HTNet - A Notepad of Tech, Business, Science and Self Improvement

Photo Credit: 水泳男

I’ll be honest and say it very early on; I don’t consider myself a fan of the late Yasmin Ahmad’s films. What I do admire her for is her work in the advertising sector.

Yasmin has the knack of delivering strong messages in very short time periods. In TV advertising, what you can deliver in a few seconds decides whether your campaign is a flop or success.

In this context, I cannot find any other Malaysian director who delivers this as consistently as Yasmin.

With this, I share with you some of her amazing work. Al-Fatihah, Yasmin… you will be missed.

Read the rest of Remembering Yasmin Ahmad, A True Malaysian Talent »

Photo Credit: pmorgan

Lingua-nazis in Malaysia are having a field day. The government has decided to abolish the Teaching of Mathematics and Science in English (more popularly known in Malaysia by its Malay acronym PPSMI) in 2012; after six years of poor planning and implementation.

In that six years, PPSMI has endured endless assaults by neophobic politicians and so-called academics and sociologists.

Yesterday, the got the best news of their lives; PPSMI will be phased out.

The terrorists have won.

Read the rest of A Dark Day for Malaysia’s Education System »

For the recent Chinese New Year holidays, I took a trip to KL (as usual whenever there’s a long break). Spent some time at KL Butterfly Park and took night trips to Putrajaya and KLCC.

Why am I mentioning this? Of course there’s an ulterior motive; I want to share some of the photos I took

Read the rest of Pictures From My Last KL Trip »

Photo Credit: Leia

For the past 11 days, I’ve been bombarded by accusations that my company’s server is slow. As much as I explained that the server performance is on par with service standards of developed countries (in fact, we’re doing much better than most), the truth of the matter is, regardless of where your server is located; you will always be subjected to your ISP’s failures and incompetencies.

For any problem (especially Internet connectivity related ones), one must find the source of the bottleneck. In our case, it has been Streamyx’s “service interruption” that has been going on since 20 December 2008.

Nevermind that the server has been performing admirably since that period for the rest of the world. The painful truth is that my customer base is almost entirely located in Malaysia. Even more painful is the fact that almost all of them are Streamyx customers; that monolithic, incompetent, self-absorbed, competophobic, poor excuse of an ISP.

Read the rest of Poor Internet Sevice Is Destroying Malaysia’s Image As A Tech Hub »

Photo Credit: Olivander

Outgoing Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi mentioned that Malaysia’s race relations are at an unhealthy level and that he will spend his remaining time in the administration to cool these tensions.

I’m aware that being both a multi-cultured and united society is very challenging indeed. At the same time, I can’t help but think that this issue has been blown out of proportion lately.

Seriously, I’m sure that a huge majority of Malaysians have already accepted the fact that we’re a nation of multiple ethnicities and religious backgrounds. Heck, we’ve been this way even before independence. Yet, I’m very sure we recognized that nationhood is not an issue of the individual; but rather, what we can become as a community.

The way I see it, the only people who are making this issue a big deal are the politicians. Both the ruling coalition and the opposition look to me hell bent on making this issue larger than life.

Read the rest of Does Malaysia Have Race Relations Problems? »