Compiling But JAR Missing

I spent the entire day compiling the JAVA archive for one of my office program libraries. I was convinced that everything went right - the essential drivers were there, I followed the building archive protocol and everything. But still the beta file that I am supposed to see did not show up in the "dist" folder of my workspace.

Because of this incident - I thought that I need to commit the files back to the Subversion repository program to do so. Instead, I was reminded and told that I only need to submit back to the repository once I am happy with everything - if nothing goes wrong. The main reason was to prevent corruption to the repository. Yesterday, the library folder repository was locked up. The Subversion program uses the Oracle Berkley embedded DB for storing the files. It was when I checked the FAQ of the error - through a memo sent late night by my manager - that I realized that it must be the abrupt stop command that I've punched in the afternoon. I think it is. My colleague Nadia told me that there's a need to restart one of the main servers since she has just upgraded software in that machine. I wondered if the restart happens while I was compiling it, so I decided to stop it and wait until it restarts completely.

My library archive building protocol uses Apache ANT and Cobertura - a code access calculator
that determines how many portions of the code have been tested. It was just suddenly that I came across the log file that I decided to take a look to see where have I gone wrong.

Turns out that I've set the database server sample configuration location in the wrong machine. I just remembered that it was moved to another server. So it's just another changing to the configuration file and it worked. But another set of problems just came out.

So here I am writing to tell you how stressful it is to go back and look through the whole thing to see where have I gone wrong. Come tomorrow, once this thing is over, I can look forward into working on the second half of the modification. This is indeed one-fifth of the list of modifications that are undertaken by our department to release the 2nd edition of one of our programs.

See...this program is used by majority of our Malaysian tertiary education institutions.

Everything Increase - WHAT 4?

This seems to be a domino reaction. It began with manufacturers who had to bear more of the costs. As such, prices for F&B - food and beverage has been increased by approximately 20 cents everywhere. In the coffee shop in front of my house, the price for a cold Milo O has been increased to $1.90 compared to $1.70 previously.

Because of the facts above, retailers had to adjust the price of consumer items with of course justification. In a recent article, Dutch Lady Malaysia chief, Mr. Cees Ruygrok mentioned the following:

“The raw material prices have increased drastically. Unfortunately, we have not been able to increase prices by 15 per cent. We have increased our prices by 3 per cent,” managing director Cees HM Ruygrok told a press conference in Kuala Lumpur yesterday after a prize presentation ceremony of its “Dutch Lady Bersedia Untuk Menang Contest”.

“Dutch Lady has not been able to recoup the price increase. We have to grow our way out of it,” Ruygrok said, adding that the company’s collective agreement is up for renewal, which will also add to the increase in overhead costs.

Reason: raw materials including palm oil and petrol.

Source: click here

Items affected by the increase: sardines, Milo, Nescafe, condensed and evaporated milk, garlic, onion. Also, the price of standard flour - used for bread and our favorite Chinese Dim Sum has been increased by 15 cents - manufacturers wanted increase by 50 cents.

Expect our bakery items and even dough-base items to be increasing in the coming weeks.

Solution?

Very Simple! Increase The Value of RINGGIT VS DOLLAR.

The current value of the ringgit has improved tremendously since last year. Following the removal of the ringgit peg against the dollar, the value has increased by 4.2 percent since last year. As of today it is at 3.73 percent.

Not good enough. The current value is at 3.40:1 as of today. It is best that if the ringgit reaches it's mid-line in order to achieve the equilibrium. As before the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, the value of the ringgit is at 2.50:1. Since the peg value is at 3.80:1 before July 2005, therefore, the equilibrium rate is at 3.15:1. In the mid-term, having it at 3.15:1 could reduce the import costs for all items that Malaysia imports including raw materials, electronics and etc..which gives importers and exporters a win-win situation.

The fact that the ringgit's strength does not affect the government is good news but the question is that how soon can it reach the equilibrium. The sooner it achieves the rate, the better - and it affects everything. We don't have to pay that much to get something.

It is said that the momentum of the ringgit going higher against the Dollar is depending on the condition of the stock market and the amount of funds going in. Of course there is bank intervention and then technical corrections (profit takings) as a breather. But to encourage more, the government should cut the tax rate, either lowering the corporate tax to 22 percent or merging the government and service tax (15 percent) into a GST 5%. After all, we are trying to get more foreign investors coming aren't we?

Sack Wolfowitz!

Reuters has reported that the BOD of World Bank is deliberating on the position of former Pentagon #2 Paul Wolfowitz as the president of the Bank. The reports are clear that Wolfowitz had broken the rules to secure the personal interests which involves raising the salary of a partner of his.

In this saga, the US has been begging the G7 to provide support to save Wolfowitz from the sack. But the fact that Wolfowitz was responsible together with Rumsfeld in instrumenting the Iraq invasion in 2003 means that it is definitely part of the hegemony plan -as Chomsky says - part of the US' quest for world domination. Imagine if the numbers of people on behalf of the US leading an international organization diminish, what will happen to them? PING!

Marina Takes A Swipe At Uncle Zam

Thankfully since I am working in Cyberjaya for this week, I am able to return back to home earlier than usual. Since I have things to do later on, I felt it is better to write this post together with doing some house chores before working on my stuff later on.

The Devil Inside And Out Part 2

This is a continuation from Sunday's entry and I intend to write on as long as it goes. Part 2 is literally the 'Out' part of the duology. At the end of part 1, called Inside, Matt Murdock, escaped prison with the help of an unlikely ally. The search for a one Alton Lennox, the lawyer of a convict, who ordered a shanking order on Franklin Nelson. It was discovered that Lennox left for Monaco and it is up to Matt to pick up the bread crumbs.


The actual story begins in #89, whereas #88 is the interlude of the story. #88 is called "The Secret Life of Foggy Nelson" which actually shows Foggy's side of the story near to the end of Inside. This was the thing I am referring to as the nod to You Only Live Twice. Foggy was a marked man by certain unknown people including the Mafia. He is under the WITSEC program - or the FBI's Witness Protection Program. Since he is unofficially dead to the entire world, he was not allowed to make contact with the outer world including Ben Urich or Dakota North.


In this case, this is the issue where Ed Brubaker makes his cameo as the FBI man. Artist Michael Lark modeled the FBI agent assigned to watch over Foggy after him - his trademark beard and glasses. The agent's plea of staying at close doors were true as he was about to be shot by the Mafia only to have ninjas saving his skin.

Back to Part 2, Brubaker called 'Out' as a swashbuckling show with Matt as the swashbuckler. He goes traveling around Europe searching for Lennox. However, Lennox was only part of the plan to lead Murdock to the very person that sets the entire game up in the beginning. Just find out by yourselves. There are numerous references - or shall I say that some plot elements clearly resemble - to Polanski's The Ninth Gate, with our protagonist being manipulated in the beginning and includes numerous locations including Paris and Sintra - a village near Lisbon.

After reading it, I find that the storyline clearly reminded me of the Dick Tracy story arc in 1978. The storyline in 1978 was literally creator Chester Gould's final run in the comics before handing over to other writers including Rick Fletcher and Max Allan Collins. According to the Wikipedia, in Chester's Final Run actually means the storyline of a villain taking the protagonist over the edge and causing mayhem because the villain is to die from a disease that eats him and considers the scheme as a parting gift before he goes to the grave. That was in 1978 and it was that year that Chester Gould decided to put that as Big Boy Caprice's last run.

By the end, Matt has to make a very choice that might affect the rest of his life.

The art drawn by Lark emulates the look of the 1970s.

Marina Takes A Swipe At Uncle Zam

Today's weekly column at The Star by Marina Mahathir - Blogging 101 For Politicians
- literally takes a swipe at politicians who criticize the blogging misuse. This was indeed a perfect response by Marina to Uncle Zam who proposed the classification of professional and non-professional bloggers like us. Does that mean that are going to be like William Thackeray or just a normal average Joe writing his diary post online?

In true there are no pro and non-pro bloggers in definition. It's just people who want to write diaries and do not mind to post it to the public to read. You don't even need to study hard to use this! It's not like taking a major examination! The idea of classifying bloggers according to her shows that politicians like Uncle Zam or Shaziman are literally pretty clueless about the world of blogging.

But look at Datuk Shahrir Ahmad or Opposition politicians that do have blogs. At least they do understand what blogging means. But we must always remember: be truthful and be sensible.
Nothing more, nothing less than that. What's the point of making more ruckus out of this blogging issue? To solve this problem, you must experience it yourself.

So, if you are a politician, start a blog and do some test posting to see how you feel about blogging. It's just like driving a car. If you are a frequent highway user, sometimes going at 140 makes a big difference than going at 110. The problem is that the current speed limit in the highway is absolutely absurd or obsolete. You authorities especially ministers will have to drive by yourselves to get the feel - not depending on the chauffeurs driving the big car!

Discrimination Is Still There?

I was dreaming yesterday night. I was back in the Ipoh house one morning. Outside the room
sitting at the round dining table was my dear granny. She didn't say anything at all and I just told her that there was a 50kg Garoupa fish caught at Port Klang and for a damn good dinner at one restaurant at Mid Valley. I really wanted to go for that. She was smiling at me but yet she didn't say anything.

And then I started to cry. This was the first time that I saw her in my dreams after her demise 5 months ago. That cry woke me up in the morning.

The article of the fish is here.

Claustrophobic?

The next four days, I will be in Cyberjaya for a care-taking job. At least a staff in my department gets a chance to go there and spend the week there. It may sound a little illogical of why going there but in my opinion, it's just as to make use the facility there and perhaps make a little extra money here. Perhaps in the month where you will be assigned there, you can earn perhaps up to $200 and as bonus to your existing salary.

The floor which I belong too is a little claustrophobic. Some companies that are there are no longer operating, despite having the company logos there. So, it's just a little quiet there. Remember the scene in Brazil where Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) was taken to on his first day? That's what I felt like when I was there previously in January.

Discrimination?

Maybank and another bank (being a government-linked banks) introduced a new ruling with effective from July 1 2007 that all lawyer firms that intend to do business with the two banks are required to have at least three partners with one of them being a Bumiputra and the person must hold 50 percent stake of the firm.

This practice is deemed a racial discrimination policy by the BAR council and this has brought attention to the Dewan Rakyat and the Central Bank. It is contrary to the meritocracy that is wanted by the PM. There are no Central Bank policies that matches the policy introduced by the two banks. This, as according to the BAR is deemed as an insult to the law profession.

Unfortunately, Maybank were a little less too late to clarify and comment on the issue. When word reached the Finance Ministry, the ministry clarified that there is a possible chance of intervention. The policy is the internal bank policy but what was spoken was contrary to the Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Ramli Ngah Talib that there would be no intervention.

On the side note from the Finance Ministry: the government has confirmed that there will be no off-shore trading of the Malaysian Ringgit as to curb repeat of currency speculation.

Discrimination Cut

Singapore's TAFEP - Tripartite Alliance for Fair Employment Practices on Monday issued a guide called the Fair Employment Practices which details the guides and tools for employers on hiring employees of all races and age. It is hope by the TAFEP that this will change the mindset of employers and perhaps increase the number of jobs by another 450,000.

The biggest recommendation in the guideline would be the outlaw of gender, age, race, and photograph fields in job application forms. Those fields will be deemed a taboo in Singapore sooner. This is to ensure that the priority of hiring people would be on the skills and the contributions a person can contribute to an organization.

This was following last year where a 180 cases of employment discrimination from the top three reasons:

1) Those jobseekers who are older of age are rejected.
2) Those who are discriminated because of race and looks.
3) Pregnant women are also victims as some employers are not willing to pay for their maternity benefits.

This is still evident in Malaysia and there has been a renewing urge to extend the maternity leave to 84 days or 12 weeks minimum than the current 60 days.

The complete article in regarding to employment practices is at this URL.

Malaysia Tax Cuts Please!

Currently, Malaysia's corporate tax is at 28 percent and the government tax of 5 percent is still there. But this does not include the services tax bundled together. This means that the government stands to earn at least 33% of an organization's turnover from these taxes.

When it comes to competing between their neighbors, big companies intend to ply their trade in South-East Asia would definitely set up shop in Singapore. Currently, the country's annual earnings is 25% from taxes. The corporate tax is to be lowered at 18 percent and to compensate that, the GST - Goods and Services Tax will be increased to 7% with effective from July 1.

The comparison intended here is that the GST that was meant to combine service and government tax together in Malaysia never came to fruition or any significant progress noted. This means that Malaysia will have to do more to get more FDI to come here. The IDR was a good thing, but it is not enough. To compete, you need to either - lower the corporate tax rate more or combine the 15% tax we pay to a 5% GST or we pay 3% of GST and make corporate tax to 22%.

The Cell Block D

I bought Noam Chomsky's Failed States (the sequel to Hegemony or Survival) and together with the two Ed Brubaker's Daredevil stuff. Brubaker managed to provide justice and spirit to the storyline which ended as a cliffhanger by previous writer Brian Bendis.

Premise: At the end of Murdock Papers, Matt Murdock was sent to Ryker's Island penitentiary without bail awaiting trial following accusations by the FBI and media that he is the costumed vigilante called Daredevil. This first part forms the first half of "The Devil Inside and Out" with the first half being the "Inside".

A word of warning: This 12 issues of the entire series literally ties up whatever started by Bendis and Alex Maleev in Out (32-40) and continues on to now, with exception of David Mack's Echo Quest (vol 8). Therefore, it is best to cover the entire run beginning with Out to Murdock Papers before continuing. On the other hand, I would recommend you to buy just the hardcover version (Vol 4) comprising of King of Hell's Kitchen and The Widow since the bonus issue #65 (the 40th anniversary special) is only available in HC.

Here we discover why Matt Murdock was sent to the penitentiary without bail. It was deliberately a part of the upper political administration machinations of making him crossing each other off with either the previous villains he captured as well as the Kingpin.

Taking a queue of key sequences from the Bond movie You Only Live Twice, Ray and the Prison Break TV series, Brubaker manages to put Matt Murdock over the edge and on the verge of a mental breakdown only to have someone with other ideas coming in for the bail and having someone covering his ass in the form of the prison warden. The prison warden is crossing swords with FBI director Leland Drummond (a nod to Leo Drummond from Grisham's The Rainmaker). At the same time, the people on the upside including the help of his Bugle reporter Ben Urich scrambling to find who impersonating him while Matt is incarcerated.

Plenty of double-crossing, twists and etc..Brubaker mentioned that Daredevil was always a noir story and he succeeded in creating a story that puts Matt in a different stage of life. In other words, he does justice to the story that was started by Bendis. But with one exception, Bendis' storyline is much more wordy so Brubaker managed to keep it simple and cohesive. There was always someone out to get him out in the form of his opposite...you guess.

Failed States


Billed as the sequel to Hegemony or Survival, the book literally examines the things that the Bush Administration as part of its doctrine commits once President Bush was re-elected to office in November 2004. Chomsky is a fan of Bertrand Russell and literally points out what it appears to be a repeat of a possible accidental nuclear war in the future with the given current world scenario.

The thing is that I only covered a bit of the opening and as more parallel goes, I might be going back to this book posting here.

Uncle Zam's Blogger Classification Program

Yesterday on Bernama, Uncle Zam, (Information Minister Datuk Zainuddin Maidin) proposed the classification of professional and non-professional bloggers. Personally, the idea of having this kind of classification is hollow. It is just nothing more than having a registration exercise as his deputy Shaziman Mansor proposed laste month. In a recent survey of freedom of expression, Malaysia is ranked 141 of all the countries in the world in terms of freedom of expression. When sorted between Asian nations, the country ranked 28th of 140.

Suppose if Uncle Zam decides to start a blog like fellow man Datuk Shahrir Ahmad - and since he is the one who started out the blogging issue in the country - where will he belong? I think it's in the non-professional side. Where would I be? I blog almost everyday. But we have come across problems created from classification. For instance, there was complaint by some people that the examination entry slips whereby religion is classified by only "Muslim" and "Non-Muslim". They think that it is a surplus where you have the "race" field included in the slip!

Source article is here.

Mentality?

My fear here is regarding the mentality of certain people who are unwilling to be open to other ideas introduced in the other side of the world. Singapore MM, Mr Lee Kuan Yew based some of his methods and ideas of administering Singapore during his PM tenure (1965-1990) during his time in England - which brought great results. A perfect scenario referring to my statement above is that referring to the current mentality of the Censorship Board - LPFN - which absolutely bans any local films made that might contain incorrect political content fearing unrest. A local made film that examines what we are and gets banned - you can forget about having that thing competing in film festivals or even competing this for Best Documentary feature for Oscars! When we watch movies on the cable network ASTRO, scenes literally that has guy saying "$#!%" are automatically muted on the spot or perhaps a sudden cut.

We could be left behind and perhaps we might not achieve the 202o target should the mentality doesn't change. Yesterday, I went to KLCC, the notice whereby photography is allowed in the center foyer and not elsewhere? Why? What is the reason behind it? Is it because the management just do not like it? Is it because there are some displays sensitive to flash-lights? Is Suria starting to become like Louvre museum? If there is none, this reflects the wrong mentality of those pencil-pushers there. Just tear that damn notice down there!

The Slowpacers

I went for a drive from home to town. I thought there was something unusual if there happens to be a jam in the middle of the road. But truth? There was nothing but slowpacers.

I know I shouldn't do this, but this was taken when I was on the Federal Highway. If you look at the picture above, there is a massive gap in the middle of two vehicles and the one behind is going very slow. But the driver was actually a female one.

Should the vehicle moves a little faster, a person driving on the road can save time of up to 10 minutes average in a distance of two destinations that is 20kms. If we look at the collective view of this, it will encourage more people to have more time to do sort on their priorities and perhaps do more to their work. However, the sad fact is that most drivers are ignorant and tend to procrastinate - even if on the road but somewhere else including last minute submission of returns of taxes to the Inland Revenue Board.



Perhaps a few more cars can fill in the spaces if those cars fill in the gaps in front by moving faster. A side note is that most of K.L and Selangor drivers that I've come across do not put signals if they are to turn to a corner or a junction. This can be very dangerous for vehicles following behind. I don't know whether if it is because they are lazy or not but they are ought to be SHOT.

Another reason is that traffic jams occurred is perhaps due to an accident. In most cases, cars would tend to slow down, surveying the jam and perhaps caused a lot of trouble to the other drivers behind. This kind of practice should be minimized. Busy-bodies.

NIAMAH!!!!

Anand Krishnan Wants More Than It Is

This past few days featured the news that Malaysia billionaire T. Ananda Krishnan intends to privatize Maxis Communications Bhd, one of the main mobile operators by buying off the remaining 41 percent owned by minority shareholders at the price of $15.60 per share. With the offer made by Krishnan, minority shareholders stand to make 20 percent of additional profits from the present price of $13 per share when the share was suspended in the stock exchange on Monday.

If this move is successful, it will be the largest buyout of a company in Asia Pacific with the buyout amount valuing at $40 billion. What will happen to Maxis and the plans next will only be known later on. Currently, Krishnan, through his company Usaha Tegas Sdn. Bhd owns 59 percent of Maxis under the sub-company Binariang.

On the other hand, Astro, the cable-tv operator also owned largely by Anand Krishnan is increasing its present subscription fees by another 5-15 percent with effective from June 1 2007. But according to CEO, Rohana Rohzan, the increase was largely due to the increasing programming costs. However, the new cost will include the nine new channels introduced and the new price revisions covering the nine new channels would only be on effective September 1.

See the thing coming?

Degrading Quality of School Plays

Tomorrow, I am invited to attend the Michaelian Reunion Dinner at Tropicana Club with my dad and one of his friend. Quite excited to go there, but I had some planning dilemma - how am I going back to town after the dinner? Immediately after dinner or tomorrow morning at around 5.30 a.m.?

Will be good there as I can talk to some people there and scold some..haha.

But the thing I want to complain about is about the quality of the school plays for the last two years. Ever since my English teacher Mrs. Adeline retired from teaching, the directing duties was taken over by a lesser known Corrinne. But seeing the last two including Mulan, I felt that the school musicals are getting more cartoonish than ever. It is like taking a step backwards rather than moving forward.

To help students behave more maturely and to help them out into facing the working world, I think that the standards of the musicals should be relook into. They should perhaps try the more adult-themed plays, dramas and so on, as to give them a partial exposure to Broadway-standard stage work. But I think the concern is that to do so requires a lot of money since you are required to obtain the play rights which can be expensive. So, why not we get a few people from the Actor's Studio to help this out? After all, sometimes a local play can be as good as the Broadway one.

A Short Ranting

Today got some work to finish up. I'm just inches away from finishing an assignment. But will need a lot of time to polish, test, polish and so on.

Went to Comics Mart after Monday's exercise. Quite surprised to see the new Punisher book out there: Man of Stone. It was the only copy available there and I managed to snap it out. Then I was told that the copy just came in today.

The release dates are kind of a little confusing. The actual comic was out on the 18th, last Wednesday, but Amazon states that the book will be out on the 2nd of May. Quite confusing.

Busy body:

I kind of being a little annoyed by Tengku Adnan's statement in today's article in Bernama:

The notion of every Malaysian departing Malaysia filling up a departure card...the Ministry wants to know what will you do there and then do something at you. Is the reason of research purposes is merely an excuse? Come on, people want to have some privacy. They got their own reasons for going out. If a person wants to go for holiday elsewhere, you still insist of knowing what else next? Aren't they enough of poking and snooping around people besides the embassy of the country they are visiting (visa purposes). Come on, man...

Excuse for that ranting...I just kind of minding more of my privacy.

Chinese New Year Prediction Coming True?

Joey Yap said that Segolene Royal is to be the next French President. I think I agree on that.
France is a staunch nation that opposes the Iraq invasion in 2003. Let's hope they continue to that. But the problem is U.S calls them Old Europe.

My brother just started a blog of his. I think it's too good for him to resist the idea of setting up one. Maybe he's going to rant more on games. Maybe he might rant on teachers, or maybe call his friends to take a look at his blog. I have no idea.