Your phone will create an instant community

Nokia has been working on creating a mobile phone feature that connects people with strangers (or friends) in their immediate vicinity.

Nokia Instant Community is a mobile social network fuelled by the people around you. It lets you chat, share content and interact with people close by via your mobile phone.

The concept was jointly created by Tampere University of Technology and the Nokia Research Centre.

It provides an insight into how we might interact with strangers in the future - via social networks and mobile communication. Nokia Instant Community is unique in the fact that it doesn't require mobile users to connect through WiFi, infrared or Bluetooth.

Instead the social network is run using the device's adhoc WiFi (a network that enables two or more devices to connect with each other directly instead of passing through a central access point or wireless router).

"The two apps showcased working on the platform demonstrated how you could instant message with folks nearby, share pictures, songs and contact information along with other content you'd like others to be privy to on your device," explained a post on the Nokia Conversations official blog.

On May 13, Patently Apple website revealed that Apple is also working on a powerful location-based service for the iPhone. Apple was granted the patent that would see service or retail applications temporarily appear on a user's phone when they approach a certain location.

For example, if a user came in the vicinity of a restaurant, a menu for that restaurant would temporarily appear on their device.

The technology could theoretically be used in a similar way to Nokia Instant Community, with near-by users' profiles temporarily popping up when they approach the device.

Nokia Instant Community is still in its research and development phase but you can view the initial concept behind the social network here: bit.ly/bTejSS

Rent HD movies and PS3 games

Do you have a long list of Blu-ray movies to watch and PlayStation3 games to play but not keen on spending so much money? Maybe you can rent them to save cost.

Check out Blackmango Games, an online videogame and movie rental service that lets users rent PlayStation3 games and Blu-ray movies.

The rental service is the brainchild of Ben Chan, an avid videogame and movie enthusiasts who started the service in 2007.

“I came up with the idea after not being able to find any local game rental service,” he said.

“There are a lot of hardcore gamers who complete a game in a day or two and move on to the next. Because games cost a lot, it makes more sense for them to rent,” he said.

Chan, who first started his virtual store on Lowyat.net forum, has since expanded the service to a dedicated website (www.blackmangogames.com) where customers can view the list of games and movies they wish to rent.

There are many subscription packages. For instance, the Hardcore Gamer package costs RM50 a month and entitles the subscriber to rent one game or movie at any one time. You can hold on to the title as long as you like or exchange it for another as many times as you wish.

The game will be delivered to you by Chan or dispatched via mail depending on your location.

Chan is planning on upgrading his website to allow subscribers to pick the titles they wish to rent online. — CHONG JINN XIUNG

Conference to spotlight hacker threats

In today’s fast moving world, security threats to a company’s IT network are rampant and rapidly evolving to become more menacing.

To drive home these threats and the vulnerabilities of company IT infrastructures, computer security certification company EC Council has organised its Hacker Halted Asia Pacific conference, which includes workshop sessions.

The event, organised in conjunction with Kolej Yayasan Melaka (KYM), will take place in Kuala Lumpur in November.

Hacker Halted is being billed as a “vendor neutral” event that will feature industry executives, technical specialists, IT managers and other experts who have agreed to share their knowledge and expertise in this area.

The list of speakers includes director of solutions architecture at WhiteHat Security, Trey Ford; president and CEO of Information Security Forum, Howard Schmidt; and former US National Security Agency codebreaker Jeff Bardin.

There will also be a workshop for a more hands-on approach to security, which will involve a practical guide through the security process and attendees should bring their own laptops.

Workshop presenters include personalities such as Tom Bowers, who is the technical editor for information security magazine TechTarget.

The Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry is backing the conference. It will be held from Nov 10-13 at the Nikko Hotel, Kuala Lumpur.

There is an attendance fee of RM1,399 for the conference and RM2,600 for the workshop. Those who wish to attend both will only have to pay RM3,400 each.

EC Council is also offering an early-bird discount of 15% for those who register and pay before July 31.

How much money is YouTube losing?

Internet video leader YouTube Inc’s losses have been overblown by some analysts, but corporate parent Google Inc doesn’t mind the misperception, according to a study released on Wednesday.

Technology consultants at RampRate Inc project YouTube’s operating losses this year at US$174.2mil (RM627mil) — far below the US$470.6mil (RM1.7bil) estimated by Credit Suisse analysts Spencer Wang and Kenneth Sena in an April research report that became a hot topic on Wall Street and the Internet.

The duelling forecasts are the latest twist in a guessing game that has intrigued investors since Google bought YouTube for US$1.76bil (RM6bil at the current exchange rate) in late 2006.

Although YouTube has become an even more popular diversion since the Google deal, it still hasn’t proven it can make money.

Google has acknowledged YouTube isn’t profitable, but has refused to provide any specifics, leaving it to outsiders to figure out.

And the number crunching usually leads to inaccurate conclusions, according to Google’s chief financial officer, Patrick Pichette.

“Most people build outside views of what it costs us to do things, and often they exaggerate,” Pichette said in an interview with the Canadian magazine Maclean’s shortly after Credit Suisse released its YouTube report.

But Google has little incentive to set the record straight about YouTube’s actual losses, according to RampRate, which specialises in managing technology costs.

RampRate reasons the perception of large losses at YouTube helps Google negotiate more favourable contracts with movie, TV and music studios licensing their video.

What’s more, copyright owners also are less likely to go to court in pursuit of unpaid royalties and damages if they believe YouTube is a big money loser, according to RampRate’s thesis.

“Google is no doubt thrilled to let YouTube be known as a financial folly,” RampRate’s report said.

Cost cutting

YouTube spokesman Aaron Zamost wouldn’t comment directly on RampRate’s report but he stressed that Google has been running ads near or in millions of videos in an effort to curb YouTube’s losses.

He also said Google had little incentive to magnify its losses because YouTube shares revenue with its business partners.

“We want our partners to do well, because when they succeed, we succeed,” Zamost said.

Although it has been cutting costs to cope with the US recession, Google can still afford to subsidise YouTube with the money it makes through its search engine. Google earned US$4.2bil (RM15bil) last year and started this year with a first-quarter profit of US$1.4bil (RM5bil).

Analysts generally concur with Credit Suisse’s US$241mil (RM867mil) estimate for YouTube’s revenue this year. RampRate adopted Credit Suisse’s revenue projections in its calculations, as well as Credit Suisse’s estimate that YouTube will spend about US$332mil (RM1.2bil) on video acquisition, advertising commissions and general overhead this year.

Keeping it secret

The big mystery is how much it costs Google to store and distribute the 20 hours of video that are sent to YouTube every minute.

After conferring with industry experts, Wang and Sena concluded Google will spend nearly US$380mil (RM1.4bil) on Internet bandwith, computer hardware, software and datacentres for YouTube. RampRate believes the figure is about US$83mil (RM298mil).

That lower estimate presumes Google has negotiated moneysaving deals with broadband providers and other behind-the-scenes players that move data through the Internet.

RampRate also believes Google’s own propriety technology has helped hold down YouTube’s costs, an idea that Pichette endorsed in hisMaclean’s interview.

“When people run models, they generally use standard industry pricing for bandwidth, storage, but we build everything from scratch,” Pichette said at the time. “So we know our cost position but nobody else does.”

Credit Suisse stands by its April estimates, said Sena, one of the analysts who wrote the April report. “We feel very comfortable with what we came up with,” he said on Tuesday

Malaysia covets China’s outsourcing spot

Malaysia wants to be the No 2 location worldwide for outsourcing activities, edging out China, in five year’s time, said the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC).

Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, MDeC chief executive officer, said the country will attain this goal by ramping up its production of knowledge workers.

Malaysia, in third place after leader India and China, has held that position for the fourth time in six years, according to global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney’s Global Services Location Index (GSLI).

According to MDeC, the total number of knowledge workers contributed by MSC Malaysia — MDeC oversees that national initiative — is 79,000. By 2010, MSC Malaysia alone will need 100,000 workers.

It is estimated that the demand for knowledge workers nationwide will far exceed that. MDeC, however, could not provide an exact figure.

To meet the goal, MDeC is collaborating with industry experts and professional outsourcing bodies to train and re-train fresh IT graduates, displaced workers and working professionals for the growing outsourcing sector.

Among its partners are Outsourcing Malaysia; Customer Relationship Management and Contact Centre Association of Malaysia; International Association of Outsourcing Professionals; and Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and Customer Operations Performance Centre.

For those seeking professional qualifications, MSC Malaysia offers training and advancement programmes under its K-Workers Development Initiatives.

These are the MSC Malaysia Undergraduate Skills Programme, MSC Malaysia Undergraduate Apprenticeship and Development Programme (an on-the job training scheme), and MSC Malaysia Graduate Trainee Programme.

Hurdle ahead

Increasing its pool of knowledge workers is a big challenge for Malaysia because China and India have a huge human-capital pool, said Joon Ooi, A.T. Kearney South-East Asia managing director.

But he believes Malaysia is headed in the right direction. “The process of increasing the talent pool has already begun and will create a virtuous cycle,” he said.

“As more companies outsource their services to Malaysia, more relevant resources will be trained and developed, and thus increase the human capital pool. This will in turn attract more companies and so on.”

Delesh Kumar, ICT (information and communications technology) director at Frost & Sullivan, said that besides being taught technical skills, knowledge workers should also be taught soft skills, such as communication, which are currently lacking.

“We are competing with countries like India and the Philippines and their people’s command of English and communication skills are better than ours. We need to beef up our skills in these areas,” he said.

“Presentation skills, public speaking and people management skills need to be inculcated from a young age at primary and secondary school levels.”

Delesh said the development of a more industry-relevant workforce can also be done via the existing vocational school system, whereby they can help create a pool of technology-specific talents.

“Vocational schools are more focused on manufacturing-related jobs and this should change,” he added.

Multicultural edge

Badlisham said the availability of skilled workers, competitive costs and an ideal business environment are the reasons why companies choose Malaysia for shared services, outsourcing and offshoring activities.

He believes that Malaysia’s multicultural traits are a strong selling point. “Many multinationals continuously praise our workforce’s versatility and adaptability.

“These companies are already one step ahead thanks to our readily available pool of skilled workers who are also multilingual,” he said.

The outsourcing industry is the biggest contributor to MSC Malaysia’s revenue, accounting for RM5.3bil (31.2%) in 2007.

According to MDeC, Malaysia continues to attract outsourcing jobs from high-profile companies, such as US-based hard disk manufacturer Seagate Technology Ltd, which began outsourcing its IT services in May and Australian mining giant BHP Billiton that began outsourcing its financing operations late last year.

A.T. Kearney’s GSLI, released bi-annually, ranks the top 50 countries for outsourcing activities, including IT services and support, contact centres and backoffice support. The ranking is based on financial cost, people skills and business environments.

Let’s just stick to English

Whether Science and Maths should be taught in English should be decided solely by considering the welfare of the students and the country.

Our people should know how to read, write and speak the national language but, at the same time, to gain knowledge, they should learn and use English – Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

In 2003, before he stepped down as Prime Minister in 2004, Dr Mahathir made a major policy change in terms of education.

It was considered drastic at that time and made over the opposition of both Malay and vernacular language advocates.

He basically decreed that Science and Mathematics should be taught in English simply because that was the fastest way for Malaysians to access the rapidly changing developments in those fields.

It was a major change of position for Dr Mahathir himself, who as education minister in the mid-70s and subsequently prime minister from 1981 pushed through major reforms which saw the education system being transformed from English-based to Malay-based.

The parallel development was the evolution of vernacular education systems in Chinese, mainly, and in Tamil as well as Islamic religious schools, leading basically to four separate educational systems in the country.

But the edict by Dr Mahathir was a bold one and cut across all the educational systems to make it compulsory to teach Science and Maths in English in all of them.

Six years later, a generation of students have passed through the system and the vast majority of them have preferred to answer questions in English even though they were given options to answer in other languages.

Now, six years later, one wonders why there is even a need to re-think this process – the students have spoken by opting to answer in English, and there have been noticeable improvements in the quality of English. The infrastructure has been built. Why destroy all that now?

Have we not already suffered enough through a widespread decline of English among our students to the extent that many of our graduates from local universities are unemployable because of the poor quality of their English?

Now there is a proposal to make a pass in English compulsory before a candidate gets the Sjil Pelajaran Malaysia (Malaysian certificate of education) or SPM certificate. The ministry has invited public comments on this.

The proposal only adds confusion to the issue. Let’s settle the outstanding issue of whether Science and Maths should be taught in English, and then we can talk about another.

It’s vitally important to keep the two separate and not link them together in an attempt to come to some sort of compromise solution.

A pass in English should only be made compulsory after there is a huge effort to improve the quality of English taught in schools. Otherwise it would needlessly penalise.

It helps to state the underlying problem with respect to English: the quality of English has deteriorated so much that students can’t speak, read or write English and therefore are also unable to plug into the avenues which increase knowledge and competence in all areas.

Dr Mahathir’s solution was simple, elegant and practical – teach science and maths in English. That improves usage of the language, gives students the key necessary terms, and the tools to plug into the unfolding developments in the area.

The language purists, being purists and in many cases language extremists, insist that English can only be taught by teaching English such as grammar and literature and that subjects must be taught in the mother tongue.

But they pointedly ignore the practical aspect: language must be used if competence is to be gained.

Teaching Science and Maths in English ensures that English is used and not just learned, which will be the case if you increase the time for teaching English. That is a crucial difference.

None of this will be at the expense of the national language, Malay, or even Chinese or Tamil. All the other subjects are being taught in these languages, and students will gain more than sufficient proficiency in them.

Vitally, with the change already in place for six years, the students have also had an avenue to improve their English skills. It will be cruel to take that away from future generations. Give them the local languages but give them English, too.

There must come a time when we make decisions based on what is best for our children and our country – nothing and no one else matters more.

Our children will benefit im mensely from a good command of English, while a good command of English will help the country connect to the world and access all the knowledge and attendant benefits.

To clinch the argument, let’s quote Dr Mahathir again. This is what he said at an international conference on English last year in Kuala Lumpur: “Our people should know how to read, write and speak the national language, but at the same time, to gain knowledge, they should learn and use English.”

Narrow, parochial considerations of language lobbyists and extremists have no place. A pragmatic decision must be made. Not only must Science and Maths continue to be taught in English, more measures must be devised to improve English usage and capability.

A pass grade in English to get an SPM qualification may be a bit premature in the absence of concrete measures to improve English quality.

Certainly such a measure should not be used to barter away the teaching of Science and Maths in English.

瀑布

上星期日，我和朋友们一起到Sungai Gabai的瀑布玩。我们早上七点三十分就开始出发了，到达目的大约九点。

到了目的地，我们就开始爬上大约两百米长的路程到山中。到了地点，觉得有点累，平时没有运动的我就是这样了。休息一阵子，我们才下去玩水。

那边的水好冷，比我家的自来水好冷，水又很干净。我们玩得好开心。不知不觉已到中午了，感觉肚子好饿，就把大包来的饭一起吃。过后，我们就收拾准备回家了。当我们下山时，有很多游客才到。场面很热闹。有些懒惰爬到上面的就在下面玩好了。看见很多下孩子很开心的一起玩水。

我好久没到瀑布去玩了，感觉上好开心和放松了在城市里的压力。希望下次有机会。我一定会去玩的。

开学了！！！！

嗨，大家好！！！好久没上来这边写部落格了。不知大家过得如何？？？

转眼间，三个星期的学校假期过了，现在必须回来上课了。舍不得刚过去的假期。haiz。。无论如何，我会把读书的心情带回来，继续的求学。假期我想每个人都想，但假期是让我们休息来冲电，使我们能够精神的继续求学。加油吧！！！

接下来，就是我的第三学期了，好快喔！！我必须发奋图强，更加的努力去做，不能只是勤劳，要不然就追不上别人了。

在假期里，我忙着帮忙社团办活动。但从中我也可以知道一些新的东西。从中学习如何去办。

只要我们肯努力和勤力的去做，我们能够学到很多东西，也能让别人尊敬我们。不让别人觉得很讨厌我们。

Roles of Accounting Information Systems in the Business Environment

 SYSTEMS, DATA, AND INFORMATION

 

Ø  A system is a set of interrelated components that interact to achieve a goal.  Most systems are composed of smaller subsystems and vice versa.

Ø  The systems concept encourages integration

Ø  Data are facts that are collected, recorded, stored, and processed by an information system.

Ø  Organizations collect data about events that occur, resources that are affected by those events, and agents who participate in the events

Ø  Information is different from data.  Information is data that have been organized and processed to provide meaning to a user.  Usually, more information and better information translates into better decisions.  However, when you get more information than you can effectively assimilate, you suffer from information overload.  When you’ve reached the overload point, the quality of decisions declines while the costs of producing the information increases.

Ø  The value of information can be measured as its benefits minus its costs.  Costs are more difficult to quantify.

•         Characteristics that make information useful:

–     Relevance—reduces uncertainty by helping predict or confirm;

–     Reliability—dependable and free from error or bias;

–     Completeness—doesn’t leave out anything important;

–     Timeliness—received in time to affect the decision;

–     Understandability—presented so it’s comprehensible and useful;

–     Verifiability—independent people would produce the same result; and

–     Accessibility—available when needed in a useable format.

–     Information is provided to both external and internal users. 

–     External users primarily use information that is either mandatory (e.g., required by government) or essential (needed to conduct business). 

–     In providing mandatory or essential information, the focus should be on minimizing costs, meeting regulatory requirements, and meeting minimum standards of reliability and usefulness.

•         Internal users primarily use discretionary information.

–     The primary focus in producing this information is ensuring that benefits exceed costs, i.e., the information has positive value.

h3Pi lab0ur dAy !!!

Tenaga buruh adalah pemangkin kepada pembangunan negara ... Dengan ini barulah negara kita dapat maju ke hadapan dan mencapai wawasan 2020 yang telah ditetapkan .... Mereka juga yang banyak berkorban terhadap masa dan tenaga .. pada masa yang sama mereka juga mahu  mencari makan untuk menyara keluarga dan membelanja setiap perbelanjaan harian .... Kita harus menghargai sumbangan mereka ... Teruskan usaha anda untuk negara ini ... Akhirkata Selamat Hari Buruh !!!

Focus Group Discussion

2day I wen focus group discussion wif senior lecture tat wan doin survey about his work … we discuss about mobile phone …. What phone tat ppl like n description … which brand we prefer to u … he is senior lecture teach in Brunei … work in education industry about 16 years …teach in business subject … h3 wan finish the Phd course .. h0pe he can finish as soon as possible …. Gud Luck !! 

运动

好久的我没有去运动了，也许懒惰的理由才让我很久没有去跑步了。今早我就和朋友一起去跑步。跑了几圈觉得很累，不知为何什么会变成这样。也许久了没动，变硬了。哈哈！！

很开心

好像有一个星期的时间我没有到此写部落格了。这几天都在忙着温习功课来应付考试。但今天，我的考试终于考完了。觉得放下了心中的大石头。好开心喔。但这只是一阵子。等成绩要公布时和新的学期到来也觉得很害怕又要开始忙了。现在，我有三个星期的假期，我会好好的去利用，来做有意义的事。在此，我希望我能够考好成绩。还有在此我要谢谢大家给于的支持。

第一天考试

今天是我校第一天考试，当我到学校看到大多数的学生埋头苦读，有些得就谈天虽然书在眼前，有的一面读书，一面吃早餐，有些得就在发 白日梦好像还没有睡醒式的。今早可以看到很多各种各式的表情喔。

今天的考题还好，不是很难。今天是考Business Communication II。这科目是可说象我们在中学的英文科目但他比较深。当我做答时，可说大多数的问题我知道做答。希望我能够在这科拿到优等。

再 过三天，我才有考试，在这几天我可以好好的温习接下来的科目。加油！！！gAmbat3h !!!

考试

时间过得好快喔。转眼间，就要面对考试了。好紧张和害怕。我到现在还没有开始温习功课。我的朋友各个问我是否我已经开始温习功课了吗？我回答说没有。觉得到了考试的期间变得不知要如何应付。每次都是会劝朋友不要担心，但自己却做不到。无论如何，我会做好自己的本分去面对来临的考试。加油！！！gAmbat3h !!! 

小测验

今天的小测验题目好难喔，我读的大多数没出而我没有读的题目又出了好多题。当要做答时，觉得好辛苦不知要如何写出答案。平时不烧香的我，拼命的读，结果读得少。所以不知要如何作答。

下星期就是大考了。我好害怕因为现在的我还没有开始温习功课和做准备去面对。看着朋友们各各忙着温习功课，埋头苦头的读。我呢，正忙着不该忙得东西。哈哈！！不会好好的去安排时间的我，现在觉得很辛苦不知要从如何做起。无论如何，我还是希望我能够尽我最大的力量去面对这挑战。在此，希望我能够考好的成绩，不让我的父母失望。

泼水节

在四月十日（星期五）早上，我坐飞机回去丹州为了庆祝泼水节在暹罗庙。我在那边也玩了好开心。好久没有玩水了。我可以把水随便乱喷，没有人可以骂你的。在这节日里以暹罗人来说他们是在迎接新的一年到来，就是冲走不愉快，不干净的东西洗掉，希望在来临的新一年他们能够更有信心，勇敢和新目标能够去达到。

Keputusan Pilihanraya 3 Bukit

Keputusan Rasmi Pilihanraya Kecil Parlimen Bukit Gantang

PAS memenangi kerusi Parlimen Bukit Gantang dengan majoriti 2,789 undi.

Calonnya, Datuk Seri Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin mendapati 21,860 undi manakala calon BN, Ismail Saffian mendapat 19,071 undi. Calon bebas mendapat 62 undi dan hilang wang deposit.

 

Keputusan Rasmi Pilihanraya Kecil Dewan Undangan Negeri (DUN) Batang Ai

Calon Barisan Nasional (BN) memenangi kerusi Dewan Undangan Negeri (DUN) Batang Ai dengan majoriti 1,854 undi.

Malcom Mussen Lamoh dari BN memperoleh 3,907 undi menewaskan calon PKR, Jawah Gerang yang memperoleh 2,053 undi.

 

Keputusan Rasmi Pilihanraya Kecil Dewan Undangan Negeri DUN Bukit Selambau

 

PKR memenangi kerusi Dewan Undangan Negri (DUN) Bukit Selambau dengan majority 2,403 undi.

S Manikumar dari PKR memperoleh 12,632 undi menewaskan calon BN S Ganesan yang memperoleh 10,229 undi.

0407

今天就是三个地方的补选日子，希望各位选民能够提早出门投票和选出，他们心中的领袖来为他们服务和成为政府与人民的桥梁。这次的补选也就是给人民机会来证明，他们信任和希望在哪个政党的领导下。这次补选的成绩是很重要。在此，希望今天的成绩能够表达人民的心意。

新领袖，新希望，新政策

纳吉今早10时在国家元首面前，正式宣誓就职第6任首相；纳吉宣誓时表示，将会诚实与竭力执行首相职务。这是我国的历史在五十二年后的新上任首相。在此，希望新的首相能够把我国现在的政，经，教，宗能够处理得好，使我国能够达到2020的宏愿。尤其是现在的经济暴风，有很多人失业。希望首相能够推出更多地就业机会，以免会发生很多社会问题。