What The Toot!

WARNING: This post may induce uncontrollable urge to write angry emails and to “flame” me.
WARNING: This post may also be controversial. If you are uncomfortable, DO NOT continue reading.

I was reading the news again, when I came across this and this. While most people will feel love and warmth when they read the news, I on the other hand, think otherwise.

Triplets bring joy and hardship

The first report was dated 18th July. It brings to the attention a couple with five children, including a triplets, and talks about how hard life is going to be now that they have the new triplets.

To the aid of the triplets' parents

The second report is dated today, and it talks about the people feeling good about themselves donating to this couple, and how are different people trying to help them differently. Heck, another Chinese Daily has also reported that three Australians, Melbournians to be exact has decided to support the expenses of the triplets by wiring at least RM350 into the account of the father monthly. They will also encourage their friends and family to donate when they are back in Melbourne.

While I will not dwell with the issue of the age difference between the man and wife, which really is a non-issue here, I really have to comment on their financial planning. A family of four earning a combined household income of RM1500 really has NO BUSINESS reproducing. In fact, I am not even sure the monthly income will be enough to sustain the two older kids through primary, secondary and even tertiary education. We also have to consider that the father is of “retirement age”. How long can he keep up with the same income? How can he cope with rising living expenses?

Haven’t the family heard about proper financial planning, proper family planning, and contraception? They can have all the bodily pleasure they want, but considering their income, they really should not be trying for any more children. People will refute me by saying it’s their right to reproduce, and I will agree completely. However, it’s also their rights and responsibility to make sure they have the income to support any addition to the family.

And what’s with the amount of charity and donation the couple is receiving? What kind of message are we sending here - that if you are poor you can have all the kids you want and people will take care of them for you? If the parents have no means of raising the children, then they should let them go, and let them be adopted. How can one be sure that they will not spend all the donations and aids in one go? When should the aid stop? In fact, what if the aid stops coming suddenly - what next?

That said, I hope the government start thinking seriously about providing family planning session to the people, particularly towards families who are prone to reproduce excessively without considering their financial situation. One of the reasons of poverty is the lack of financial and family planning. Education is the answer to poverty - NOT aid.

Go to any advice page from website designer and the following two will be listed, in one way or another:

• Do not have any “Home” page that requires people to click to enter your website. The content is the most important part of a website, and having people click to enter your website is particularly unwelcoming, and serve no functional benefit.
• Do not have any flash content on your website, particularly not on your “Home” page (See above). Some unobtrusive and non-distracting flash content on the banner is mildly acceptable. A whole website made with Flash is not. Unless your company has anything to do with Flash, do not use it.

Sadly, it was once a norm to design website that incorporate the two aforementioned “features”. This is slowly changing, fortunately. However, since most of Malaysia’s governmental or organisation’s websites are designed before George Bush was president, they retain the same basic flaw.

After reading the news I mentioned, I went to Bank Rakyat website to have a look to see if they have anything to say about it. Sadly, I was greeted with this when I arrive at their website:

Yes, a page to select the language, not a page of content. First mistake. However, when I click on English, I was greeted with this:

A “Enter” page with Flash content that took an infinite amount of time to load on my 1.5Mbps broadband connection. Another non-content page. At this point, I decided that this is one of the worst website I have seen. After I click enter, this is presented:

That’s my browser at a resolution of 1024×768. I have no idea what the grey box is. At a “non-standard” resolution, like 1440×900 however, it looks like this:

Yea. Farking ugly - Fugly. I have previously wrote about stupid, ugly website, but Bank Rakyat Website takes the phrase “stupid website” to a whole new level.

Two weeks ago I decided to embark on an experiment - To ascertain if our newly elected state assemblyperson (yea, I am being politically and sexually correct), be they from the parties in power, or the opposition, are going to reply to a simple email. All email address are obtained from the Penang State Government ADUN Contacts site.
I sent the same email to all assemblyperson about the same issue. The email can be read here:

Dear Honorary Mr. State Assemblyman,

Firstly, I congratulate you in being elected as the state assemblyman in your constituency. I hope that in the next 4 - 5 years, you will be able to serve your constituency as well as the Penang state well. I also hope that emails like this to the state assemblymen are read and answered.

I would like to draw your attention to my blog post, under the same title as this email. I would like to know the general status and your opinion of the tender PKN/2008/T1. Is the tender now nullified, because the tender was made before DAP-PKR came into power? I would also like to know the outcome of the status: which company got the tender, at what price, and the specifications of the laptop.

While you have no obligation to reply, I would appreciate it very much if you do. The reply will be seen as a simple performance gauge. I think Penangites need to know about the tender, and I will humbly await your reply should you choose to look into it and choose to let me know. Thanks for your utmost attention among your busy schedule.

Regards,
(My Name)

I set the deadline for reply arbitarily at 2 weeks, primarily because I think it is sufficient to reply a single mail with even an automated reply with two weeks. At the end of week 1, I sent the following email as a friendly reminder:

Dear Honorary Mr. State Assemblymen/ Assemblywomen,

A week ago, I sent an email to you alerting you to the tender PKN/2008/T1. Specifically, it is about a tender for notebooks and printers for our state assemblymen, namely yourself. However, I notice that the price in the tender are a little high, which is why I am personally concerned with the specifications of the computers. Is the price justifiable, which company got the tender, at what price? These are the question that beg to be answered.

While I understand that your honorary is very busy with state matter, and I said you have no obligation to reply, I encouraged you to reply. A few assemblymen did reply. However, none have given a status to the tender.

Thus, this serve as a friendly reminder to you, honorary state assemblymen. If you do not plan to reply, please do give an indication or acknowledgement that you have read my email. I think such simple gesture is important to let other fellow Penangites know you are there, to make them feel appreciated.

I sincerely thank you in advance should you choose to reply or acknowledge me. Please do find out about the tender and let Penangites know. Thank you very much.

Sincerely,
(My Name)

I wish to see who would reply, and who would actually find out about the tender. Because the post is getting too long, I shall split the post into several parts.

But, let’s see Round One:

Penang has 40 state assemblyperson - 11 from UMNO (BN), 19 from DAP, 9 from PKR and 1 from PAS. Of these 40 representatives, 14 did not supply their email address in the website, another 3 either supplied the wrong email or their mailbox was full.

Of the 14 who did not supply their emails, 9 from BN, 1 from PAS, 2 from DAP, and 2 from PKR. The list is at the end of this post. N15 Padang Lalang - Honorary Mr. Tan Cheong Heng (DAP) supplied a wrong email address, N9 Bagan Dalam - Honorary Mr. Tanasekharan a/l Autherapady (DAP) mailbox was full and N36 Pantai jerejak - Honorary Mr. Sim Tze Tzin (PKR) email address wasn’t even registered, according to Gmail.

So, there you have it. In this modern world, if those representatives do not even have email addresses that you can contact them, what more can you expect of them? Email is one of the fastest, cheapest and most efficient way of communication, and if the representatives do not embrace it, how are they going to serve their constituents, particularly the younger generation adept with digital technology well? It’s their responsibility to check if the website has their emails listed, and supply the state with them if they are not listed. So, we have 17 not-so-responsible representatives. What can we expect from Penang?

Penang State Assemblyperson who did not have their email listed on Penang State Government Website:

1. N1 Penaga - Honorary Dato’ Haji Azhar Bin Ibrahim (BN)
2. N2 Bertam - Honorary Hajah Zabariah Binti Wahab (BN)
3. N3 Pinang Tunggal - Honorary Dato’ Haji Roslan Bin Saidin (BN)
4. N4 Permatang Berangan - Honorary Mr. Haji Shabudin Bin Yahaya (BN)
5. N5 Sungai Dua - Honorary Dato’ Haji Jasmin Bin Mohamed (BN)
6. N6 Telok Air Tawar - Honorary Dato’ Hajah Jahara Binti Hamid (BN)
7. N11 Pematang Pasir - Honorary Mr. Mohd. Hamdan Bin Abd. Rahman (PAS)
8. N17 Bukit Tengah - Honorary Mr. Ong Chin Wen (PKR)
9. N30 Sungai Pinang - Honorary Mr. Koid Teng Guan (DAP)
10. N32 Seri Delima - Honorary Mr. Sanisvara Nethaji Rayer a/l Rajaji (DAP)
11. N35 Batu Uban - Honorary Mr. Raveentharan a/l V.Subramaniam (PKR)
12. N38 Bayan Lepas - Honorary Mr. Syed Amerruddin Bin Dato’ Syed Ahmad (BN)
13. N39 Pulau Betong - Honorary Mr. Haji Muhamad Farid Bin Saad (BN)
    
14. N40 Telok Bahang - Honorary Dato’ Seri Haji Hilmi Bin Haji Yahaya (BN)

SIRIM, or the Standards and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia is the “corporate organisation owned wholly by the Malaysian Government, under the Minister of Finance Incorporated. It has been entrusted by the Malaysian Government to be the national organisation for standards and quality, and as a promoter of technological excellence in the Malaysian industry.”

Moreover, according to Wikipedia, it is:

• the national organization of standardization and quality
• the prime mover in industrial research and development
• a catalyst in bringing about national economic dynamism through excellence in technology and international acceptance of Malaysian products and services

Malaysians would be familiar with products stamped with the SIRIM logo, as an assurance of quality:

Imagine my surprised when I see their website on 20 May 2008:
(Click for larger image)

Well, yea. The national organisation of standardization and quality website is hacked. What does that tell you about SIRIM certified product? What does that tell you about Malaysian quality?

Today, I decided to see what has happened to the website. Here’s what I see using Firefox:

Yup. Nothing improved. It’s even worse. In addition to being defaced, it is now added with malicious malware, as blogged by The Danesh Project. It’s so bad even Google is stopping you from visiting the website. Search SIRIM on Google and click on the first link.

So there you have it. If the National Organisation for Standardisation website can be hacked so easily, I shudder to think of the quality of everything in Malaysia.

There are some websites out there that offers Live Chat, whereby you can speak to a someone and ask for help or assistance on the website or on the product. Of the few websites that offer this service I know of, eBay is probably the most well known.

Some websites only offer Live Chat on office hours, probably suggesting a more localised, averagely-paid support guy, or some extremely efficient receptionist attending the Live Chat. What intrigued me, was how some companies are able to offer this 24/7, no matter where you are. This services are great, albeit a little slow.

I have always suspected one word: Outsourcing. Specifically, another word: India. India is like the IT support outsourcing heaven. It used to be just in India, but now they are out conquering the world, spreading the Indian-being-IT-guy culture to every nooks and cranny of the world. Call your local IT-related hotline to confirm.
My doubt has always been suppressed by the fact that these support guys and girls have inherently English names, like Monica, like Peter, like Todd. Yes I know they could lie, but c’mon, Todd man. It’s so damn tooting English, so English I wouldn’t think twice if he told me he was from England.

However, my suspicion was confirmed when I was having problems connecting to my website. I went to my webhost’s website and click on the link for Live Chat, and in 2 minutes I was speaking to someone live. Sure enough, he has a ultra English name - Jerold King. I told him my problem and I guess he must have went to my website to have a look.

Instantly, my website statistics recorded the hit. Guess where the hit is coming from?

Yup. India.

Shortly after the image above was recorded, “Jerold King” said that he had tried to access my website several times using several browsers. That LIAR!. My super cool damn accurate webstat said he visited once, using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows 2000. Another webstat revealed more detailed information, even noting that he is from Software Technology Parks of India.

Lesson learned:

• Most 24/7 Live Chat people are from India
• They lie about their names
• They even lie about what they did to help you

Did I mentioned he needed at least 8 minutes to check my website once?

Don’t ever trust them.