Mr. Haxa Does The Blogs

Open And Turn The New CLIE PEG-UX50

The Palm camp today is overwhelmed with the anticipation news on Sony plan to unveil the new CLIE model, of which the news have been spread out on cliesource.com, palminfocenter.com that made reference to the Sony Japan website. I would have inserted some pictures on this blog should the blogspot plus have done with their maintenance.

Let's get to the PDA. This marks the debut of the UX line, and is given the name of PEG-UX50. The most appealing feature of this PDA is the hybrid clamshell and the laptop design that marvels whoever sees it at the first time. Putting a new chapter to new whole Zen of Palm, this model is is capable of being rotated and positioned like the tablet PC. SONY nicknamed this design as Open And Turn. It is such a wonder that a cutie little PDA like this one that measured approximately width 103× height 86.5× depth 17.9mm and weighs 175gm.

Powered by the SONY Handheld Engine (TM) (CXD2230GA) CPU of which is unknown to me the speed of the processor, but it looks like it is of 230MHz, of a non-Intel chip, SONY chip more like it. Okay here comes the funny part, the AltaVista using the BabelFish translator has this to say about the RAM capacity:

"Total 104MB (user active territory itself: Approximately 16MB, built-in media: Approximately 22MB) "

Oh, wow! Some cliesource members make joke out of this that, at provided 104Mb RAM only 16Mb is available to the users. However, a much better guess of which makes sense to me it that, "built in media to refer to preinstalled software apps.... so 16MB user available, 22MB apps and the rest heap memory/system cache".

External left are the, infrared ray port and the Power/Hold switch. Also come with big surprise this time is the USB port 1.0 which will make this machine an easily plug and play external drive or to connected to other hardware.

The screen is of HighRes+ with the resolution/display color 480×320 dot/65,536 colors that matches the NX80V or the NZ80 models. Thanks to the back light loading TFT color liquid crystal display for that.

Extended battery PEGA-EB40

Conformity standard IEEE802.11b
Use band 2.4GHz band (1-11CH and ISM band)
WEP (encoding the data) 64, 128bit
Modulation technique DS-SS (IEEE802.11b conformity and Wi-Fi (R) conformity)

IEEE802.11b Bluetooth

Palm OS 5 or 5.2?

Memory Stick PRO
Memory Stick Gate
Memory Stick DUO
Memory Stick

CLIE 3D Launcher - screenshot avaliable here
Launcher

[1] SONY CLIE PEG-UX50
[2] Clie Ux-50!! Great!!

I'll continue later ...

iCome, iWrite; uRead, uHeard me!

This is the codification tool of tacit knowledge at its best. If knowledge is to be read, and wisdom is to be heard, there's plenty to be read, and there millions of unuttered words and thoughts yet unsaid, yet unwritten. This is the evolution of publishing tools that have allowed almost everybody to be a producer. A perfect market efficiency because information are freely available, nobody dominates. Cost is almost non-existent, and there is even healthy competition among producers. This is the truest manifestation of the knowledge economy.

This may sound like misogynistic knowledge management proponent trying to oversell a new tool, but, if you are not riding on this one, you might be left behind among the early adopters. You will probably loose out your edge at sharing your knowledge, doing your self-marketing, beginning your personal-accidental journalism, pushing new a social agenda, or building a whole new community (Najah, 2003). At this time, it's probably is that innovators' site like the ones of andrewsullivan.com, digitalfugue.com, and slate.com that have brilliantly started the movement, that has made this world a suddenly interesting place to live in.

Today, at this QWERTY keyboard my mind travels beyond new territory, new dimension, new idea, new hypothesis, new argument, new thought, new opinion that could soon become my stuff to be written, to be read by others, and my voice to be heard by my fellow readers.

Thank you to blogger.com and blogspot.com for you both has been the enabling tools to the enablers. And for making life much more intriguing than it has been.

[1] Najah Nasseri, How Weblogs Accelerate Communication, INFOSOC, 2003

Perak March Through the Quarter Final

Yesterday Perak won again, this time a concinving 3-0 victory over Brunei 's DPMM FC at the ASEAN Club Champion League at the Stadium Petrokimia, Gresik, Surabaya, Indonesia. Two days ago, although the "Bull" won 2-0 over Singapore's Armed Force Club, it was indeed a boring match. The only highlight of the match was the superb Indra's heading that made its way to the goal. Seator, on completing the victory, also through heading from a good pass from Flavio sure had impressed Jamal Nasir and Tony Netto on his first debut with Perak. And we thought Yusri Che Lah should have been replaced by Saravanan earlier when he was down, injured. Saravanan only came into the match when it was only three minutes remaining in the game. Talk about Yusri Che Lah, what a waste of Perak money. This player brought over from Selangor didn't do any good at the game.

I couln't comment much on yesterday's 3-0 game, because it was aired at office hour and neither did I manage to catch the replay on Astro Ria, but Utusan did a coverage on this. I am surprise that other papers don't cover this. I can't believe that what matters in the sport section these few days is the new Selangor management. What a waste of space!

Yesterday's official result: 3-0
Frank Seator (min 52, pen)
Syamsul Saad (min 71)
Harizul Izwan Abd Rani (min 90)

Kudos to the team. With this victory, Perak has secured a place in the quarter final, of which they will be playing this Sunday against a team from the Cambodia. Look forward for the live match on Astro Ria!

[1] Malaysian champs cruise against DPMM
[2] Perak Mara Ke Suku Akhir ACFC 2003

Belasungkawa: Nenda Pah'n'Chek Ton (1919-Julai, 14 2003) Dalam Kenangan

Pah'n'Chek memang seorang wanita yang jiwanya kental. Dia adalah kekanda kepada nenda ku, namun dia lah yang membersarkan bonda. Pada cerita-cerita bonda, aku kagumi kekuatan yang ada pada nenda. Pah'n'Chek turut jua membesarkan cucunda yang kini rapat, tak ubah seperti ahli keluarga kami.

Berlatarbelakangkan Bukit Chandan, Kuala Kangsar, Perak sekitar 1980an, pada mana aku masih di bangku sekolah rendah lagi dan kami selalu apabila cuti tiba, akan ke Kuala Kangsar menaiki bas ekspress. Paling mengimbau kenangan bandar diraja ini ialah apabila kami tiba sahaja di pekan Kuala, kami tidak pernah melepaskan peluang menikmati laksa dan cendol yang kini, dua tahun lepas aku ke sana, sudah tiada lagi gerai tersebut. Kami kemudian akan menaiki kereta sapu yang popular di bandar-bandar kecil menuju ke rumah nenda. Dalam perjalanan, bonda akan bercerita tentang salasilah keluarga kami, tentang istana lama yang bonda tuju untuk mengaji semasa kecilnya, dan tentang kisah sultan-sultan pada masanya yang kerap mengadakan jamuan untuk rakyat jelata.

Rumah nenda luas kawasannya, di kelilingi kebun getah dan halamannya terdapat sebatang pokok rambutan yang tinggi merimbun dengan buah rambutan yang meranum tatkala tiba musimnya. Malamnya, kawasan ini agak menggerunkan kerana lampu jalan kekadang menyala, kekadang tidak, namum, bila terpasang, cahanya tidak sekuat mana.

Seperti rumah tradisi Perak, rumah ini dua lapis. Tangga berwarna merah tidak ubah seperti tangga yang terdapat di rumah tradisi Melaka. Pintu masuk terlalu unik untuk aku gambarkan keindahan ukiran yang terdapat padanya, begitu jua tingkap-tingkap yang terdapat dirumah ini. Jadi di ataslah ruang tamu, dan satu bilik tidur. Untuk ke bawah, yang luas bukaannya berbanding atas, ada tangga kayu yang menghubungi.

Pada rekabentuk rumah seperti ini, ruang makan biasanya luas di bawah. Dapur kayu terletak di luar rumah. Di sekeliling dapur ini, subur berdiri sepohon pokok jambu air yang senantiasa berbunga apabila kami tiba di rumah nenda. Dapur ini akan senantiasa mengingatkanku akan peyek yang Pah'n'Chek tidak pernah tidak buat untuk Hari Raya. Setiap raya nenda akan bersiap-siap dengan tempahan peyek serta bahulu, yang kami turut sama membantu menyiapkan.

Bilik mandi terletak di luar dan tandas nun dalam 20 tapak di belakang sana, terlalu dekat dengan kebun getah. Cukup senja, kami akan pastikan segala urusan mandi dan sebagainya sudah disiapkan kerana kepekatan malam yang ditemani bunyi-bunyi cengkerik, pasti menakutkan kanak-kanak sekolah rendah seperti adik-adik aku.

Rumah Pah'n'Chek tidak jauh dari rumah adindanya yang lain. Adinda Pah'n'Chek kerjanya memproses getah susu, dijadikan getah kepingan (scrap) untuk dibuat tilam atau kegunaan lain, kata kami, tilam Dunlop! Dulu bonda pun turut menolong Pah'n'Chek menoreh. Bonda katakan dia peroleh kekuatan semangatnya dari Pah'n'Chek, pekatnya malam akan megutip durian di dusun. Pernah juga ada cerita yang harimau muncul di sekitar kawasan tersebut, namun tidak beri kesan apa-apa pada Pah'n'Chek.

Pah'n'Chek kemudian berhijrah ke Ipoh, kerana cucunda yang dibesarkannya mula bekerja di sana. Kerana dimamah usia, nenda mula sakit tua. Namun, nenda jarang nyanyuk, dan pendengarannya masih kuat tatkala usia sebegitu. Nenda kemudian berpindah ke Kuala Lumpur semasa dia sudah semakin sukar berjalan, dan terpaksa berkerusi roda. Semasa aku baru tamat pengajian dan memulakan hidup perantauan di Kuala Lumpur, dua tahun adanya aku tinggal bersama, dengan adikku, dan cucunda nenda.

Masa berlalu begitu pantas, nenda semakin uzur, namun dia masih kental meneruskan kehidupannya. Setelah sekian lama aku tak menziarahinya, baru semalam petang aku pergi juga melihat keadaan nenda. Cucunda Pah'n'Chek cuba perkenalkan aku pada Pah'n'Chek, namun dia hanya boleh melihat, tiada terkata apa-apa. Kederatnya sudah tiada, lantas terus tutup kelopak matanya untuk tidur.

Dalam jam 6 petang kami pulang, dan tidak kami sangka pagi tadi, jam enam pagi tadi, tatkala aku bersiap untuk ke pejabat, cucunda nenda dengan nada teresak-esak, menahan sebak, memberitahu yang nenda sudah tiada. Dia telah pergi ke Rahmatullah.

Pagi tadi bergegas kami ke sana. Turut hadir, rakan taulan nenda dari tempat kerjanya, jiran tentangga, dan turut hadir seluruh keluarga kami dari Ipoh dan Pahang datangnya. Sempat aku bacakan dua surah Yasin untuk ketenangan roh nenda di alam barzakh. Setelah jenazah dimandi, dan dikafan, jemaah seramai lebih kurang 40 orang adanya menyembahyangkan nenda.

SesudahZuhur, jasad nenda selamat disemadikan di perkuran Islam berhampiran Gombak. Aku masih lagi teringat tenangnya raut wajah nenda apabila ikatan kepala dibuka sedikit semasa jenazahnya sudah berada di dalam liang kubur. Aku senantiasa doakan akan rohnya ditempatkan di kalangan orang-orang yang beriman. Insya-Allah.

Al-Fatihah untuk nenda.

Reading List

[1] Corporate Finance and Investment: Decisions and Strategies, Richard Pike, Bill Neale, Third Edition,
Prentice Hall
[2] Investment Appraisal and Financing Decisions: A First Course In Financial Management, Stephen Lumby,
Fourth Edition, Chapman & Hall
[3] Essentials of Investments, Zvi Bodie, Alex Kane, Alan Markus, McGraw-Hill International Edition, Fourth
Edition
[4] Cases in Strategic Management, John Pearce, Richard Robinsion, Irwin, Third Edition
[5] Fundamentals of Corporate Finance, Richard Brealey, Stephen Myers, Alan Marcus, McGraw-Hill Irwin,
Third Edition
[6] Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases, Arthur Thompson, A Strickland, McGraw-Hill Irwin,
Thirteenth Edition

A Wedding and A Birthday

Tonight a good friend of mine whom was legally married last week, will host the reception at a hotel in KL, and I was asked to be the usher for guests coming in from our office. There will be about 7 of us. One lady couldn't make it because she is still mourning over her mother in law death, back in hometown. And, we had all did a collection for wedding gift. At first, I thought I want to get it myself, but maybe when I have time to do good shopping, I'll buy a personal gift.

I arrived at the hotel where the couple has been staying for the entire day for the evening preparation, very early, at 7pm. They were at the penthouse! It was the first time I met the bride, and I felt very much at home, when she welcomed me, "hey, we finally meet!" It seems that my friend had introduced me to her wife. Well, it was no wonder, given that I usually get a ride from the groom to the train station at some evenings when I have business in KL.

I hang out in the room talking to the best man and a couple of their friends from school. We checked out the bride's make-up from time to time. The hires make-up artist, who is one of the best in town, did a very good job. I was so impressed when I saw the result as they entered the wedding hall.

A Friday Afternoon at the Sri Petaling Mosque

I frequent this mosque almost every other Friday ever since I started working nearby the area. Located around the Sri Petaling residential area, the mosque is bustling with lots of activities on any Friday afternoon. The entrance from the nearby school is the busiest, where people usually park thier cars, and walk to the mosque or stop by the hawker food stall. Today, I had my vermicelli soup today with lots of sliced beef, of which I added the hot soy sauce that adds the ummpppphhh to the hot soup. Not only food, but there are also some traders selling goodies such as kuffiyahs, books, and watches (yep, Tag Hauer at RM15).

This mosque is famous for the tabligh movement that manages and runs the mosque. I was also informed it was also built by this group's fund and engineering expertise (can anybody confirm on this?). The mosque praying hall is HUGE - the left wing, the center area that is carpeted, and the right wing, with the high ceiling architecture that never fails to greet the servant of Allah with tranquility for prayers.

The fact that the mosque also host a school system, eps. for its young members, means that this mosque is always blessed with activities and the good amount of makmum for each prayer time. The students live at the hostels located within the mosque area. There are even two dining halls, one of which is opened for public to try out the original briyani (cooked by the South Asian or Mid-East members), the nice tandoori chicken, and other delicacies that I must warn you, lil bit pricey, but worth it. And you got the chance to eat on the floor!

As much as I adore the mosque peacefulness while I perform my prayers, i'tikaf, and listening to the khutbah (sermon) by the khatib (preacher), I am sometimes dismayed by the fact that some jemaah, surprisingly adults, whom are much prefer to get the spots by the wall, so that they can dooze off to sleeping. And there are even some that hanging around outside the vicinity to have some conversations with friends.

How sad that is considering that the khatibs here mostly preaching without written text, and probably some are hafiz (or becoming one) because they can recite the verses flawlessly. The content of khutbah sometimes talk about current happenings, but are very well said with much emphasis on values that underlies the issues, rather than critics. I notice this in one of the khutbach during the Iraq war, where there was never any mention of war or Iraq or America, but was referred to the beings of the ummah and how we can build our strength and unity together.

Someday I hope, all mosques in Malaysia is modelled in this manner.

Have you been there lately?

As Good As It Gets

I have watched this movie so many time and And I have put on the soundtrack so many time, that if you play the track from the album randomly, chances are I could tell which scene it belongs to. The score is so memorable that it actually sings out the scene in it.

It tells the struggle of Melvin Udall of Jack Nicholson to overcome his fear of getting out the human side out of his obsessive-compulsive behavior. It tells the struggle of Carol Connerly of Helen Hunt to take care of the asthma and the lack of medical aid she's been getting (Democrats 90's reform), her small apartment which she shared with her mom, Beverly in New Jersey, and the usual Melvin Udall who she waits almost every morning, serving him the usual cholesterol-filled breakfast with his own plastic cutleries. It also tells the struggle of Melvin neighbor's Simon Bishop of Greg Kinnear who went broke after a theft plotted by friends of Skeet Ulrich, and the witty part of his art agent of Cuba Gooding Jr. Notice the great casts in this movie!

James L. Brooks ... i'll finish this later

Validating the Organizational Behavior Theories

My restless body and mind are still up through this very late nighter. I will soon have to start readjusting my biological clock to its normal state. Probably because of the black coffee from Boh Tea (this is my first time drinking coffee from Boh!) that I drank earlier at a meeting. A meeting that I described very successful in meeting its agenda. A meeting, though not that many attendees, yet very productive, where bunch of highly spirited members were reflecting at thier past and planning the future. It is very rare that I feel this fulfilling attending a meeting. Everyone knows each other. Everyone constructively build upon each other's views and opinions.

This is indeed a newly self-managed team, comprised of members with high self-efficacy that has given the sense of empowerment to all the members; where leadership has now became a shared activity, where the accountability has been shifted from few key members to both individual and collective, where the group has developed its purpose and mission for the upcoming 4 quarters, and where effectiveness is measured by the group's collective outcome.

This is indeed a cohesive group that has reached its norming stage; after we had successfully passed the forming and storming stage, where question such as "Can we agree on roles and work as a team?" is ubiqutiously in everybody's frame of mind. The transition to this stage is a reflection of highly charismatic and highly transactional leadership characteristics and values enacted by the deputy director. High on people and high on task. Or is this just another truth of the theory that now I am in the in-group, that all these should make sense to me?

Silence of the PalmInfoCenter

Recently, things have been very quiet at the PalmInfoCenter - PIC, the slashdot of Palm fans. What used to be like 400 postings on a topic has now gone down to like 5, or 10, or recent best 47. What is going on?

Does this have to do with the fact that the Palm release of Zire and Tungsten (C, T, W) and SONY's very own CLIE NX73V and NX80V didn't create long impact among the users? Or that OS 5 is so good that people don't require support like they used to in the early days of OS 3 and OS 4? Or that Ed Hardy move to Brighthand has brought over some of his fan to that "co-ed" site? Or that this is a spillover of the economic downturn readjustment to equilibrium that those IT people are beginning to see some new jobs popping out, that they are busily looking around for new opportunities? Or that people are joining the "dark side" right after HP came out with like four iPaq models this summer alone! and that Dell started selling the cheap Axim line?

My take is that SONY has been quite slow this time in coming out with new radical design that could again flock the entire fans back to the threads in those topics. And also that anticipation of OS 6 this fall is an excuse for people to hold on spending for that new OS. These two are my exact sentimement right now. I am particularly looking forward to a new version of TG50. I want it to be on OS6, buit-in both Bluetooth+Wi-fi, with Virtual Graffitti, 2 MS PRO slot - one for storage, one for GPS! Or perhaps some new design that reminisce the N760C.

Or is it that people have been busily blogging?