Our Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is an instant hit on Facebook. I’ve just checked his Facebook - it showed that he had joined the network in the middle of October and to date (November 23 2009) has had 30,000 supporters!

Najib joined Facebook, which enjoys increasing popularity in Malaysia — as another channel to reach out to the people. The Prime Minister’s Facebook page can be viewed at www.facebook.com/najibrazak.  

“As is the case with this blog and my Twitter page, I will be using Facebook to communicate my thoughts and activities to you. In addition to posting status updates, I will be sharing links, Flickr photos, video from YouTube and information on my personal interests such as my favourite dish and pastimes,” he said in his latest posting in his blog.

Najib also urged the people to visit his Facebook and to share their thoughts on how to make the page better.

“Please do visit my Facebook page when you have a moment, and let me have your thoughts on how I can make it better. I look forward to receiving your feedback, and to seeing you there as a fan!” he added.

The prime minister said that encouraged by the amount of followers on his Twitter, he would continuously update his thoughts and whereabout via Twitter.

His postings which mainly related to current issues in the country also invited tremendous comments from viewers. On the information section of Facebook, Najib also put up his personal information and interests including favourite songs and music, movies and favourite quotes.

“My life is very hectic, but I love it. In my spare time I focus on Sunday family lunches, watching TV with my kids and going on holidays”.

He also listed out his late father and second prime minister of Malaysia Allahyarham Tun Abdul Razak as having the greatest influence on him.

“But I admire Sir Winston Churchill’s oratory skills and never-say-die attitude, Nelson Mandela for the sacrifices he made and for never flinching in the face of adversity and JFK,” he added.

The latest report by comScore Inc.on web usage in Malaysia has been released. The report revealed the most visited Internet websites in general, and top visited local-based websites, based on the comScore World Metrix service.

While the usual suspects like Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Facebook and Wikipedia lead the overall websites, the local list is more diverse.

In June 2009, 9.3 million people in Malaysia age 15 and older accessed the Internet from home and work locations, with each consuming an average of 1,066 pages of content and spending nearly 14 hours online during the month.

Local Sites

In terms of local sites, while banking website maybank2U.com led the way with more than 1 million visitors, reaching nearly 12 percent of all Malaysians online, online classifieds website mudah.my came a close second in the local list, ranking 15th overall in the general list.

mudah.my received slightly more than 1 million visitors who averaged 46 minutes on the site during the month, making it the most engaging site of the top 10 Malaysian websites. mudah.my has over 13,000 listings in its houses category, almost 7,000 listings in its jobs cateogory, and 295,487 ads overall.

News sites were also prevalent in the rankings with several properties, including: utusan.com.my, bharian.com.my, and malaysiakini.com, all receiving a substantial number of visitors.

Below is the latest ranking of Top Local Sites in Malaysia:

With such recent tremendous growth, I will not be surprised if mudah.my is acquired by eBay in the near future :).

Since several weeks ago, new search engines like Bing and WolframAlpha have emerged to compete with the ever-so-popular Google. Let’s look at the latest development in the battle of search engines:

BING www.bing.com

Microsoft’s first foray into search engines started in 1998 with MSN Search. After much research, Windows Live Search was released in 2006 to replace MSN Search. A year later, Windows Live Search was reorganised to form Live Search. Finally on June 3, 2009, Bing was launched. Microsoft’s fourth reincarnation of its search engine hopes to put the software giant in a better position to tap the lucrative search advertising industry.

Touted to provide users with product price comparisons, travel planning, restaurant reviews, health information and business locations, the main search page now sports a more simplistic and personal design that reflects Google’s own.

What makes Bing stand out from the rest is its ability to compile all the requested information and represent it visually to make it easier for the user to process. This is where Bing has an advantage over the other search engines as retrieving and summarising the information has yet to be broadly provided until now.

Like Google, Bing also provides search suggestions within the main search box as you type. Bing also has an image search function which is essentially the same as Google’s.

However, as of writing, Bing is still under beta testing and many of its features are still not available on the Malaysian site. Two of the features which work and are of interest are the video search and xRank.

• The xRank allows you to search for celebrities, musicians, politicians and bloggers based on a popularity ranking. Clicking on a name will bring you to a page which contains the biography, videos, images and other related media. Think of it as a Facebook for the rich and famous.
• The video search allows you to search for videos and provides you with an interactive thumbnail that plays a short clip of the video when you move your mouse cursor over it. The video search is at the moment hidden and can only be accessed through the xRank search.

The US Bing video search has received much criticism lately as it allows for the search of adult content by switching off the safety search option. Concerned parents should know that our local children can easily find the link that directs users to the full-fledged US Bing site easily.

Nonetheless, Microsoft intends to get it right this time with Bing after past failures. The Redmond-based company has invested US$100mil (RM350mil) into marketing campaigns that span all forms of media to promote the use of Bing among Internet users.

WOLFRAMALPHA www.wolframalpha.com

Publically released on May 15, 2009, WolframAlpha is the brainchild of Stephen Wolfram and his start-up, Wolfram Research. The 49-year-old British physicist and mathematician received his PhD at the age of 20 and even had the co-founder of Google, Sergey Brin, intern for him during the summer of 1993.

Unlike search engines where they provide you with a plethora of sites to find the answer, Wolfram gives you the answer, provided you ask the right questions.

WolframAlpha is best described as an “answer engine” rather than a traditional search engine. It shines best when dealing with numerical and factual searches.

• For example, key in “Kuala Lumpur” into the search box and you will be provided with the population count, current time, map, elevation, nearby larger cities and the weather.
• Not impressive enough? Type in “birthday” followed by your date of birth and you will be greeted with the exact day you were born, the days left to your next and previous birthday and your exact age in years, months and days.
• Still not impressed? Key in “kuala lumpur to ipoh”. WolframAlpha will then compute the distance between the two locations, the time taken to travel, their current local times, and other comparable data.

Think of WolframAlpha as the uber calculator of sorts. Or to you Trekkers, the USS Enterprise ship computer. As long as there is a question which is computable and is able to be presented statistically, in numbers and graphs, WolframAlpha can do it.

The only drawback would be the steep learning curve on how to use WolframAlpha accurately and efficiently to provide more meaningful information. Thankfully, a tutorial page teaches you how to use WolframAlpha to its fullest potential and it has many categories from Health & Medicine to Money & Finance.

WolframAlpha is certainly no “Google killer”. It is intended to fill a niche in the search engine industry. Stephen himself is unsure of the future of WolframAlpha at this point.

Revenues could come from selling databases which Wolfram generates. Or it could even be incorporated in another search engine’s coding. Whatever it turns out to be, this answer engine paves the way for Internet users to find answers without having to swim through a sea of websites.

Fun things to try with WolframAlpha:

• What is your name?
• Where are you?
• Who am I?
• What are you?
• Why did the chicken cross the road?

COMPARISONS

Googling “proton” produces the expected results. Note the four sponsored links on the right hand side, one of the main sources of revenue for Google.

Bing-ing proton also provides similar results, with the exception that there are more local sites compared with Google. On the left you can see that Bing also provides you with recommendations for related searches. Moving your mouse cursor over a link will pop up a window on the right, displaying the first few paragraphs of text that Bing retrieves from the site.

As of the moment, there is only one sponsored link and it is situated on the top. Only time (and perhaps good marketing) will tell if Bing’s ad revenue will pick up.

Wolfram-ing proton leads to detailed information regarding the particle proton.

You could search it as a word instead and it would direct you to the definition of the word proton and its origins. Occasionally, one or two sponsored links will appear on the right hand side.

What is interesting is that Wolfram also has a “Search the Web” and “Related Links” box which provides you with a link to search other search engines using your input.

GOOGLE’S REPONSE

While it’s too early to say if either Bing or Wolfram will break any ground, Google isn’t the type to rest on its laurels. It introduced Google Docs to the world, providing everyone with a taste of what cloud computing had to offer in the form of a free web-based office suite.

Then came Google Chrome, their minimalist but speedy web browser that is gaining momentum due to its fresh approach to user interface and also the only web browser to have multi-threaded capabilities. A multi-threaded browser allows one tab or browser window which is locked (hanging) to be terminated while still maintaining other tabs open which may contain an important e-mail in the works.

Finally coming soon is Google Wave, their next “killer-app” that intends to revolutionise e-mail and online communication. In a nutshell Google Wave will integrate online communications and social networking seamlessly into one single multimedia web based application accessible from anywhere.

CONCLUSION

The Internet still remains a very powerful and grossly underutilised tool for the pursuit of knowledge and self development. Internet users should welcome and support any new players into the market that can provide pioneering methods for us to better surf for information.

More search engines only mean more competition among the players to better their products for the end-users and perhaps carry the long established methods of information gathering and learning to a new height.

Social networking websites like Friendster, Myspace, Tagged, etc, and especially Facebook, have significant implications for business owners, marketers, and entrepreneurs. To keep your business current, you should at least be familiar with the latest conversational marketing techniques and viral technologies, including Facebook and its powerful features.

10 reasons to use Facebook for Business:

1.    Meet friends. Now Facebook is not just for school kids. Members are typically older and more mature than on other sites, and there are more professional users.

Let’s take a look at some of most popular websites and the proper methods for selling things via the Internet in Malaysia.

AUCTIONS

Auctions are a great way to sell things as you sometimes get more than you expect.

• eBay

The most recognisable website for online buying and selling is, of course, eBay. The online auction site has been available in Malaysia since 2004 and has been gaining in popularity over the years.

Registration is free and eBay Malaysia does not charge insertion fees or final value fees. However, the site will charge you if you want to add an extra picture or subtitles for the item you are selling.

• Tip!: It is important to have multiple views of any item, particularly for expensive products where it is best to have high-resolution pictures from different angles to increase the chances of finding an interested buyer.

eBay owns PayPal and it is one of the more popular ways to pay. PayPal allows the buyer to transfer money from his credit card or bank account (note: In Malaysia only credit cards are allowed) to a PayPal account and then send payment to the seller’s PayPal account without exchanging sensitive financial information.

In Malaysia, however, once the money has been transferred to the sellers PayPal account, the money cannot be withdrawn from a bank and can only be credited into your credit card account.

Other payment methods include bank transfers and cash on delivery.

Advanced users hoping to start a side business online may want to consider signing up for an eBay store.This allows users who meet the requirements to create their own customisable eBay page and even gives them the option of selling fixed price items. Setting up a store will incur an extra monthly fee and only users with a fixed number of ratings and verifications will be eligible to rent one.

• Lelong.com.my

Another auction site that is popular amongst the local audience is Lelong.com.my. The site is fashioned much like eBay and even has a similar user rating system.

Established locally, it is a lot more Malaysia-centric as there are options to pay specifically via Maybank2u and shows which state in Malaysia the item is in.

Lelong is also pushing its virtual stores to people who meet its rating requirements. You pay a small yearly sum for your own page and store logo as well as an inventory mechanism provided by the site. Again, this is for advanced users looking to take online selling to the next level.

Lelong also does not charge fees on items sold on its site. You are only charged if you wish to add more than one picture.

• Tip!: The best way to get around paying too much for extra pictures on eBay and Lelong is to take several photos and merge them into one picture as effectively as possible.

FIXED PRICES

There are websites which allow you to sell things at a fixed price to any interested party. The difference here is that you have the prerogative to sell to whomever you please, not necessarily to the highest bidder who may not have hiked the price to a satisfactory level.

• Lowyat.net

Arguably the most popular fixed price website is Lowyat.net. This website deals primarily with electronics such as computers and computer parts, MP3 players, speakers, and essentially anything that requires some form of electric energy to operate.

The site is free to sign up and it is probably the most straight to the point for selling stuff. It is forum based so you can ask questions immediately and a private messaging system for more detailed inquiries.

The site offers trade at no cost at all as there are no charges for extra pictures, (although the quantity is limited) or a final value fee. Reputation as well as amount of items sold will be taken into account in assessing a user’s reliability.

• mySimplifieds.com

A relative newcomer to the realm of online trade is Digi Telecommunication’s mySimplifieds.com.

Launched in February, it hopes to offer Malaysians yet another venue to buy and sell their items. Advertised as a classifieds website, this site allows users to advertise a wide range of products and even extends to property. Many houses, apartments and rooms are up for sale or rent on Digi’s site within months of its launch.

Currently, registration and usage is completely free and it remains to be seen whether that is subject to change. The site offers some interesting services such as a built-in Facebook feature designed to notify your friends about your posting. Also, links to YouTube will be allowed for further product or property demonstration via video.

The competition on the grown is now getting tougher especially for SME. And now it is more crucial than ever for SME to have their online presence. While developing website for SME, we’d discover many SME website that seem to have missed a few fundamentals of good website for SME. So before you dive into online branding and join the social web, make sure you’ve covered the basics:

1. ROLL UP YOUR SLEEVES
   If you own a small business and are planning to launch a website,  you want to be able to make minor updates on your own. If you are using a web designer, this is something he or she will need to take into account. The aim is for you to be able to make simple changes: add a new staff member to your “team” page, change prices, or fine-tune a product description. Same thing applies if you already have a website: find someone to show you which software to use, and how to make textual changes. HTML isn’t scary, and anyone can learn the basics in a few hours.
2. KEEP YOUR SITE UP-TO-DATE & SWEAT THE DETAILS
   This follows from the above: if you need to involve (and pay) someone every time you want to make a change to your site, you’ll waste time and money, and might even avoid updates just to save money. Which means your website will soon look out-of-date. If customers can spot that you haven’t updated your site in months or even years, you’re hurting your brand. If it’s 2009 and the copyright line on your website still reads © 2008, that’s as much a sign of neglect as dusty shelves in a grocery store.
3. AVOID THE FLASH TRAP
   Yes, a Flash-based site can look stunning. But if your visitors just want to find out if your salon is open on Sunday, a glitzy intro is an annoying waste of time. If you’re convinced that animated graphics are the best way to show off your product, make it optional: let your visitors decide if and when they want the full tour.
4. TEXT NEEDS TO BE SEARCHABLE
   This is something we still see too often: text in jpegs and gifs. The bulk of text on your website needs to be in text format. If you can highlight the text with your mouse, you’re fine. If not, it’s likely that the text is inside an image, where it’s generally hidden from search engines. And if you’re looking to get traffic to your website, you don’t want to play hide-and-seek with Google.
5. DON’T MAKE THEM GUESS
   Be crystal clear about what you do and what you offer. What are you selling? What does your product do? This is information that needs to be visible on your homepage, and a first-time visitor needs to be able to ‘get it’ as quickly as possible. Use short sentences and illustrative images to get the point across. And make sure that important details are easy for customers and potential customers to find, with as few clicks as possible: how to contact you, where they can find you, when you’re open, etc.

Done? Then it’s time to start marketing your website!.

Internet marketing is a very broad subject. If you understand how broad offline marketing and sales is, it is the same for online or internet marketing. Therefore, in order for your online marketing campaign to be successful, there must be a group of marketers that truly focus on doing it. It is complex and the methods are variety. Fortunately there are few distinguished techniques for you to start. While the others, they can be implemented later accordingly.

1) WEBSITE - Why having a properly designed website is very important to optimize your online marketing?

The purpose of marketing is to create leads.  Once you have leads, then it is up to the sales team to close the deal. Among the leads, there are people whom you can close them right on the spot. For others, there must be some leads nurturing effort before they are convinced to engage on your products or services.

The campaign that you make to get people to visit your website is called marketing. It can be via both ways; online and offline or just one at a time. Once the visitors are at the home page, your website is taking the role of a salesman. Therefore, it is not wrong to say that your products’ website is your online sales men. That factor alone is a very good reason for you to invest for a well designed website.

Now, you’ve understood the function of your website. Let’s get to understand in brief about what are the visitors’ expectations and behaviours about any website:

• People come to web sites to satisfy goals, to do tasks, to get answers to questions.
• They come for information, for the content that they think (or hope) is there
• Answers a question or helps them complete a task
• Information is easy to find and easy to understand
• They expect the content to be accurate, up to date, and credible
• They don’t read much, especially before they get to the page that has the information they want.
• Even on information pages, they skim and scan before they start to read.
• They want to read only enough to meet their needs.

Let’s discuss about the vital points to consider….opps! I’m sorry. I have to catch an appointment now. We’ll continue later, ok?

With the revoutionary Google Earth software, everyone can now see the entire earth as if he’s looking down from a satellite, all through a computer screen. Below are 5 interesting images that people have captured using Google Earth.

1. Firefox Logo. This Firefox crop circle sprouted up in a corn field in Oregon, but its origins are no mystery. In 2006, the Oregon State University Linux Users group created the giant logo — spanning more than 45,000 square feet — to celebrate the Web browser’s 50 millionth download.

2. Cruise Missile. Google Earth has plenty of examples of planes, helicopters, even hot air balloons, caught in flight, but this cruise missile, thought to be fired during military training exercises in the Utah USA mountains, might be the most unlikely capture yet. If it is, in fact, a cruise missile. Many dispute the image and say it’s merely an airplane. You be the judge, but if you look closely, the “missile” appears to have wings.  

3. Blood River. This blood-red lake outside of Iraq’s Sadr City garnered a fair share of macabre speculation when it was discovered in 2007. One tipster told that he was “told by a friend” that slaughterhouses in Iraq sometimes dump blood in canals. No one has offered an official explanation, but it’s more likely the color comes from sewage, pollution or a water treatment process.

4. Music Guy. It looks disconcertingly like a face from above, but this formation in Alberta, Canada is entirely natural. Dubbed the Badlands Guardian, the “face” is actually a valley eroded into the clay. Some say the man looks like he’s wearing earphones; that’s merely a road and an oil well. Even the Badlands Guardian, it seems, isn’t immune to exploratory drilling.

5. Nazi Swastika. When builders of the Coronado Naval Amphibious Base in San Diego planned this complex in 1967, satellite imagery was probably the furthest thing from their minds. But in 2007 Google Earth sleuths found that four unconnected buildings on the base formed an unfortunate shape when viewed from above: a swastika. The Navy says it’s spending more than $600,000 to mask the shape. “We don’t want to be associated with something as symbolic and hateful as a swastika,” a spokesman said.

Just today, Maxis has finally announced that it will offer iPhone 3G 8GB and 16GB from 20 March onwards. Looking at the plan, you can even get the iPhone 8GB for FREE!

So what is the buzz with iPhone 3G? iPhone 3G actually combines three products in one – a revolutionary phone, widescreen iPod and breakthrough internet device. With fast 3G networking, GPS mapping and support for enterprise features, iPhone 3G puts even more features at your fingertips.

One of the best things about iPhone is that you get access to the groundbreaking App Store, which provides access to tens of thousands of applications like games, social networking, financial planning, health management, etc. It has generated more than 500 million downloads to date.

I know many of my friends have been eagerly anticipating this revolutionary phone. Some of them have even bought their iPhones from the US, European or Singaporean markets.

Maxis will offer the 8GB and 16GB iPhone 3G models with 4 new postpaid plans called iValue, starting from RM100 per month. For customers who sign up for iValue 4 plan, the iPhone 3G 8GB will be free of charge. I think these bundled voice and data plans are the first of their kind in Malaysia. Below are the new service plans.

 Looking at the prices above, the iPhones are much cheaper than the ones you get from outside of Malaysia. Most of my friends bought their iPhone 3G for around RM2000. But these Maxis plans monthly charges are on definitely the high side - the cheapest is RM100/month. Plus, you’ll be bounded by 24-months contract too.

Anyway, it’s about time iPhone is finally sold in Malaysia especially with all the iPhone fans we have here. Actually, iPhone 3G is now already available in over 70 countries around the world. I am still puzzled as to why it took so long for iPhone to be offered in Malaysia.

You can learn more, or book an iPhone 3G at www.maxis.com.my/iPhone. The launch will be held at 7pm on March 20 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, where customers can collect their pre-booked iPhones. Walk-in customers may also book iPhones there.

There are small companies that have grown up to 5 branches but they are still using cardboards and sheets of papers for every document involved in their daily operation. Most of the time, the reason they are lagged behind is because they don’t keep themselves updated with the latest technology trends. Below are 10 reasons to justify why you should go paperless instead of having stacks of hard copies bundled in your office: 

• It takes less space to store documents in electronic format.
• Using technologies such as OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and content indexing it is possible to retrieve electronic content instantaneously. Once cataloged it is not possible to misfile or misplace the document.
• Paperless content can be shared with many people at the same time. There is no need to request that the current holder make a Xerox copy or wait until he is finished from it.
• When a document is in digital form, the owner can control who can access it. It is possible to restrict what can be done and for how long. For example, it is possible to build in mechanisms that allow a document to be readable up to a certain date. After the date the document can no longer be opened. Likewise a system can be implanted so that a document can be read, but not printed or emailed.
• With a paper document it is not possible to scribble annotations on a document without altering it permanently. In the paperless world, it is possible to layer on annotations while leaving the original intact. Annotations may be typewritten, voice notes and pictures and the person who made the comment as well as the time can be audited.
• Paperless content is admissible in court and can be used as evidence. It is possible to have documents signed electronically making paper completely unnecessary.
• Backups will ensure that there are multiple copies of the data. This safeguards against disasters as well as willful or accidental damage.
• The span of electronically stored documents is not restricted to paper. Voice, pictures and anything that can be digitized is a candidate for electronic storage.
• Going paperless helps the environment because it is no longer necessary to print documents to paper; one can print to the paperless office program directly.
• The return on investment is terms of increased efficiency and reduced costs surpass is positive.

Planning to go paperless already? :D 

Let’s get a very short and firm conclusion on the differences between a beautiful website and a sales website.

• Beautiful Website

A beautiful website is a website that triggers the “WOW!”  gesture from your most first time visitors. There’s less needs of bragging out values that you offer or displaying your featured clients. Simple words should be enough.

Even if there are good copies, visitors will tend to be more ‘hypnotized’ by the design. The design tells it all. You’ll have numerous leads asking for your service. All you need to do is to market your website. Most of the time, these kind of websites are suitable for web design firms.

• Sales Website

A sales website is not necessarily beautifully design. It’s more about the content. Yes, it’s CONTENT! CONTENT! CONTENT! I’m not going to say much about this. Showing you practical examples would be the best.

If you go to www.cworks.com.my I am totally convinced that most of you will agree with me that there’s not much of great artistic values on the whole website. But guess what? They are a multimillionaire company that recently expended their business in Middle East! The odd is, their website is their MAIN marketing channel. Their website has all the vital information needed to convert visitors to be their sales leads.

Now, lets get a look of a website that has quite good artistic values plus really great content; www.asterdata.com. This website highlights their entire strong value proposition and they’ve structured it well. They seem to know much about ‘Information Architecture‘.

Next, the most excellent example of a sales website is www.salesforce.com. Have a look of it yourself. I think it is the best sales website I’ve ever see. Their content is top notch!.

Lastly, if you want to learn on how to create great content for your own website, learn from the expert. It’s not going to be easy but you just need to go through the learning curve. You’ll get there eventually. If you have time, go to this link http://www.redish.net/writingfortheweb/ and think again on how have you craft the content of your website.

Recently, I came to learn that all Year 5 students in Terengganu will be given laptops under the state’s e-book program. That translates to RM30 million, with some 25,000 pupils involved.

With broadband connection, it is claimed that the pupils would gain access to lots of vital resources.

But I doubt the laptops will be useful academically. Mesti semua sibuk download movies, songs, porn, etc. Tak pun layan chat, friendster, facebook, etc. So I did a simple search, and I found that numerous studies have shown that there is no correlation between laptop usage and academic performance:

• The US Department of Education recently released a study showing no difference in academic achievement between students who used educational software programs for math and reading and those who did not.
• Mark Warschauer, a professor at the University of California also found no evidence that laptops increased test scores in a study of 10 schools in California and Maine from 2003 to 2005.
• The Texas Center for Educational Research, a nonprofit group, has so far found no overall difference on test scores between 21 schools where students received laptops, and 21 schools where they did not.

Interestingly, I also found that hundreds of schools across the globe have started abandoning their laptop programs. Here just a few reasons why:

• Underutilized by Students. Matoaca High School began eliminating its five-year-old laptop program after concluding that students had failed to show any academic gains. A survey found that one-fifth of their students rarely or never used their laptops for learning.
• Underutilized by Teachers. Everett Rea Elementary School in Califronia gave away 30 new laptops to another school in 2005 after a class that was trying them out changed to new teachers who simply did not do as much with the technology.
• High Training Costs. Northfield Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts eliminated its five-year-old laptop program in 2002 after it found that more effort was being expended on training teachers to teach with laptops.
• High Maintenance Cost. In Liverpool Highschool in Syracuse, parents have long criticized the cost of the laptop program: about $300,000 a year from the state, plus individual student leases of $25 a month.
• High Repair Costs. School officials in Broward County in Florida paid $7.2 million to lease 6,000 laptops at four schools, and was spending more than $100,000 a year for repairs to screens and keyboards that are not covered by warranties.

Yes, I know that Terengganu is cash-rich. Still, is the laptop program a wise move? What do you think?

Tired of filling up the grant forms but never get the grant money? Well, don’t give up! Discover the tricks of the trade. They key is to understand what THEY want. You can’t expect the government to simply give out the people’s money to you, can you? Here are several tips from the people who have successfully cracked the elusive golden eggs into their bank accounts:

1. Choose projects that benefit the public. In order to get the grant, you must have a viable project that will benefit the public. It’s about giving back to the people. After all, the government is the one who pays you, so they have the right to choose only projects with the best ROI for their investments. The higher the number of beneficiaries involved, the better your chances are in being considered.

2. Determine your target market. Be firm on who are the beneficiaries of your project. The more practical the project is, the more likely they will give you the money. The project might involve, for instance, the orang asli, drug addicts, teenagers, single mothers, etc.

3. Get the Letter of Intent. When you deal with the respected parties that will directly benefit from your project, ask them for the Letter of Intent. Just explain the benefits they will gain from the project, and in return, ask for the Letter of Intent. With that precious letter in hand, you will then have more credibility to convince the government officers to accept your grant application.

*Aidan Tech does NOT guarantee that the above tips will work for you. Any attempt based on the tips shall be at your own risk. Best of luck!

The internet is full with the geek jargon  such as “social media”, “blogging”, “RSS”, “Web 2.0″ and their like. The Web has created its own set of words, but their popularity change over time.  More and more jargon being created meaning it getting harder for all of us to catch up.  Pingdom had the effort to compile this trend and you can see the full list on their website. Here is some major trend that hits us the past few years.

• “Web 2.0” peaked in 2007 and has been decreasing in 2008.
• The ever-popular “cloud computing” actually dropped sharply late in 2008 after having been increasing rapidly since late 2007.
• While the interest for “blogging” hasn’t changed much over the last couple of years, “microblogging” has seen a rapid rise since early 2007 (presumably due to Twitter).
• “Blogger” has been increasing four years straight.
• “Ecommerce” is decreasing.
• “RSS” is decreasing.
• “Affiliate program” saw a sharp increase during the second half of 2008.

I personally hope that Aidan will continue upgrade itself to keep-up with this everchanging trends.

Either we want to accept it or not, internet is not the safest place to be (yet!) . Untill we (the developers) really pay attention to the error on the code we wrote.

Security experts have released a list of what they consider to be the 25 most critical errors made while coding software.

The list was released so programmers can check their code for the most common errors that produce security vulnerabilities.

The top two coding errors were improper input validation and improper encoding or escaping of output,  I believe those particular errors earned the top rating for good reason.  It’s the basic security features commonly overlook by the developers.

To read the whole list and method to fix em, head to Sans Institute Web site