My Hubby

The Folding Machine is Our Savior

Folding Machine

Now I know how can I resolve my wife’s problem to get proper with cluttered clothes. In future, our wardrobe will be full of organized clothes.

Our superheroes are: Cardboard and Duct Tape.

To see how big is magnitude of our problem, I took a picture:

IMG_20130301_012319


That is one day worth of clothes, imagine how messed up it can be if it’s a week.

But, meh. I don’t mind my house is a mess; it doesn’t seem to matter. My life is not in danger if I have a house full with a bundle of clothes. I don’t vomit rainbow if I have an anthill of newly washed clothes. Heck, I don’t mind at all if my house is messed up like tropical rain-forest that I have to walk with my hands swing left and right.

I just can’t stand about my wife’s complaining. It’s okay, honey, you don’t need to impress me with your maid skill, trying to get everything neat around the house. Your problem is thinking too much. And my problem is not thinking at all.


This machine makes me calm and light-hearted. I can help my wife and satisfy my lazy behavior at the same time. But first I have to seek, without feeling embarrassed, a few unwanted boxes at shop lots in the neighborhood.

I can create by myself as much as 4 machines because this machine is easily hackable. Well, one for me and my wife, two for both of my kids, and see whether they want to have fun with the machine or not. Usually it takes about 2 second before they get really bored and play something more interesting. But tune in, I will log my activity with the folding machine soon.

[Shirt Folding Board Made From Cardboard And Duct Tapes]

So It Is TRUE, you are a natural-born learner, even if you sleep!!

So, the myth about the efficiency of “I know Kung Fu” in the Matrix is, somewhat, efficient. But it isn’t efficient enough to learn Kung Fu, if you’re not Keanu Reeves. But other areas, you might gain a set of new skill while you’re in slumber.

A study showed that you can learn something new although you find yourself in a deep sleep. The subject that is exactly they have been experimenting is music. Say, you want to beat your friend over a guitar hero game, you have to — over and over again — listen to the music while you’re sleeping. In the morning, you wake up and you have been prepared. Well at least, you’re familiar with the beat.

Even when you’re asleep, your brain’s hearing pathways don’t shut down, says study author Ken Paller, Ph.D., a cognition professor at Northwestern. Those pathways allow sound information to “make contact” with your memories, stimulating and reinforcing the same patterns of neuron activity that occurred while you were learning, he explains.

 

If you want to be good in eating, you have to sleep-eating. 

So if you want to get expert in certain area, you better learn while you’re sleeping. Now, I want to become excellent programmer, where’s my pillow?

The Surprising Thing You Learn While You Sleep [Men Health]

Dumb Ways to Spend Money on Your Kids

We love our kids. We love them above all. We spend our hard-earned money on them so they get equal opportunity like other kids do. But we don’t have spend our bling bling money over them, like there’s no tomorrow.

Some of us may disagree with me. “Yeah, why not. If we love them, we should give everything they want. If they want expensive toys, let them have it. We spend on our kids anyway, not on our next door kids.”

What if our spending habit takes its toll on our financial stability? 

Spending on expensive, branded items is against my policy. I, as a dad of two kids, didn’t argue that we should give them all especially toys. But so far, I manage to divert from buying expensive toys from Toy R’ S.

Well, not all toys. Sometimes, I feel a sympathy over them when they make cute little frown lips and watery-eye-is-about-to-spill tears.

 It’s a battle I should say. If I lose, I buy item expensive thing at branded outlets like Mickey or Toy R us. If I win, we travel 20 kilometers from our home to shopping second hand toys at Amcorp Mall.

As our kids grow older, they may get influenced by yummy advertising shown all over the internet, TV, or radio. They started to choose brand over quality. So they can show off to their group of friends. And we, parent — as always — go for the cheap ones.

But when two interests collide with each other. There will be one side that’s always lose. In order, to save our money from getting drained, and to teach them how to separate them from becoming brand/fashion victim, we must find solution.

Teach them how to choose. The notion of “going for alternative, cheaper brand” must always in their mind.

GoBankingRate suggested that:

How to say ‘no’: For young kids, a fun way to demonstrate that cheaper brands and name brands are often similar is a blind taste test. Ask kids to identify which is the brand name and which is the generic. Even if they’re correct in identifying the products, they’ll notice how similar they are.

There’s another way how to teach them: To be a role model to them. We should not buy our item base on fashion, but base on quality. I know it’s hard to let go of an LV handbag and buy Bonia handbag instead. But for our children sake. We should do that.

5 Dumb Ways to Spend Money on Your Kids [Bankrate via GoBankingRates]

photo by: Digital Sextant

Daddy & Mummy Sees Things Differently

I have to admit that Mr Hubby have very good parenting style. He is highly patience when dealing with clingy and whining Amirul and has tough stamina when dealing with mischievous Widad. Daddy prefer his kids to learn the consequences from their own actions and its the learning process to adapt the challenging world and building up their self esteem. However Mummy, loves to protect her kids tho they a grown up adult. :D

Daddy prefer to face danger, Mummy prefer to protect from danger
Daddy : Adik be careful. The stairs is steep and you might fall down. Daddy just sitting on the couch watching Adik climbing up the stairs
Mummy : Adik be careful . She already besides Adik to ensure that she is safe going up and down the stairs

The different between Mummy and Daddy.
Daddy wants Adik to take risk and learn the consequences of trying new thing
Mummy doesn’t want Adik to take risk as she knew the consequences of it.

Daddy sees as whole, Mummy sees in details
Mummy :“Adik, button ni kat depan, Ishhhh daddy ni”
Daddy : Man’s shirt, the button is located in front of the short.
Mummy : Girl’s shirt is different.
Daddy : But its still look ok on Adik and people don’t realize it.
Mummy : But this shirt design, the button should be at the back, not in front of the shirt

The different between Mummy and Daddy.
Daddy sees as long as Adik is happy its ok and its not a big deal
Mummy sees it wrong that Adik shouldn’t wear the shirt that way and thinking whats others might think when looking at Adik wearing the shirt in wrong manner

Daddy is losing the battle to won the another battle, Mummy is always winning the battle
Amirul : Daddy, Abang nak main Dragon games kat Wii
Daddy : OK Jom. Dah main, put back you console in the box
Amirul : OK daddy

Amirul : Mummy, Abang nak main Dragon games kat Wii
Mummy : Mner bleh, kan tadi Abang dah main, kena blaja lak. Enough, help Mummy to put all your toys inside the box , FASTER!!!!!!
Amirul : Abang penat la Mummy

See the different between Daddy and Mummy.
Daddy is coll and & relax, less pressure. Winning the battle is NOT the objective, but winning the Amirul’s heart is more important
Mummy is uncool & loves to put more stress. Winning the battle is the objective. Every rule need to be follow

See, daddy is real cool, Daddy plays guitar for you
Jahid, don’t teach Widad guitar ok?? tho its look cool when a girl plays guitar

Dad’s Power And How He Can Beat The Price Of A Chicken

Photo: The Star

1. First of all, the price of a chicken isn’t going to decrease at all. In fact, . The Star Newspaper reported that May inflation rate is up to 1.7% compared to last year. This is a bad news for dad, especially a young dad like me, who struggles with limited money against his kids expense, loans, utilities, and all. Another percent of inflation is another headache to bear. The good news is, the inflation rate over the last five years is in consistent move but we don’t how long it will last.

We should be worried because average salary increase has shown the downward trend from 94 – 2007. There’s no way we can beat the economy with the salary. What we can do is, we can beat them with our expenses and demands. When both of them — especially our demands — are decreasing in the market. The market will go down its price.

2. Understand the basic micro economy. Micro economy is a study of how to we manage our unlimited want with limited resources. Also, micro economy studies demands and supplies curves in a market. You see, if there’s a demand in a market, there will be a supply. If the demand is increasing, the line will be shifting, forcing the price to go upward along the line of supply. There’s a video to make you understand.

Same as if happened the demand becomes decreasing, the price will follow downward, produce the surplus in the market. Let’s take an example of selling price of chicken. Hypothetically, 1 kilogram of a chicken is RM6.50. If no one demand a chicken in a certain period of time, the seller will surely lower the price as they afraid their chickens will be rotted. Surplus.

Read More…

You are 29 today and We are 5

Happy birthday yayang Mujahid
May Allah grant all wish come true.amin

Happy 5th anniversary to us jahid
May Allah grant us happiness and rezeki yg diberkati.amin

image

you can depend on me if your glasses if broken.

Wish List

Dear Mr Hubby

If you still have no idea what to give me for our anniversary. Here is the wish list that I WISH to have. :P

 

miranda pavé wrapped enamel band ring

Stella Resin Watch

Stella Stainless Steel Watch – Brown & Rose

Machine Stainless Steel watch

NOTE : Will update time to time, so Mr Hubby please read this email regularly.. muah. I LOVE U YAYANG..

Tips & Tricks for Working MOTHER w Toddlers and NO MAID

Photo by : tifotter

If YES, that you are a working mother with toddlers and no maid, I would like to share tips and tricks perhaps useful for you in managing your house, children and enjoy your ME time as well

HOUSEKEEPING / ORGANIZING

[1] Clothing

Clothes – I do my laundry twice a week except for children’s school uniforms
Tips & Tricks :

  1. Sorting clothes before laundry . Sort clothing by washing method, color and type of fabric [Small&big/ dark colour & white colour/ cotton & silk]
  2. Laundering the bra/panties/tudung into mesh zipper bag. Use ‘quick wash’ instead of ‘fuzzy’
  3. Soak Amirul’s school uniform in small pile and wash before sleep
  4. Folding Clothes – I’m using basket system like this or you can try hanging system
  5. Ironing Clothes – Once a week . Plan the whole week office attire and consider if the top cover the pockets of the pants? If yes, just skip the upper portion of your slacks

[2] Clean and tidiness -

  • Daily : Sweep the floor after kids go to bed. Mr Hubby bring kids to bed I’m cleaning the living room,
  • Weekly : Vacuum / Mop / Toilet Cleaning
  • Children’s Toys : Do ask your kids to help you keeping the toys back into the toy’s basket, or asked them to put the toys into his/her ‘favorites bag’. Buy 2-in-1 storage box. Mine can use as storage box and stool
  • Trash: Make a habit to clean your dustbin every night before go to sleep and put infront of front door. The moment you step out the door, you will accidentally stepped on your garbage that you put yesterday and automatically pick up trash for the trash thrown out
  • Kitchen : Wash all the dishes after meal. Compulsory with no exception. So that there will be no unwashed dishes left in the sink

FOODS / EATING/ KITCHEN CHORES
Instant foods is not recommended but if you are working, foods preparation is very time consuming. What i normally do is marinate the chicken and put in freezer, before I go to work, just place the the chicken at chiller compartment and by the time I’m coming back the chicken already defrost. Place the chicken on the pan and roasted it. EASY, QUICK, HEALTHY. The only vegie that available in my fridge are carrot and mushroom. Just steam or fry with no oil. We eat rice only on weekend. Instead of eating rice we opt for mee/spaghetti. With a lot of frozen foods like sausages, chicken ball, nugget, crab finger, you name it, all in my fridge. Don’t fry with oil the sausages/nuggets etc, put in your fying pan put in slow heat and leave it wait until cook.

While waiting your foods to be ready, you can have you children-parent quality time like asking what they did at school, watching tv , play together.

We have foods heaven only on weekend either at MIL’s house or dining at fancy restaurant. MIL always says, eat like a beggar during weekdays and like a king during weekend.. huhuh

I’m doing the cooking, Mr Hubby do the cleaning.

CHILDREN

  • Eating time : 8 – 830pm. Normally we eat very light dinner because they already eaten at school. Mee/rice. Both Amirul and widad is really simple
  • Sleeping time : 830 – 9pm – Ready to sleep. Daddy will bring Widad to sleep , Amirul still have time either to belajar/watching cartoon/play games. Amirul sleeps 10pm.
  • Play time :

ME Time
Yeay now house is clean, kids is sleeping. Mummy and daddy can have Me time. Now My Hubby plays guitar and I updating this post. :D

 

How To Buy An Item At eBay, for Mom

Photos: Judy

For new buyer, I understand what it feels like. You feel doubt, insecure, and troublesome when it comes to buying online. The thing that plays into your mind is that whether the seller is genuine or not?  Everyone have a feeling of disgust if we find out that we’ve been cheated all along the transaction. The frustration is unbearable you don’t want to do anything online anymore. Then, you drive to Midvalley Megamall to buy nice, only to find out there’s a crowd you to have to kill, slash, and burn. It only makes it worse. In the end, you’re unable to satisfy yourself because the one that looking for is only available online.

You have conflict in your soul: To buy or not to buy online. Will my order arrive in good condition. What if I transferred money into a seller’s Maybank account and then disappeared like the wind blows?

Here’s some steps, tricks, and tips that will ease your pain away.

Steps:

1. Join or sign up as a user

2. Click buy or place bid on the item that you intend to purchase.

3. And wait for the item to end. BuyItNow item will be ended immediately as soon as you clicked the item.

4. Contact seller to receive invoice.

5. Make payment via Paypal or bank transfers, the most two widely used method in transaction.

6. Done.

I don’t need to explain a lot. Watch this video:

 

Read in-depth explanation on eBay:

http://pages.ebay.com.my/ebayexplained/buying_basics.html

Warning: Here are things needed to be careful.

1. The Item. 2. And the description. In an online marketplace, you have to be careful with item described. Sometimes the information will maneuver you over the positive thing about the item.

Your urge of buying intention suddenly burn with information that you considered it useful, plus, it is way much cheaper than any other seller at physical shop have to offer. By then, it influences your decision. Without thinking: Click. Pay. Done.

But, you forget to read at the end of the paragraph that saying : ‘the item may not working properly’ or ‘may be used for parts’ or ‘mock up item’.

Now you feel what I’ve felt a long time ago, that suicide may be the next best course of action.

Ask A LOT OF QUESTION. Be an annoying person for a while: ask the seller questions, High Definition photos, or even videos about the item, because you are about to make a critical decision right now. Watch the video above again and again to make deeper understandings.

3. Genuine seller. The most recommended criteria to look when analyzing your seller is feedback. It is agreeable to buy from PowerSeller because they pay more to be at a premium level. and by that, they really mean business. they have no time to be a scam idiot, sell invisible items and cash out money in a day. But assume that if there’s no PowerSeller offer the item you really want. Then you have to know as much as possible who the seller really is, what’s his feedback, DSR rating, and comments from past buyer.

Tips and tricks

1. The stars: 10 and 4.3

-The sellers on eBay should have at least 10 feedbacks. If they’re so damn lazy, they should have at least 4.3 DSR seller’s rate. Read about Feedback and  Detailed Seller Ratings for further understanding.

2. The information is trustworthy and sincere. If the description is short and pithy, doesn’t mean the seller wants to take your away your money and give you nothing in return. The seller maybe too lazy to write or have something else doing other than eBay (like working a day job maybe). Make sure the photo they upload is original. Means that even the photos are ugly, they’re at least not a ripped-off from some website.

But the more description, the more tendency for buyer to make the purchase, right?

3. Feedback history: What made the past controls the future. Read the feedback history of the seller. Read carefully. From now on, you can picture what are the seller’s behaviors really look like from the past buyer’s perspectives. The history should convince you in buying the item. If it satisfies you, then you should go for purchasing without a doubt.

4. Urge to use Paypal instead. If it possible, please ask the seller to use PayPal as a tool of transaction. It will be much more safer. PayPal has offered Buyer Protection Policy so you can do purchasing with security.

5. Follow your heart. Don’t buy if you really have a big doubt in your heart. The good buyer follows the tips, advices, and recommendations. The great buyer follows his/her heart. Even when the seller is good with feedback, 9999 stars, the item is so hot with affordable price, and you have extra cash to burn, but when you have a hole heart about this thing. Don’t buy that bag!!! Or don’t buy that item. Period. Full stop.

6. Collect feedback star as a buyer. Some sellers are refused to sell the item if the buyer feedbacks are low, especially when it comes to large amount. Make sure that you have at least 10 stars so can convince seller to sell your favorite items.

Last Words. Buying online is as same as buying a shopping complex. Of course, you don’t want to buy a cloth at a strange premise where the seller have a large, decayed teeth and smile in an evil way like he wants to eat you. In online world, you have to be careful when choosing the item. Gain knowledge about buying online. Know your seller. And good luck in hunting online.

 

How To Boost Self-Confidence

Imagine: You were about to give a speech and suddenly you were lost for words.

A question:  How did you feel at the time you lost a your confidence when you needed the most?

If someone asked me, then my answer is I felt angry and regretful, and a little of bit shame.

If I could turn back the time.

I know there’re reasons, million reasons to what I called the freeze tradegy: you begin to mumbling for your speech when you have been training for hours before that, awkward moment comes  and you are sweating like a horse. To add salt to the wound, you begin to stutter, lost for words, and you embarassed yourself.

It hurts like katana sword comes, from behind, through your stomach.

I looked into myself to think about it and this are the reasons why me and people like me lost their self-confidence in front of audience:

  1.  Lack Of Exposure. If your job is needed to speak all the time with a certain audience, then you get enough exposure. But if your job is rotting yourself in front of a computer and suddenly you were asked to proactively speaking in front of people in a seminar, that would be a problem.
  2. Lack Of Knowledge. We have no idea how to turn an ugly moment around and bring rainbows to it. But if we have read books and deep knowledge about the topic, I’m sure that we will prevail. It’s like our brain tend to help us with critical outcome when we are trouble during that speech.
  3.  A Butterfly In Stomach. This is the ultimate reason why we lose our confidence. At this point, you feel like your whole system is malfunctioned. Your brain is failure to follow order. You feel like to run out of the hall and crying like a baby because you failed to attract your spectator and audience with words and once again, words have failed you and you keep blaming them. You failed to deliver your message to your, maybe, CEO, bosses, clients, students, or audiences.

Last month, I was participated in a workshop and my team leader appointed me to be a group representative to stand and speak in front of 100 participants.

I managed to deliver message and message received. Everyone understand what was all about, I didn’t bore them nor interest them, according to my leader’s feedback. More or less, I feel that nightmare — like million zombies tried to eat me – when I was on the stage.

Here’s some example of tasks that needs self-confidence especially in front of people:

  • Public Speaking.
  • Singing.
  • Opinions.
  • Lecturing.

In my opinion, there are four important points you need to brush up:

  1. Dress something nice.  Try to dress like a champion. It doesn’t matter people mockingly called you a fashionista or something similar to that. We are trying to develop values to our confidence. This is the small step for being self-confidence guy. My suggestion is try to observe what kind of fashion is trending right now or get the idea by just window-shopping at Jusco or Parkson.
  2. Don’t Give Up. One day of brief happiness doesn’t make a man entirely happy. One failure doesn’t make you a lifetime failure. Just don’t give up. We need to fail in order to succeed. Speak. Fail. Review back why you failed.
  3. Go To Class. One way to improve your skills in effective way is to go to class. Public speaking class teaches how not to be afraid when facing millions of audiences. They teach you how body languange actually plays  a part of gaining confidence. Classes provide knowledge, social interactivity, and antidote for scared-of-crowd desease that has been haunting a lot of people.
  4. Pretend Wear A Mask. Before you facing the audience, you take out something from your pocket: a mask and just playfully pretend that you’ll be wearing for 20 minutes presentation of team’s Key Performance Index review. Fear no more. You have been shielded and you’ll be a better presentator, your body is following your order, your voice is doing right, your vital points are well presented.
  5. Learn Something New. Learn something that absolutely far and unrelated with your field of work. In my opinion, if you really want to be creative, in dimensional way, you have to learn something completely new like playing instrument – guitar, piano, or drum; kayaking, or learn foreign language.

Conclusion. Self-confidence is really helping you a lot in your life, especially when being a father. May be you are afraid right now when dealing with audience.

So do I.

I always say to myself that why not give a chance for myself to face the fear.

Life Is A Learning Curve

Photo: TonyHall

 Life is a learning curve to what some people always say. It’s true in many ways.

Life is the greatest teacher. The older you are, the more experience you get.

But, if you don’t take lessons from tragic incidents or memorial events in your life, unfortunately, you missed the opportunity, to learn something valuable.

Our world seems to accept that our knowledge is measured by a piece of paper.

If you’re a degree holder, people look you in an entirely different way.

Now hear me this: It’s just formality and academical. Just because you have completed doing degree or master’s degree, doesn’t mean you know everything. It’s just a beginning. Lessons in life take a long, long time to learn — well, a lifetime.

Let’s say that you have good self-initiatives to improve yourself, you will go to public speaking class, foreign language class, writing class, singing class, and even go to surau or mosque to hear some motivational, religious speech.

You always trying to improve the area of weaknesses.

Introduction to lifelong learning. According to Wikipedia – Lifelong Learning or LLL, is the continuous building of skills and knowledge throughout the life of an individual. It occurs through experiences encountered in the course of a lifetime.

LLL is divided into two:

  • Formal: training, counseling, tutoring, mentorship, apprenticeship
  • Informal: experience and situation.

Benefits of lifelong learning

1. Protect your head. My head and your head and every father’s head are the most valuable asset. They become more valuable than others when you give fuel to them, by doing something that can also lower your risk of getting Alzheimer — like reading books, playing instrument, analyzing problems, doing research, brain teaser games and etc.

Here some other things keep your head protected: Regular exercise, Healthy diet, Mental stimulation, Quality sleep, Stress management, An active social life [via HelpGuide]

2. Your intelligence is superior to others. Jogging is a fitness exercise for your physical body. Lifelong learning is a fitness exercise for your intelligence. While others keep decreasing because they are too lazy, yours is increasing handsomely because you schedule ‘your jogging for brain’ activity accordingly.

3. Earn more money. If a father keeps improving himself, some people will get impressed by it. Eventually, the father have no problem to bring more money to his family because [1] his writing is doing well and landed a freelance job, [2] a foreign language class he’s attending finally gets him paid as a part-time translator job, and [3] his public speaking training gets him invitations to give inspirational speeches in many events.

4. Increase your confidence. LLL increases your confidence. Now a father can overcome the stress of continuous crying of his baby because he knows a solution to that matters. His balance between work and life is becoming more stable, because his confidence musters like the way it should.

5. Self-satisfaction and feeling of accomplishment.  A father feels his life full with colors of happiness, because he realizes how much satisfying when doing something that can benefit to himself and his family.

From daddy’s POV. 

In my opinions, a father should have LLL plan in his mind, at least. Job as a father — like other paid job — needs to be sharpened to keep the competency level at its best. Reading is a good thing to know something you’re don’t know. You have a curious feeling inside of you that wants to come out. You read about sleeping pattern just to know whether your son has been sleeping well as recommended. You even take extra mile, unconventional way by watching YouTube videos to get ideas for useful activities, and indirectly improve your son’s motoring skill, intelligence, and learning ability.

Taking advice from the older ones prevent you from the same thing happened happen your life. As you know, not all the advices are usable or appropriate. May be the advices are against your family policy and constitution. Make your decision only for what’s good for your family.

Conclusion: Learning is a continuing process. A father must be knowledgeable. A father must know about almost everything. It’s a bullet vest when your son fires questions like a machine gun.

Lesson is not some kind of numbers and figures that you’ve been rewarded after three years of struggling to get a decent degree in a university.

If you’re getting comfort by knowing that you’re superior to anyone else around you just because you have the scroll of education, then you haven’t been learning anything.

Some good articles about lifelong learning

How I Choose A Smartphone

One day, my wife found hard to make decision between choosing item A and item B, then her friend suggested to try Grid Analysis and she said

“What? Do we really need that deep fried analysis to be adopted to our life? Formality is so boring!”

“Wait, there’s something good in it. Let’s try!” I reply in excitement.

So I tried.

I’ve read thoroughly the link, do the study, take 1 minute per word reading to improve my understanding towards the method.

What is Grid Analysis actually mean? When you have more than two choices that you can basically compare the criteria or the feature of the product itself.

The basic comparison. Using this tool, you can compare the two or more item that are in the same line of product.

I name three product can be compared, shoulder to shoulder:

  1. Cars: SUV, Sedan, 4×4 wheel
  2. Personal Computer: Desktop PC, Laptop, or Tablet.
  3. Smartphone: Brand comparison that available in the market.

The choice. For this post, I was searching for perfect smartphone, that I drive myself crazy with mumbling and gibberish swears for a long time and I came up with three choices:

  1. iPhone 4s [Review: link to engadget]
  2. Samsung Galaxy S2 [Review: link to engadget]
  3. Motorola Atrix / Atrix 2 [Review: link to engadget]

All reviews I had read was on Engadget. Hope you can broaden your knowledge about smartphones on multiple sources.

Before I continue with heavy explanation and analysis (this is heavy for me), I am the person who likes:

  1. Reading
  2. Writing
  3. Playing Games
  4. Watching Movies

REMINDER: Before you start doing analysis — well — analyze yourself first. See what you are and how a smartphone can fit with your personality.

Steps

Forgive me as I ripped off the text exactly from the article (I let the laziness came in):

1. List all the options as the row labels on the table, and list the factors that you need to consider as the column headings.

2. Next, work your way down the column of your table, scoring each option for each of the factors in your decision. Score each option from 0 (poor) to 5 (very good). Note that you do not have to have different score for each option – if none of them are good for a particular factor in your decision, then all option should score 0.

3. The next step is to work out the relative importance of the factors in your decision. Show these as numbers from, say, 0 to 5, where 0 means that the factor is absolutely unimportant in the final decision, and 5 means that it is very important. (it’s perfectly acceptable to have factors with the same importance)

4. Now multiply each of our scores from step 2 by the values for relative importance of the factor that you calculated in step 3. This will give you weighted score for each option/factor combination.

5. Finally, add up these weighted score for each of your options. The option that scores the highest winner.

—

My analysis. Below are the criteria that I’m looking for to buy a smartphone:

Data and Wifi Connections. 

Smartphone is synonymous with constant internet connection. Without it would benothing. Most of people put it as number one priority. Speed and sustainability are everything especially for businessmen, email dependent, facebook and twitter junkies, state-of-always-connected to the internet people.

But not for me.

I’m more to reading stuff: off line articles and novels,writing on the go, watching videos, and playing games. So I concluded that I don’t need such constant internet connection. It dries up my productive anyway.

Performance & Productivity

Smartphone is also synonymous with performance. Smartphone with lack of performance is no smartphone at all.

While I’m looking for the performance at best, I consider the smartphone that can brings, at least, modest productivity.

I’m also not looking for a very high performance that can play Ninja Gaiden or latest Modern Warfare on my palm.

Enough that I can release my anger playing with a simple survival game. What I’m looking for is the one that can deliver easy reading and writing.

Usability, UI friendly,and Design.

User interface must be cool, the gadget must be friendly user, and I guess, you must be wanted to show off of your smartphone to your friend — how much sexy she can hold, for example. I dont want to bleed my eyes everytime I glimpse at own smartphone. Even a milisecond.

So I should stay away from those bulky, horrible smartphones – like Sony Ericsson.

Apps Ecosystem.

There are only two apps ecosystems available in the market.

Apple and Android.

And Symbian. And Window Phone7. And Blackberry OS. And PalmOS .And Meego. And Bada. And what?

That’s more than two. But Apple and Android are the ones that seem available to me. The rest are not because their ecosystems are not strong enough to make my heart skipped a beat.

Settings and Tweaks

This feature is provided by OS developer to give you control on your control, in term of setting and tweaking your phone, to satisfy with your personal taste.

This is one of the vital factors to have in a smartphone to be in my pocket.

Tell me, who don’t want to your own smartphone to follow your own personal taste? It’s like creating your own little world inside that small rectangle box.

Battery, Hardware, and all.

Hear me this: I want to play games all day long, I want to watch movies in marathon mode, and I want to free writing until my hands burn out. And I want to do it on my smartphone. The battery and the hardware should hold up to my needs

Affordability

Of course. Since I have two children that always maintain my upkeep high, I have to looking for cheapest one yet can still deliver performance.

Extra Features

If a smartphones can bring extra feature that will be good. But not essential as the points above.

 Table of decision

Factors before putting appropriate weights

Factors
Data & Wifi Connection
Performance & Productivity
Usablility
Apps Ecosystem
Settings And Tweaks
Battery and Hardware and All
Affordable
Extra features
Weights








iPhone 4s
5
5
5
5
2
3
2
5
Samsung S2
4
4
4
3
5
5
3
3
Atrix
4
4
4
3
3
5
3
4

Factors after putting appropriate weights

Factors
Data & Wifi Connection
Performance & Productivity
Usablility & Extra Features
Apps Ecosystem
Settings And Tweaks
Battery and Hardware and All
Affordable
Extra Features
Total
Weights
3
4
4
5
5
5
5
2

iPhone 4s
15
20
20
25
10
15
10
10
125
Samsung S2
12
16
16
15
25
25
15
6
130
Atrix
12
16
16
15
15
25
15
8
122

Score:

  1. iPhone 4s: 117
  2. Samsung Galaxy S2 : 130
  3. Motorola Atrix : 122

From the grid analysis, the winner is Samsung Galaxy S2.

Again. Find your interest first, then find your smartphone. I bet most of the reader will be choosing iPhone 4s

More Analysis

Grid analysis can be used on day-to-day operation in being-a-father job. The decisions that I can think right now are:

  1. Choosing the right nursery.
  2. Choosing the right, affordable car for your family yet can deliver arousing jealousy among your neighbors, friends, and family.
  3. Choosing the right internet service provider that benefits to all your family members as well as your needs.

Conclusion. Base on my result, it was difficult to do and I felt it’s a little bit overrated from doing that analysis. But I realized, it is the right tool for me to make a decision and I feel less r

At least, I was using a tool before making a decision.

So daddy and mommy, what is your solution when having difficulties choosing item A and item B in your daily life?

A Lesson In Life

Primary School
I was responsible to hold the key of my own house when I was 9 years old. I remembered I was in standard 3 back then.

The primary school was about 10 km away from my house. Mom and dad — they were pulling their heart out to make a decent money for us.

And I understood, that time, if they could not spare more time with me and my siblings.

We were not some kind of kids in a movie where you needed your parent to be with you all the time.

Let’s look when they’re grown up: they had no manner, whatsoever, in treating their own parents.

I hope they wouldn’t sent away their parent to old folks house when they got older.

From my experience, spending less time with your mom and dad makes you stronger and more independent.

You have to take care of yourself. If bad things happened, you have to be on your own.

That’s why I could not involve in agreeing of watching your kid every minute, catch them every time they are falling, let they figure out by themselves.

I’m sure they will be okay to get to their own feet.

Secondary School
I was sent to a boarding school in Kajang. Just like my dad — he was once a student in a boarding school somewhere in Perak. He sent to me to be a better person.

And this is what I had learned for 5 years..

#1. It’s a different world in here.
#2. You have to fight for yourself.
#3. Friends.
#4. Earn some respect
#5. Seniority Is Here To Stay
#6. Good boy leads to a boring life.

In the boarding school, I learned how to study, do your laundry, get around with friends, flirting girls, involve in fighting, and be a grown up person. There were good and bad influence the life of a boy in a boarding school.

Pre-University Matrix
Same as life as a school boy. With less boy-warden chasing, canning, and detention. And more warning, show-cause letter, and penalties.

Disiplinary actions were enforced by giving penalty to students rather than deducting merit for bad behavior.

University Life
If I study hard, I mean applying the effort when I was in the boarding school, my guess was that I’d be in the dean list and I could be dreaming about working with high profile company can pay you handsomely.

But I had been through a lot of trouble between wasting my time by doing nothing, and pursuing my goal for excellence result in my degree.

Yes. I play a lot and this was my own fault and I felt the consequences: hard to find fat paying job,
I even failed in my interview for 11 times and I was unemployed for nearly 1 year.

I even change my own movitation from pursuing in financial field career to grab-anything-you-can-get-and-pay-the-bills job.

Now.

Regret and full of frustration.

How to fix this?

So I decided to work for three years and pursuing Masters. I hope this time I won’t let myself into the distraction zone, and I will force myself to get over-expected result.

I hope.

My Mom Teaches Me About Life #1: Eat Like Poor People

 

Photo: blentley

1. My mom is a supreme cop, Judge Dredd, Robocop, or whatever fancy names you want to label. But my mom is nothing like it. No one can ever be leveled with her. She IS much more than that. She’s a panther of the jungle who always taking control of a situation and turns it into something you can’t possibly imagine when you’re kid. If, me and other siblings, had done something wrong, then we knew what kind of ‘reward’ we would get.

2. Yes. What followed after that, was a supersonic voice, and drilling pinches, and endless lecture about how grateful I was, compared to other kids who lived in Somalia.

3. My mom is a unique woman. And I love her. She used to believe (and she is now) that good people were made of steel. The more strictness you are, the more powerful you would become. And yes, it was totally proven – everyone in the family leads a happy life and have a decent job. I remember that my mom taught me about life when I was little:

EAT LIKE POOR PEOPLE
4. I’m so crazy in love with hot chili-based foods and dishes. Those foods make my head itchy and I can feel the sweat on my back every time I look at them. It seems like I have a superpower: the hotter the food is, the itchier the skin of my head will be.

5. Then the memory of me and my mom that I can’t forget, no matter how hard I try,  the first time I got smacked by my mother because of the chilli Boh.

6. I can’t fight the feeling of irresistible temptation when I see red color in food — I drank chili boh she had been prepared that morning. I got smacked like a thunder in the sky.

7. And I also remembered how my mom told me that we have to be prepared ourselves with less ordinary food if we broke that consequently led to extreme poverty life and we had to eat a lovely cat or lizard in order to survive.

8. So, at least once a week she prepared the most lowest level kind of food like rice with fried fish, and black soy ketchup.

9. Usually we, as siblings, were served with at least more than two dishes.

10. If a few pieces of rice was dropped off of the plate, make sure you pick it up. And the table had to be cleaned without sign of food. If not, the punishment shall be your coat.

11. There must be no sign of rice on the table. Those rice have to be what they suppose to be: on plate. I had to eat my dinner in careful manner, not to drop a single grain of rice if my mother noticed that I ignored it, I would get pinched on my thigh.

12. It’s hard to be a mom. Especially when she had no assistant to wash plates, bowl, and she had to deal with her children who have no table manner like Vikings. Well, of course, aside from we get a burning sensation of pinching on our thighs because of our behavior, we also have to wash our own dishes.

NO LUXURY FOOD UNTIL YOU APPRECIATE OF HOW GRATEFUL YOU ARE
13. She seldom cook for us any luxury food to teach us that we have to be grateful and live a life less ordinary.

14. Don’t let our food becomes a waste because there are millions of poor people who need food and, everyday they die because of food deprivation.

PREPARE FOR THE RAINY DAYS.
Why my mom cooked and served like we have only RM3 left in our pocket? She did that because she wanted me to be prepared for the worst, and not to complain about it.

BJW 7703 in Memory

 13 Apr 2008

Mr Hubby’s car was stolen on 18 Aug 11 at UKM commuter station.

Kenapa perlu amik time I nak balik raya. Kenapa perlu mengurangkan mood hari raya I. Kenapa amik kereta BLM I yg tak basuh dah almost 4 mths. tak suka :C

One gone, left another car. Doakan Estima will be ours in 3 years time (time tue Kelisa biru dah abs bayar)

 

Why I hate Multilevel Marketing Business (MLM).. and the people in it.

Photo: ProfessorYackle

IT ALL BEGAN WITH.. 

1. I’d got a message from old, long lost-contact friend, saying that he had a business opportunity he wanted to share with me.

2. With the 20 percent shares he allocated for me to pursue business together.

3. The world started crumbling down when I realized that the business that he eager to jump start with me, was another goddamn dinosaur-like multilevel marketing business.

4. I need someone to be my punch bag.

LET ME TELL YOU THIS AGAIN..

5. I couldn’t help myself but to get excited when my friend — ex school mate — invited me to join venture to set sail in the world of air industrial business.

6. Since his educational background was engineering, I assume he knows the business like the back of his hand.

7. He told me that:

  • He got consulted by a lawyer to help him in developing his business,
  • A business coach to make things rest assured;
  • and A banker to aid with the financial constraints so that the business will not be disrupted by those monetary nonsense.

8. So that Sunday, I started to text messaging with him like lovers. Even my wife started to get jealous,

“what’s the deal between you and your cellphone?”

“Oh, don’t tell me that you feel something bad about me just because I’m texting someone longer than you”

9. My wife was frowning during our painful conversation. I told myself she didn’t understand. But she would when I brought home a Toyota Estima key for her, benefited from a profit of my future business.

10. OMG, I was dreaming before the business had even started.

11. Then I told my wife to soothe her feeling “It’s my old friend. Okay. Relax. I will not do something funny in front of you. Beside, there’s a business opportunity here and I will not turn it into a wasteland”

12. After break fast, I grabbed my keys and off to Kuala Lumpur. There was a long-time-no-see meeting going on at KLCC with me and my old friend.

13. Yes, something funny had happened.

 

IT’S A TRICK

14. And I could picture that my wife would be laughing at me when I told her I was tricked by so-called MLM businessman.

15. I remember a day before, My wife started to get mad at me when I told her that I would not be here to have the iftar with her (Iftar: break fasting or berbuka puasa).

16. When my friend told me this meeting was all about MLM; I realized my lovely wife’s madness was truly worthwhile.

17. My innner voice was telling me that it was a really, really stupid idea to substitute the intimacy of doing iftar together with my wife, just to meet with the old friend and his business proposal.

18. So I cancel the meeting and rescheduled it after having iftar with my wife. And that decision was right the moment.

19. I realized the word MLM came out of my friend’s mouth like a loath of vomit.

20. My blood was draining out and off my face. I could feel my wrath running wild around my head. I would be relief I could smack the hell out of his face.

21. That moment got me rewind back to where my wife frowning because I couldn’t have iftar with her so I could meet my old friend.

22. Wife, thank you for doing that; that frowning / tantrum / merajuk thing. I would put myself into eternal self-purgatory for life if I abandoned my wife alone with our kids.

 

DEALING WITH MLM PEOPLE

23. My mind was a stormy sea. And it’s generating heat inside of me. If I had powers like Kratos in the God of War games, I would hit him off the ground with the double-chained blade and do the immortal hits on him, along with his self-righteous fellow friend, and the MLM products they slept with, as well.

24. But I still had a respect for him because I’d known him for years now and he was my school mate.

25. My heart’s thumping, instructed me to burst down the double door of the hall and left him in confusion. But I got hold of myself at that moment.

26. Instead, I followed my brain and carried my respect for him.

27. As for that, I wasted almost four hours listening on how their MLM product could shoot earth’s garbage into space.

28. Thank god I was good at listening and absorbed nothing.

29. This was not the first time I was approached by an MLM salesperson. And I always knew what he would be saying. I could pick most of his words ahead of him.

30. You always knew what they would be saying like: how dirty the conventional business is and the good way of doing business is by network marketing.

DOWNWARD IS THE WAY FORWARD

31. Now, how he tricked me to get excited about this business was simple. From the first text message to end of our meeting, he never mentioned any typical words or terminologies of multilevel marketing like MLM, downline, upline, PV (point value), generations, kaki, pyramid, network and so on.

32. Instead, he carefully picked up words of legal business entity like share partner, business proposal, contract, maintenance, closed sale, project, overseas market, and so on.

33. He was so clever that he never let me opened my mind — not even the slightest idea — into thinking: there would be a grim reaper of Multilevel Marketing waiting, on the corner, to decapitate my neck.

34. In 45 minutes of his presentation, I never rose a question about anything. I sat still like a stone.

35. What really annoying about his presentation was, he applied the fundamental of marketing that I already learned: the product life cycle, product establishment, brand recognition, 4 types of people in marketing world, A.I.D.A Model, types of promotion, marketing strategies, and so on.

36. If someone didn’t have such a marketing knowledge, they might be mesmerized by his presentation.

37. They must be thinking hard on how to penetrate my MLM-proof mind and turned me into a zombie of the night..

38 ..and giving them my money right away.

39. But they failed to do that to me.

40. For all I knew, I was listening to words that he said but never let him constructing an insidious inception inside my mind.

Conclusion:

41. My hatred of Multilevel Marketing model was so deep that I could dig a well of infamous articles and join forces with Aididleaks like there’s no tomorrow.

42. And I feared that it would become my greatest passion: to elevate all MLM companies to the seventh level of atmospheres and gravitate them down so fast to the ground that the impact would bring the horror of vibrations miles away, the sound of the wrath would echo for millenniums, and everything would be laid to waste.

43. So to anyone, especially my fellow friends, don’t you ever persuade or trick me to let me step into your door of endless promises. Because if you do, I will never acknowledge my respect for you and then I will advance against you, above manner and morality.

44. Now, I can rephrase the 4400′s most famous quote: “We are at war now, don’t pick the wrong side.”

 

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