MESHIO.COM

When tackling most problems, it’s often good to have an active approach.

Sometimes, however, it’s also good to look at the problem from a “passive” perspective. One good problem that would benefit alot from a “passive” approach is your income source.

A mentor, currently earning 6-figures income (per annum) in a giant corporation, sums it up by saying, “All these figures are just temporary. There’s absolutely no security. You should focus on building your passive income instead.”

Are you putting more focus on your paycheck or working hard building up your passive revenues?

I never thought this would be possible given the way the Country is managed by the current ruling government, but I must give credit when credit is due. The Government should be complimented for making serious effort to go electronic, although compared to other neighbouring countries, we are not exactly very “ahead”. Sometimes, we just need to stop complaining and appreciate what we already have ;-)

However, as much as the process can be computerised…it doesn’t mean that the result will be pleasing to the end users.

Here’s one of the gems that I found from the navigational nightmare at www.gov.my- Online Business Registration.

I’ll keep it short here so that you can also start using the wonderful online services provided by our Government. It’s really a time-saver!

1. To get started, you must have Internet Explorer. Yes, a stupid but nevertheless an important requirement.

2. Next, you must register as a www.gov.my member to show your patriotism. Click here to register.

3. Once you become a member, you can now choose the type of business you want to register. Click here to see all the business types available.

4. To start entering your business details, you should login here. You would also be required to make a payment of RM 5 for a one year subscription.

5. You can also renew your existing businesses here at this link.

That’s it. It’s going to save you lots of money and trips renewing and managing your businesses with this neat online service provided by our Government. Since we’ve already paid for it (tax), we might as well utitlize it.

No, they don’t look one bit like the high profile businessmen that we read up on The Edge Daily and business magazines.

But having met a few of these low profile millionaires, I’m convinced that these self-made millionaires don’t really have time to think about how you think about them- they just continue doing what they do best.

Sometimes, packaging can only get you that far, the rest is really all about hardwork.

Since these motorbike millionaires prefer to keep a low profile of their networth, here’s an updated “artist impression” of a motorbike millionaire ;-)

MSC Malaysia Status
The MSC Malaysia status is your passport to a host of privileges reserved for ICT and ICT-facilitated business. It is also a mark of world-class service and achievement. Companies with the MSC Malaysia status will benefit from an array of world class facilities and premises that provide just the right environment for a thriving and dynamic global ICT hub for the region.

MSC Malaysia status is awarded to both local and foreign companies that develop or use multimedia technologies to produce or enhance their products and services, and for process development. There are five types of applications available for the MSC Malaysia status.

So what’s wrong with this whole MSC thing? Will world class facilities and premises produce world class IT start-ups and give Malaysian IT companies the edge to compete with the giants of the world?

Ironically, the most profitable business in the MSC area is not ICT-related. It’s real estate.

If you happen to own oil palm lands near the district of Dengkil which is included in the MSC designated zone, you’ve just struck gold. To be eligible for MSC status, you must be located in the MSC zone. The idea of having a company physically there just to obtain the MSC status is totally absurd.

I had the privilige to work for 2 companies that hold MSC status. The first one was run by a team that specializes in getting grants and fundings. Yes, they’re very good with proposals and when they see the ministry of finance giving out so much money to “support ICT projects”, they immediately went to work on their killer proposals. They got the funds but nothing came out of the proposed projects.

The 2nd company I worked for had a more viable business model. In order to comply with the MSC requirement of having a physical office in the MSC designated zones, they rented an office in Cyberjaya. It’s about 1,500 square feet and the company stationed nobody there for the next 4 years. You can’t go wrong with the “MSC Real Estate Scheme”.

And now, they started this I-City thing in Shah Alam, and is inviting companies who wants to setup their MSC offices to consider renting a place there, far away from “civilization”. Now, that’s another up and coming “MSC Real Estate Scheme”.

Why in the world didn’t the MSC Management consider approving areas in Petaling Jaya or Subang where there are already alot of entrepreneurs and infrastructure ready? Whose interest is the MSC really taking care of? The ICT entrepreneur or the oil palm estates owners?

There’s definitely a better way to increase the ICT workforce and talent pool than to cram everyone into high tech oil palm estates.

Maybe it’s an Asian thing. When it comes to contracts and agreement, we usually don’t like to go through them or pay much heed to the formation of one. It would be rude if you ask too much questions and scrutinize the agreement in details. You are suppose to just accept them- no question asked. How many of us actually look carefully into our employment contracts before signing them? Some of us don’t even realize that our prospective employer had that deadly non-competitive clause in there, and signed happily on the dotted line because our expected salary was highlighted.

We make agreements (and disagreements) everyday. When you sign up on the house loan, you agree to pay the bank a certain interest for a period of time. When you order your meals over the Mc Donald’s counter, you agree to buy a Big Mac with fries and a cup of coffee for RM 9.95.

When we form a company, we are also forming agreements with every shareholders of the company. Agreements can come in various forms, and in our culture, many agreements are done verbally (read: lips service). Yes, nobody wants to bother about the written words until something happens (usually something bad). It’s true when they say a company hasn’t really face it’s worst times until it starts making money.

It’s always a good thing to jot everything down in words. One good thing about technology today is that alot of discussions can be documented via emails. However, to form a long term and happy partnership, each party must be open to the idea of writing down agreements in words. This would kill off any unrealistic assumptions and false expectations between all parties involved.

When dispute happens without the presence of a pre-defined agreement, it’s going to be a very costly experience in terms of money and time. This is especially true for young start-ups.

Even with the best intentions, an agreement is still only a piece of paper aimed to protect every parties’ interest. It’s not an instrument that can protect anyone against the changes that happens within individuals and various external factors. It does not prevent your partners from becoming greedy and overly ambitious. Hence, one should always practice extreme caution when forming an agreement with another party. Experience will be your best friend when it comes to selecting a reliable partners, though you should never push your luck too far. I have put my money on the wrong horses too, but what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger and wiser, hopefully :-)

After reading this, I hope you will consider to write down in words when you are striking an agreement with another party, especially with your close friends. It’s well worth the effort and it could possibly even save your friendship during the darkest hours. It’s not about being calculative. It’s more about sincerity and integrity. Better to have the plan fall out now than to go into a plan that’s destined to fail. When it doesn’t work now, you can bet it’s not going to work out later.

It’s not going to be easy, since our culture has been thought to always accept things first, and ask questions later. Just like how we’re taught not to disobey our elders, even when it’s very clear that they are on the wrong divide.

So, if you value the trust and integrity of your partners, put them down in words.

Reduction of Transaction Fees for Electronic Payments
Bank Negara Malaysia wishes to announce the reduction in transaction fee for payments made by the financial institutions on behalf of their customers using the real time gross settlement system (RENTAS). In addition, the banking industry would review its fee structure for funds transfer to a fixed fee instead of the existing Inland Exchange Commission of 0.03%. This is part of the initiatives to promote greater use of electronic payments and to reduce the cost of doing business.

I. Reduction of RENTAS transaction fee for third party payments
The transaction fee imposed on member banks for third party payments i.e. payments made by the member banks on behalf of their customers will be reduced from RM2.50 to RM1.50 with effect from 15 July 2008. Following this, there would also be a corresponding reduction of RM1.00 in bank charges imposed by member banks on their customers for RENTAS payments effective from the same date.

II. Review of the Inland Exchange Commission
The financial institutions would review the existing Inland Exchange Commission of 0.03% imposed on fund transfers and charge only a fixed fee to defray the cost involved with effect from 15 July 2008. This should result in a reduction in the transaction fee charged on customers of financial institutions for funds transfer between different States in Malaysia.

Bank Negara Malaysia
9 July 2008

Basically that means lower transaction cost for business operations. More business-friendly policies like these should be introduced to help keep the business community healthy.

Thanks to Microscopic Earthling (his real name is Sourjya), you can now convert any currency in the world just by using a little widget that is available here at the Meshio.com’s sidebar- it’s located under the header “Currency Converter”.

The plugin is called curreX.

Besides doing a good job with the currency translation part, this plugin is very well supported by the developer himself. He has been very persistent and patient in helping me to fix a few minor bugs. And with such a handy tool, I decided to ask the creator himself about his plugin.

The following is an exclusive email interview with the man behind the codes.

Yow Chuan (YC) : Where are you based, and what do you do professionally?

Sourjya (SJ) : I’m originally from India but have been settled in Thailand for almost 7 years now. My primary work involves mainstream software development (Windows based) on the .NET platform as well as PHP-based web-applications.

YC : Why did you chose to create this currency converter plugin? I mean, there are so many plugins that you could have coded, why a currency converter?

SJ : curreX was the by-product of one of my first CMS coding projects. I was designing a site for a property investment site in Thailand. The site-owner wanted a mechanism by which the listed property price could be converted to any given world currency.

I was teaching myself Ajax at that point of time - so I thought, why not try to make it the same way and come up with something snazzy.

The first version was extremely crude and consisted of just a single dropdown box for the destination currency - though that’s what the requirement was, since the amount and source currency were both pre-listed.

I had started blogging around the same time and had fallen in love with WordPress right away. What caught my fancy was it’s plug-in architecture and immense extensibility. Seeing so many cool plug-ins out there made me want to create one of my own.

But I really lacked in the “idea” department. It seemed like the other plug-in authors had almost every angle covered!! Then suddenly it struck me that I had something ready at hand that can be easily converted to a cool plug-in. And curreX was born.

YC : Anyone helped you to develop curreX? Did you have a team to help you out, you know, like a beta-tester, a designer etc?

SJ : Nope! None at all - except for hundreds of Ajax tutorials on the net from where I borrowed ideas and stitched them together. I had passive help from one quarter though. There was a plug-in similar to curreX for Mambo / Joomla - developed by Norbert Feria. Thanks to him for setting me off in the right direction. However, it was a much simpler plug-in and didn’t employ Ajax. I used the currency conversion back-end from that plug-in and modified it to suit my needs.

YC : Why did you choose to use the Yahoo! API? Have you compared it with other currency exchange APIs?

SJ : The choice came naturally with Norbert Feria’s plug-in. It was already using the Yahoo! API - so I just played along. I wouldn’t really call it an API though. The exchange rates are available as freely downloadable plain-text CSV files from the Yahoo! Finance site. curreX connects to this page, provides the correct parameters (srouce and destination currencies), downloads the CSV file and extracts the exchange rate from it.

In a way this was much simpler than signing-up for other APIs and learning their syntax all over again. So I decided to stick to this.

YC : Who do you think should use this plugin? What is the target industry that you hope this plugin will be able to cater to?

SJ : Anyone running a financial blog should benefit from this plug-in. Other than that any site that is selling products or services online to a worldwide client base can take help of this - albeit with minor modifications and customizations.

YC : Do you know how many people is using curreX at this moment? Are you using any type of tracking mechanism to check your fanbase?

SJ : This is something I’ve always been very keen on knowing - but it’s hard to figure out with the present system. I can only make a rough estimate from the comments and my server logs.

I plan to include some sort of tracking mechanism in future, which will inform me when the plug-in is activated and/or deactivated. I can get a pretty accurate figure for that. I don’t want to implement any real-time tracking system as this will only help to slow down the plug-in.

YC : Since this plugin is so handy, will you consider charging for it?

SJ : Nope. Never. This was released free and open source and that’s how it will always be.

YC : Last but not least, what are you future plans for curreX?

SJ : At the moment I’m totally out of ideas of my own. There were a couple of suggestions left in comments by various people using curreX. I plan to follow-up on them and implement whichever is possible. If you get any bright sparks, do let me know :)

Apart from that, I’ve released a flash-version too for those who’re facing consistent problems with the HTML/Ajax version. I intend to refine it further (skinnable interface maybe).

CurreX is now available in plain HTML or Flash-based flavors. Initially, it was only meant for widget-based Wordpress themes, but after constant bugging from non-widget Wordpress users like me, Sourjya has managed to customised his plugin to work with non-widget-based themes.

Installation is a breeze, and if you encounter any issues during installation, you can always email Sourjya and notify him on the bug. But be sure to check out the comment section of the plugin page and the curreX support forum before shooting him with your bug report.

By the way, this is not a “paid review”. I truly recommend you to give this neat plugin a try, especially if your industry is finance or travel related.

Again, I would like to thank Sourjya for taking his time for the email interview and also for the great plugin!

You might have noticed that I love writing guides. Maybe it’s a guy thing, you know, like reading manuals and shopping in DIY stores. Judging from my earlier success with some rather geeky tutorials waaaaaaay back in 2003, I think the habit stuck.

Okie, enough self promotion, let’s get back to today’s guide.

If you are a Malaysian like me who wants to withdraw money out from your PayPal account, this is one of the most cost-effective way to do it. You might be able to setup bank accounts in other countries where PayPal withdrawals can be made without any fees, but in this guide, I am going to show you how you can do it without using any oversea bank accounts at a minimal charge of USD 5 per transaction (limited to USD 500.00 per transaction).

So let’s get down to the ingredients you need:

Item 1: RM 100 in cash. No cheques, bank drafts or postal cheques.
Item 2: Your NRIC
Item 3: An Al Rajhi Branch, the closer the better.

That’s all.

Here’s the 19-Steps Procedure:

1) Go to the Teller and request to open an Al Rajhi Savings Account. Opt for the Mudharabah Savings Account-i since according to the Wise Teller I’ve met, the normal Savings Account-i does not give you any form interest. Also request for the Debit-ATM Card-i, which is the critical ingredient in our entire PayPal withdrawal scheme.

Tips: Don’t bother asking the Teller about PayPal related fees, you might just get a “Huh!?” look.

2) You can also opt to open for the Al Rajhi Current Account-i, but make sure you have the following extra ingredients: a letter from an Introducer who already holds an Al-Rajhi current account or a 6-months current account statement from other banks.

3) You will be asked to fill up the standard account application form and there’ll be a few autograph sessions.

4) After that, you will be asked to part with your RM 100 cash, and you will be notified by the Teller that you must have a minimum RM 50 balance in your account at all times (if you open the Mudharabah Savings Account-i).

5) Once you made the payment, the Teller should return to you with the Debit ATM card, where you will be asked to sign on the back of the card. You will also be given a document folder (also known as the Scrolls), where it contains a few important documents which you will need to activate your account later on.

Tips: Step 3 to Step 5 should take no longer than 15 minutes.

6) You should have everything you need from the Teller. The next step is to activate your Internet-Banking access, and to do that, you must obtain a temporary Internet PIN.

7) To obtain the magical temporary Internet PIN, you must explore the Scrolls given to you by Teller previously. There should be a Scroll that says “Confidential/Sulit”. Open it and you should see 6 magical PINs where you will use it to access your account via the ATM Machine later. Hence, it’s important that you DO NOT LEAVE the Al Rajhi branch yet.

8) Go to the ATM Machine, insert the Debit ATM card and use the 6 magical PINs from the “Confidential/Sulit” Scroll. Select the option to obtain the Temporary Internet Pin and the machine will then print you a random 6 digit numbers which will be your Temporary Internet Pin. It should look something like the following:

9) Okie, you can now leave the Al Rajhi branch and head home on your next quest to link your PayPal account to your new Al Rajhi Debit ATM card. Make sure you activate your Al Rajhi ATM card first before you add the card in your PayPal account.

10) Go to the Al Rajhi official website: http://www.alrajhibank.com.my/. Click on the First Time Login under the Internet Banking section.

11) Read and then accept the Terms and Conditions to proceed. It’s not like we have a choice NOT to accept. Banks will always be banks.

12) Now, take out the Scroll that says “Essential Information”.

The CIC Number above corresponds to the Customer Number you see in the “First Time Logon” screen below. The Pin will be the set of 6 digit numbers you obtain previously from the ATM Machine. Do not confuse this PIN with the 6 digit numbers given to you in the “Confidential/Sulit” scroll- they are different.

13) Once you are logged in, you will be asked to insert a “New Username” and “New Password”. Once you are done, click on log out to complete the process of initializing your Internet Banking registration.

14) Now, let’s proceed to the real deal: logging into your Internet Banking Account. Go to the official Al Rajhi website again: http://www.alrajhibank.com.my/. This time, click on the “Login” link instead of “First Time Login” under the Intenet Banking section. Use the “New Username” and “New Password” you have just set in Step 13. You should be able to login into your account and that means your Al Rajhi Internet Banking is officially active now.

15) Now, login into your PayPal account. Click on the “Withdraw” link, under the “My Account” header.

16) Click on the “Withdraw Funds to Your Card” link. Notice that you’ll be charged USD 5.00 per transaction.

17) Using the information printed on your Al Rajhi ATM Debit Card, fill up the information as requested by PayPal.

Tips: Insert single space after every 4 digit as per your Debit Card Number. Also, use the same Address for the Billing Address as the one you provided when applying for your Al Rajhi account earlier on. It doesn’t need to be the exact format and structure, but don’t stray too far.

18) Once you are done filling up the details, click on the “Add Card” button. If you have not activated your Al Rajhi Internet Banking account previously, please make sure you do so using Step 10 to Step 14. Otherwise, you will be greeted with an “Unsuccessful” page when you tried adding the card, even if all the information you’ve provided is correct.

Tips: You MUST activate your Internet Banking account first before linking your card from PayPal.

19) Assuming that you’ve successfully added your new ATM Debit card into your Paypal account, you will see your new card when you click on the Withdraw link. All you need to do now is to insert the amount of money you want to transfer to your ATM Debit card. The maximum withdrawal limit for Paypal to Al Rajhi ATM Debit card is USD 500.00 as of this writing.

And that concludes the PayPal Withdrawal Guide. I am not sure how are the procedures like with other Debit Cards, but it should be roughly the same- activate your internet banking account and then link the card from within Paypal.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the guide and find it useful in your quest to transfer money to your bank account from PayPal. Should you find anything missing, confusing or have anything to add, just drop me a line!

By the way, I wouldn’t mind a little tips:

Is money a good motivational tool?

It’s no doubt a convenient way of gauging how well we are performing, since we all have the tendency to quantify and measure the things we do. However, money is seldom a good motivator in the grand scheme of things.

By using money as the ultimate benchmark, we can easily lose heart when the money doesn’t seem good anymore, although it doesn’t actually meant that we are underperforming. We quickly conclude that if there’s no monetary value in what we do, it’s hardly worth doing anymore. And hence, we stop going the extra mile.

Every corporations must be profitable. But profit should not be the ultimate goal. Success is not because you are the most profitable in the industry. By making profit the ultimate aim, it’s easy to lose track of one’s purpose. Compromising becomes a habit. You start compromising ethics, quality and eventually your own values in the pursuit of illusive gains. Make enough profits, but focus hard on improving your art, and before long, you’ll find that you don’t have to worry about profit.

It also explains why financial incentives is seldom a good way to reward employees. You can’t buy loyalty, just like you can’t buy true friendship.

When was the last time you are motivated by money? What was the outcome?

Here’s Forbes’s 2008 Malaysia Richest! You might want to check if you are listed :-)

Rank	Name	Net Worth ($BIL)	Age
1	Robert Kuok	10.00	84
2	Ananda Krishnan	7.20	70
3	Lee Shin Cheng	5.50	69
4	Teh Hong Piow	3.50	78
5	Lee Kim Hua & family	3.40	79
6	Quek Leng Chan	2.40	67
7	Yeoh Tiong Lay & family	2.10	78
8	Syed Mokhtar AlBukhary	1.80	56
9	Vincent Tan	1.30	56
10	Tiong Hiew King	1.10	78
11	Azman Hashim	0.70	68
12	William H. J. Cheng	0.66	65
13	Lee Swee Eng	0.50	52
14	Ong Beng Seng	0.47	63
15	Lim Kok Thay	0.35	56
16	Vinod Sekhar	0.32	40
17	Lee Oi Hian	0.30	57
18	Yaw Teck Seng	0.30	70
19	Anthony Fernandes	0.29	44
20	Mokhzani Mahathir	0.29	47
21	Kamarudin Meranun	0.28	47
22	Jeffrey Cheah	0.28	63
23	Lee Hau Hian	0.25	55
24	Chong Chook Yew	0.25	86
25	Yaw Chee Ming	0.24	49
26	G. Gnanalingam	0.23	63
27	Lim Wee Chai	0.20	50
28	Kua Sian Kooi	0.20	55
29	Lau Cho Kun	0.19	72
30	Abdul Hamed Sepawi	0.18	58
31	David Law Tien Seng	0.17	NA
32	Tiah Thee Kian	0.16	61
33	Liew Kee Sin	0.16	50
34	Ahmayuddin bin Ahmad	0.16	51
35	Eleena Azlan Shah	0.15	48
36	Lin Yun Ling	0.15	53
37	Ong Leong Huat	0.13	64
38	Lim Thian Kiat	0.12	50
39	Khoo Kay Peng	0.11	69
40	Nazir Razak	0.10	41

This list holds if you don’t include the Ah Long syndicates, underground 4D operators, football bookies and of course, corrupted politicians.

One should take the listing only as a source of entertainment. I have seen articles on the blogosphere that attempted to spin political and racist tunes out of this otherwise entertaining and educational chart.

A feminist activist might even start a campaign on how unfair the chart is. Well, everyone has their own ways of interpreting the chart.

And one should not take these figures too seriously, unless of course, you are ranked no. 41 :-D