Best Weekly Prepaid in Malaysia

This is my personal experience so if you find a better or cheaper alternative please leave a comment.

So far it seems DiGi and Maxis Hotlink are outdoing each other in the prepaid Internet area.

Let's compare just the weekly prepaid plans. (1Gb overall + 1Gb daily bonus for a week - RM 10):

Personally it's pretty close both of them but DiGi edges Maxis Hotlink because although both offer same amount for their weekly internet (1 Gb) but it's their daily 1Gb bonus that is interesting. Hotlink lets you use the 1Gb bonus any time but limits it to only an hour a day and DiGi lets you use that bonus 1GB between 1pm-7pm. For that alone DiGi is most definitely more flexible.

KO'ed by Exabytes

No more GoDaddy for me!

Used to be my office

This place used to be my office!

SJCAM SJ7 from Lazada

Getting this as it is half the price of the best GoPros out there but it can match it in many areas.

Also, this camera consistently earns high praises from different online reviews. Here is one:-

Shah Alam 10th floor

Arundel Sunrise (almost)

128Gb USB thumbdrive @ RM 56 from Lazada

It looked too good to be true and I did have some friends from India raving about how cheap the USB drive they bought on the streets of Masjid India, KL. Something like 128Gb for less than RM 20!! As it turned out the USB drives were rubbish. Windows showed 128Gb space but it was not usable. That was very dishonest of the sellers and I had to show that to my friends right away after testing their too-good be-true purchase.

So when I saw this at Lazada RM 56 for an OTG drive that supports USB 2.0, Lightning interface for iOS and Android devices, it looked too good to be true.

Ordered it online and it arrived two days later.

To read from iOS, I had to download a custom app from the App Store. That worked adequately. I could read from my iPad and transfer files to the OTG thumbdrive.

So is it another fake?

Short answer no.

Initial test shows that 128Gb space is genuine. However performance wise it's quite slow.

Tried copying a DVD sized movie (3.77Gb) over to the OTG drive and the estimated time is 15 minutes. This feels like the old USB 1 speeds. But since I don't really use thumbdrives that often, it is not really an issue.

In conclusion, it's genuine. But I'm probably going to use it just to backup temporary files like my TV shows/movies and temporary transfer medium on my other device like projector or TV. It's okay. You get what you pay for. I needed at least one thumbdrive (I lost all my others) so this will do quite nicely. It's especially useful for clearing up and backing up my limited 16Gb iPad of pictures.

Using GDEX first time and a big disappointment

---

One of the main reasons why new services like ZeptoExpress comes to light and are created.

I remember listening to a radio interview how CEO and founder of ZeptoExpress was so disappointed with "fast" delivery courier services like GDEX that he started a whole new company just to address the shortcomings he saw from that niche industry. Now that ZeptoExpress and many other similiar services have taken off I see now that it was a sensible if not ingenious decision.

Sort of like the Taxis vs Uber. One of these days GDEX will go the way of the dinosaurs if they don't improve their service. (Yes I think they might still have a chance, albeit slim). Otherwise they will be replaced with newer, better and faster services.

Digi vs Maxis

For my daily work whether it's blogging or programming 3Gb per day is more that enough. It's even possible to do some video streatming as wel (although not heavy streaming..).

Compensated by DiGi

• It wasn't easy. Had to have a back and forth dialog with DiGi over messenger and overall it left a bad taste in my mouth. I did get back my precious RM 30 which was wrongly forfeited by DiGi. I did get a somewhat "sorry" from DiGi. 

What I am not satisfied is that I only got back my "refund" after making complaints in Facebook and on this blog. What about other people who don't do this ? Would they have been compensated too.

P/S: Just a note - any DiG custome i can make the Digi plan change themselves easily via their phone menus. You need not call DiGi call centres to do that. And since access to that feature is open and easy to get to, ample warning should have been given that any changes in plan meant their system will wipe away all your previous credits you have paid for other services. No warning was given and the assumption is the customer should have known better and they should have called DiGi support. And when your credits are reduced to zero, no message is given. It is just gone!

The dialog between me and DiGi via Facebook.

• Andrew Ooi Boon Seng
  

  
  

  
  

  http://andrewooi.blogspot.my/2016/06/digi-cheated-me.html

  
  

  

  Andrew Ooi -Malaysia Blog: DiGi cheated me

  andrewooi.blogspot.com
• 11 June
• 

  11/06/2016 20:50
  

  Digi
  

  
  

  
  

  Hi Andrew Ooi Boon Seng,

  May we confirm whether the plan change done on your own or by one of our staff?

  Warmest Regards JD
• 

  11/06/2016 20:57
  

  Andrew Ooi Boon Seng
  

  
  

  
  

  The plan change was done by me
• 

  11/06/2016 21:07
  

  Digi
  

  
  

  
  

  OK, may we confirm whether you have contacted us to inquire about the plan change before it was done or before you posted on our wall with claim of being cheated?
• 

  11/06/2016 21:23
  

  Andrew Ooi Boon Seng
  

  
  

  
  

  Why should I inquire about the plan change when I was the one who made the change? I wanted the change. What I didn't expect that my monthly Internet subscription was nullified wasting my RM 30. No warning was given.
• 

  11/06/2016 21:33
  

  Digi
  

  
  

  
  

  Please don't get us wrong. We just would like to get more clarification because we couldn't find any records of previous interactions with you in our system prior to the plan change. When you said cheated, we thought you might have been misinformed by one of our representatives about the plan change process :-(

  Since there has been no adjustments made for your account involving similar issues before, we can arrange for a one time refund for you, as a token of goodwill due to the confusion.

  However, we strongly recommend for you to contact us here or by calling to our helpline to get more info before making any changes to your line. We won't be able to guarantee any more refunds in the future for similar incidents. Please acknowledge before we proceed with the refund arrangement, TQ
• 

  11/06/2016 23:38
  

  Andrew Ooi Boon Seng
  

  
  

  
  

  When you say refund as a token of goodwill it implies that there is doubts in my claim but you may refund me all the same. That doesn’t sit well with me. The issue here is the change of plan involves forfeiting any subscription a customer already has which is very unfair and wrong if no warning is given. I am sure there are other customers who are in my situation. If it is a matter of that RM 30 refund, please keep it! I’d rather customers be informed of this clearly bad practice by DiGi. We don’t have to ask if our subscription will be wiped away before making a plan change because it is logical to assume that it will not happen. Since this is the case, then DiGi should be responsible enough to alert users that any change of plan will involve them losing money on previous subscriptions.
• 

  11/06/2016 23:58
  

  Digi
  

  
  

  
  

  Certain changes may affect other parts of your account due to system conflicts and/or limitations. Due to this, we strongly recommend for you to contact us prior to making any changes to your account, in order to avoid any unwanted surprises.

  Nevertheless, we value your feedback. It has been recorded officially so it can be included in our future service enhancement processes, TQ
• 

  12/06/2016 00:23
  

  Andrew Ooi Boon Seng
  

  
  

  
  

  Sorry to say your reply is very off putting and makes me even more dissatisfied. I only expect 2 simple things. A quick refund and a short apology for the mistake made. I'd be very satisfied with that. Instead what I get is "we can arrange for one time refund.." implying you can but not necessary you will refund ??? And then there is a reprimand that it may be the customers fault to check for system bugs where changes in plan involves loss of credit (which is clearly weaknesses DiGi should know about and we don't have to call to find out if there is any possibilities of that!). Come on DiGi. If this is "system limitations" or "system conflicts" it is clearly bugs in the system which is the responsibility of your systems engineers to root out. Blaming your customers for not finding it out earlier is something really rude.
• 12 June
• 

  12/06/2016 16:03
  

  Digi
  

  
  

  
  

  No, by conflict we don't mean bug. You are changing from an old plan with a different internet charging base, Pay As You Use (PAYU) to a new plan with a free basic internet access base. So, any change to the base will affect any add on packages/subscriptions you currently have, when the old base was removed.

  Yes, we do agree that a warning prompt might have helped in cases like these, so we have recorded your valuable feedback for our future service enhancement processes. As a precaution, we still recommend for you to contact us here prior to making any changes to your account.

  We have arranged a refund for your account as promised earlier. You can expect it to be credit into your account within the next 48 hours. Do let us know if it is still not credited within the time frame above so we can check the status of the arrangement for you ya.

  On behalf of Digi, we apologize for the confusion caused, TQ

DiGi is TOO MUCH. They cheated me!

DiGi was just 'TOO MUCH'. I changed my prepaid plan to Smart Prepaid and was grateful it was done FOC.

However, my RM 30 subscription for 2.25 Gb internet for the month was immediately cancelled. No refund too ! So that's RM 30 down the drain.. and it was the first day of subscription  too so I didn't even get to use the Internet subscription I paid for.

So seeing their above image banner on DiGi website makes me really mad!  "We don't pull the plug on you" says Digi. Right!! :(

Update: Posted this link to DiGi Facebook page and their response is to PM them the details. I have done that and awaiting any reply (if at all).

'Upgraded' to LTE DiGi SIM card

Just happen to pass by the DiGi shop in Teluk Intan after finishing some banking at RHB. I remembered reading my SIM card had to be upgraded first before I can get LTE speeds. DiGi is pretty slow in LTE technology. That's one of the reason I got another Maxis SIM card last year just to get LTE something I didn't want to as I wanted to stick to only one telco.

I remember reading that it can be done free of charge so I went in the shop to get the free SIM card.  However the  customer support  at DiGi told me there is a RM 10.60 charge for 'LTE activation'. Oh well, so much for free.

I got it and had to top my prepaid account by RM 20 since they can only top up in increments of RM10. Darn 60cents for GST  :(

Got the SIM card and DiGi told me to wait  10 minutes for activation before it can be used.

Actually it was only less than that as almost immediately my old SIM cannot be used. So I took it out and replaced it with the new SIM.

Tested the internet speeds and didn't notice much difference.

It was faster (about 20Mbps) in the centre of town. The above is the speed I got at home (no LTE just HSPA according to the 'H+' sign on the phone).

Shouldn't complain much as this is much better than the speeds I got last year and I have the satisfaction knowing both the SIM cards in my phone (DiGi and Maxis) are now LTE.

Digi prepaid RM 30 for internet

subscribed to this digi prepaid plan.. RM 30 - 2Gb -30 days ... so that's what 'unlimited' meant. Only found out after registering DiGi online and browsing to this page.

Posted by Andrew Ooi Boon Seng on Thursday, 7 April 2016

Programming on the go

Quite cool that the Android ecosystem have matured enough to support programming on the go on a mobile phone. Using bitweb server to run php and mysql from the phone.  A bluetooth keyboard makes very close to coding on an actual pc. Also code editing apps like Droidedit is surprisingly feature packed that it makes users of sublime / ultra edit / atom feel completely at home. Anyway  it's pretty cool to be able to code and developers on your phone.

When I see this ...

When I see this...

I think of this ...

ZeptoExpress.com is a promising Malaysian startup in the vein of Uber doing crowd sourced delivery.

Exabytes innovative workplace environment

The video of #Exabytes employees having innovative workplace ala Google that I shared previous was promptly removed from #Exabytes own page  !!...
Posted by Andrew Ooi Boon Seng on Thursday, 7 January 2016

Well I guess I should be honored that my actions were noticed and they had to remove the video from their own facebook page!! 

Exabytes want to build for us?

Saw this Facebook advert pop up so  often on my Facebook page I had to say this:

REALLY? No Coding? No Hassle?

After showing how unprofessional and incompetent Exabytes  handled my malware problems  on my shared hosting after 10 years of being a loyal customer ? I say "NO way! "

If they treat a customer of 10 year  this way, how will they treat new customers?

Never again with Exabytes!

related links:

• How Exabytes killed my website
• Exabytes only responded when their ad received some negative comments from me (marketing firefighting  to minimise damage)
• Exabytes finally responded but it's clearly a case of too little too late

Exabytes - bad local webhost!

The past couple of weeks I've been fired up against the webhost that killed of two of my main websites that has been running for 10 years or so. Why? I saw their Facebook ads talking about their great service etc and I couldn't stand it. All because of incompetence and they have grown so big they really don't care about the smaller customers that they built their business on.

Anyway, after weeks of pouring out my experience on social media and blogs I was curious to see if that had any impact on search engines with the key word "Exabytes"

3rd and 4th place is two of my blog post!

Granted it's only from Google plus but I am sure more organic links will popup after some time. Also my anger towards the bad service I got from Exabytes has not abated so you can safely expect more posts from my favourite local webhosting company - Exabytes.

No Wi-Fi

A little hard to live blog on the first round because of lac of Wi-Fi. My Maxis prepaid is running out of quota so this will be challenging.