A Veteran Journalist Passes Away

I almost forgot to blog about this.

Last Thursday, I was browsing through the New Straits Times when a photograph caught my eye. I was shocked to learn that A. Sri K. Nayagam had passed away early the day before (Nov 30). The former Assistant Editor of the Malay Mail and Asiaweek’s former chief correspondent for Malaysia, passed away at the age of 63 after being bedridden for quite some time.

Picture from the NST

Mr. Nayagam retired from the Malay Mail in 1998 and had started his own PR company.
The veteran journalist was later roped in as the Managing Editor of the South Review magazine, an effort to revive the South, which had been previously published from London. Many don't know it but this influential magazine was Malaysian funded. Unfortunately, it had folded up during the Asian Crisis.

The South Review was aimed at presenting the perspectives of the developing and third world countries (the South countries). It was a valiant effort but after working there for about a year (as a contributor/jack of all trades), I knew that it wouldn't work.

A magazine needs advertisements to survive. This in turn depends on circulation.

The South review was a magazine about the environment, globalisation, current affairs and other serious stuff. You can imagine how difficult it was to sell this kind of magazine in Malaysia, where people don’t either trust or look down on anything published here. As for advertisements, MNC’s would avoid us like the plague and I guess you know why.

Anyway, I really did learn a lot of things from Mr. Nayagam. During lunch, he would regale us with stories from his life as a journalist, some of them quite juicy I might add.

I had minor differences in the way the magazine was being run and soon left for better pastures (or so I thought). I had lost touch with him for quite sometime since I left the magazine. Later learnt that the magazine had folded up from friends who had worked there. I also recall reading somewhere that he was rehired by the NST on contract, which was his last posting.

May his soul rest in peace.

Read his obituary in the NST.

Datuk Nicol

She's finally done it and created history in the process.

Malaysia's golden girl, 22 years old Nicol David's victory (8-10 9-2 9-6 9-7 ) over Rachael Grinham of Australia on Sunday made her the first Asian woman to win the World Open squash title in Hong Kong. Nicol beat reigning World number one, Dutch star Vanessa Atkinson during the semis.



Look at her exploits: The first home player to capture the Malaysian Open, the first Asian woman to win the British Open and the first Asian woman to become world number one. Actually she is not the World No One officially and will only get the title in January.

Anyway, as far as I know, she will the First Malaysian to be ranked a No 1 in any sport.

If anybody deserves a Datukship, it's Nicol. Anybody with me?

Others who blogged about her: Lucia and KG.

UPDATE:

The Malaysian Government announced yesterday that Nicol would be awarded RM20,000/ under the National Sports Council’s (NSC) reward scheme for athletes.

More rewards: Updated 9th Dec. 2005

A medium-cost apartment unit in Bukit Gambier, worth RM180,000, and RM30,000 in cash from the Penang state government.

Appointed as ambassador for healthy living and another apartment in the same housing project by the The Penang Development Corporation (PDC)

I am not Lovin it

Are you one of those guys who regularly eat at McDonalds or any other fast food outlet? Well you might want to read on.

Yesterday night I watched ‘Super Size Me’ on DVD. This documentary won the Best Director Award at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.



The director, who’s also the narrator and actor, lives on a McDonald diet (eating whatever is on the McDonald menu only) for one whole month to study the effect this has on his life. He also reduces the amount of exercise to match that of the average American.

The guy’s weight goes from 185.5 to 210 lbs in one month. Besides health problems, he faces emotional turmoil and his sex life goes down the drain.

I guess it did make an impact – McDonalds made several changes to its policies and menu in the US following this film’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

It certainly made me think about my unhealthy lifestyle.

I don’t visit fast food joints much and I have never liked McDonalds anyway. As an Ovo-lacto-vegetarian (which means I am a vegetarian who eats eggs and consumer milk products), my choice is limited.

What I really need is to get some regular exercise. Since I got my car, I practically drive everywhere and having a desk job doesn’t help much. In the past 3 years I have gained 3 inches on my waistline. That’s one inch for every year. Scary.

I have decided to reduce my junk food intake, no more snacking in between meals and ban carbonated sugary soft drinks from my diet. However, I still can’t do without coffee. Maybe I should go back to drinking tea. At least it’s a milder form of caffeine.

The most interesting part was under the Bonus parts in the DVD – ‘Smoking Fry’. An experiment carried out by the director. Without giving anything away, I have to tell you it was disgusting.

BTW, its rated PG in the US.

Watch it and don’t blame me it turns you away from burgers and fries forever.

Akad Nikah in Johor

Drove down to Johor Bharu last weekend to attend our dear friends’ Zaza and Hardy’s ‘Akad Nikah’ ceremony. We wouldn’t have missed it for anything and as we keep saying, we are so fortunate that Hardy met Zaza. If you are reading this, you both know what I mean.

We left our house in Kelana Jaya at around 6:30pm, Friday evening. This time, we didn’t bring Rahil along and left her with my in-laws.

It was bumper to bumper from the minute we turned into the Federal highway till just after Port Dickson (took us about 3 hours). After PD, I drove quite fast and might have exceeded the speed limit at a few places. Hope I don’t get any summons.

Anyway, we finally reached Johor Bahru safe but tired at around 12am. Hardy had already booked us a room at Hotel Seri Malaysia, Larkin. The facilities are nothing to shout about but at RM100 per night, I guess we can’t complain much. Had some snacks with the groom who looked a bit haggard but was quite cool.

In the morning all of us gathered at the hotel lobby. It was an honor for us to be part of the groom’s party. We left together in a convoy and set off for Zaza’s house from the hotel around 10:40 am in the morning.

For those not familiar with Malay marriages and customs, the Akad Nikah is a verbal contract between the bride’s father and the groom (in this case Hardy) and presided by a Kadi. The most important part is when the bride’s father or representative (in this case the Kadi) says: I marry thee to (name of bride) with the mas kahwin of Ringitt Malaysia*.

The groom has to reply “Aku terima nikahnya (name of bride) dengan mas kahwinnya Ringitt Malaysia * tunai” which when translated to English means: “I accept this marriage with (name of bride) with a mas kahwin of Ringitt Malaysia - - * cash”.

*Mas Kawin: A nominal fee that seals the signing of the marriage contract. It varies from state to state in Malaysia.

The groom has to say all of this in one breath. If not satisfied, the witness can ask him to repeat it again. Hardy did it in one go. I know of some guys who were so nervous and had to repeat it a couple of times before the witnesses were finally satisfied.

Of course there are other formalities and “adat” or customs, which are quite unique to Malay weddings. I will not go into it and will leave it for the newly married couple to write about it in their respective blogs.

The Sultanah of Johor was there too and she looked quite elegant. First time I ever attended a wedding in Malaysia with royalty in attendance.

I talked to Hardy just before they left for Holland yesterday and asked him how married life feels like. His reply: “I feel wonderful.”

Congratulations and best wishes for the newly married couple.

Top 5 Malaysian Ecommerce Companies

This is my list of the top 5 ecommerce companies in Malaysia.

I have actually made transactions through their websites. So it is based on experience and has nothing to do with the results of the 11th Malaysia Internet User Survey conducted by AC Nielsen last year.

(In descending order)

1. Airasia.com: AirAsia Bhd. (http://www.airasia.com)

It is actually the first Airline in Asia to implement ticket less travel. Passengers make booking directly buy tickets online and just use a booking number to check in. They beat airlines in more developed countries like Japan, South Korea and Singapore. Malaysia Boleh!

It is no surprise that it was voted as the most popular website for online shopping in the survey conducted by AC Nielsen. In fact in March this year, it was reported that about 55% of ticket sales is generated online. (AirAsia: Online sales have eclipsed offline sales, Star In Tech, 8, March 2005, p. 3).

The website is available in seven different languages, including four on its Malaysian site. Registered members also receive promotions online though e-mails. Makes it the number one e-commerce company in Malaysia.

2. Maybank2u.com.my: Maybank Bhd. (http://www.maybank2u.com.my/)

It can be quite funny when people still associate e-commerce with buying and selling products over the net. Online banking also comes under the broad definition of e-commerce and I can say without fear that, Maybank2u.com.my is the most popular online bank in Malaysia.

I love the fact that besides paying bills online, I can also transfer money to accounts in other banks as well as pay online merchants. We can even top up our telephone prepaid cards.

NEGATIVE: I hated it when they started changing fees for transactions but we have no choice. C.K. Hooi pointed out that customers can't use the online service after midnight MST, which is opposed to the idea of online banking as a 24/7 service.

3. Lelong.com.my: Interbase Resources Sdn. Bhd. (http://www.buysell.com.my)

Malaysia’s pioneer auction portal, company has a bit of an identity crisis. Following a rebranding exercise in January 2002, Lelong.com.my was renamed buysell.com.my but I see that it has quietly gone back to using the name Lelong.com.my again.

Never the less, it remains the most popular auction portal despite the entry of the American auction giant, E-bay into the Malaysian Market.

NEGATIVE: Their web is a bit too cluttered for my liking. Could do with a major redesign.

4. Blooming.com.my: Blooming Florist Sdn Bhd. (http://www.blooming.com.my)

One of Malaysia’s first e-commerce companies. Blooming Florist began operations in 1981. They now deliver worldwide through through its membership in Interflora Pacific Unit Ltd.

They allow payment through credit cards or through bank transfers, including Maybank2u. Ordered a bouquet of lilies with orchids for my wife’s birthday recently. She loved it and I am one satisfied customer.

NEGATIVE: The website design is rather plain but I guess it serves its purpose. Could do with a major redesign job.

5. Dominos.com.my: Dommal Food Services Sdn Bhd. (http://www.dominos.com.my)

The ‘Malaysian Book of Records’ has endorsed it as the 1st Fast Food online service in Malaysia. Now if you are too lazy to call for a pizza, just order online. The “30 minutes to customer's doorstep” commitment still applies.

No credit card? Don’t worry! Terms of payment is Cash On Delivery.

NEGATIVE: Limited areas of delivery and definitely not in Kedah.

Would love to hear what you think about the list. Please feel free to share your experiences and whether you agree with my list. If you have other companies in mind, tell me.

Goblet of Fire

Caught the latest 'Harry Potter’ installment (No. 4 in the series), ‘Goblet of Fire’ last Friday with my wife, brother-in-law, sis-in-law and her husband at TGV, 1 Utama.



I was wondering how they were going to reduce the 750 pages long book to a few hours movie. But they did it. For example, the several pages long Quidditch World Cup was reduced to a few minutes screen time.

If you have seen the movie you will see that it has some scenes that were not in the book. They have also changed the story line a bit. If you can identify these scenes, it will prove that you are one great Harry Potter fan.

I know some people think that it is a kiddie movie and wondering what all the fuss is about. However, a look around the movie theatre confirmed my suspicion - most of the audience was composed of adults (including us). This movie is rated PG-13 in the US. Yeah, there are a few scary scenes. However, I think it is rated U in Malaysia and I saw a lot of very young kids with their parents.

Overall - an enjoyable movie. You can somehow feel the trauma that the teenage characters go through when they go through the ‘neither children nor adult’ phase – when hormones start surging in their veins.

Email Mistakes and Solutions

My organization allows us to access our mail through our online portal from anywhere in the world. However the problem is that the online email interface is not very user friendly. It also lacks a “sent folder”, so I don’t have a record of emails I send out. Another negative is the limited e-mail space quota – only 29 MB. And with all attachments we receive everyday, it doesn’t take long before we receive the dreaded “Over quota” message and emails sent to us won’t reach us.

In my office, I use the fabulous Mozilla Thunderbird email client.



In order to save valuable space, I had set the “server settings” (Tools> Account Settings> Server settings) to delete the mail in our server once I have downloaded them to my computer.

Big mistake!

During the recent holidays, I was in Kuala Lumpur and needed to access some of my old email and logged into our online email server. To my horror, I found that apart from the latest email; all the older ones had been deleted from the server.

I realized that this could have been disastrous. For example, what if my computer had suffered an unrecoverable crash because of a virus or something. All my email communication would have been lost.

As soon as I got back to my office, I changed the settings to “Leave messages on server” (Just tick the box).

I was also thinking that it would be cool if I could save all the mail onto my Flash drive so that I could access it anytime. Then I suddenly remembered a post on Cheeaun’s blog about portable applications, which you could carry around on your flash drive. Well he did mention John Haller's Portable Firefox but there was nothing about a portable email client. No problem!

Googling ‘portable Thunderbird’ took me to John Haller’s Portable Thunderbird page. Thanks a lot John. You are the MAN.

I downloaded the application into one of my unused Flash drives (128 MB) and gave it a trial run. It’s amazing. Now I can access my mail from any computer. All I have to do is just plug in the flash drive, and load Thunderbird directly from it.

WARNING: Remember to set the setting on the ‘portable Thunderbird’ to “Leave messages on server” or you might face the same problem of missing mails from the server.

I now have Portable Firefox and Portable Thunderbird (with 102 email messages) running on my Flash drive. And you won’t believe it - takes up only 23MB space.