Desa Bestari

To complete soon

an Hour for Earth - Earth Hour

tonight is the night when earth finally gets its one hour of .... what i don't know - please ask the organizer for the answer. from 8:30 to 9:30 tonight, those who are in support of the earth hour will switch off their lights and most of their electrical equipments. i am in support.? i am not sure. i feel indifferent. but my company is. the billboards and signboards and the building lights will be turned off tonight at the mentioned time above. i wonder how many megawatt of electricity will be reduced in that one hour. why won't earth hour be expanded to nnot driving any cars or even not burning anything including smoking. for all we know earth hour is about showing support of the environment. one hour of turning off the light might reduced the amount of coal and gas burn to produce electricty so that the air will be less polluted in that one hour. what about cars? buses? trucks and smokers? they should stop too. if earth hour covers the wider horizon i am in full support. i hope that tonight i can breathe in cleaner air for one hour.

Limiting access to your blog(s)

i guess blog-reading is not opened to just everyone anymore. as i was trying to go blog-hopping-slash-reading today i came across a blog which cannot be read unless i am invited. that is strange and creating mysteries, building intense and curiosity. is there some sort of confidential matters in that blog. or is the blog becoming too personal i.e. like reading someone's diary. a diary is usually kept to oneself with no intention of letting others know the writings inside until one day when the owner of the diary forgets, keep the diary lying around, or when someone goes through your things looking for something and then found the diary and then read it. and so now i know that blogger has a feature to limit access to your blogs just like facebook or friendster, etc. 

Mobile Blogging

My last two blog posting was done over the phone. It was something new to me. I realized that mobile blogging can be quite interesting, because sometimes i just have the urge to put something on my blog. Then the urge fades away once i get on with my computer and an internet connection. Most of the time i end up not writing anything on the net.

So why bother sharing by blogging. Sometimes, it is just for my own advantage. I may want to cherish something and to do that i would write something about it. Then why not own a diary which i can take anywhere? well a diary is not practical because i won't be bringing a book all the time. furthermore, i like to walk with nothing to carry. just me and myself and my essentials which can fit in my pockets i.e keys, wallet and cellphone.

therefore, mobile blogging is an answer. i can cherish a moment with my phone anytime as long as there is a line. it does not have to be a 3G line while 3G line can mean a faster connection, but with an ordinary line i can always get GPRS anytime. 

then what ignite the interrest in mobile blogging? it is my new phone. i bought a new cellphone earlier this month i.e. a Sony Ericsson C510 and there's jst a lot of features i can be utilizing. my first step was to activate my GPRS setting on my network so that i can fully utilized the many things i can do with this phone such as checking emails and surfing the web. and it goes without saying that mobile blogging is one of the many features offered by the new C510. 

My space

Little Thai at Ampang Point

Green chicken curry - full of flavor and creamy.

Renewing Malaysian Passport

Why do we need a passport?

To get out of the country. And to get in the country.

Renewing a passport is not hard these days and will only take few hours if you manage to pay the renewing fee before 2.30 pm at any working day. Honestly, I have had the slightest idea of renewing a passport until I googled and read a couple sites.

1) http://www.imi.gov.my/eng/perkhidmatan/im_PasportMsia.asp

2) http://www.lifeinkl.com/2008/05/10/how-to-renew-your-passport/

nowadays everything can be googled and i wonder how large is the server for google? so far google is the best search engine and never failed to deliver.

so back to the real topic, the following are what I needed to get my passport done.

• a photostat copy of myKad
• myKad
• 2 photographs of applicant measuring 3.5 cm X 5.0 cm
• cash (50 or 100 ringgit notes)
• old passport (if any)

since I have an old passport, they insisted that I go to KIPPAS (kios pembaharuan passport), a machine which I was reluctant because machine is a machine and I can't talk with machines. But they insisted and so I gave in. Luckily the machine was not being hard on me. Everything was done in about 15 minutes. Here's what i vaguely remember on the machine's request.

1. select your language
2. insert your old passport in the slot and press continue
3. insert your myKad
4. place your right thumb on the scanner
5. select 300 or 600 pages of passport
6. insert your cash one at a time
7. enter you height in cm
8. enter your phone number
9. insert the following in the provided envelope (enter your particulars on the envelope):
   - a photocopy of myKad
   - a passport photo of yourself (blue background and recent)
   - old passport
10. insert the envelope in the slot
11. please take the receipt
    - the receipt tells when and where to collect your passport
    - if the receipt is printed after 2.30pm, then your collection time will be the following day after 9 am
    - if the receipt is printed before 2.30 pm, then it is possible to collect the new passport on the same day
    - therefore, the following information from the imigration website is misleading:

It is a promise to deliver a new passport in 2 hours time if the payment is received before 3.30pm. I believe the promise is not applicable for processes made through the Kiosk but true only for application made through the counter. This is because your application from the Kiosk will only be collected by the respective staff at an interval. Additionally, the counter is at the 2nd floor while the kiosk is at the 1st floor.

So i received the receipt from the kiosk telling me to come and collect my new passport the next day. The following day i went straight to 2nd floor and approached counter 16, i gave my receipt and got a number eventhough i am the only one waiting. So I sat and waited. i saw that the guy behind the counter typed something and went to the next room to get something which i suspected was my passport. So after about 10 minutes my number was called and i was told to sign on several places and scanned my right thumb on the scanner. After signing behind my new passport, voila! i was set to go.

i was happy of course, if only i did not missed my exit to the Pusat Bandar Damansara or PBD lane i could have gotten back much earlier. but nevertheless, it's so trivial and need not to over react.

Paid Holiday and Adventure

Yesterday, I joined a treasure hunt organized by one of our company's sudsidiary, TCI, from bangi to Port Dickson, Started early morning at 7:15 am, I arrived at the starting point. There were about 70+ cars consisting of four person per car. This was a new experience to me, joining Some friends from work. Our first few destinations were around the Bangi area. We were playing for fun and So were the other teams. No pressure.

Surprisingly, we won. We came in first. We won $1600. Divided by 4, each got $400. The winning prize covers the registration fee $300 and one night stay at the resort as well as the traveling cost i.e. gas and toll. In fact we felt that we were paid to have fun and enjoy the weekend.