Birthday Today

It's my birthday today. The year in review.


The bad:

I lost two of my grandmothers this year. My paternal grandmother passed away in April and my maternal grandmother passed away in August. I will miss them both dearly.

The good:

Doing PHP programming again.

My chess website is successful hosting news of 2 of the biggest chess events in Malaysia at here, here and here

Met top chess players like GM Utut Adianto, 16 year old GM Wang Hao, World Junior Champ GM Koneru Humpy etc

I spent the whole day with my wife at home. A luxury we rarely share nowadays with work and other commitment. We watched "Lost" episodes on DVD the whole day.

After that, a nice dinner together. It was perfect!!

You going PC Fair this weekend?

It's that time of the year again. PC Fair is here!!

This coming weekend (5^th to the 7^th August) Pikom is holding the largest IT flea market in the country. PC Fair is held 3 times annually.


The event used to be held at the Putra World Trade Center. However this time, Pikom’s PC Fair will be held at the all new Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre which is beside the Petronas Twin Towers

I went last year and it was a mess! It was so jam-packed I couldn't really see all the new stuff on display. Bought a cheap 256Mb thumb drive after comparing prices for hours.

The funny thing was, a week later, the same thumbdrive was sold RM5 cheaper at Low Yat Plaza.

Man, what a waste of my time. So I'm thinking twice about going this time. What about you ??

Radio Australia - News - Malaysian haze expected to worsen

According to : Radio Australia - News - Malaysian haze expected to worsen: "Last Updated 04/08/2005, 03:42:10

Malaysian officials says an acrid haze hanging over western Malaysia, including the capital Kuala Lumpur, could worsen in the next few days.

The haze has been blamed on the fires in the Indonesian provinces in Riau and northern Sumatra, as well as blazes in Indonesia's Kalimantan and Malaysia's eastern state of Sarawak.

States in central-western Malaysia, including Perak, Selangor, Malacca and Negri Sembilan were worst hit. "

Chess players in the movies

Chess players in the movies: "Chess shows up a lot in the movies, often for no other reason than to make the protagonist seem smart or sophisticated. It's frequently used in advertisements for the same reason.

But it's obvious - at least to chess players - that most ad designers don't play chess. The tip-off is in the way the board is set up. More often than not you'll see a dark square at each player's right, but that square is always light in chess. Check it out the next time you see a chessboard in an ad. "


So far the only chess related movie I've watched is The Luzhin Defence which is okay I guess but potrays chess grandmasters as truly eccentric people. I think that's not entirely true. They are human too.

Highest hits since Nov 7 2004

One of my website had a sudden surge of hits yesterday. It usually gets around 50-100 hits a day. But yesterday it hit 4000+. Unbelievable.

The website is a fan club on the strongest female chess player ever - Judit Polgar.

Just last week I 'improved' the website look by changing the theme to use one of the more popular Kubrick theme.

Here's how it looks :



Someone calling himself dumb web programmer accused me of stealing the theme from LiewCF.Com.




That's totally bull sh*t. I modified the theme from Xoops Kubrick offered free by someone. I know LiewCF also has a 3 column kubrick thingy but it's in WordPress a totally different type of software. I'm using XOOPS-a content management software (CMS) and not a blogging software for that website.

Anyway, I'm happy with the high one day traffic. Don't know it's because of the news that I posted (nothing special) or the new theme I used. (maybe a combination??)

Every second one blog

BBC NEWS | Technology | One blog created 'every second'

Can you believe that? Somewhere in the the world, someone is posting a blog. And it's done every second.

Ha ha... I can't even find time to blog once every week.

DIGI's does not support SMS roaming

Here's my experience using DIGI's mobile phone roaming service in Indonesia.
Get this. DIGI prepaid does not support SMS roaming!!
I felt isolated as I can't even message my loved ones in Malaysia while
my friends using 012 in Indonesia enjoyed the facility to SMS back to Malaysia.

I've been happy with DIGI so far as I have used it's GPRS services to
blog from my mobile phone as well as post pictures direct to my blog (from phone too!).

Anyway, lesson learnt. Next time I'll get a 012 prepaid (temporary) when I go over again.

Oh should add that I can receive SMS in Jakarta from Malaysia but I cannot send any SMS from Jakarta.

Best Steak in Indonesia

Indo-gandy
Originally uploaded by andrewooi.

Went to this place called Grandy where they served the best steak (according to Indonesian locas) in Indonesia.

They even had a musical troupe to entertain patrons on Saturday.

How does it taste? Well, mine was a little too well done but then again I didn't specify what I wanted. Served on a hot plate - I'd rate it 8 out of 10.

The whole meal was about Rupiah 70,000.
(around RM 28).

Well now I can tell people I've tasted the best steak in Indonesia.

Nasi Padang

Indo(23)
Originally uploaded by andrewooi.

Another Indonesian dish.

Dish name: Nasi Padang
Price : 9,000 Rupiah (RM 3.90)
Taste : Deeeelicious.

Remark :
Doesn't look as good as it tastes. Sorry because I'm using a camera phone.

As with all Indonesian dishes the curry beef rendang was extra spicy. (just the way I like it)

I'm still in Indonesia for a couple more days so will get some chances

Bakso

Bakso
Originally uploaded by andrewooi.

This is Indonesia "Mee Bakso" or meat balls mee.

About 11,000 Rupiah or around RM5. As for taste, it was good.

Tried this with some friends.

Chess in Indonesia

Rsc(17)
Originally uploaded by andrewooi.

Chess is so popular in Indonesia, I saw a group of people playing chess at a small booth in a car park.

First time overseas

This is my first time overseas (Singapore not counted).

I am in Jakarta and this is day 3. So far it looks like Malaysia but also pretty foreign at the same time. For example, I can't really see a racial difference in Jakarta as what I see back home. There is no Chinese, Indian and Malay culture. I just see ONE culture and it's Indonesian. The people here look alike too.

As for food, it's pretty cheap and it's pretty good. I've sampled some Sudanese spicy food (without incident).

A mother and world class chess master

Judit Polgar returned to the chess scene with a vengeance taking 4th place in the recent Corus tournament.

What's fantastic about this is that she has not been playing serious chess for a long time. Most male GMs would struggle to find form after a few months lay off from chess. Here is Judit performing as if she never left. And the ONE YEAR absence from professional chess meant did nothing to slow her down.

What's more is she did it with a new responsibility of becoming a new mother. Thus this is a fantastic feat - I received many emails from readers who are mothers telling me how difficult it is to balance a career as well as raising a child.

Among the unlucky GMs were GM Topalov and GM Peter Svidler who fell to Judit's agressive and uncompromising style of play. As her results were better than expected, her ELO will have a slight rise. This would also mean she will be reinstated as one of the world's top 10 chess player (after being inactive for one year).

Welcome back Judit...

Related Links:-

Judit Polgar Fan Club

Judit's Yahoo Group - Excellent analysis by Wayne Mendrik of her Corus games

Corus official site

Chessbase coverage of Corus

Bye-Bye PaintShop Pro, Hello Picasa

Just discovered this wonderful tool offered
by Google.

What's more it's free!! Being a webmaster for several hobbyist websites I usually use Jasc PaintShop Pro 7 to crop, brighten or sharpen my picture. Paintshop was perfect for quick
and dirty picture retouching.




However after using Picasa (3Mb download) I've becomed hooked.
It's just too good a tool not to use. It's 10 times smaller the PaintShop (30Mb)
and it's definitely of commercial quality.
Oh there's no nag screen to register, donate, upgrade or ad-supported
whatever.


It's 100% free.



What else can you ask for in a graphics utility ?
I don't know about you but Picasa has just become one of my essential webmaster tools.

Hungry Dog

Passed by this shop near Petaling Street on my way to my favourite corner shop and saw this dog patiently waiting in front of a chicken rice stall. Passed the dog and the shop and just couldn't resist going back and taking a picture of the dog.

Guess what? After I had my lunch, the dog was still there, though different position. That's what I call bull-dog determination! :)

Google didn't index my page

googlenoindex
Originally uploaded by andrewooi.

Well it's been over a month now and Google just doesn't want to index my page. I have other website (paid ones) that have similiar problems.

Some people I asked from forums told me that it's because they give priorities to older websites. Worse some say that Google is money minded and only concentrate on websites who pay them -- eg: using Adwords. I hope that's not true. I've sent my website URL again to Google. We'll see...

Petaling Street Hor Fun

Corner Shop Lum Hor Fun

That's my favourite food! What is it? It's just Hor Fun drenched in mouth watering sauce (donno made of what). Oh it's NOT HALAL to avoid misunderstandings with our Muslim readers.
The price is quite reasonable - RM3.50 (large)

Ingredients:

• Shredded Chicken
• Pork (not halal)
• Mushrooms

You can find it a a shop near Petaling Street.

Here's 2 pictures to guide you to exactly where you can find it.


It's sold by a nice lady and her husband there at the ground floor of "Hotel Lok Ann".


The shop (in Hotel Lok Ann) is just across Petaling Street main entrance (near the traffic lights).

Posting from mobile phone. I am posting this from my 2 year old Nokia 7650 using a DIGI prepaid.That means i can blog anywhere. Cool eh ?. This tool is offered by http://wap.ubique.ch/. Anybody else using this ?

Strongest Girl Chess Player in the world

She is the strongest female chess player in the world. She is ranked top 10 in the world!!!

That's overall World Ranking - not female chess player ranking!!

That means she can beat 99% of all men chess player's in Malaysia.

Why am I posting this? Well I'm a chess nut and have never lost (s0 far) to a woman chess player except those who are of international standard. See my previous post.

Well she has her own new fan club website with tons of pictures.

Guys, if you are thinking of going after her, give up. She's already married.

But there is another strong girl chess player who is still "available"

But I think she is over commercialised her website. Some call her the Anna Kournikova of Chess. :)

Thanks Java

Java - is just a programming language. I'm a programmer but Java was never my favourite programming language.

I hated it then when it first launched back in 1993 - I just couldn't see any real applications for Java besides running silly animation applets.

My favourite language was Pascal, later, it was
PHP - a web programming language. But never Java.

However, it was Java that paid for my living for almost 2
years.

I taught Java part time for six months. Then, taught it for another
2 years by giving Java tuition when I was jobless.

Later I tried applying for jobs involving Java but never
got hired because many employees don't trust programming
teachers. I think it's the adage "Those who can do - teach".

Later I applied and succressfully got my dream job doing web programming. Guess what?

The project I worked on was only short term so after it ended my boss threw me with a bunch of Java programmers and now I'm doing Java !!!