 4-start hotel which was the accommodation for the Korean national football team during the match against Italy. See the picture. About 2.30 p.m., I met Poh Kit and then we traveled to Seoul. The KTX train which can operate at speed of ~300km/h took us approximately 1 hour time to reach Seoul. See the map for the distance between Daejeon and Seoul. My colleague used to say to me that “Daejeon is north of Seoul” because he turned the map upside down. Thanks to Poh Kit, I managed to spend sometime around Insa-dong (仁寺洞) and Deoksugung (德壽宮) Palace. Yes, Seoul is easy to travel around since there are 8 subway lines. The next day, I had my usual task to complete with a short visit to ETRI for meeting and discussion. Then, my colleagues and I travel from Daejeon to Seoul and stayed in the Itaewon (梨泰院洞). For those who are Muslim, you can find a number of Muslim restaurants there. But to my surprise, the price of a Kebab costs me around 10,000 Won, approximately RM38, more expensive than the Korean dish I had before. We spent 2 hours time at Namdaemun (南大門) market and I bought two umbrellas for my girlfriend. Wie viel kostet Sie? 10,000 Won per umbrella!

Here, some of my observations during my short stay in Daejeon and Seoul:

• Restaurants offer free plain water with no additional charge. I use to drink more than 10 cups of plain water in the Muslim restaurant.
• There are helpful peoples in Seoul. A middle-age man helps me to get a taxi after quite a number of them refuse to fetch us to Itaewon. Reason? I don’t know since they kept waving the hands!
• Cost of living is too high for Malaysian to live there unless you earn there.
• Daejeon is not so happening compared to Seoul.
• Raw crab is one of favorite dishes in Korea. I saw an advertisement promoting a sauce for raw crab and teaching you the method of eating the fresh crab.
• Snooker is one of the favorite sports for women in Korea. You can watch the games in ESPN channel.
• In Itaewon, you can see American soldiers and a lot of Korean police officials. There is an US military base nearby.
• Toothbrush and toothpaste are not provided free in the hotels.
• The security check in Incheon Airport is the strictest. Don’t bring any liquor more than 100ml per container. My colleagues said that he can bring out his peanut butter from KLIA and even Shanghai Pudong, but not Incheon Airport. He lost his peanut butter and canned drinks.
• [Extra] Rotiboy can be found in Seoul
  

Daejeon - A Clear Sky on Arrival Day

Deoksugung Palace

Deoksugung Palace

Namdaemun

Subway - PK

Mosque at Itaewon

Police Station at Itaewon

Signature of Player in Spapia Hotel: Hwang Sun-Hong

He scored the goal againts Poland. First match First goal in WC2002 for South Korea

Cheonggyecheon stream (淸溪川), Seoul

Cheonggyecheon stream

Namdaemun Market, Seoul

The Shopkeeper selling Ginseng who knows to speak a little Malay. You can find my business card in his shop.

Google Lunar X Prize

The Google Lunar X PRIZE will be awarded to "the team that can soft land a craft on the Moon that roams for at least 500 meters and transmits a Mooncast back to Earth. The Grand Prize is $20M until December 31, 2012; thereafter it will drop to $15M until December 31, 2014, at which point the competition will be terminated unless extended by Google and the X PRIZE Foundation."

Thinking of joining this competition?

Xenomai

Do you ever think of making your Linux system a real-time or deterministic system? I have done some works before with RTLinux and RTAI. But if you are looking to migrate your current real-time system such as vxWorks, pSOS, uITRON, to Linux, then you should consider Xenomai. It offers quite a number of OS skin. I have patched and tested the Xenomai on my AT91 board featuring ARM920T processor. I even tested a vxWorks application on it. But yes, you have to tolerate some latency delay compared to RTAI.

Tribute to our Baby-Faced Assassin

I went to see the fireworks at PutraJaya on Merdeka eve with my girlfriend and few of her friends. Travel as early as 7 p.m. to PutraJaya and reached there about 9.30 p.m. I though that the fireworks would start at around 10 p.m. but it was delayed till 12 midnight. The fireworks performance took around 25 minutes but it was pity that we couldn’t hear the music. It was a terrible traffic when trying to get out from PutraJaya and we stuck in the traffic for almost 2 hours. This was first time I experienced such a scenario in PutraJaya. As you know, there is not much traffic whenever I travel to PutraJaya for my badminton games.



Last week, one of my favorite players in ManU announced his retirement after battling so long against his knee injury. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer….. A moment of happiness keeps flashing back when he put the ball in the net at last minute of the European Cup final against Bayern. Good luck, Solskjaer!

Activities

A number of activities associated with my company happened at past two weeks. First, I had engaged to a parent company program and asked to join the morning tea break with our parent company CEO and also the Vice President of Human Resource. This program was conducted on 3^rd of August at Menara TM. I was able to hear it myself the expectation of our parent CEO regarding our company. I think that it’s a big challenge ahead for our company. Then, I was also asked to join the program related to “Effective Personal Productivity”. Perhaps, I am not too productivity in the eyes of our management. I have just read the first lesson of the program and it keep emphasizing on attitude changing and proper time investment. I think that this course is particular good for those peoples who are not doing his/her post mortem every year. It just a program that systematically drawing up what actually you have done and whether you are doing your high payoff activities or not. The founder of this course is a Salesman called Paul J. Meyer.

I also resume my German class A2.2 at Goethe Institute starting end of July. I always believe that learning German is not only the language itself but also learning the culture and thinking of German peoples. But this time, my teacher is again from Austria, and not German. So it’s hard to say whether I really learn the German culture. Anyway, Austria is a German speaking country and if you look at the history, Austria is heavily linked with German. Let introduce myself in German….

“Hier stelle ich mich vor. Ich heiße Yeoh. Ich kommt aus Penang, aber ich wohne jetzt in PJ. Ich bin neunundzwanzig Jahre alt. Ich bin Ingenieur von Beruf. Ich arbeite bei die Firma für Forschung und Entwicklung. Ich freue mich, weil ich eine schön Freundin habe.”

By the way, I watched the movie "Adolf Hitler" with my gf last night. When Reichstag was on fire, Hitler used this excuse to suppress his major opponent, German Communist Party and claimed that it was “for the Protection of the people and the State”. He regained his supreme political power and managed to push his political agenda later on. It remembers me about the May 13 incident which shapes the political situation in our country. Who is actually responsible for this incident?

PHP & CGI

Move on to write a PHP script for accessing the IO in my board. I have previously done the same thing using the CGI script. I still don’t see any major different between these two scripts since I just did a really simple thing. Both of them can be incorporated into the tiny web-server, thttp. Yes, PHP has rich set of features but comes with heavy price. It consumes 4M of memory space compared to 66K of memory space by CGIC library. Need to further strip down the library size.

Asian Cup Quarter Final in Bukit Jalil

Went to Bukit Jalil Stadium to watch the match between Iran versus South Korea yesterday. The original ticket price is RM30 but I bought two for RM40 from a guy who claimed the he get the tickets from Astro. My girlfriend seems a little bit nervous when we entered the Korean camp due to a “big” turn out of Red Korean supporters and all sorts of noise created by them. It’s hard to feel such an environment during the matches involving Malaysia throughout this competition. Estimated 40,000 fans on match 1, then 20,000 fans on match 2 and then dramatically decreased to 2,000 fans. Malaysia Boleh! Yesterday, I saw different attitudes coming from both Iran and South Korea supporters. They kept on cheering their players, shouting their player names, even though they made mistakes or wasted a golden scoring opportunities. There is nothing wrong to give your players encouragement but why we Malaysians always boo our own players whenever they made mistakes. Perhaps, we are not so keen or so patriotic. No, easy, they lack fighting spirits!

A Korean supporter sat beside us offered us the yellow colour Kiwi fruit. He found out that we are Malaysian. He managed to speak one two simple sentences in English, “Malaysia plays very poor. However, they play very good last time, same as Korea. Such as, Soh Chin Aun”. Again, same old story, how long should we keep on memorize those golden days? Are we not competitive enough now compared to those old generation? I don’t think that the problem solely comes from the players and the coaches. Our government should take the blame with its inconsistent policies, not for the peoples, but policies to serve their own interests so that they keep on winning the next election.

Regarding the match, both teams are very cautious at the beginning. South Korea missing several key players from European leagues plays a counter attacking game with only one striker up front. Iran with its more senior and experienced player deployed a short passing game and attacked from right flank and from the middle. However, shoot on target in the game was really low although both set of players fought for almost every ball. A disappointed match! 120 minutes without any goals. If either team would score, probably we would have a change to see a more attacking and entertaining match. Iran coach brought in the substituted goalkeeper at last minute for penalty. I had a feeling that they will lose because I still remember that England brought in Carragher and he was eventually the one who missed the penalty. So, South Korea to the semifinal on Wednesday and we will see their supporters roaring out “Taehan Minguk” again. Felt sorry for Iranians that some of them have to travel back after more that one week stay in Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysia, Boleh, Semua Boleh, Apa pun Boleh!

Did you hear any bloggers in this world ever been caught by police official under OSA? Yes, Malaysia has one ….. If we are the first to do this, then we probably can be proud of this! “Malaysia Boleh!”

Then, I heard the news that T.M.P. resigned from his post, but how about our FAM president?

Who should we blame?

“What a shameful display,” said the visibly upset Tengku Abdullah, according to the official Bernama news agency.

“I apologise to all the spectators and want to shake their hands. I am truly disappointed with their inept display.”

“The coach has the power to choose the players and he should know better.

“Only the coach and players will be able to say what happened that night. I was also a spectator,” said Tengku Abdullah.

So, who should we blame? Who appoint the coach? Who select the players? Who.....

I expect FAM to sack the coach, reform the team by temporary dumping the senior players and selecting youth players, prohibiting the foreign players from playing in local league, forcing the players to take the fitness test, changing rules again and again for local competition, at last…. still going nowhere…..

Whipping Boys

Sometimes, it just hard to believe, but you have to accept this. Originally, I planned to go to the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil, but ended up at Mamak stall near my home. Watching our national team played in Asian Cup Final, not upon merit, but as one of the co-hosts. Before the match, I had a strong feeling that we were going to do well in this match after Vietnam and Indonesia defeat their opponents and Thailand draw with mighty Iraq. I was wrong again!

Vietnam vs UAE 2 -1
Indonesia vs Bahrain 2-1
Thailand vs Iraq 1-1
Malaysia vs China 1-5

Before the start of the match, the Malay fellow who sits beside me said, “Selagi bapa dan anak Pahang tu menerajui FAM, bolasepak kita tak ke mana”, “MyTeam yang pilih anak kampung main lagi bagus”. Then, after China scored the 2^nd goal, he said, “itulah, ada pemain Cina kat Penang yang bagus, tapi tak pilih”. I considered it as a racist comment. After the 4^th goal, another Malay fellow said, “Itulah, semua Melayu kat padang, jurulatih itu pilih pemain tengok bulu”. Again, a racist comment…. Suddenly, Indra Putra scored a spectacular goal outside the penalty box. “Macam dah menang perlawanan”. Our coach actually brought in Nanthakumar as central defender after we conceded 4^th goal.

Agghhh, I could not hide my frustration that our players play very poor, especially our defense. We do not have enough quality to do well. Our central defenders are too short and physically very weak compared to our opponents. China is not tactically gifted team compared to Japan or South Korea, but they can trash us five goals. I wonder how are we going to survive from the remaining matches…..

What our coach said...

“This was not a good start for us. We tried to match the Chinese team, but there were times when the Chinese were able to keep possession and when they did we tended to lose our discipline in terms of keeping our shape.”

“The game plan tonight was to try and stop the crosses but as the game went on and China continued to move the ball, then we lost our shape and that is why there was room on the flanks.”

“With the quality players China have, we tried to have a positive approach and to match them not individually but as a team. As they progressed though, when one individual lost his concentration it impacted on the team.

“There were occasions in both halves when we attacked and we played more as a team. There was more urgency in the second period. Unfortunately though there were lapses of concentration.”

By the way, do you know our coach name?

Penang Bridge

Recently, travel back to Penang with my girlfriend. It was my first trip back after Chinese New Year. Entering the Penang Bridge, and all of sudden, wonder why I need to pay RM5.60. My mum said that if I don’t have Touch N Go card purchased near the bridge, I may pay RM7.00. I found out that the bridge is now under construction. I think that it is probably for expanding the bridge from tow lanes to three lanes. So, pay more after that??? I thought that as Penangities, we should pay less whenever we travel back to our hometown. Just curious for those who stay in Butterworth and work in Penang. I believe that paying RM7.00 is too much and how can you afford that everyday.... even in KL, I don't pay that much.

SMS Spoofing

There is a series of stories related to SMS Scam in Screeshots. If you would like to find out yourself whether you are unnecessary charged by our Telco, you should check your bill. I have not asked for a printed bill from Celcom, have to do so….

Read these two stories:

http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2007/6/14/technology/17966950&sec=technology

http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2007/6/14/technology/17966950&sec=technology

"Our parent company is worth RM3bil and we have a reputation to keep. Do you think we really need the extra cash from spoofing?"
- If you can earn more easily, why not?

Serial Peripheral Interface

I was asked to solve the interfacing E1 chip via SPI. First, try out with the parallel port in my PC, then, followed by the configurable processor. Both are running Linux. SPI uses only 4 I/O pins, thus, making it a perfect choice if you don’t want to waste your address mapping. The only setback is that it is a serial communication. Using the customized processor in FPGA, one single bit data transfer consumes 67.2 us. A read from or write to a register for 8-bit data takes about 1.68ms. Luckily, this is simply used for initial configuration and random monitoring purposes.

Waveform captured from the logic analyzer…… Look like glitches occur in the SDO line

Niibe Yutaka & Debian

Had an opportunity to met Debian developer, Mr. Niibe Yutaka yesterday. This was the workshop organized by IEEE Computer Society, but more like a technical talk. Frankly, I was quite disappointed with the presentation. Perhaps, developer is not good in presentation but or maybe I expect for more technical insights. Basically, the talk focuses on advocating the “Free” software, the policies of Japanese government regarding Open Source and also the KuroBox/Pro. Some introduction to this little NAS box:

CPU: ARM9
Flash: NOR – for u-boot storage NAND – for linux kernel, rootfs
GPIO: 2 pin
Ethernet & USB Port

and yes Nibbe ported the debian GNU/Linux inside the box, showed us a simple demonstration on stepper motor and used the USB VGA adapter for X-Windows (sluggish). He even put the emacs on to the box. As I know, emacs is usually not included in embedded system, too big. Sound like a good education tool!

Anyone has try out debian distribution. I just Ubuntu is one of many derivative from Debian