Election Day

8 March 2008 marked the date of the 12th Malaysian General Election. Soon after the Prime Minister dissolved Parliament on 13 February 2008, we could see flags and banners of various political parties appearing all over the city.

Campaigning fever then gripped the nation after the nomination of candidates on 24 February 2008. The political candidates in our area are:

PUCHONG (Parliament) -
Lau Yeng Peng (BN-Gerakan, incumbent) vs Gobind Singh Deo (DAP)

SERI SERDANG (State) -
Datuk Mohd. Satim Diman (BN-UMNO, incumbent) vs Ahmad Idzam Ahmad (PAS)

Come election day, we arrived at our polling center at about 9.15am. There were many cars parked by the roadside and 3 political party booths set up nearby - 1 for BN, 1 for DAP and 1 for PAS.
Strangely enough, the DAP booth was closed (on election day!!!) while the other 2 booths were busy trying to woo the voters.

We had previously printed out our voting info (from the Election Commission’s website) but a BN party worker requested us to re-check our info at their booth as there could be mistakes. Our printed info turned out to be accurate while the voter info distributed by BN earlier contained a mistake!

After that, we proceeded into the school compound where we passed by yet another booth – this time, the Election Commission’s booth. We didn’t stop as we already knew our polling streams. An election worker gave us directions, and we went towards our voting rooms.

I was in Stream 7 while Sze was in Stream 4. I didn’t know where I was, and when I asked a policeman, he said that I was standing right in front of the Stream 7 room… oops! Everywhere else, there were many people lining up to vote… except me - I just walked into the room, got my polling slips and casted my vote. I think I was the fastest voter! Sze had a longer queue but he was soon done with his voting too.

While waiting for my parents-in-law, we saw a “gentleman” arguing loudly with an election officer and a policeman, who threatened to arrest him and subsequently pulled him out of the building. Apparently, the man had wanted to change stream to one with a shorter queue. The police later released him and peace was restored. We left the polling station after an hour.

And oh, the winning candidates in our area are:
PUCHONG (Parliament) - Gobind Singh Deo (DAP), won by a majority of 12,593.
SERI SERDANG (State) - Datuk Mohd. Satim Diman (BN-UMNO), won by a majority of 45 only!

Hat Yai Trip

During the recent Chinese New Year (CNY) holidays, several of my family members organized a trip to Hat Yai for the whole family (err… actually, it was me who asked Mom to plan for the trip). As we had planned to leave for Hat Yai from Sitiawan on the 2nd day of CNY, Sze and I left KL for Sitiawan after lunch on the 1st day of CNY itself. Although it is a tradition for the Chinese to visit the wife’s family on only the 2nd day of the new year, people are more flexible and practical in this 21st century.

After dinner and a night’s stay in Sitiawan, we left for Hai Yai at 6.30am. There were 10 of us and we went in 3 cars. Upon reaching the border checkpoint, the Thai immigration counters were already pretty crowded. There were long queues but fortunately, some of the lines were moving along quite fast.

We finally arrived in Hat Yai at about 12 noon local time. It was Sze’s first time here and his first impression of the city was that Hat Yai, being less developed yet feeling somewhat familiar, resembled KL 2 decades back.

Hat Yai city.

We checked-in to the Siam Center Hotel and had lunch in a coffee shop at the corner of the same hotel block.

The Siam Center Hotel.

The coffeeshop around the corner.

After a quick meal, Dad and (my sis) Fiona’s boyfriend went for a golf appointment with a few Thai friends while the rest of us headed to our 1st shopping destination – the Old Market.

On the way to the Old Market in a tuk-tuk.

It was very hot and stuffy in there but then again, shopping is a girl’s favorite pastime! So, all the 5 ladies in the group were buying things like nobody’s business while the 3 guys just tagged along for sight seeing. I bought 2 pairs of shoes soon after we arrived and helped Fiona with her shoe shopping after that.

Shoe shopping inside the Old Market.

That night, we had dinner with Fiona’s new Thai business partner. After that, we went for a walk, wondering where to shop again. On our way to the shopping malls, we saw some lion and dragon dances on the street. Sze had never seen lion dances on poles before and we were both very impressed as the performers jumped very high and very far too. During our short time there, the lion fell off the poles at least 3-4 times while attempting those very difficult jumps and it would then restart its jump sequence all over again!

Lion dance video.

Following the lion dance, the same troupe performed a dragon dance. That was also quite interesting, with the dragon climbing up a very tall pole, a little boy on another equally high “rocking” pole that falls to the ground and fireworks from the dragon’s mouth.

Dragon dance video.

After the performances, we walked along a night market on a very busy street where Naomi and I got ourselves a couple of wire keychains. Mine had the letter “Z” attached to a wire butterfly while Naomi’s 2 keychains had her boyfriend’s and her name written on them. We went back to our hotel after that.

Keychain with the letter "Z".

The keychain lady.

The next morning, we had a buffet breakfast at the hotel. The buffet spread was quite limited in choice but we still ate heartily. Right after our meal, we went to the Odean shopping mall. We bought quite a number of sundry goods as they were a lot cheaper there compared to Malaysia (tip for the ladies: Whisper sanitary pads were much cheaper in Hat Yai than in KL).

After leaving all our shopping bags back in our hotel rooms, we went for lunch. Both my sisters and Mom were skipping lunch and had already gone to the Central department store for more shopping. The rest of us proceeded to a nearby restaurant just opposite Central.

The South Thai Bird's Nest restaurant.

The entrance to Central department store.

After our meal, we joined the 3 ladies at Central and I managed to grab myself a good pair of Levi’s jeans. Later on, Sze and I continued to walk around the city on our own. That’s when we came across Boots! So far, I’ve only seen Boots stores in Thailand, apart from England.

That evening, we had dinner at a local Thai restaurant. This place had previously been patronized by the royal princess but it still remained as humble as ever. However, they serve very authentic Thai food where some of the dishes were quite spicy while some others were sweet… There was only 1 word to describe the food – DELICIOUS!

The humble restaurant serving authentic Thai food.

After dinner, we took a walk downtown and saw the lion and dragon dances again. They continued to impress us and I decided to give them an ang pow this time as they were very deserving performers. We went back to the hotel after that.

At 6am the following morning, we checked out and went for a very early breakfast. However, the hotel’s breakfast trays were not ready yet. After waiting for about 15 minutes with no air-conditioning in the building (since the middle of last night), we had a quick breakfast and left for Malaysia immediately after that to beat the expected “back to KL” traffic rush.

Bon voyage sign at the Thai immigration checkpoint.

We had enjoyed visiting Hat Yai and look forward to having more trips in the next few months. More pictures from our Hat Yai trip can be viewed in the Photo Gallery.

Using Aztech Wireless Router with a Separate Modem

Scenario:

The Aztech WL830RT4 wireless router could not connect to the internet via the ADSL modem (separate device). The modem works fine on its own when using wired internet access but could not dial out to connect to the internet when the router is plugged into the modem.

I tried changing several settings but none worked. I also tried to look for an answer online - although there were several discussions on the problematic Aztech wireless router, surprisingly, none of the forums had any solutions.

So at 8.30am Monday morning, I called the Aztech Service Hotline. The support guy suggested that I set my LAN IP to 10.0.0.2... and voila, it worked! Thanks and a good job to the Aztech Service Center! (The router's default 192.168.1.1 LAN IP was already in use by the modem and thus became the default gateway IP of the WAN.)

Conclusion: Set the Aztech wireless router's LAN IP to 10.0.0.2 (also check that its WAN IP is set to dynamic, which is the default setting).

Installing MS Dynamics CRM Client (v3c) with Outlook 2007

Scenario:

With Windows XP Professional SP2 and Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 already installed, you try to install MS Dynamics CRM Client v3c but unfortunately get this error message:

"The installed version of Microsoft Outlook is not supported by the Microsoft CRM client. Please upgrade to the current release of Microsoft Office Outlook."

I tried very hard to look for a FREE solution but could not find any. So I called the Microsoft Support Team in India but they were unable to help me unless I opened a paid case with the Global Support Team in China.

What’s the solution then? I had successfully done this before in the past, so why not this time? The only difference is that I was then using MS Office Ultimate 2007.

So I decided to uninstall Office Enterprise 2007 and install Office Ultimate 2007 instead. As a result, I got my CRM client installed in a few minutes and it is now working properly!

Conclusion: MS Office Enterprise 2007 is not supported by MS Dynamics CRM Client (v3c).

The Circus Is In Town!

The Royal London Circus is in town again, and is now performing to audiences nightly in Kuala Lumpur till 1st January 2008. Ever since I was a little girl, I have always wanted to see The Royal London Circus. One fine morning, as I was driving to work, I heard Mix FM’s Almost 90s@9 contest (yes, I was still on the road after 9am and I was late for work :P). As soon as I heard the song “Shattered Dreams”, I knew that was the answer and I called up the radio station immediately. Fortunately, I got through on my 1st try and won 2 VIP tickets to The Royal London Circus… yippee!!! (Yes, Sze saved RM150 this time!)


However, we didn’t get to go see the circus for some time as both of us were extremely busy either with work or with our wedding preparations. Then, towards the end of last month, we finally made the trip to Klang to see The Royal London Circus.

The show started with what appeared to be a chubby, Malay-looking ringmaster singing in the style of Pavarotti and backed by a mini circus orchestra, again staffed with local-looking musicians, except that they were not the familiar faces of the local music industry. It turned out that the chubby, singing ringmaster is a Filipino (not sure about the orchestra musicians though).

The 1st circus stunt was the balancing act on 2 giant rotating wheels… it was Sze’s favorite stunt and it culminated with one of the 2 circus performers balancing himself high up on the swinging wheel blindfolded!

There were various acts following that but all of our photos at the beginning were spoilt as “video recording devices” were not allowed and we had to snap the shots discreetly without any flash. Besides, we were also afraid that the camera flashes might momentarily blind the circus performers, especially the trapeze artists and they would fall down from their swings… he he. But actually, that’s what happened – they did fall down a couple of times from their swings high up in the air onto the netting below and one of the falls was during the drumrolled highlight of a 3-turn somersault!

On the other hand, the dog shows were quite enjoyable and funny but the elephant looked pretty sad.





However, there were not that many animals and the acts focused more on human performances instead.




There was also a circus clown and a magician too… cool. The ringmaster and his partner also sang a few songs including “Amigos Para Siempre”. It was one of my personal favorites and I was very impressed with their rendition of the song.

The last stunt of the night was the Sphere of Terror where 5-6 dirt bikes (scramblers) were squeezed inside a giant metal sphere (ball) to be ridden round and round each other in confusing circles.



It was a fitting finale to the circus performances and the evening had been good fun for both Sze and me as we had not been to any circus since our childhood days! Merry Christmas to everyone and best wishes for a very Happy 2008.

I'm Pro Tools Certified!

Yes, I'm now Pro Tools 210M certified... woohoo! Last month, me and 3 other colleagues (Nilesh, Vinay and Nian Tze) underwent 4 full days of highly intensive training for 4 courses - Pro Tools 101, Pro Tools 110, Pro Tools 201 and Pro Tools 210M. Such training would not have been possible for normal Pro Tools users but had to be specially arranged and was for experienced Pro Tools users/instructors only.

My Pro Tools 210M certificate from Digidesign. As there is still no news from Digidesign about the other 3 certificates (to be issued by ICOM), I have decided not to wait any more and just post my blog.

Fortunately, we had a fantastic trainer in Andy Hagerman - the Training Manager (Asia) at Digidesign Japan - who guided us through all the courses and certification exams :)

From left: me (Sze), Nilesh, Andy, Nian Tze and Vinay.

Together with one other Digidesign employee, we are currently the only Pro Tools certified users in the country (Malaysia), according to Digidesign's Certification Directory:
http://training.digidesign.com/listings

In addition, each of us also received a complimentary Pro Tools HD 7 Operator t-shirt and we are now qualified to have the Certified Operator logo next to our names.

So what was the most interesting thing I learnt during the certification training? Well, guess what? Pro Tools actually has color!!!... hahaha.

The different shades of Pro Tools

From Stressroid To Promotion

It’s been 1 year and 2 months since I joined this fast-paced company called e-Globalfocus Sdn Bhd. I started the job weighing around 60kg and now, I am only about 50kg (free weight-loss program ;) No, I'm not kidding – I know I’ve lost a whopping 10kg but I can’t help it as I have even been eating twice the amount of food that I used to consume. I remember when I was working in ICOM, I had to go on diet as I gained so much weight. I thought it was a relationship spell - my weight increased when I started seeing Sze and I blamed it on love. Now, I still love Sze, even deeper than before, but yet I am shedding the pounds. So this time, I blame it on work stress.

As an Application Specialist in my office, I took care of enterprise solutions software - MS Dynamics CRM 3.0, SurfCRM and other Microsoft Business Solutions. I had been very proactive in my job, but yet, some of my colleague’s responsibilities were added to my job scope after she left the company. Soon after, we moved office to Tropicana. Then, my boss secured a really huge deal and that project manager’s job was also given to me. All these additions will tremendously increase my skills and knowledge but of course, my stress levels also increased exponentially.

So, I decided to quit. I had 2 job offers from much bigger companies and one of them was Microsoft. I declined the offer from Air Asia as they did not offer any transport allowances with their office so far away. Although they had offered me the highest pay, I still decided to join Microsoft (everyone wants to join Microsoft!). I tendered my resignation and my boss was shocked. He never really expected this from me. He tried to understand my reasons for wanting to leave. Believe me, I had a lot to complain about. So my bosses came up with a new package for me – a promotion and more streamlined responsibilities… and not forgetting, a raise too.

I have known both my bosses for many years, since 2001. I was just an intern then and while driving to work at their old office in Leisure Commerce Square (famously known as Bali then), I still remember the radio reporting about the Sept 11 terrorist attack on the WTC. I had enjoyed working with them as they were pretty flexible and gave everyone a chance to develop on their own initiatives. This is what I mean by growing your own talents to the best of your abilities. With this history and friendship, and not for financial reasons, I decided to accept their improved job offer to stay (while declining Microsoft's offer in the process) and to be promoted with immediate effect.

So, all I want to say is that, I am now a Product Manager with e-Globalfocus and I will do my best to promote the products and services under my responsibility.