An evening out with friends at the Mybox Karaoke, Taman Merdeka Permai

Tomorrow was a working day for practically everyone, except for those of us working in companies that have an additional planned shut-down. Thus, this extra long weekend is as good a reason for an outing with friends.

There are many karaoke enthusiasts in our circle of friends. Contrary to common belief, you don't have to be a great singer to participate in this karaoke activity, though you may have to be a good listener.... :)

Soo busy selecting songs to sing, while Amelia and Desmond belt out the tunes

Karaoke is quite popular in the East, most probably we have the Japanese to thank (or to frown at) for this invention. It's basically a sound system where your selected song is played, often without the lead vocals, which is then your duty to sing out instead. Nowadays, there are many shop houses being converted to karaoke establishments (one such other place is Crazy Mike at Bukit Beruang). The sound-proofed rooms are often small, with a seating capacity of typically 4-6 people (though sometimes there are larger rooms for bigger group function). The latest in multimedia technology is often employed, as the owners bid to outdo the competition and attract loyal customers. You'll find no less than an LCD/LED TV, touch-screen song selection systems and availability of light refreshments and drinks to complement the sound system. Of course, membership buys you better rates and promotions, to further encourage returning customers.

A typical small cozy karaoke room, where your group can sing to your hearts' content

Back to our planned outing. We planned to meet up at 8.00pm at My Box, Taman Merdeka Permai. It's not on the current version of Google Maps, but you can check out the My Box website for further details, including a rough map to the location. This time, our company was made up of Soo WF (surprised me that she was into this activity), Chea Thin, Amelia, Desmond, and Ms Lai (new material planner, taking over from Chong SL who left Vishay earlier this year in May). It was unfortunate that Steven (who was on business trip overseas) and Chong SC (out station on holiday), our regular group members, could not join today.

It's not quite possible to write details of our karaoke activity in a blog post, without being overly verbose, so to summarize the experience of this evening, in my humble opinion:-

1. A cup of hot Milo and a cup of hot Nescafe 3-in-1 are virtually indistinguishable in dim lighting.

So we learned today, as I ended up drinking that which was not ordered by me, and vice versa with respect to Soo.

2. Remember, they charge by the hour.

So, don't go in and pay first if you're all alone and not wiling to start singing. To maximize the time, either make sure everyone is really punctual or wait outside until the group is assembled before entering.

3. Touch-screens are better than the older system (look up song number in the hardcopy file and key in the song number), but the system is a bit unresponsive. Also, the songs were not organized a user-friendly manner, so flipping through pages one by one of a total >900 available was quite tiring. The listings weren't in any particular order, so English, Chinese, Malay groups and singers were all lumped together. The search function wasn't too useful too. Lastly, since it is a touch screen - **Remember to wash your hands after use!!!**

Guess what drink is on the table (not the Coke) - Milo or Nescafe 3-in-1? In the background, Soo still working on the Star Trek - like panel (unfortunately, high tech but let down by the disorganized song list)

I brought along my DSLR (P&S would have been useless), and in the confines of the dark room, I had mounted on a 10-20mm ultra-wide zoom (which is why you see heavily distortion). Staying off the flash for natural lighting requires a high ISO setting, which is evident in the noise seen in the photos, even after shrinking for publishing on the web. A good thing though is that using such a wide lens is very forgiving in terms of focusing, since the depth of field is huge. This is the *other* approach to photography, using wide angle lenses for that "in your face" perspective. This makes you feel like part of the action, as opposed to using a fast telephoto zoom for "sniper duty", which was what I did in the recent musical event at Heng Ann Association.

Well, in the end, we all had a great time together. Good to be happy and friends not only in the office, but outside the office as well. A big thank you to Chea Thin for pulling everyone together for this event. Already, plans are in the works for yet another outing coming up at the end of the month, but that is another story for a blog post yet to come.... :)

Everyone here and accounted for, except perhaps myself (you can just see the reflection of my shadow on the left side, in the mirror). Well, the cameraman is usually behind the camera, after all....

Exodus - moving away from Multiply.com

As I briefly mentioned in my previous post a little over a month ago, I was very saddened the decision of Multiply.com to discontinue it's blogging and photo hosting services and to solely focus on e-commerce. Being effectively my first *true* endeavor into the world of online social networking, mcwk.multiply.com (no point placing  hyperlink to it now) was my staging ground for cross-posting to marvinchong.blogspot.com.

It looks like the current CEO of Multiply, Stefan Magdalinski, who recently took over when the company moved to Jakarta, Indonesia, has made himself very unpopular with this decision. Perhaps it is his long experience in e-commerce (you can read a bit about his profile on the Multiply Corporate Info page) or maybe, Stefan opted to steer Multiply away from direct competition, given the gargantuan competition that is Facebook (for now)?

In any case, it is good that as what can be deemed the last meaningful act (at least to bloggers on Multiply like myself), Multiply has just put together an export tool and media download tool to facilitate our efforts to *abandon ship*. Though I feel they should have this developed BEFORE deciding to drop the bomb (rather like starting to build life boats after the ship hit the iceberg), I think that at least we should be grateful to Stefan and the Multiply team for fulfilling their moral obligation to their long-time user base.

So, let's see what the tools look like, and just how to go about using it?

From your multiply site, under your profile, you'll find 3 tools:

• Download Media
• Export to Blogger
• Export to Tumblr

The export tools here aren't very useful, as you'll have to manually download and upload your photos and videos to Blogger:

So, how do we go about doing that? Clicking on the "Download Media" link brings up the following Multiply Media Download page:

Here, the individual links to all the picture and videos you've ever uploaded to Multiply are given. Now, either you have to right click and "save as ..." each link, or use a dedicated download manager. Instructions given are for using the Download Master chrome extension or DownThemAll! for Chrome and Firefox Browsers respectively. If you're an adamant Internet Explorer user, you may need to use a 3rd party stand-alone download manager like Free Download Manager and wxDownload Fast. Both of them are available as portable apps at PortablApps.com. In my case, I'm using Firefox, so:

The size of your *baggage* will vary, depending on how long and how you use Multiply. In my case, I have 4793 photos to download. Luckily I'm using a download manager....

So, clicking on Start! I now wait patiently for all files to be mass downloaded to my PC. Needless to say, this takes quite awhile and a huge bandwidth too. So, be sure to do this from an AC powered laptop or desktop, and over a broadband connection without quota (like TMNET's Broadband or UniFi). And of course, make sure you have enough space on your hard disk.

While I'm sure you have all the originals backed up already, just like I do, it's more convenient to download your media this way, for re-upload to Blogger, Facebook or your new found platform of choice, rather than having to retrieve and re-edit for web publishing all the photos and videos from your archive. Obviously, this takes a long time. I'm typing this post and making the screen shots as well during the download process, and now it's ~85% complete. At least it will be done soon.

So, what's next? I think I'll leave my Multiply site alone here and let it die a natural death (or rather, killed off by Multiply when they finally discontinue the blogging service on 1st December 2012). The next huge task will be to check my site marvinchong.blogspot.com, which was heavily built by cross-posting from Multiply, and manually replace the photos that a currently hosted on Multiply. As for galleries, I don't have a simple solution yet, anyone out there with tips to share?

Well, all good things come to an end, and I thank Multiply for serving as a great entry-point for me into the world of blogging. I am sad that come 1st December 2012, there will be no longer any trace of mcwk.multiply.com in cyberspace to serve as a legacy. Anyway, thanks the Stefan and the Multiply team for allowing for ample time for us to part under favorable terms. I wish all of them best of luck and success in their future endeavors!

A musical night at Heng Ann Association

It's a rarity that I attend events like these, but this one's in support of my old friend, Tee Sie Yen. To be frank, up to today, I'm not really sure of what the details of this event. It's somewhat encrypted:

I'm not one of those who can read the above without assistance from my translator....

 Nonetheless, going too were Chong FC and Sim, as well as Goh KK. At least I wouldn't be along that night. The event was organized on 11 September 2012, which was a Tuesday. Now getting to a function outside of the company on a working day at 7.00pm was always a bit of a challenge to me, partly because of my usually working hours (which extend way past the official 5.15pm company requirement) as well as the increased density of traffic at that time (main contributing factors being people leaving for home, and the 7.00pm change of shift for many factories). Well, just for that day, I was OK to make an exception.

So, I arrived on the scene straight from work at 7.00pm. I knew as Heng Ann Association, parking was limited. Either you came very, very early to get a parking spot, or park far, far away (parking illegally on the road side and obstructing traffic is against my core principles and ethics, so I won't go for that option). Of course, in this part of the world, coming early to park first in places like these will almost certainly mean you will go back last, because someone will surely come fashionably late and double park, boxing your car in. So, I decided to park my car in a well lit area roughly 200 meters down the road. A little bit of exercise didn't hurt. I was alone after all....

A bit of an advisory note while were on this topic. Regardless of where you park your car, do not leave anything of value inside. Not even something that might appear to be of value, like a bag in the back seat. These days, times seem to be bad, so there's a risk of someone breaking into your car even if you're in a well lit area with many passersby. So, I brought my company-issued laptop along for the show.

The hall was not very large, so the distances between tables was quite limited. There was just enough room for the waiters to serve food for dinner. Luckily there was something to eat, as I failed to register this when I was told about the event. A minor communication issue that turned out for the better, not that I'm complaining.

As there were only 4 of us, we shared the table #12 with a another group, which appeared to be all from the same family. The event started eventually, and it was genuinely entertaining to watch the singers, most of them appear to be above 40 years, belt out Chinese tunes. I'm far from an expert when it comes to this subject, but Sim told me these songs were from the era of previous generation (not surprisingly). They say life begins at 40, so you can really see the splendid results of hard work and preparation that the performers must have put into the show. No doubt many hours of rehearsals have been put in, and I am thankful to have been present to see the results.

From a photographer's perspective, as I was just a casual guest and not officially covering the event, I wasn't going to be moving around much. Plus, the lack of space between table didn't exactly help, as I don't want to be avoiding the waiters and bumping into other seated guests. So, I just had a single telephoto zoom lens used for the entire event. This meant that I could take reasonable detailed photos of the on-stage activities from where I was seated (roughly three quarters of the way to the back of the hall) just by standing up briefly to fire off a shot. Not so ideal, but an acceptable compromise given the constraints in place. At that range, a flash would have been useless, I had to rely on using high ISO coupled with F-stop of 1/2.8 to minimize motion blur.

Back to the event. At that range, even from looking at my photos on the back of the camera, it was very hard for us to figure out which one of the performers was my friend, Tee. Chong FC joked that in performances like these, everyone was elaborately dressed and with full make-up, so you'd be hard pressed to recognize anyone just the same.

Well, in the end, I did manage to meet up with her briefly, so I at least one of our guesses was correct! :)

A good exposure to public events, and a good photographic opportunity (I fear my photographic equipment has been idling away in the dry box for far too long).

Looking the part and sounding it too, these performers really went the extra mile to put on a wonderful show that night!

The entire cast of the show lined up on stage, in front of a captivated audience.

Retro look - I wonder if people really did get dressed up like this way back in the 60's and 70's?

Must bring back fond memories of youth for both the performers and the senior members of the audience....

The Nyonya/Kebaya outfit is synonymous with the local cultural heritage, and still looks fabulous when worn today.

Not to be left out, these Men in Black (and white) belt out a couple of tunes of their own.

A solo performer on stage showcasing her vocal talents to the crowd.

Red polka-dots are back in fashion, but the gentleman by the side looks "plain" in contrast.

The pink ladies - where'd they manage to get all the matching outfits?

Finally confirmed that is my friend, Tee Sie Yen, in yellow on the left. 

Puma 4x4 Club Anniversary + Charity Dinner 2012

The Puma 4x4 Club is a versatile group, equally at home be it in the remote jungles or formal dinner occasions. They recently celebrated it's 7th anniversary on 8 September 2012 by holding a charity dinner at the Lu Yen Yen Restaurant at Limbongan.

A bit of club history. The Puma 4x4 Club Melaka, was officially registered on 16 Jun 2005. The members were very active and soon, they got the attention of 4x4 enthusiasts from other states as well. As more and more members from out of Melaka were joining the club, the core committee took up the challenge to expand the scope of the club to the national level, and in 6 September 2009, the club was successfully upgraded to the Puma 4x4 Club Malaysia.

Planning for such an event was a daunting task. It took many meetings at the club house in Malim Jaya (opposite the Marco Exhaust shop), fueled by tireless commitment of the organizing team, as well as Tiger Beer.... :)

Tan Poh Huat (a.k.a. "Lau Tar"), Jackson Goh and the rest of the committee going over the minute details....

My last activity with them was at the Blood Donation drive at the 916 Hotel in Melaka Raya. As it was for a good cause, I got myself 4 seats and went together with my wife and kids. When we arrived, there were many empty tables awaiting the arrival of the dinner guests.

I almost had not time to eat, really, as I was helping to cover the event with my camera. It's always a challenge to figure out what was going on and to get into a good position to cover an event. Unlike in an open public event where you're with a pool of other photographers, for functions such as these, you're part of the photographic team. Therefore, strange as it may sound, I choose position myself where there are no other photographers. This is because I don't want the organizer to end up with what are essentially the same photos (taken from the same angle) from the different photographers. If everyone is the same, there's only need for one, so I always try to be different (in a positive way, of course).

The was of course the usual on-stage speeches by the VIP's. Not really a fan of local politics, I honestly declare that I only recognize one VIP, namely, Datuk Wira Gan Boon Leong, who was a former body builder and weighlifter. My father told me that he once pumped ironed with the Datuk in the gym back in their heydays. Even though he (the Datuk, not my father) is now 75 years old, he still has a very strong grip, as I recalled when I got the chance to shake his hand.

The dinner was officially opened that night with the ceremonious beating of the gongs by the VIP's on stage. The dinner guests were entertained by martial arts performances as well as guitar and singing. The entire event was recorded and projected onto a large screen on the left side of the main stage, so even those sitting right at the back could see what was going on. And it was a really long way to the far end of the hall - there were 100 tables set up that day, seems to be even larger than the hall at the Equatorial Hotel (area-wise not counting the height).

My son, Christopher, was quite active and roaming about the hall like his usual self, but as soon as the activities got started, miraculously he managed to keep still at the table. Now, I had with me my trusty SB800 flash, but to get natural looking photos, it remained in my pocket for most of the evening. Yes, I have large pockets, or rather, when in photographer-mode, I dress functionally - the more pockets, the better.

Perhaps it's the 100Plus drink that did the trick...?

The expenditure for the dinner came from the sale of tickets and sponsors, and some committees took it upon themselves to sponsors certain costs as well. All in the name of charity. The proceeds were donated to some of the local charities on stage. No mock cheques this year, though....

Towards the end of the night, the VIP's and sponsors were given a token of appreciation up on stage. At that point, there was not much more going on, so I decided to avoid the traffic jam and left with my family for home.

All in all, a great event put together with the hard work and dedication from the Puma committee. May they continue to have many more great successful events both in the jungle and back in civilization! :)

This duet act from KL. To be honest, the guy was doing most of the singing.

Datuk Wira Gan Boon Leong with the rest of the VIP's on stage for the opening ceremony.

Martial arts display in progress. Real or not, those *swords* are really dangerous.

If you're familiar with Chinese culture, you'll know that they are all shouting "YAM SENG!!!".

Martial arts training starts at a young age. The next Michelle Yeoh in the making?

A guitar duet on a shoestring budget. 2 talented girls + 1 guitar.

The guitar club brought to the event loads of talent to keep the diners entertained

"Hover over my name" - yet another Facebook hoax

Undoubtedly, in the "golden age" of social networking and the ability to share online, privacy is becoming more and more of a concern to the cyber-savvy society. Unfortunately, there are spammers and hoaxes who capitalize on this fear to fuel their ulterior motives....

Now, when I start seeing multiple cut-and-paste postings from my friends, its usually something very, very usually (like the Gangnam style thing from PSY) or a chain letter / hoax. Unless, of course, you have the web presence and following of someone like Lady Gaga.

Since I first started using the internet (thanks to Telekom Malaysia, TMNET 1515), my Inbox has always been on a staple diet of spam and "chain letters". Spam, which comes from some unknown source and usually has no relevance whatsoever. Like trying to sell size-enhancing products for various body parts.... :)

Unlike spam mail, chain letters are practically propagated by actual friends and family members, who are acting in their best of intentions, but alas as just acting out the intentions of others like pawns in a chess game. I used to see a chain mail being forwarded, and forwarded, and forwarded multiple times - almost as if someone were trying for a shot a the Guiness Book of World Records (sometimes, being famous is not always a good thing).

There are many, many motivations that drive the momentum of chain letters. Used to be the "forward this to 10 people and get $$$" which thrives on the basic instinct of greed. Then there a switch in tactics to pity and compassion - "each time you forward this, $$$ will be donated to XXX". Now the latest modus operandi is to prey on the great fear of the modern internet generation - online privacy.

The latest one I see circulating on Facebook goes something like this:

To all my contacts, friends, I request from you, that with the recent changes in FB, now anyone can see things from people who are not in your contacts list. Just because a contact of yours makes a comment or "likes" in some activity of that person. I do not want people to contact me, and would like that they do not read and see all my comments and stuff, but I can not change this myself because facebook has configured it this way. But you can do it for me.

1) PLEASE place your mouse over my name above (do not click), a window will appear 

2) move the mouse on "Friends" (also without clicking),

3) move down to "Settings", click here and a list will appear.

4) Click "Comments and Like" and it would thereby remove/untick the CHECK.

By doing this my activity amongst my friends and my family does not become public. A Thousand Thanks! Paste this on your wall for your contacts, if you care about your privacy!!!

This is believable, as there is some truth to the content. However, in the end, it's not as straightforwards as it seems, as the underlying mechanics behind the privacy policies of Facebook as a little complicated. You can read more on the details if you're interested in an excellent post by Jon Loomer at : http://www.jonloomer.com/2012/01/17/facebook-privacy-dont-hover-over-my-name-do-this-instead/

Now, a slight note on online privacy. In this day and age, there is no real privacy in the truest sense. The fact that "on line" comes into the picture means that there is already some storage point outside of your physical network where your content is stored. A file on your thumbdrive is private - a file on a server somewhere in the world is not. All you have is someone's word that they will not share your content to the public unless you give them permission to do so. It is like giving your house keys to the security guard (for those of you who live in gated communities). Yes, even putting money in the bank or stuff in their safe deposit box is the same - it is up to you to act based on how much trust you have in the other party.

Back to the online community. Now, when people start blogging, the logical conclusion is that they would like to share something with the rest of the world. It makes no sense to blog if you're the only one who can access it, after all. Of course, at some point, we all like to share, some things more than others. However, the word "share" here is somewhat misleading itself, since when I share my laptop, for example, it is either with me or with you. In the end, there is just one laptop. But, when I share something online, I am actually giving you a COPY of my content, since I can never take it back and the content can be duplicated, copied and so on.

Thus, what you put online today has the potential to become public domain at any time, either intentionally, or otherwise. Now, as I learned from a workshop some years ago, "Trust is giving someone the power to completely destroy you". Now, from a logical point of view, it would be unwise to give such power to anyone. Time has a way of changing things, and though I sincerely hope that this does not happen to anyone, the truth is that when lovers become enemies, friends become foes, that which was held in the deepest confidence would no longer be safe from the eyes of the public. We have all seen one too many cases of celebrities (predominantly from the US, but some Asians once in awhile) and even members of royalty being victims of "leaked photographs". It is sad that they have been betrayed by those who they have entrusted. Not talking about those who do this intentionally for publicity, though....

It's one thing to take photos and selectively upload them later. But now we have the latest IT fad of "Cloud Computing" where everything is instantly uploaded to a central server somewhere. Like Instagram (not my choice because of this), which was recently acquired by Facebook (another blow in the name of online privacy).

To summarize my point on "online privacy", that's somewhat of a impossibility (like a Perpetual Motion Machine). So, do think wisely before you post something online.

These days, it seems like the only way to true privacy is to keep a hard copy under lock-and-key...! :)

Record high RM3.00 per liter for RON97 - 7 Sept 2012

Breaking records is almost always a good thing. Unfortunately, this time there will be lots of negativity accompanying this latest announcement by the Malaysian Petrol Dealers Association President Datuk Hashim Othman, as reported in The Star Online : http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/9/7/nation/11984382&sec=nation

Now, some some strange reason, the increase of RON97 prices from RM2.60 per liter (effective 5 July 2012)  to RM2.70 per liter effective 10 August 2012 last month was very stealthy, as there was no news on this in either of the two popular Malaysian English news portals (perhaps there was something more important to report during that time...?).

So, the new graph charting the fluctuations in RON97 prices per liter:

Skyrocketing upwards at an all time high!

What devastating news, coming just a week after our Merdeka (Independence) Day....

To be fair, most cars in Malaysia are able to make do on with RON95, except for those high performance makes like the Civic Type R. My personal opinion is that while the effect of the minority can be seen by this, what we don't see is that the majority of consumers currently running on the RON95 will now eat further into the tax-payers' dollars, since RON95 is still flat at the subsidized price of RM1.90 per liter.

Well, with monthly fluctuations seen in the RON97 prices since June 2012, it's anyone's guess which way the plot will go come early October. Till next month then....