Well for those who don’t know about me and my extreme bad luck with technology and gadgets, let’s just put it simply - no computers/gadgets I have owned has actually NOT failed on me yet. Let’s see…

1. Self-assembled clone PC - multiple failures it’s horrible
2. Twinhead notebook - even more multiple failures it’s even more embarassing
3. PowerBook - logic board failed once
4. Sony Ericsson k700i - randomly shuts down and drops calls
5. Sony Ericsson s500i - back button failed & randomly hangs
6. Sony PSP - battery charging mechanism failed
7. Nikon D70s - CF card slot on camera failed (of all things to fail)
8. Dopod GPS-PDA - err.. let’s not even start counting this one…

On top of that, I have also successfully crashed every single OS I’ve used. Windows? I’m a BSOD magnet. Linux? Screwed up before too (beyond recovery). Mac OS X? Yep, that too. OpenSolaris? That too. User problem? I’m not sure, it just somehow randomly happens to me. I can even tell you instances where people who insist it’s a user problem, goes and (supposedly) reformat and reinstall and setup the system properly for me and all is well until I walk back into the room and then it crashes again.

Actually it would seem the only thing that hasn’t failed on me *touchwood* are my iPods (two of them).

Anyhow, to continue on with the tradition of gadget-must-fail, my MacBook Pro died the night before I was supposed to go to Singapore. Whee. Fun. Logically I panicked because:

1. I was supposed to be in SG for work, and need my MBP
2. It looked like it could be a hard disk failure
3. I did not feel like bringing my Time Machine backups along as it is a heavy desktop 3.5″ drive

Anyway, I went to SG and got my hard disk checked out by the Service Center, who did their diagnostics and integrity checks and found no hardware issue. So I reinstalled OS X, and this time it finally managed to reinstall successfully (previous attempt resulted in a fail for some reason). It really looked to me like just one of those random things that always happens to me and technologies.

Well now the difficult part was that I had a computer that was fully functioning again but with no content. No applications, no backups (as my backups are in my hard disk back in KL), no contacts, no email accounts, no calendars etc. Surfing the web? Crap, my password manager and passwords aren’t in either.

Then I suddenly remembered: I had MobileMe and everything synced up. So I setup my MobileMe on my MBP and synced everything down. In a few minutes (cos I was on a super duper hi speed internet line) I had all my contacts, Safari bookmarks, calendar events, Mail accounts, etc etc etc all in my computer again. (PIM data is very very important to me in doing my day to day work!) I also had some documents needed for my work stowed away in my iDisk, so those came down as well. Thankfully too, I had the oversight of making a copy of my important documents I needed to bring along into my iPod touch as well before my Mac crashed, so those got synced back into my Mac (thanks to AirSharing).

Now came the part about having all my bookmarks but not knowing the passwords to enter them. Since I use a password manager, I no longer need to really remember all my passwords for the different sites I go to. Not worried. I had 1Password on my iPod touch. I downloaded 1Password, synced from my iPod into my desktop, and I’m ready to go.

Once I had access to my online web services, I was ready to go. Most of my stuff are still not in my Mac and would have to wait till I go back, but for many of my other important stuff, I could already start working on them. And that mattered a lot to me. What really surprised me was MobileMe (previously called .mac) - I used to rather not rely on .mac for urgent information retrieval, but I’ve noticed recently MobileMe has really been fixed up. I decided to just let it do its thing on my Mac and it did it beautifully. To me, MobileMe is one of the things I took for granted until I needed it — but it’s there when I need it.

So yes, that’s the story of my Mac.

Moving back to Maxis.

I had just only stumbled upon Bridge Alliance recently and coincidentally, need to top up my SingTel hi!Card as well. Today being a Saturday, I wasn’t sure what time the Taipan Subang Maxis Center (listed in the pdf) was open. I called the listed office number, but the number had changed. Logically, I dialled 123 to find out the operating hours - wouldn’t make sense for me to go Taipan only to find out they’re closed.

The personnel who took my call asked me what I wanted to do, and I said, top up my Singtel card. He seemed to know what Bridge Alliance was, and told me this is handled by their prepaid department, and hooked me up to the Hotlink customer service.

The lady who took my call (pity I forgot to record the call, it was just horrible) was just hopeless. I first enquired with a generic statement, “I would like to top up my SingTel prepaid”. She didn’t even know what was SingTel, and had to put me on hold, only to come back in a while to ask, “SingTel is Singapore right?”

So I ended up having to explain to her how Bridge Alliance works, and told her, I needed to go to the nearest Bridge Prepaid center works (Maxis Taipan Sq), but when I dialled the office number listed, the number has changed. “Can I have their new office number or know their operating hours for today?”

The rest of the conversation went something like this (to the best of my recall, not verbatim conversation):

Her: For what?
Me: To find out if they’re open and what time are their operating hours
Her: Where?
Me: Maxis Taipan
Her: Taipan? Where is Taipan?
Me: (incredulous) Subang.
Her: Oh, Subang, you can go to Carrefour, they have a hotlink agent there (rattles off name of some third party telco services reseller)
Me: I don’t want to know the Carrefour agent, I want to know the operating hours of the Maxis Center in Subang!
Her: Oh you can go to the Summit we also have agent there.
Me: I don’t want to know Summit! I want to know if the Maxis office in Taipan Square in Subang is open or not today, so that I can top up my SingTel card!
Her: Ya, you can top up your SingTel card there.
Me: No, according to the Bridge Alliance guide, only selected Maxis offices have the capability to top up SingTel prepaid cards!
Her: Ya, you can go to the Summit.
Me: Are they a Bridge Prepaid outlet? Can they top up my SingTel card?
Her: You can go Summit there and ask.
Me: I don’t want to go Summit, I want to know what’s the operating hours for the Maxis Subang office!
Her: You can go to Summit there and ask.
Me: (even more incredulous) No, just let me know the operating hours for the Maxis center.
Her: 10-10.
Me: On a Saturday??
Her: 10-3.
Me: This is for the Maxis Taipan Subang office?
Her: Oh the Maxis Taipan Subang office close already. Now have to go Summit.
Me: *gives up* nevermind. *hangs up*.

Whether or not they had really closed the Subang office and moved it to Summit, I don’t even dare trust her anymore. She doesn’t even know what she’s talking about.

For what it’s worth though, yesterday when I first found out about Bridge Alliance via the Maxis/SingTel website(s), I called up Maxis and was put through to a really nice guy, who also didn’t know much about Bridge Alliance. The major difference in the experience though, was that he offered to find out more, and to call me back in a while with information. He called me back about 5 minutes later, fully equipped to answer all the enquiries that I had about Bridge Alliance at that point of time. Kudos to this guy, whoever you are (I forgot his name). At least he admitted upfront he didn’t know much about it, and actually took the initiative to research more, to assist me effectively and efficiently. Credit should be given where credit is due. Thank you!

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said about the other lady.

I rooted for Obama not just because of hope or because I identify with some of the struggles he embodied: of equal rights of which as a feminist I believe in (and in another article I wrote of aligning my feminist ideals with Christianity), of faith, hopes and dreams (and it’s not a coincidence that my church is called the Dream Center either), and his conciliatory approach.

I look forward to Obama finally taking his place in the White House, despite the fact I am not an American.

Not because he’s the first African American president in the White House or that he’s bringing change.

But because he reaffirms me of God’s word, that all things are possible.

While I was gone though, (well not really gone), but I’ve been mostly working and also building up MYCocoaHeads. Quite a nice change to see some new faces lately too. Also, MYCocoaHeads now has a new home at mycocoaheads.wordpress.com and also a Twitter account at twitter/mycocoaheads. So if you’re a MYCocoaHeads member, or want to know more about MYCocoaHeads, or if you’re a Mac/iPhone (or iPod touch in Malaysia for political correctness) developer, do feel free to join us and contribute. Have a topic to share? Let me know and I’ll include you in your monthly meetups (which is every 3rd Saturday of the month unless explicitly stated).

You don’t need to be a Cocoa developer to join MYCocoaHeads too — if you’re any sort of programmer doing programming work on the Mac platform, you’re welcome. And if you’re a (any-UNIX-variant)-based programmer or FOSS developer, feel free to join us too! Heck - if you can code, you’re welcome (but note to Windows/.NET developers, we probably won’t be able to help you out on Windows specific things though!)

So drop by both the FOSS.my events and MYCocoaHeads events and give us a shout. See y’all. G’day and Happy Diwali to all Hindu friends and readers out there!

P/S: side note - the downside of working in an international setting is that a public holiday is almost never really a holiday at all, cos someone from another country who’s not on holiday doesn’t know you’re holiday-ing… back to work from home for me.

The good news was, for both cases, the way the problems were resolved blew me away and left me more than impressed! And I think they deserve me waking up from my blogging hibernation to give them a shout-out.

Let’s begin with kikki-K. Kikki-K is an Swedish-inspired Australian stationery store, and happens to also be my favourite stationery store. (Yes I am such a stationery junkie I get my supplies shipped over from Australia instead of purchasing locally). Recently, I purchased my latest errr, “stationery restocking” and had it shipped over again. Alas, it never came. Either Australia Post or Pos Malaysia borked up the shipment.

So I wrote to kikki-K, and a nice lady by the name of Charlotte took up my case and offered to re-ship the items to me, this time with registered and insured mail. She was prompt, apologetic and understanding, and when the shipment finally arrived, I opened the nicely packed package to find this wonderfully beautiful handwritten note in it:

That of course, what with my disappointment already diffused, put a smile on my face for the whole day. Kudos, Charlotte and the folks at kikki-K!

Few days ago I had another unpleasant encounter, this time with InformIT. I wanted to purchase the e-Book version of Aaron Hillegass’ Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X, 3rd Ed.

Unfortunately, when I tried to check out, InformIT refused to let me proceed, throwing up a cryptic-sounding error. I duly contacted customer service. To which they replied, “Sorry, we don’t ship to Malaysia”.

I replied back, arguing that I was just simply trying to purchase an e-Book where the shipping method is by digital download, not physical mail by air!

The reply came back as, “Please contact our UK office, they might be able to help you.” Contact UK office as in, land line telephone, international phone call to UK.

Enraged, I made a pretty nasty twitter about InformIT: here, here and here.

The next day, InformIT UK replied the same thing to me, saying they don’t ship to Malaysia, but why don’t I try their subscription-based digital library service called Safari. I was upset, because I didn’t want to pay subscription for a service in which I’m only going to use ONE book, and furthermore, I wanted a local, offline copy which I can search on.

What was unexpectedly pleasant though, was that InformIT had their own twitter page as well. And the person managing the twitter account saw my tweet and immediately sent me a twitter message back, offering to help me obtain the book. I replied back the necessary details, and after a few more email exchanges, I finally got a copy of the ebook with their sincerest apologies.

It was quite a pleasant surprise and a wonderful thing, that a little twitter from a relatively unknown me in the twitter-sphere, managed to catch the attention of InformIT so much so that they were willing to turn my bad experience around into a wonderful one. This is a first time I’ve had customer service over twitter, and most importantly, customer service where someone from the “offending company” went all out to assist me instead of me having to go all out to demand for proper assistance.

Good service calls for good reviews, so I retweeted good things about InformIT this time: here and here

Thank you, Jamie at InformIT!

Or maybe a show on how observant (or not) I am.

Or maybe how much I can pay to irrelevant details sometimes.

Here is the “genre art” for Classical music, from iTunes 8’s latest feature, the Genre Grid View.

It’s the first two bars of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata Don’t believe me? Go and Google up sheet music of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.

I know I am right for sure. Moonlight Sonata was once my signature song, so to speak.

Congratulations on making your trip to the LRT and KTM. I wonder if it is your first. If it is, bravo for surviving!

But Pak Lah, I am still very disappointed. LRT and KTM is so much better compared to other services such as the buses, the obnoxious taxis and worse, the KL Monorail. I did wonder for a while if you avoided going on the KL Monorail because your advisors told you not to.

You see Pak Lah. This is the reality of KL Monorail. It is much smaller than an LRT carriage. It is manually driven by a guy. It is shaky, creaky, squeaky and often tilts dangerously to the side when the driver takes it along a bend or a sharp curve. Worse of all, the KL Monorail staff aren’t there to control the crowd… they’re there to push and cram more people into the train when it is already impossibly packed!

Pak Lah, you thought the LRT was like sardines? KL Monorail is worse. Especially when the KL Monorail guys keep pushing everyone in. To take a ride on the KL Monorail, you need to be either spineless, a gymnast or a circus contortionist.

Just yesterday, I had to take the KL Monorail back from Bukit Bintang to KL Sentral at 5pm. It was already so packed, the KL Monorail guys pushed one big fat man onto me. I had to put up with having this big fat man’s derriere (that’s buttocks aka punggung aka butt aka @$$ for you if you don’t know the word) pushing and rubbing against my chest (and I am a lady!). The next stop, it got worse as no one got out but the KL Monorail guys pushed more people in, and this time, I lost my balance, fell onto three nice ladies, who then had to help me up, and hold me up while I was literally standing leaning backwards… with the aid of the three ladies holding my back up so that they don’t get squashed by me.

Pak Lah, your transport minister said that there’s very little his ministry can do. How is that going to give us confidence in your ministries if all they can do is make announcements that they’re not responsible? Better yet, that two of the companies are supposedly under your ministry, the Ministry of Finance, Mr PM Sir?

Pak Lah, I took the train because I did not want to put up with the traffic jam and waste more money on petrol. Yesterday it was RM2.70 still. Today it is RM2.55 but it’s not going to save us much either. I have already wasted so much on petrol this month due to your policemen being overenthusiastic on their job and conducted so many unnecessary roadblocks. I have once burned a quarter tank’s worth of petrol just getting stuck in traffic jams.

But Pak Lah, if I don’t drive, I end up with a sore back and muscle spasms that travel all the way up and down my spine. Which is what I am having now. And I shudder to even enquire about medical fees. The last time I had a backache so bad, I had to go for ultrasound and inferential treatment. They cost RM60 per session then * 6 sessions. Pak Lah, I don’t have RM360 to spare. And the cost may have even risen by now. Moreover, I have no time nor money to take 6 days of no pay leave, 1 day a week for the next 6 weeks as I have work to do.

But either way, this bad bad backache is going to be counterproductive as my work requires me to travel a lot and walk a lot. How am I going to recover if I keep aggravating it?

Pak Lah, if you cannot do anything about this… maybe it is just best that I move to Singapore. Believe it or not… prices are cheaper in Singapore even after conversion, plus the pay Singaporean companies give are so much higher than in Malaysia. But then, Malaysia is where I belong… but Singapore is looking more alluring with each passing day.

While you live in comfort Pak Lah, commoners like me and Peter suffer. I suffer from a recurring back problem thanks to your trains, and Peter can’t even get onto the train. And this is not the first time a minister went on a train, yet nothing seems to change.

I do really hope you do something about this, Pak Lah, this time, and not just give an empty promise or fail to follow up and push these companies to get their act together. Because it’s the rakyat who suffers… not you.

Sincerely,
Jinny Wong

As for the July meet, its tomorrow, Saturday, Jul 19 7:30pm – 8:30pm
@ EpiCentre at Pavilion KL. See you guys there. I’ll be talking about Scripting and Scripting Bridge and Chris Hong on iPhone dev.

For those who missed the earlier iCal invitation, please do leave your email with me or Chris Hong and we will add you into the loop. Cheers and have a good weekend everyone!

This weekend is however a small relief for me — the worst of my hectic schedules are finally over and how wonderful to coincide with the iPhone OS 2.0 update. Killed my stress away tapping, shaking and swiping all over my iPod touch all afternoon. Heh.

On the other hand, I’m playing around with AppleScript’s ScriptingBridge. I may (most probably) do a little something about this during the next CocoaHeads meetup. Given that I have quite a few bash scripts, this would be useful, and especially to finally have time to build GUI/Cocoa wrappers around them. (I used to have a lot of perl scripts but not entirely sure how and why I filtered them out one by one until I ended up with no more left).

Till next time. G’nite while I play Guitar Hero TapTap Revenge on my iPod touch

No… moving on from my Postgrad Diploma. What next?

I think somewhere along the way I have mentioned about the possibility of doing my PhD… and today I was told that based on my results of my Postgrad Diploma, I am eligible for consideration for PhD candidacy.

But PhD is still too early for me to do right now… maybe a few years down the line. In making sure that I keep abreast of research developments in that area I am studying and also to keep up the momentum, my supervisor and I have agreed to churn out and publish (in international journals of course!) some research papers. I will do it independently, in my professional capacity, not aligned to any research or academic institution but as part of a larger study stemming from the research I did during my P.Dip. days. And my wonderful supervisor will journey with me along the way.

I don’t know how much doing my PhD will benefit me.

I do know at least, that the papers I’ll be churning out now will directly benefit me in my professional and personal capacity as well as contribute to academia. But it’s hard to say that in say, 5 years time I would still be doing what I am currently working as.

I guess this is something only time will tell.

For now, I’m committing myself to publish one journal paper, hopefully by the end of this year. Time to start hunting for reputable journals to publish in and examine their submission guidelines.