Today, The Star Online hosted a “live” interview with Datuk Dr Maximus Ongkili, Science, Technology and Innovation minister of Malaysia via an IRC like interface where viewers could read moderated questions posed to him and his replies.The topic was The Internet: Is speed all that matters?

I was interested to see what he would have to say and how live the interview would be. I was deeply unimpressed as there was really no form of active interaction between the audience and him. For all we know, he could have been asleep at home, while all this was going on.

There was more life in the Twittersphere and there were active conversations going on. Here is a transcript of the live interview, for those who might have missed it. And at the end, are some responses from the Twittersphere.

3:36 The Star Online:

Good afternoon and thank you for joining The Star Online today for our exclusive live blogchat with Datuk Dr Maximus Ongkili, Science, Technology and Innovation Minister. Dr Max has kindly taken time out of his busy schedule today to respond to some queries that you folks out there might have.

3:37 The Star Online:  We are getting Dr Max ready to reply to questions, so we’ll be ready to begin in a few minutes.

3:40 The Star Online:  The theme for today’s chat with Dr Max is “The Internet: Is speed all that matters.

3:40 The Star Online:  We would like to invite all of you tuning in here to leave your comments and questions for Dr Max, and we will try to fit in as many as possible over the next hour. We will also be posting several questions from readers of The Star Online who responded for our call for advance questions for Dr Max.

3:43 The Star Online:  Along the way, we will be uploading segments from the earlier video interview we conducted with Dr Max at Studio V at 1-Utama Shopping Centre in Petaling Jaya earlier.

3:47 The Star Online: It appears that Dr Max is ready to join us. Welcome Datuk.

3:47 Dr Max: Hello everyone, thank you for having me here today.

3:47 The Star Online:  Datuk, we have questions coming in live, and some advance questions as well. The first one comes from Shermaine.

3:47 The Star Online:

Hi Dr Maximus,

The Internet is the basis of much technological development. It’s not surprising that while Malaysia has a wealth of IT talents, and has been actively investing in technology and education, Internet usage still falls behind. Two factors plays a vital role, cost of internet and speed, this is largely due to lack of competition. The last time I was home, about a year ago, Internet service start from RM67 per month (not including phone line rental), mobile broadband costs a whopping RM 130 a month (apologies if these numbers are not exactly accurate). I am currently based in London, my Internet costs £15 a month, which after coversion to RM still works out about the same if not cheaper. This means Malaysians are paying London rate!
What are plans in the pipeline to at least make Internet connection more affordable and reachable for Malaysians?

Regards,
Shermaine

3:49 Dr Max:  Thanks Shermaine for your valuable input and questions

3:49 Dr Max:  Actually it is a chicken and egg situation.

3:51 Dr Max:

As I said earlier, the infrastructure for broadband is only starting to roll out. Hence, it has been costly for the existing infrastructure. We need major roll out of the broadband plan in order to reduce costs. PIKOM has proposed that the cost should be no more than RM30 per month to makebroadband accessible to all and increase Internet access.

3:51 Dr Max:  Once the broadband roll out is completed, the costs will average out and achieve the PIKOM proposal.

3:52 [Comment From Gabriel] what is the fucntion of MDeC within MOSTI and how does it differ from MSC Malaysia?

3:53 Dr Max:  MSC Malaysia is the flagship for the development of Multimedia Super Corridor and MDeC is the agency that spearheads the MSC development.

3:53 [Comment From Bob Chua] Good Afternoon Datuk – Glad to see you in Cyberspace. As a fellow Sabahan, do you see Sabah playing a role or having the opportunity to position itself as an ICT hub, perhaps via SDC (Sabah Development Corridor) or MSC Sabah?

3:56 Dr Max:

Thank you Bob. When there is a development, there is always an opportunity for the use of ICT to drive modernisation. I have already asked the Sabah state government to submit   a proposal for an MSC centre as a start before we talk about MSC Sabah. I understand that the proposal is being prepared and MOSTI will do its best to take the necessary action.

3:56 The Star Online:

This is another advance question, Datuk, from Fikri Salleh from the University of Melbourne.

Dear Dr. Ongkili,
I am an Electrical Engineering undergraduate from the University of Melbourne, currently majoring in telecommunications. In Australia they charge you for download quotas, where the more you download, the more you will have to pay, say 100 GB @ $100 versus 20 GB @ $20, after which the speed is throttled down (slowed). By charging more for more quota, this can improve overall connection quality. The heavy downloaders can still download, but now they have to pay more. Thus we normal users do not have to put up with the network being bogged due to these heavy downloaders, because there will be fewer of them.

Regards,
Fikri Saleh

3:58 Dr Max:  Hello Fikri, thanks for your comment. I totally agree with you. I will convey the concern and proposal to my colleague Information, Communications and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Utama Dr Rais Yatim.

3:58 The Star Online:  Datuk, this is a follow up question to your response earlier on the broadband rollout.

3:58 [Comment From Jerome] Hi Dr, when will be the projected completion time for the roll out? Surely we have an expected time line, don’t we?

3:59 The Star Online:  While we wait for Dr Max to respond, if you would like to listen to the earlier exclusive interview with him, please refresh your page and click on the audio links available.

4:02 Dr Max:  Thank you for your question. The whole broadband initiative will take 10 years to complete. But the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC)  has organised the period into two-year plans. Priority will be given to Zone 1 i.e. the business, commercial and residential sectors. Of course, we are asking that the rural sector i.e. Zone 3 should be given attention at the same time. I will not agree that we have to wait 10 years to enjoy the Internet spoeds enjoyed by developed countries.

4:02 [Comment From CHEWLP] How can the ministry play a role to make sure consumer get what they pay for ?

4:06 Dr Max:  As I said, MOSTI deals with technology and content of the ICT and Internet services. We will voice out to the Cabinet and the relevant ministries our concerns regarding making Internet access as affordable as possible. In   fact, we have already done that.

4:06 [Comment From Firedauz]

Good evening, Dr Max. How do you see the future of Internet service in Malaysia? Will one day we will be able to grace the ultra-fast, fiber-optic Internet speed of Japan, which only cost around RM50 per month for the consumers? I have been based in Tokyo for several years now, enjoying the luxury of the quality services and speed of Sofbank and Yahoo! BB, which is why I hope that one day for the average citizens of Malaysia, I see them enjoying the same benefit as I do. Thank you — Firedauz.

4:09 Dr Max:  Thank Firedauz. My desire is to ensure all Malaysians could enjoy the same Internet speed as what developed countries like Japan enjoy. It is possible with the political will of the Government and the cooperation of all key industry players including state governments. As I said, we should not wait 10 years to enjoy that level of Internet speed in developed countries. My own expectation is that there will be a major achievement within the next three years.

4:09 The Star Online:  This question from Azlan, Datuk, is a follow up question on the broadband rollout replied earlier.

4:09 [Comment From azlan] What speed do we get in 10 years? and will the price be reasonable?

4:12 Dr Max:

Thanks Azlan. I think that the target speed of 20Mbps for the high speed broadband for the commercial sector and not less than 2Mbps for the general population especially for Sabah and Sarawak can be achieved within the next three years. Price is difficult to determine but the proposal of PIKOM i.e. RM30 per month is a reasonable target to achieve.

4:12 The Star Online:

Here is another advance question we received.

Datuk, can you elaborate a little bit on the MyIdeas portal?

Thank you, – JR

4:18 Dr Max:  Hello JR. About MyIdeas portal, it is to be launched by the Prime Minister in the next two weeks. It is a portal aimed at inviting the public to submit ideas to MOSTI regarding 2010 Year of Creativity and Innovation. The public can submit ANY ideas  regarding how we should solve the economic, social and technological problems that Malaysia is facing. Excellent ideas will be developed further by scientists and the final idea patented or ‘copyrighted’  to the original proposer. Such ideas or innovations will then be showcased during next year’s Year of Creativity and Innovation. So watch out for the portal launching on July 8th and please participate and submit your great ideas.

4:18 The Star Online:

I  would suggest some community/rural area projects to be implemented at a lower cost such as the design and development of a broadband/satellite services for a wireless connection at a lower cost for rural areas. This will benefit many like teachers, students, and people who are unable to travel or get connected. This will also indirectly motivate and make full use of ICT applications.

We also need to have applications for video conferencing, distance learning, VoIP, internet education and community service besides e-Government applications.

Thanks and best regards,
Dinesh Wasoo

4:20 Dr Max:  Good afternoon Dinesh. I share your concern and proposal. That’s why for broadband for the general population (BBGP), we are proposing that we should opt for WiWi technology i.e. combination of Wimax and Wifi through the use of satellite infrastructure rather than laying out fibre-optic lines.

4:20 [Comment From Xtina] Hello Datuk, you proposed a National Innovation Foundation when you first became the MOSTI Minister. What has become of that plan?

4:24 Dr Max:  Hello Xtina. The National Innovation Foundation (NIF) has started to roll out its activities. The MyIdeas portal will be managed by NIF. It will also spearhead the organising of the 2010 Year of Creativity and Innovation. As part of the preparation, there will be creativity competitions at district and state levels. It will also embark on innovation awareness programmes for students, youths and woman groups  commencing in August 2009. NIF website will be up and running by August 1st and the public will be able to visit it and participate in the various programmes planned.

4:24 [Comment From Chee Yan Kuan] National Innovation Policy is good.How do you monitor the progress of the National Innovation Policy?

4:28 Dr Max:  Hello Chee. A national implementation committee chaired by the Chief Secretary to the Government has already met three times in the last one year to spearhead implementation of innovation policies and programmes. Various briefings at sectoral and state levels have been undertaken. Exhibitions and competitions on innovation are held twice yearly.

4:28 [Comment From John] Hi Datuk, I always heard about CyberSecurity Malaysia in the radio station. what is the function of CyberSecurity within MOSTI

4:33 Dr Max:  Hello John, thanks for the question. If you’re in the Peninsula I   invite you to visit CyberSecurity Malaysia and have a first hand feel of the latest technologies used to keep cyberspace in Malaysia safe. CyberSecurity Malaysia is the national specialist centre delivering and ensuring cyber security. It deals with education and awareness programmes, training, digital forensics, certification, international networking and collaboration and policy research, and acts as a help centre including Cyber999. I will be launching Cyber999 on July 7th. So hope you could make it there, John.

4:33 The Star Online: One last question, Datuk.

4:33 [Comment From MD] Datuk, will foreign player be allowed to roll out broadband services here?

4:36 Dr Max: Thanks MD. Malaysian infrastructure industry has always been open to national and international players. You can see that from the number of service providers in the country that are foreign-based. As usual, priority will be given to national ICT companies that have international networking and partnerships.

4:36 The Star Online:  Sorry folks, but that’s all the   time we have with Dr Max today. We have received many questions and comments from you. Those that we have not managed to pose to the Minister today will be forwarded to MOSTI.

4:36 The Star Online:  Just a reminder, the video on the exclusive interview will be uploaded shortly. In the mean time, the audio version is already available. For those of you who are not able to see the link, please refresh your page.

4:36 The Star Online:  Thank you for your time, Dr Max.

4:37 Dr Max: Thank you for giving me the time to answer your questions. If you still have further questions, please send me an email listed on MOSTI’s website at www.mosti.gov.my or directly to me at ongkili@mosti.gov.my. Take care and have a good evening everyone.

4:38 The Star Online: Thank you all for joining us today and for sending in your questions. Please make use of the two email addresses provided by Dr Max to send in your queries and comments. Have a good evening ahead of you.

Polls held during the live interview…

Random tweets…

Post interview tweets…

Please be very careful where you dish out your Twitter credentials. There are so many sites that claim to offer you little knick knacks, the best of course being the esteemed “thousands of followers, just key in your details here”.

Most of them are full of crap, and I have witnessed first-hand how a friend’s account was hacked. I was suddenly getting a plethora of lewd messages about “come watch me play with my 12inch toy LIVE”. (Are they talking about the new Optimus Prime Transformers toy?).

But since her username was changed to sexaddictchik, I gathered it wasn’t the transformers toy. They didn’t change her real name, so I was able to contact her and alert her to this account takeover. If they had done that, I don’t think I’d be able to tell who it was.

In summary, ensure the site you key in your Twitter credentials at is a reputable looking site, and others have used it too. If they promise you too much, they probably are lying. If in doubt, don’t key in your username and password anywhere except the main Twitter site.

UPDATE: 5:49pm, 23 June 2009. Yet another account has been hacked.

Today, on the 22nd of June 2009, I have christened it as Clean Desk Day for me, and am inviting others to participate too. I’ve had a fairly (understatement!) messy desk for the longest time, and due to lots of research by others, I’m convinced that a clean desk helps with productivity. Knowing how important time is in this era, I need to squeeze out as much as I can.

So, I dug around under my piles of “stuff” and disposed a whole lotta things. Here’s BEFORE I started cleaning…

Before the big clean up!

And from angle number #2…

One minute later, and I’m DONE! Whoopeeee… that was easy.

1 minute later... it's all under the desk!

Heheh, so when’s Clean Floor Day?

Some 10 minutes later, I managed to file all my junk, dispose of excess paper in the recycling heap and actually be proud to say my desk is CLEAN. Well, for now anyway.

Some say, a clean desk is the sign of a sick mind. Oh well, I guess I’ll try to be sick for a little while, anyway.

After I posted this blog post, good Twitter-mate @aprilyim posted her own #cleandesk contribution. If you look closely, you can see how hard she works (look at her notebook!).

#cleandesk contribution from @aprilyim

Over the last 2 weeks, I’ve not been to any Tweetups (yet), but I had the chance to meet and make many new friends among those whom I only know as @Username on Twitter. The funny part about meeting in real life, is sometimes you really can’t match their nickname or their avatar to a face. After all, it’s hard to look at someone and match their whole face to a tiny 50×50 pixel avatar! Perhaps you have to frame their face with your fingers to suddenly get the eureka, “ahhh, it’s you” moment.

Let’s see… I’ve met for the first time, @sivinkit @TriciaYeoh @jasonong @mikefoong @chrishong @nigelais @sausheong @edwintcg @thematrixuum @sochews @mahyuni @SalocinTEN @angch (Sorry, if I forgot your username and didn’t list you down here!). Oh, and I saw @minishorts from a distance at BLC  – sorry, didn’t manage to go and say hi, you looked busy.

One interesting encounter was last Sunday, when I dropped by at the Bangsar Lutheran Church. After the service, Rev. @sivinkit (aka the Twittering pastor) and a few others were standing around talking about Twitter, and I interjected by saying, “Oh, I follow you too”. Then they quizzed me on my username, and I said “@TheBackpackr“. Suddenly there was a chorus of “ohhhh”. I realised I was following most of them and they likewise. We then proceeded with a round of Twitter Username introductions. (As a side note, BLC is an extremely forward thinking church and many of them there are bloggers and Twitterites. If you’re looking for a church that’s like that, do send the cool Rev. @sivinkit a tweet!)

It’s encouraging to see more and more Malaysians jump onto the Twitter bandwagon (perhaps we should call it the Twitter concorde, considering how fast it’s picking up steam). There’s a directory of sorts available at wefollow.com that lists Malaysians who have tagged themselves with the keyword “Malaysia” but it’s not an accurate representation of how many Malaysians there are who tweet.

Alright, I’m off for TEDxKL talks soon, and I’m sure I’ll be meeting another group of Twittering Tweeters (or is it Tweeting Twitterers?) – oh whatever… let’s tweet!

As our Integricity office is right beside a McDonalds outlet, our team frequents it quite a lot and more so now that there is a McValue lunch promotion! We even have our in-house ambassador named Follen, who can dine on McDonalds exclusively! (We think she gets phone calls from them to inform her of what’s up and coming!)

A satisfying meal for a mere RM5.95? That’s a pretty sweet deal, and I thought so. When Grace and I found out there was a contest going on to write a creative blog post, we seized the opportunity to compete, as we do believe in the McValue lunches! We discussed a concept, whipped out our Canon 5D Mark 2 DSLR camera, a few lenses and off we went to McDonalds.

We also invited a good buddy, Joseph, to come along with us as he enjoys photography and videography too. Armed with our gear, we battled the traffic at the drive-thru and secured our spot. The friendly faces of the McDonalds crew were a delight to work with and they were ever so supportive of our crazy ideas!

Alright, enough about the history behind it, here’s our innovative and creative video clip, that is infused with some humor… NOW HAND OVER THE IPHONE… please?

If you have a faster Internet connection, do click on the HD icon above to watch it in MUCH better high-def quality!

Ingredients for a successful McValue Lunch:

• Canon 5D Mark 2 and a tripod
• 50mm F1.4, 135mm F2.0, 17-40mm F4, 70-200mm F4
• 1 MacBook Pro
• 1 iPhone (borrowed from Jo. Thanks!)
  
• 1 wheelchair
• A pair of Crocs
  
• 1 McDonalds VIP sticker
  
• Some friendly faces from the McDonald’s drive-thru
• A beautiful and skilled wife
• A friend named Joseph
• Oh, and 2 McValue meals of course! (which sure beat an average plate of noodles!)
  

Here are some behind-the-scenes shots of us having fun while filming.

Friendy Halim and I at the Bandar Utama drive-thru

Grace and Jo setting up the 5DMkII to pull focus

Joseph shooting a close-up of the iPhone

Weaving between cars was a challenge!

Are you plagued by horrible internet connectivity, and do you keep getting errors like this one, when you try to upgrade your Wordpress blog?

I kept getting the same error over and over again, and decided there’s a better way of overcoming this problem. Thanks to Nazham, he had some pointers on his blog to share on how you can edit the file (/wp-admin/includes/file.php) and modify this line:

$response = wp_remote_get($url, array(’timeout’ => 30));

to increase the timeout to something longer like 120.

However, this method apparently is overwritten when you upgrade your Wordpress installation in the future. Felix Ker has a plugin that permanently fixes this problem, perhaps you could try it out instead.

I’m not one of those crazy Mac fanatics who frowns on PC users, but here’s a very funny photo that I received in my email recently.

Is he a spy? Perhaps his Mac was at the doctors for service?

BarCamp KL was an amazing event, with 100s of likeminded individuals crowding together at Inti College, just to bounce off each other’s passion. It was my first time attending a BarCamp and it was a fun-filled day of various activities.

It goes to prove that geeks are cool (most of us anyway…) and we have varied interests. There were sessions on how to Salsa, Espresso appreciation, sharing of holiday experiences, Kufi art and also a little about coding standards. Overall it’s just a gathering to network and meet others. A few interesting observations:

1. Everyone is on Twitter – am I correct? (Seems that way, ‘coz people were Tweeting from each session) – Follow me?
2. Many techies use Apple Macs – it’s rare to see so many Macs in one location!
3. Typical staple geek food is pizza – well, it ended that way yesterday…
4. Live streaming seems to be the in thing now

I found it interesting to “guess” and try to associate Twitter usernames to faces – very often, the little avatars don’t do a good job at all. Anyhow, the funniest incident was sending @thechannelc a Tweet saying, I’m behind you, the guy with the camcorder, to which she turned around several seconds later and shook my hand. Indeed, we’re all a connected bunch.

We also had live updates on the #barcampkl hashtag going on here. Great use of technology there.

I had a video camcorder with me, and recorded bits and pieces from the day, and put them together here. Enjoy! Are you in the video? If you are, add an annotation on YouTube with your Twitter / Facebook username by clicking here.

Music credit: Steve ALLEN (Robert Pieculewicz)

Yesterday, I sent off the Wedding Story team, as they embarked on a foreign wedding held at Chittagong, Bangladesh. Grace, Kee Sitt, Sharon and Ian are spending 10 days there to provide photography and videography services to Ali and Farhat.

Before they departed, they wanted to send video greetings from their blog, and I was given the “privilege” to help them with that, and edit it too, with my limited amateur skills!

Several hours later, here you go…

I’m heading to Singapore for a turn-around flight, just so that I can help Wedding Story pick up a couple of Panasonic HD cameras before they fly off to Bangladesh. Today is Monday the 30th of March, and I fly tomorrow, and return a mere 14 hours of arriving.

Initially, I was elated to find that flights via Tiger Airways were at zero dollars, and you merely pay SGD25 nett from Malaysia to Singapore. So a return flight is SGD50 each, which is really dirt cheap. With that perception in mind, I go about processing my booking…

First, I am presented with a summary of my flight, which is fine. SGD100 for 2 persons translates to MYR228 which is absolutely fine.

After it times out several times, I persist and finally get to the part where you’re supposed to put in your credit card details. Obediently, I comply and suddenly, I am presented with this screen.

Hold on a minute… my memory isn’t that bad, and I distinctly remember the figures MYR228 – what’s this extra MYR50 that is being snuck in? I click cancel and return to the previous screen where an inconspicuous section says “All bookings made using an electronic form of payment are subject to a CONVENIENCE FEE per passenger per sector”.

What on earth is this?

1. You blew your budget while developing the booking system, and are forced to charge us for it
2. You’re trying to be sly-er than the coyote
3. Tiger hopes our eye sight isn’t so good, and they can hoodwink us by 50 bucks

Whatever it is, how can you pass on a convenience fee to us? You jolly well are inconveniencing me and driving me insane. As a web user, I feel this in an injustice and am really disappointed to experience this. I would rather they have told me upfront that there is going to be a fee for booking.

Don’t mask it and coin funky terms such as “convenience fees”, that’s just not cool. Tiger Airways, if you’re reading this, I hope you reconsider your devious strategy and position your miscellaneous fees transparently and not at the last possible moment, without even putting it in the billing summary.