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Category: Technology

The Real Estate Corridor

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

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.

CurreX and the Man Behind the Codes

Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008

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.

Sourjya Sankar Sen aka Microscopic Earthling - Creator of the curreX PluginBesides 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.

curreX ScreenshotYC : 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).

***end of interview***

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!

FireFox 3 is Here!

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

If it’s good, it’s worth sharing.

Here you go, FireFox 3.

Firefox 3 Download Day

And while downloading, you’re helping them to create a new World Record!

How to Withdraw Money from PayPal in Malaysia

Sunday, June 15th, 2008

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.

Al Rajhi ATM Debit Card

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.

Al Rajhi Confidential Sulit Slip

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:

Al Rajhi Internet Banking Temporary PIN

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.

Al Rajhi Website - Internet Banking First Time Login

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.

Al Rajhi Website - Accept Terms and Conditions

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

Al Rajhi 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.

Al Rajhi First Time Logon Screen

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.

Al Rajhi Login Page

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

PayPal Withdrawal Link

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

PayPal - Withdraw Funds to Your Card

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.

PayPal Add Credit or Debit Card Screen

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.

Paypal Withdraw Funds to Your Card Insert Amount

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:

Mailing Address

Sunday, May 25th, 2008

Just a while ago, I received an email from a 20+ year old student, whereby in the field which I requested for the mailing address I got the following:

Mailing Address: (username)@hotmail.com

(where username is the Sender’s email).

It seems that the post office will be out of business very soon :-P

Malaysian World No 6 in SMS

Friday, May 9th, 2008

I can’t help but ponder on this article highlighted in The Edge Daily:

Malaysians are world’s 6th largest SMS users

Malaysia ranks sixth in the world in terms of total SMS volume, behind China, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia and India, Maxis head of strategy and new businesses Dr Nikolai Dobberstein said.

Malaysia came ahead of countries like the UK and South Korea, he said, quoting data from Gartner research that showed SMS volume growing 20% last year. About 50 billion SMSes were generated in Malaysia last year, behind India’s 70 billion and Indonesia’s 90 billion.

I think the proper headlines should go something like this: “Malaysians are world’s 6th largest SMS-SPAMMED users”.

By the way, I just got my “daily SMS SPAM subscription” that goes: “Bro, you heard maxis comming out with super speed 4d results? I think everyone can apply, just use sms to write ON FAST then send to 36383. I think is rm0.50/sms”

PageRank Revived

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

Page Rank Revived!

After barely a month migrating away from my previous webhost- Exabytes, I noticed that my PageRank (PR) is back to where it was again: 3.

I lost my PR mysteriously sometime at the end of February this year. Since then, all the pages on Meshio.com were either PR 0 or PR Unavailable. I am pretty sure I didn’t do anything that could have pissed Google off.

The revival of my PageRank is as mysterious as the drop, but I have a feeling it’s got to do with my recent migration to the new hosting.

I just hope that it doesn’t drop back to 0 again anytime soon.

ArtSentral.Com Live!

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

The artsy-fartsy people I’ve known since my university days just launched their website- www.artsentral.com! Last I heard, they just hit 1,000 visitors barely one week after launching the site.

ArtSentral.com Live!

If you are into computer graphics (CG) and 3d animation, this is a great place to network and attend local events and seminars that are receiving very little exposure in the mainstream medias. What to do… we live in a country where artists are still considered “weirdos”…

A “must-subscribe” for students who are serious to venture into the CG industry.

Man and partner, keep up the great effort!

Western Union Withdrawals in Malaysia

Friday, April 11th, 2008

Western Union Withdrawals
Here are the 5 places that allows for Western Union withdrawals in Malaysia, listed in accordance to their effectiveness:

1) CIMB Bank

2) Public Bank

3) RHB Bank

4) Bank Rakyat

5) POS Malaysia Berhad

Hosting on Exabtyes Can Affect Your SEO Ranking

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

Here’s a reverse IP look-up result for www.meshio.com’s IP address via YouGetSignal.com. The list of websites generated below is not comprehensive, since each new search gives a different number of websites, so I believe that there are easily more than 70 domains hosted on a single web server.

Also I’ve noticed a few “questionable” sites which is allowed to be hosted on their server as well, on the expenses of other hosted domains. Check the sites in red. The following result is generated on 6th April 2008.

Found 60 domains hosted on the same web server as 210.48.157.107.

It appears that the web server located at 210.48.157.107 may be hosting one or more web sites with explicit content. The web sites in question are highlighted in red below. There is a possibility that all of the web sites on this web server may be blocked by web filtering software. Search engine rankings for these web sites may be affected as well.

bennyliew.com
blog.axian788.com
blog.mixterr.com
cashmarble.com
cowdunk.com
demo.syahzul.com
directavenue.net
efficient-consulting.com
forum.utp.net.my
frenday.com
gofloyd.com
justkhai.com
kilikulu.com
laman.mixterr.com
limadang.com
powerman.com.my
press.utp.net.my
sinaran.com.my
sogossipy.com
techborneo.com
vortrack.net
whitehope.net
www.adults.com.sg
www.aibim.com
www.alamin-network.org
www.atcencommunications.com
www.atcenevents.com
www.axian788.com
www.big-cloud.com
www.binashore.com
www.camerazone.com.my
www.cf008.net
www.creativeimaging.com.my
www.darts-pdc.com
www.englishteahouse.org
www.itsim.org
www.iworld.com.my
www.jbexplorer.com
www.klmtbcarnival.com.my
www.kml.matrik.edu.my
www.maildozy.com
www.max-solution.com
www.meshio.com
www.metrodriving.com.my
www.myeho.com
www.myphotographer.com.my
www.quickrelease.com.my
www.ritzilystylish.com
www.serkap.com
www.sextoys.sg
www.shinemodels.com.sg
www.shoppingnsales.com
www.stm.edu.my
www.syahzul.com
www.telesensory.com

About
A reverse IP domain check takes a domain name or IP address pointing to a web server and searches for other sites known to be hosted on that same web server. Data is gathered from search engine results, which are not guaranteed to be complete. Knowing the other web sites hosted on a web server is important from both an SEO and web filtering perspective, particularly for those on shared web hosting plans. More about this tool.

And here’s Exabytes policy on “Adult Content”:

What does Exabytes® consider “Adult Material”?

* Any site whose revenue is gained in part or whole from its adult content.
* Photos or videos showing frontal nudity on either men or women for non-scientific or non-artistic purposes.
* Hyperlinks to adult sites, including but not limited to sites who violate these policies.
* Sites that have discussion boards and share information that is ‘adult’ in nature.
* Sites that sell or promote ‘adult’ material, including but not limited to adult toys.

Exabytes® reserves the right to decide what it considers “adult content”, “adult material”, “sexually explicit”, or “sexually related”. Let us know if you are unsure of the approval of your site before placing an order. Please email sales@Exabytes.com for review of your content and/or site.

What’s SexToys.org and Adults.com.sg doing on their web server then?

Again, to make that extra ringgit, Exabytes compromised their policy and ignored the well-being of all other hosted domains on this same server, including mine.

Would this be considered a breach of contract? My recent drop of PageRank 3 to PageRank 0 could be directly linked to Exabytes’s hosting, as pointed out here. Asking for a refund would be one thing. As it is now, www.meshio.com could be associated with “Explicit XXX Content”, hmm…