TSL Designs.com Blog » Life and Rants

Went to a Club Yesterday

philin — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 05:41:49 +0000

I am currently in KL for business and yesterday, went to a club to attend to the tennis courts that we are installing at the moment. I was in the library and for about 3 hours, managed to read quite a lot of reading materials like The Star newspapers and Small Business in Malaysia magazine. I also came across interesting articles of the highest paid directors in Malaysia with Genting’s Director being paid the most at around RM87 million per year. That is certainly very exorbitant and I wonder how could the share holders allow the director to be paid so much at their expense for less profits. Dr Mahathir’s son Mukriz Mahathir earns quite a lot at RM2 million per year selling petroluem for his company Kencana Petroleum. Obviously they source the petrol from Petronas that is reserved for umnoputras like him. Both the Chinese and Indians lose out in getting part of the economic pie from Petronas because of the stupid policy that gives everything to the Malays.

Need to Renew my Passport

philin — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 00:05:57 +0000

My international passport expires in November this year. So I need to renew it soon before the expiry date. I have not decided when to renew it yet. Or I might just tag along with me second sister as she too needs to renew her international passport which expires in February. Since she works in Suchou, China, she has to renew it now while she is back home – 6 months before the expiry date. We both might go together to kill two birds in one stone and renew our passports together. I just realize how important it is to have our passports intact with us as it allows us to travel anytime any where. There are about 200,000 bankrupts in Malaysia and their passports are all impounded and they cannot travel overseas. So, they have to stay in Malaysia and work here – cannot enjoy travelling to other parts of the world.

Wasted Talent

philin — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 01:15:46 +0000

My mother’s church friend’s son who studies in UK and graduated with a Master’s degree could not pass any interview and has not been working since graduation. What a waste! He is about the same age as my youngest sister. I guess he is just not blessed to hold a job. Perhaps he has very high expectations and salary during the job interview that they could not afford him. Being the only son, his parents did not pressure him to take up lower paying job like working in Mac Donald’s. I guess he is lucky that his parents love him regardless of the situation and still support him when they are still alive.

Marathon Blogging

philin — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:02:55 +0000

Now I have to blog in a marathon mode before the offers are taken up by the minute in some of the programs. Being able to type fast and my training in IT before helps to a certain extent. I took typing lessons for free in Singapore and this has helped me a lot in my work. I can work more efficiently plus using the keyboard short cuts to reduce the time taken. I also have to think fast and on my feet so that what I type here makes sense and not nonsensical ramblings. Working by the computer has its blessings especially when you work at home – no more traffic jams, office politics or back biting by colleagues. And I am literally being my own boss working in my pajamas.

Not any quotation to anybody

philin — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 13:58:40 +0000

When I quote and calculate quotations, I have to stick by the rules and email what we have and not all the products to anybody. We have to be careful in our quotations so that we don’t get lawsuits for not being able to deliver as promised and have to be extra cautious when quoting to clients from USA where lawsuits are so commonplace! My boss has worked hard to build the company to what it is today and we cannot afford to have lawsuits at all that will close and bring down the company. We are happy to serve local market here in Malaysia and need to look for foreign market where we don’t know the import tax percentage and rules. Running a business needs God’s divine direction and protection from the devourer!

Bought a New Canon MP 258 Printer – a Lousy Model

philin — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 01:46:51 +0000

My previous Canon MP 145 Printer and Scanner served me very well and I am happy with all the functions. It was bought as a computer trade fair for RM188 with a few free gifts thrown in. The money was well invested then. However, after more than 1 year of usage, the rollers started to fail and cannot take in paper to print out. Since there is no Canon service centre in Penang, I have no choice but to buy another Canon printer. As they no longer carry the same model, I have to buy a supposedly upgraded one – Canon MP 258! Last night I tried it out and am not happy with the printer and scanner. First, my scanned page was truncated on the left partially by half an inch and it was lop sided. Imagine paying RM205 for this lousy model!! I have not tried other functions but am not happy with the features! Next time I might change to Hewlett Packard printer instead!

Unreliable Server Hosting at Emerge Malaysia

philin — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:14:28 +0000

I am quite fed up with hosting with Emerge in KL. My web site and blogs are down almost every day since before Chinese New Year – and they came out with lame excuses of iFrame attack on my blogs when there are no codes inserted but their lousy unreliable old servers about to die and go bonkus. And hosting with them is quite expensive, about RM330 per site for 1 year – more than the market rate. I will wait for the expiry of 1 year and migrate my hosting to Exabytes, based in Penang, my home town. Besides, Exabytes hosts big names like Kenny Sia and Hong Kiat with their own dedicated server costing about RM350 per month. That is the trust customers have on Exabytes and if Emerge don’t buck up, I might just transfer all my 3 web sites to Exabytes.

Affluent Malaysians

philin — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 08:10:29 +0000

From yesterday’s The Star newspaper report, about 30% of Malaysia’s affluent earn RM4,000 and above. Are you part of the 30%? With the economic doom and gloom and sub-prime crisis in USA with impending global recession, it heralds for austerity measures for the rich and poor alike. The rich will be affected in their potential earnings and drop of value in their shares or unit trusts while the poor will have to suffer by paying more for food and cost of living without any marginal increase in their income. Gone are the days where we can spend impromptu and without much thought. With so many banks in USA going bankrupt like Fanny Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, etc, we have to watch out for our hard-earned savings that are thankfully guaranteed 100% by the Malaysian government up to year 2010.

To Apply for TIN

philin — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 02:43:38 +0000

To receive payment from a USA company for writing articles, I need to apply for a Tax Identification Number (TIN) from the USA. I cannot apply for SSN or social security number as I am not a US resident. As a foreigner, I can only apply for TIN and I have emailed my US company yesterday to help me in the application but until today, I did not get any response email from them. Looks like I have to apply by myself alone and I am checking up the web sites and printed out the application form last night. I still don’t know who to approach to certify my identity card and driver’s license copies as true ones. I may have to look for a Notary Public to help me in this or worse come to worse, just sent the copies without being certified to the USA address for the TIN application. This is a hassle to get payment from the states.

Could not Publish my Post Earlier

philin — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:01:33 +0000

My 3 wordpress blogs from the same hosting company were down recently and since then, I could not publish a single post. This explains the lag of time taking several days. When my hosting company checked my sites, they were able to publish a test post in KL. So there was nothing wrong with my wordpress files. By the way, my olive green t-shirt by WordPress is coming soon. I have ordered via liewcf who graciously will pay for the postage fees to Penang including the postage cost to order the t-shirts from UK. This is my little support for WordPress. And only today, after emailing my hosting company again, am I able to publish my post as you can see here. Otherwise I was contemplating of switching to Blue Host in USA.

Today is Merdeka Day

philin — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 09:34:40 +0000

Today is the 51st anniversary of Merdeka. We have been independant for 51 years. We have seen progress in terms of more mosques being built and Malays getting richer by the day while the Chinese and other races are left out in taking a slice of the cake. Our own churches have to be self funded while the government spent public money including Chinese money to built big mosques for their own kind. We are governed by a racist government who promotes the well being of their own race calling themselves bumiputeras while marginalising other races as Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew mentioned. The Chinese are marginalized because they are hard working, diligent and richer. The only hope for our non-Malay kids is to send them overseas as there are hardly any place in the local universities for them. But then, not everyone has the financial means to send their kids overseas for studies. Even I had to take a bank loan to finance my tertiary studies in Singapore for 4 years. Not smart enough for a scholarship then