Category: Uncategorized

It has happened to me again. I went to my local Steven’s Corner to have dinner today and was greeted by the person at the counter: “Yes uncle, sudah order?” (Yes uncle, have you ordered?). Uncle??!! My oh my, I must’ve looked damn terrible today to have been called ‘uncle’ by someone who was obviously older than me. Fortunately, since I like Steven’s Corner, I will forgive this particular slight on their part.

Right outside Steven’s Corner, there were a bunch of really young pups who were doing a roadshow for P1WiMAX, a new wireless broadband provider in Malaysia. It is a subsidiary of Green Packet Bhd, which is one of the 4 companies to get a WiMAX license from our government. It is good to see that there is more competition in Malaysia for the broadband business but it is very sad to see that Telekom Malaysia is still entrenched as the fixed line monopoly.

Pretty much every phone line in Malaysia is installed and run by Telekom Malaysia. As such, they have practically been the sole provider of broadband services to homes in Malaysia. Since it is a giant government linked monopoly, it does not need to worry about competition much. Therefore, service has been terrible and the ‘broadband’ speeds that we get are technically defined as ‘narrowband’.

On the wireless side, we have our mobile service providers selling 3G/HSDPA wireless broadband access. However, from my own tests and reports from others, they are no better. Both Maxis and Celcom ‘broadband’ also fail the definition easily. It is extremely difficult to achieve high speed connections on these services. Furthermore, there is something wrong with the Maxis network implementation that I am unable to access GMail (I have figured out what it is and have come up with a work around but that’s the subject of another blog entry).

Now, there is a new WiMAX service provider. The touts were happily showing us YouTube streaming on the wireless modem. While I do believe that WiMAX technology is far superior to the rest, I am not jumping for joy and I will tell you why. It will suffer the same problem that we have with Telekom Malaysia – lack of competition. With only 3 WiMAX licensees in peninsular Malaysia, it is trivial for them to cut things up between themselves (northern, central and southern regions).

That is why I do not believe that they are going to be any better than any other monopoly. While their speeds may be extremely impressive at the moment, once their network bandwidth is saturated with subscribers, things will get bad and there is nothing that any consumer can do. WiMAX has about a 10Mbps bandwidth at 2km. That is not much bandwidth once the slots are fully utilised.

So, as much as I hate the ADSL service provided by Telekom Malaysia, I loath switching to some other provider who will ultimately turn into another monopoly. Now, if only our government would open things up thoroughly.

I have recently just made a family wide wipe out of Windows. My sister’s home computer recently got infected with a virus (all it took was a simple connection to the Internet) and I was tasked to fix it. My mom complained that she did not have enough games to play on the same computer. So, the solution to both these problems (and more) was just to install Linux on it.

Since I had a free CD of the latest Kubuntu install, I decided to install it everywhere. I installed it in my dad’s computer at home and also my sister’s home PC. Adding that to the Linux installs on my two laptops and my home theatre PC, makes every PC in my family, Linux running. Although I still think that Slackware is probably the coolest distribution around, *buntu makes a very compelling case for the desktop market.

The fact that this distribution has made great inroads in the short time that it has been around, speaks volumes of it. It has recently been featured in a New York Times article, along with its backer, South African billionaire – Mark Shuttleworth. My experience with Kubuntu has shown me that desktop Linux is already here. I honestly sympathise with the people who struggle along with Windows simply because they do not know any better.

However, this article was as much about Mark as it was about Ubuntu. I liked the fact that Mark is a technical guy who understands technical things and is truly passionate about open source. The fact that he is a billionaire, and who can afford to fund a free operating system out of his pocket change, is quite appealing to me. Sometimes, I feel that more of the rich would emulate people like Mark, who put their money to good use and fund things that can fundamentally change the world, rather than to just hoard everything.

People like him are my heroes. People with technical knowledge, who put it to good use, make wads of cash and continue to turn that cash into doing some real good and making a positive change in this world. Now, Mark certainly does not have enough money to take on the empire that is Microsoft alone, but with an army of volunteers behind him, he can definitely succeed – and he has just such an army of trained volunteers.

Finally, I love this quote from the article: “It is not because I need to watch porn in high-definition but because I want to see what you do differently.” – ditto.

As I mentioned earlier, I have been keeping tabs on the fuel consumption of my not so new car and I am happy to announce that there are some preliminary results. The chart on the right shows the average fuel consumption of my car under different conditions (the higher the bar, the better). Basically, the figure is about 10-ish km/L for normal city driving and about 14-ish km/L for long distance travel.

Although the fuel consumption figures are nothing to shout about, it is good enough for me. The figure only becomes quite bad in a traffic jam (the first bar). However, since I rarely go into the city anyway, this is quite unlikely to happen. So, normal driving would be about 10km/L. Please remember that these are empirical results of my personal driving style. So, your mileage may vary tremendously.

Overall, I am quite happy with things.

My measurement methodology is simple. Each time I pumped petrol, I filled up my tank. So, I can easily find out how much fuel has been used by converting the amount I paid for the fuel with the fuel price. Then, I note down the odometer readings and use that to calculate the km/L values. I tried to isolate the type of usage by filling up my tank before I go on long distance travels and immediately after I return.

I passed by Harvey Norman today and decided to drop in to look at the new Compaq Nettop. Let me just say that I am quite taken in by the price of the thing. It is much cheaper than I had expected. Internet reports claim that the price of the high end model (2030) is about US$386 (RM1355) but they are only selling it for RM998 (US$285) here.

The high end model that they are selling here is dubbed the Compaq Presario 2035Q, which seems to be the branding that HP is trying to achieve with it’s compaq line of products. As the detailed specs seem rather hard to come by on the Internet, I decided to check out the specs using the software on the display unit. Here they are:

• CPU: Intel Atom 330
  This is the most powerful Atom processor to date. It is a dual-core HyperThreaded processor. What this means is that the software sees an effective 4-cores. This is sweet as the extra processing power can definitely be put to good use for high quality video playback.
• VGA: Intel GMA950
  Unfortunately, it comes with the same terrible 945GC chipset that every other Atom platform comes with. Although NVidia has released the 9400M for Atom processors, no vendors seem to be pushing out products with them yet. I’m keeping my fingers crossed though.
• AUD: Realtek ALC662 HD Audio
  This information had to be gleaned from the vendor and device ID numbers. This bodes well though, since this device is capable of 5.1 surround sound. However, it seems to lack the actual ports that do the output.

Besides these important things, it also has 1Gb of DDR2 memory and a 160GB harddisk. It also comes with a LightScribe capable DVD burner. There is also a card reader on the front that can come in useful for displaying photos from digital cameras directly on screen. Also on the front are 2 USB ports and the earphone and mic ports. On the back are another 2 USB ports, ethernet port and modem port. It does not come with wifi but I am sure that there is a free internal USB port that I can jack one into.

While it is not a perfect HTPC, it does come awfully close to being one. The only thing it lacks are the higher end audio and video outputs. If this is the best thing available when the time comes to actually make the purchase, I might just get it. However, I will still continue to look for a nettop with a DVI or HDMI video output and a 5.1 surround sound output.

PS: Then again, it might be possible that the 5.1 surround sound output is multiplexed on the rear ports. Some devices do it this way. I’ll need to look up more info about this.

Seems like it does not have to cost a bomb to build a decent home theatre system these days. I just returned from the local Carrefour after shopping for sundries and noticed that they were selling a 32″ LCD screen at only RM1299 (£256), which is a fairly decent price.

It is not a ‘branded’ product but that is really a non-issue for me. The LCD display market is a ODM market. This means that there are only a few display manufacturers that manufacture all the displays for everyone to use. The other ‘brands’ merely put them in a custom enclosure and stick on their labels on it. So, while this is not a ‘branded’ product, it is likely that it shares the same LCD panel as certain other ‘branded’ products while selling for about 65% of their price.

There is also a 5.1 home theatre surround sound system being sold by the same brand at only RM299 (£59). Most ‘branded’ sound systems come with a built in DVD player. However, since I will be playing all my media through a PC, the DVD player would be redundant. Therefore, I only need to have the speakers and amplifier systems. Once again, while the specs are nothing to shout about, it is more than sufficient for watching films.

While most people will look at the power output of a sound system, the most important measure is actually the signal to noise ratio, SNR. As a rule of thumb, most 2.1 computer sound systems will come with at least a SNR of 72dB. This includes many entry level products from the likes of Altec Lansing and all. However, CD-quality sound is rated with a 92dB SNR. So, a SNR of 80dB or so for this sound system is actually decent and probably not noticeable to most ears.

I may actually get these things purchased first, before buying a nettop machine for my HTPC use. HP has recently launched their first nettop. So, I expect this market to grow just as fast as the netbook market did, which will only drive prices down further. The HP mini-Q is a decent machine that is more than capable of functioning as a HTPC. I saw one for about RM1000 at Harvey Norman.

It is an Atom 230/330 based machine with 1Gb RAM and a 160Gb HDD. This is more than sufficient for running a home theatre system. While it comes with a DVD-burner, it does not seem to have built in wifi. This means that I’ll need to run an additional cable through to the unit. However, this is a non-issue if I plug in a usb wifi dongle. However, I will probably wait for other vendors to release their nettops before deciding on one to buy.

So, in total, a new TV and sound system and HTPC will only cost me around RM2600, which is a steal. Granted, it is not ‘branded’ but as long as it works, I’m happy.

PS: Maybe it’s time to pay a visit to TESCO.

I had the chance to use the Maxis wireless broadband service recently. My sister has subscribed to it and since I was the IT support at home, I took the liberty of setting it up for them and testing it out. I had also been planning on signing up and dumping my Streamyx service if it worked out.

I had to test a couple of things: whether the modem works with Linux and if the service quality was any good.

Firstly, the modem definitely works with Linux. It has been plug-and-play in Linux for a long time. However, I didn’t know this until I tried it out. Setting it up was a breeze as I did not even have to do much except click ‘next’. So, that is a non-issue. The Huawei E220 modem is a standard modem used worldwide by a number of service providers, including the ones in Malaysia.

However, the second issue of service quality is seriously questionable. When I first tried to download a 7Mb file, it started with speeds of about 700kbps for a couple of minutes, before immediately throttling down to about 50kbps and staying there. Furthermore, it seems that packets go missing quite often as I have to periodically refresh web pages as they fail to load completely.

Personally, while I will appreciate the freedom that the Maxis wireless broadband brings (it covers much of KL city and the outlying areas), the quality of the connection is still no match for the terrible Streamyx broadband service. However, depending on my professional needs, I may still subscribe to the Maxis broadband for use while on the road.

Yes, that is the title of the next Neal Stephenson novel that I consumed. This is also part of the Baroque Cycle of which Quicksilver is the overture. There is nothing confusing about the book as the title is drawn from the metallurgical meaning of the word, con-fused – for the process of mingling two metals into an alloy.

Like the previous novel, this one is made up of two books: Bonanza and Juncto. One tells the story of our band of pirates sailing around the world while the other traces the events happening on continental europe. However, the two books are interleaved with each other as they proceed through the same time line. So, readers would not be forced to constantly flip back and forth between the two. Thus it is con-fused.

While Quicksilver was slow to begin and takes a while to build up the action, this one starts off exactly where the previous book ended and does not let up, even right up to the end. The ending is like a mid-season cliffhanger of Battlestar Galactica. It makes me wonder what is going to come next.

Unlike some other authors, Stephenson has elected not to repeat much of what had already been said in Quicksilver. Some authors I know Terry Goodkind spend half the book merely repeating the things that they have already mentioned in previous books. Therefore, one should definitely read Quicksilver before reading this book unless one is blessed with a wanton sense of imagination.

Just like everyone other Stephenson book, there is a lot of knowledge to be gleaned from within its pages. While Quicksilver was steeped in computer science, this book is knee deep in finance and commerce. Sometimes, it makes me wonder how many people he hires as staff researchers. He cannot possibly have done all the research himself as they are all tremendously detailed. The contents of the two books focus on the events happening between 1689-1702, which were exciting times in Europe.

I particularly liked the way that he progressed the story through letter writing. While in Quicksilver he experimented with short plays and flirted with letter writing, he used it a lot in The Confusion. Large swaths of the book were dedicated to letters being exchanged between several key characters. This plays well with the book because these characters were prolific letter writers and cryptographers.

Anyway, it makes a good read for anyone who likes Quicksilver and desires to see the adventures of Daniel Waterhouse, Jack Shaftoe and Eliza through to the end. An additional reason that it makes good reading for me is because many of these characters are ancestors of the characters in Cryptonomicon.