Wake Up Call – Mathias Chang

In an excellent recent article by Mathias Chang entitled “Flip-Flopping Fairy Tales – Malaysia Will Not Have 3.9% Growth In 2009 – Accepting Reality Is Not Pessimism, Giving False Hopes Is Not Optimism” , he challenges the nation’s leadership’s position of ostrich economics.

Surely, his grave warnings may sound like doomsday prophecy and may be brushed aside as wild speculation.  Surely, the Badawi Administration can come out and say quite the opposite that all will be well and Zeti says we will not be in a recession next year.  Yes, people in the right places can come out saying almost anything about the well-being of our economy.

But guess what?  Only we the Rakyat will know and has known for a while now that tough times have arrived and tougher times ahead.  It’s not about talking ourselves into a recession but to face the realities and do the right things.

Here are some of Mathias Chang‘s predictions (read here):

1. by H1 of 2009, the KLCI will drop below

Najib’s Rise Amidst Allegations Uncleared

Najib is now the only nomination for the Umno President post and come next March at the Umno AGM, Najib will be officially named the next Umno President to succeed Pak Lah.  It appears that the passage for Najib is safe, for now.

Can there be anything that can throw off his equilibrium, detract him from his path to glory, obstruct his ambition to become the next Prime Minister of Malaysia?  With the historical “wasted” Altantuya case being the longest in Malaysian history, Razak Baginda was aquitted and nobody was found guilty.  150 days of trial down the drain and paid for by tax payers money.  Will the allegations return to haunt Najib?

Obama and Pak Lah – What a difference

November 5 saw Barack Obama voted as the next President of USA.  His acceptance speech continues to demonstrate his charimastic and inspiring skills to stir the masses.  He has since separated himself from other leaders previous to this by his consistent message of change and appeals to most of America as shown by the votes he garnered.  He further brings the vanquished opponents to work together for the changes needed in US.  He is both reconciliatory as well as setting the stage very well to move forward as a world leader, as the next President of USA.

November 7 sees Pak Lah making his announcement regarding the Cabinet approving the formulation of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (SPRM) Bill 2008 in a move to further strengthen the national integrity agenda.  This is something he failed to do in his past 5 years as the PM.  Now, he is rushing for time to make good his promises of reform of the judiciary and the police.

Can we see a difference between Obama and Pak Lah?

HTC and Sony Ericsson Christmas Goodies

Updated: HTC had a launch on their new products on 6 November.  More to follow.

Oh it’s early November but Christmas decorations are already at Starbucks.  How fast did the year pass?  The HTC Viva was just released and we should be able to quickly see a few neat goodies from HTC.  These are the HTC Touch 3G, HTC Touch HD, Sony Ericsson X1 and a new extended battery for Diamond.

HTC Viva – For the Newcomers

We have just seen the arrival of HTC Viva at our shops.  A spruced up Touch with a slightly larger screen, the Viva remains attractive to the entry level PDA user who will practically get everything but no 3G/HSDPA and GPS.  If you really don’t care about that, GSM and GPRS/EDGE with WIFI is probably all you will ever need with a decent camera all found in the Viva.

Furthermore, the other chief attractiveness is the price itself.  The RM1,200 price tag makes the Viva the lowest priced full function PDA Phone in the market as well as the smallest in its class.  Think O2 Mini but smaller frame and thinner, and voila, you get the Viva.  It’s definitely better than any phone in the market at that price point.

The TouchFlo 2D interface is good enough and intuitive for first time users.  If you make friends with the retailer, you can get heaps of software, be it games, applications and utilities.  The Windows Mobile platform has some of the best software available to the Viva user.  Note that you may have to pay them some service fee for their trouble.  Smile and be nice.  You might get away from paying for it.

Again, it’s a good second device but if you are already an experienced user of Windows Mobile devices, wait for HTC’s next models coming soon late November, early December.