Swordie Bloggie

Everyone has seen bar codes… the black and white bars representing texts and numbers… a very short code of texts and numbers represented by stripes of black and white bars. Usually it is less than 15 texts and/or numbers.

Then comes the Quick Response Code or QR Code… a two dimensional type of bar codes… but it’s not really like the normal bar codes… it is much more complex and it can take 250 characters, just like the length of SMS.

QR Code was invented by TOYOTA subsidiary Denso Wave in 1994 to track vehicles during the manufacturing process. Although QR Codes are longer, it was actually designed in such a way that it can be decoded at high speed.

Although it was invented in 1994, the usage is more confined within the manufacturing industries. But in the past few years, it has gain so much popularity that you can see advertisements carry this QR Code to represents their URL or websites. It was made more popular by the smart phones which has application to decode QR Codes. And airlines are using it by printing their passengers’ flight information in QR Code in their ticket so that passengers can use it to check in thru the kiosk at a fast rate.

To create and print QR Code is easy… you can make it online and print it. Or you can get a QR Code printers like the zebra labels printer which can print on plastics labels such as inventory labels for you electronics devices. To read the inventory QR Code label, all you need is a smart phone with QR Code decoder apps… 😀

A couple of days ago, there was a news about the local medical assistant graduates… they have poor command in English. This is a slight disadvantage to our local graduates compared to Indonesia and Philippines when working abroad like in Arab countries where medical assistant are highly needed.

I will agree that our education system is in a mess… its policies keep on changing which put our student in total confusion. The people in charge of the educations should stop being ‘arrogant’ and start putting English as a major subject. For instance, in the past few years there are quite a number of medical teaching course and medical management course offered by newly setup training colleges around the country.

Unfortunately, the recent report of the Arab countries preferences towards our nursing graduates is very serious. Their command in English put them at the very last compared to Indonesia and Philippines. The government must take immediate action to improve the English proficiency among our students, else our global competitiveness will go from bad to worse… in fact emerging country like Vietnam has overtaken us in many areas.

Hiring English language consultants from countries which English is their first languages to conduct teach the teacher course is one way to revamp our English education system and to increase the number of English teachers with high teaching quality. No doubt, today we have many English teachers, but ‘quality English’ teachers are very few. Probably we also need consultant interview course so that we can get good consultants… 😛

OK, that was almost 3 weeks without update… well, as usual, I was busy with work… trying my best to complete as much work as possible before the end of May… to be exact by 24th May coz I was following a trip to Korea in the early morning on 25th May.

My journey to South Korea from 25th to 30th May was wonderful… I enjoyed it very much… the weather was so pleasing… I can walk all day long without getting tired… except for the first day coz our flight to Incheon International Airport was at 12.10am, 25th May… meaning there was not enough sleep… the food was served around 12.40am. After eating, I manage to get short nap before we reach Incheon around 5.00 am or 6.00 am local time… that was about 5 hours flight… meaning I had about 4 hours of sleep only.

I was seated next to emergency exit door… this is the small window I have.

When I collect my luggage, it was broken… the sockets at the bottom of the handle tube were missing… My luggage is a heavy duty type… it is the type of clamshell… I think I bought it about 5 or more years ago for RM800… and it has served me in many flights. As advice by our tour agent, I made a report with Asiana Airlines… and with the report, I have to surrender my luggage at Lost and Found office in KKIA. Guess what? I think I have to believe with number… you see, my number in the tour group was 13… and my luggage is the only one broken… beat that… 😛

So today around 5.00pm, I sent my luggage for damage claim at KKIA… I thought I have to fill more forms… well, there was none… all I have to do was surrender the luggage and the officer in charge check my report copy and punch in some number into his computer… and that’s it… 😛 I ask how long it will take to get result or get it solve?… He said 2 weeks… ok, cool… coz I was worried it will take like one month… coz I have to use my luggage for another trip the end of this month and next month… I hope they will replace my American Tourister clamshell with Samsonite clamshell… or they can replace it with something like grinders at CoffeeMakers.com… and I can buy my dream Samsonite clamshell… 😀

On Wednesday, 16 May, there were two incidents I encountered… first is the small fire in the office which I posted earlier… the second is a panic situation at a railway crossing… not really panic, just not sure what’s going on…

OK, the small fire in the office was in the morning… and our encounter with a train was in the evening after we had our tea at Kepayan Low Cost Housing Shop.

On our way back to the office after having tea, there was slight traffic jam before the Sebulan roundabout… just after the tunnel. My colleague was driving and I was sitting at the back… another colleague was sitting at the front. Our car has to stop on the rail track coz cars in front of us have to give way to other cars at the roundabout. Suddenly there was loud siren… the sound is familiar on TV… a siren sound of Japanese attacking. We don’t know where the sound coming from… we were guessing if it an ambulance of fire engine… but it just don’t sound like one.

We were looking around… then we saw the rail track light has turned green… oh crap… usually it is red… that means the train is coming… argggghh… my colleague started reversing, lucky the cars behind gave us room to reverse… then I saw the boom gate coming down… if we did not reverse, the bar will hit right on top of the car… lucky we have enough room to reverse… then the train appears… I open the window and started recording the incoming train…

I can’t imagine how the car gonna look like if it still on the track when the train arrived. The car is less than a ton and the train is like 1000 times heavier than the car. Metals will be crumpled… metal bars universal joint will dislodge… Lucky the train was only going at about 30 km/h…

In the video, the yellow-black bar is the boom gate which was right above our car… right above me. The siren is actually coming from the concrete box right next to the car… you can see that in the video too… but we were wondering, the alarm sound is not the standard railway crossing sound… normally it is the sound of bell… TING TING TING TING TING TING… that’s the reason we can’t figure out what the sound was… if it the bell, then we should’ve be able to identify it right away… 😛 But lucky nothing happen to us… 😀

Ting Ting Ting Ting Ting Ting… That’s the sound of Nasdaq Stock Market bell made by Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook just went public at $38 per share… Facebook sold 421.2 million shares at $38 each which put Facebook value at $104 billion, upped $16 billion… 😛

As comparison, here are the values of the top five companies as of yesterday closing stock prices…
Apple, $496 billion
Exxon Mobil, $383 billion
Microsoft, $250 billion
IBM, $229 billion
Wal-Mart Stores, $210 billion

I wish I have the money and access to the Facebook shares… one lot will be… $38 x 1000 shares… that’s USD$38,000… multiply that with 3 thus making it RM114,000… and that is just the price of initial public offering or IPO… I can’t even make that in one year… 😛

Analyst said Facebook is less than $100 billion, but the banks helping it to go public put it at that value forcing everyone without choice to accept it at that value. That’s how shares being traded… if banker said the value of this piece of paper is $100 although its actual value is just $1, everyone have to accept it… that’s how powerful bankers are.

Well, only rich people can play this game… and they’re getting richer… they can give Ferrari as presents to each of their girlfriends… while those who can’t afford these expensive stocks can only afford wife gift to whet her whistle… that’s life… hahahaha…

When the small fire broke out in one part of our office yesterday, I was worried… we were having a meeting at the 5th floor… when the chairman went out for a while, I heard the fire alarm… I asked the rest if there is any fire drill?… no one seem to be taking so much attention… so I went and peek outside… the alarm is louder but the people outside just staring each other… then someone said please get down, there is fire… then the security guard came and confirmed it.

But I still, don’t think there was fire… I still think this is just a fire drill… coz it was mentioned in one of the meeting recently that we have not conducted any fire drill for sometimes. I went inside the meeting room, inform the rest, grab my files and tablet… follows the flow of human through the stairs.

When I reached my floor, I saw my colleague, I asked where is the fire, she said 1st floor… oh boy, it’s below us… but the bell is louder on our floor, so I asked if the server room OK… she said OK… I went to my room and put the file on my table… peek into the server room, all seem normal. Went out with my tablet and locked my door… was wondering, should I bring my backpack which contain my notebook… I leave it behind… but after the whole episode, I realise I should’ve take my backpack and notebook together… must remember this next time. Probably the reason I did not take it was that I feel the whole things was under control… no big smoke… which luckily true.

After locking my room I went to the rest room to pee… only few people can be seen on my floor… and I still don’t see any smoke… so I took my sweet time to pee… hahahaha… after that I went to the stairs… and saw the chairman… walked down… reach 1st floor and ask one guy where is the fire… he said inside… we went inside and have a look… there was few people inside trying to break the wall… saw a lot of white smoke… actually it was not smoke, it was the fire extinguisher powder… the fire was already under control.

Actually when I found out the fire is below our floor, I stated getting worried coz usually fire goes up… if the fire is at the higher floor, it will be safer… will have some extra time to save important stuffs. And from this incident, I feel unsafe now… coz there is water pipe on our ceiling for our workshop pantry… the pipe is hdpe type I guess… we have lots of electrical stuffs… I just hope it never leak… I wish our water piping is this type of flexible metal hose… coz this baby can take more than 800 degree Celsius heat and more than 10,000 PSI pressure… I just hope all will be safe, no future incident, cross my fingers… and so far no official report of the cause of the fire.

Today, we carry electronic gadgets like phone, camera, handheld game console, media player and watch everywhere we go… even when doing rough activities like paintball, hiking or water rafting. These gadgets costing from hundreds to thousands of dollars will not escape from being exposed to water and knocks here and there…

Spending so much for our gadgets is already a burden… exposing them to tough environments is a heart wrenching experience… wrist watch is not a problem coz there are tough watches like Casio G-Shock or luminox navy seal meant for tough activities… they can be submerged under few meters of water and heavy knocks.

But how about smart phone or media players like iPod?… well there are water proof pouch for these. Last year, I bought a waterproof arm-band for my Samsung Galaxy S2 from H2OAudio… it cost a lot… 😛 I bought it online and it was shipped form US. When I tried putting my SGS2, it was quite tight… very hard to put inside… end up I never use it… it supposed to be used during my hiking training and also for the two Mount Kinabalu climb last year… to protect my SGS2 from rain which come unexpectedly.

Actually there is a cheaper waterproof bag to protect gadgets from water… the waterproof bag in the photos which can fit-in the SGS2 nicely was bought in Pavilion for RM50 only… it’s not an arm-band type, that’s why it cost 6 times less then the H2OAudio. It has a good sealing… triple seal… roll… then lock it with the velcro… The plastic is so clear and the touch screen work effortlessly with it… so now I can protect my SGS2 from water when I’m doing tough activities… 😀

May is a busy month… early this month, 3rd to 7th, supposed to fly to Philippines for paintball event, but unfortunately the event was cancel… the worse is I already bought the ticket early this year for almost RM500… since it was Air Asia, people said there will be no refund… so I did not bother to get refund… so it was wasted… I guess I just donated to QPR… 😛

This week, 13th to 15th, went to KL for study tour… and from 24th to 30th, I will be flying again… for 6 hour flight… I don’t want to tell where I’m going yet… 😛 For 7 days, I will be off from my usual internet coverage… I’ve research about data line… one cellular operator is giving unlimited roaming data connection for RM38 a day… my cellular operator is offering RM18 for a megabytes… 😛 The unlimited data for RM38 a day is very attractive, but I have to register to get it with contract… there is no prepaid… 😛 Looks like I have to survive with my operator for RM18 for a megabytes…

I’m also wondering about the power supply… I’m will need to charge my smartphone, tablet and cameras… my chargers’ plug will not fit their power socket outlet and I don’t have a proper traveller adapter yet… so last night while on air, I checked the MAS brochure… and they have the Lifetrons Worldwide Travel Adaptor with 2 USB Charging Ports for $36 or RM108… it comes with 1 year worldwide warranty… cool, this is exactly what I want… so I press the ‘calling’ button… TUNGGGGGG… about a minute later the cabin crew came to answer my call… I asked if the item is available… he said, he has to check first… 5 minutes later he came with bad news… no stock… dammm… what’s the point putting it on the brochure if they don’t have it… probably if I ask for montecristo cigars or any of the many perfumes in the brochure, I might have a better luck… but unfortunately, I’m not looking for all those… looks like I have to get the adapter from Karamunsing Complex instead… 😛

Back home yesterday around 10 PM after 3 days in KL for study tour. It was a busy two days… one study tour in the morning and one in the evening… on both days. Left KK around 11.07 AM after the flight delayed from 10.45 AM.

I did not manage to check-in online coz the system can’t find my particulars when I tried web check-in service at home. So when I check-in at the airport through the check-in kiosk the next day, I was given a random seat at the back which I forgot coz I changed my seat so that I can seat next to my colleague at 27D which is almost at the end of the aircraft.

The aircraft was Boeing 737-800 with the bended wing tip… this 800 series is much quitter, wider and smoother on air compared to the older 400 series. The seats are normal, nothing fance… just the same as my few previous ride on 800 series. But the aircraft I rode back has different seats settings although it is also the 800 series.

The return aircraft seats have LCD at it back, credit card reader and handset for making calls or playing games. The last time I saw this was inside Boeing 777. Unfortunately the system is not functioning… it’s OFF! So I can’t play games with it like the one on 777 I rode before. But I was not that bored during the flight coz I have my tablet and phone to play with… I have lots of apps in my fon and tablet but I played Sudoku most of the time… it’s good to have electronic entertainment gadget for long journey… like PSP or smartphone or tablet… any tablet will do as long it is loaded with playbook apps… well, I was alternately playing and sleeping throughout the flight… which is only two and half hour… 😀

If you have a big lawn, it will be cool if you build your own playground for the kids. Building playground is not that hard… you can even build one under the tree… swing… 😀

I’m sure kids in the 80s or earlier must have enjoyed swinging under the big tree… this simple playground is a real memory for these kids… just need a pair or long rope and a plank or an old tyre… and hang it under the tree with the ropes… that’s all needed for old timer playground.

Compared to that during the 90s where playgrounds are no longer in the woods or under the tree… but on the open field with metal playground structures. Housings are popping up everywhere… no more jungles or bushes or big trees… but more families… and more kids… so bigger playground and more games are needed for each housing area.

Structures for playground are easy to build… or can get them ready made… like those playground equipment at PlaytimeUS.com… but today, playground is getting empty… today’s kids are not interested with outdoor… they are not tough anymore… they stayed indoor and play computer games… well, that’s the price of modernization… 😛