No man's an island, especially in Bangkok!

What made this trip most memorable?

Stalls @ Chatuchak

Stalls @ Chatuchak, originally uploaded by jooitc.

One of the dunno how many neck aching lanes in Chatuchak.

Chat the tuchak! You'd prolly need 2 full days to fully explore this place..

Oh yeh make sure you wear shorts, it's freggin' HOT!

Reclining Buddha

Simply breath taking..

4 Face Buddha @ Erawan's Intersection.

4 Face Buddha @ Arawan's Intersection., originally uploaded by jooitc.

You can most definitely locate such a shrine at most cross junctions in Bangkok city. This particular shrine is amongst the largest and busiest.

Suan Lum night market

Suan Lum, originally uploaded by jooitc.

A must visit, lots of stuff to shop for. Clothes, paintings, household items, etc..

Wat Arun ala Porcelain

Wat Arun, originally uploaded by jooitc.

Surface pasted with numerous colored porcelain gives the whole Wat Arun a glow of it's own.

Magnificant Wat Arun

Magnificant Wat Arun, originally uploaded by jooitc.

If it wasn't for the terribly hot and humid weather, I would have enjoyed the masterpiece so much more.

Wat Arun

Wat Arun, originally uploaded by jooitc.

From across the river

Transportation system in Bangkok

The 1st thing tht impressed me. The elevated highways. What looked like 30 meters above ground.

This view shows, road on ground, pedestrian bridge on 1st level and the elevated highway on 2nd level. At certain parts, train system flows underground!

Our 1st Meal in Bangkok

I simply had to try the samurai burger. Look Ronald knows some tricks!

Oh the timer don't work either, tried all of them..

We're off to Bangkok!

Air Asia, originally uploaded by jooitc.

Air Asia.. RM9.99 one way.. RM283 after taxes and insurance.. Ok wattttttttt ;-)

Kitchen sink clogged

Just last week I fixed the piping beneath the sink. Some putty, some take n voila!

*so proud*

Couple of days back.. glup* glup* glup*.. sink was talking to me..

So I headed out to the local hardware store to get this..

RM9 for a bottle of liquid that smelt of ditch water! Was I conned? Let's give it a try.

10 minutes later.. KNS the whole kitchen smelt like a stagnant ditch!

Time to flush with water.

Hmm.. it works! Ditch water removes some clogs!

Otak Otak, Steamed

Wow wikipedia has an entry for otak otak! Saves me some juice trying to describe this.

I've tried 2 variants, the grilled and the steamed, the latter's proudly presented to you below.

There's even a fish head version of this which I tried in Johor some years back. It was kinda tastier as word is meat are richer in aroma nearer to the bones. The only thing I didn't like was the bones present in the paste.

A visit to Snips @ the Curve

Something I don't quite fancy doing, something I can't avoid either. Close eyes and go..

Plus Expressway

The Plus expressway goes from Johor Bahru all the way up north till Bukit Kaya Hitam. This very expressway links the south with the north of Peninsular Malaysia (west coast) which during it's inception brought many good to the nation's interstate trade, amongst others.

These fotos were taken on the 5th of May 2007 around milestones 290 - 350, right after Perak's toll south bound to Kuala Lumpur. Erm.. ok children, don't do this, taking fotos with a dSLR while driving ain't exactly the safest thing to do.



At some parts they are expanding the lanes from 2 to 3 lanes. Which really doesn't make sense to me. This expressway is only congested during the holiday periods especially Hari Raya and the Chinese New year. For a cummulative 7-10 days a year congestion, would it seem even remotely necessary for such an upgrade? Hey nothing comes for free right? Next year, the toll fare for Plus expressway is due for a review (in other words, hike!). You be the judge.

Hakka Duck Stew

mmm hmmm! This place serves Hakka dishes. It's more like Teochew styled where the dishes are readily available at the food counter.

1. Take a look what you're interested in
2. Point and let em' know how many pax
3. Go back to your seat and salivate

Jian Fatt's duck stew is top notch! The price is very reasonable as well! A very fulfilling meal for 2 (3 dishes, 2 plain rice, 2 drinks) would cost ya RM20-25.

Open source movement

I luv the spirit of the open source movement. Could you find a negative thing to say about it's spirit? We contribute freely. The thousands of contributors form a wide pool of knowledge. Knowledge even some big organizations fail to grasp.

I've been kinda in the movement since RedHat 5 days, somewhere end of 1998. Time does fly. Back then I had to order "Doctor Linux" from the states as locally we had no resources for Linux. None at all.

Zope was the very first open source web framework I used, professionally for 5 years.

Linux is in my blood. RedHat, Debian, Ubuntu, Slackware, Suse..

Unix is envious of Linux. FreeBSD, OpenBSD..

Unix is grinning at Linux @ work. AIX, Solaris, HP-UX..

Some links I keep in handy
Malaysia's Open Source Competency Center
Free and Open Source Software Society Malaysia
Malaysian Free and Open Source Group
Open Source
Free Software Foundation
Open Source Software

Contributions to work

With every work at any company, there's always joy and satisfactions. There are even certain achievements or contributions you take pride in. Do you call it passion?

I was attached to Unified Communications in my previous job. Malaysia's leading telecommunications solutions provider, not only Malaysia, but Asia as well. I was hired as a Systems Specialist, specializing in the Missed Call Notification product. It's a value added service that captures missed calls and sends the subscriber a short message. I'm sure most of us have received such short messages ;-).

I'm not trained in telecommunications. I'm a IT fella passionate about Linux and the open source movement. I was excited to have been given the chance. This system's core technology is built on Linux with Oracle as it's main database engine with presence of Windows Server as well as mysql and Veritas backup solution. In short, it is one heck of a huge system. With SS7 and GSM totally new to me, I was in the middle of the ocean, with nothing but a float.

Would I allow myself to drown? No way. I buckled up and started working.. very hard.. Soon I was a team lead. My team and I supported MCN throughout Asia. We setup the rack, we pulled the cables, we installed the machines, we installed the operating systems, we made sure the modules were properly implemented and finally, we supported the system.

The months I spent in Vietnam are now memories buried deep down in me. I was sent there as Project Coordinator and Systems Specialist. Having to manage the tight schedule as well as implementing the system posed the greatest challenge I've faced till this date. Communicating with the Vietnamese was the greatest skill I learned. I was there, I closed the project, successfully.

Exposures in other regions had opened my eyes, is had taught me so much in all expects. Communication, Business process, Project management, Customer relations.. etc..

I faced many difficulties on the field. What I learned, I documented and shared(however I can't share these Howtos and Tutorials as it's copyrighted). Where I saw room for improvements, I improved. Let's not sit back and complain, let's pick up that heavy arse of mine and do something about it!

When it came to troubleshooting, we lack the tools. There forth I squeezed every free time I had, in and out of the office. In 2 weeks, I came up with this. I had a vision to continue developing this for the whole Customer Engineering team. I wanted to provide all our guys a "on the field tool" that will speed up troubleshooting by many folds. This vision ended when I left the company. I was about to lead the operations in Indonesia. Was my move to Shell IT a wise one? Soon we will know :-).

Written in Python with the wxPython GUI toolkit.

Decoding the Quintum protocol the simple way.


Who likes to decode / read hex? But that's what the industry uses. Decode hex to ascii (vice versa). Something so valuable even the developers used it.


Now, we are so comfortable sending short messages from our mobiles that we don't even bother about the technology that drives it. Short message peer to peer protocol (SMPP) is one of the protocols available for this. The most widely used even. This is a SMPP decoder, not one you can google. Heck I had one hell of a tough time decoding this, having to study the SMPP protocol in and out.

Commitment to your work

Last Thursday, I was supposed to be on night shift, it was around 4:30pm just as I was about to take my afternoon nap, when my mobile rang. My ailing grandpa asked for me. He has been in the hospital for nearly a week now. Took a quick shower, packed my bag and I was on a 400KMs journey up north to Bukit Mertajam, Penang.

By the time things were settled, I got back to gramp's place and logged on to the Shell network. It was near 12a.m. I ain't provided a laptop, so I used mine with MOP (Mobile Office Private) installed. Why? I was handling a ticket the night before and I was really curious of the progress.

My guess was right, it was a global interruption. Unfortunately nothing was really done until my team was in. I was there online from Penang assisting my team mate until everything was well. It was 4a.m. Time for me to rest.

I'm on daily rate, a day off n I dun get paid. What is it that drives us to feel the sense of responsibility? To feel the sense of ownership? Some will tell u it's just work and it ain't worth a dime more.

Excerpt from an email, a colleague that has guided me more than a few times.

skill (and maybe more importantly commitment) comes fist...

Commitment to your work. That is one of the many factors that separate some from the rest.

How much is a cup of designer coffee?

Just how much is the cost of living in Kuala Lumpur? Holly's equivalent to Starbucks.

A gr8 place to hang out if you're at the Curve or Cineleisure @ Mutiara Damansara. Free wifi and tonnes of power points for your lappies.

Water sprinklers

Living in Malaysia is hot and humid most of the year. One way we deal with it?

Shavers are vibrating!

I needed a new shaver, the old Gillette Mach 3 Turbo was filling up with moss. Talk about the damp.

To the shavers' corner I strolled.. dum dee dum~

GAK*Stunned* there's a battery operated Mach 3 Power!

Talk about marketing gimmicks, smoother shaves and all. Blah~ I'll use plain ol' limb movements.. They'd prolly come out with a vibrating toilet bowl next to aid 'pang sai'.

Somehow I figured, the packaging cost 50% if not more of the cost.




I still have one cartridge for the Gillette Mach 3 Turbo. Any takers?

The Donut

About a week back, I was at Sun Moulin @ 1U buying some bread and saw THE DONUT, I simply luv these original donuts. I so prefer them over the ones from Dunkin's. But it was RM1.50 per piece.

Hic* think I'll skip.. With those childhood memories where one cost RM0.60

Yesterday I found this. Carrefour's Bigger Deal, 6 for RM2.99, tht's RM0.50 per piece.

Guess what? I ate them all! Bwahahahaha~ hic*

Fettucine Carbonara

Yesterday while I was taking a nap before me night shift..

Something happened.. in the kitchen..

klink* kang* whoosh*

Mich prepared us a meal.. simply delicious! slurp~