Archive for March 2009

First step to podcasting: Get a good mic

My goal for a while now (since November 2006 — yes, its March 2009 now) has been to be to start a podcast. Or two. Or a network of podcasts. Lofty goals, but a man has got to dream, no?

I’ve now made the first step into getting that started. I purchased a Samson C01U USB Studio Condensor Microphone. Its a great mic – and it works as advertised. Just plug it in, adjust the sound levels, and its recording just fine in GarageBand or Audio Hijack Pro. I didn’t but the shockmount (aka “spider”) from Samson, as I found a cheaper, metal one, for RM90.

Finding recording gear isn’t the simplest. I ended up having to go to Pasar Road to get the item (from Instraco). It seemed more convenient than having to order it in from overseas.

The following reviews had been helpful as well: MacInTouch as well as the comparison with the C03U as well (costs a bit more, good for recording many instruments, but definitely not what I require).

So, what will I be podcasting about? Something free & open source related, naturally. At least for starters. Another one for startups, entrepreneurs, and so on, I’m sure of (it doesn’t have a name, or a domain).

Update: A link to the product sheet, as it has a very interesting video about how the C01U and C03U work, and how to position it, and so forth.

OSDC.my 2009 != foss.my

Just to set the record straight, OSDC.my 2009 has no relation to foss.my. They have a different theme, a highly swank location (i.e. not a place of higher education), it is not community run (there are community members in the committee though), and its sponsored by MDEC.

In fact, I’m not even sure what the event is called – it may differ between OSDC.my to MSC OSCON.my. Mad props to the folk behind the real OSDC (community run, in a different city within Australia) and O’Reilly’s OSCON, since their names are really popular :-)

Now, what about foss.my 2009? Its about time we started planning for the event. foss.my 2008 was most successful, held during November 8-9 2008, but a lot of students complained — they didn’t like the time, as they had exams before or after the event (heck, even one of the crew members, had an exam the next day!).

So, let me ask a few questions, and feel free to reply in comments:

  1. What timeframe would work best for foss.my 2009? In terms of a month, is September or October better? Keep in mind we don’t want other event clashes.
  2. Do you want foss.my 2009 to be longer? Two days, with two tracks, seemed to be a little short for people.
  3. If so, how many days do you want foss.my 2009 to be?
  4. Do you want it to run through the weekend (so maybe Saturday, Sunday, Monday)?

International folk should answer this too… because you’ll probably be coming to attend, to speak, to mingle, etc. Do you want to come at a time when Malaysia has a colourful event? Do you want to see parts of KL or other parts of Malaysia?

Disclosure: I don’t speak for anyone else on the past/current/future foss.my committee, just myself.

On the mobile data business, and iPhones

It always makes me smile when I see headlines like this: iPhone can boost mobile data business: Maxis. Lets decompose the article. (And yes, the answer is still that you shouldn’t buy a Maxis iPhone 3G.)

“We are seeing exponential potential in mobile data growth. With the launch of iPhone, I think it will strengthen Maxis’ competitiveness,” chief marketing officer Matthew Willsher said in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

What it means: Lots of people like mobile data. New phones practically demand it, otherwise you might as well buy a cheap as chips phone, that only makes and receives phone calls, and has a non-colour screen. The chief marketing officer continues to say that the iPhone will “strengthen Maxis’ competitiveness”, which means that they will get more mobile data subscribers yes. But they will all complain at the lacking quality of service. Its fine and dandy that there is a 3.5G network, but if each cell can only take a certain capacity (in terms of bandwidth), what happens in areas where things are oversubscribed?

So far, more than 1,000 units of iPhones have been booked and Willsher said the initial booking numbers have “exceeded expectations”. However, the company did not want to reveal its actual booking numbers.

What it means: There are over a thousand idiots (some tell me its mostly Maxis staff and partners, since Maxis provides hefty staff discounts) who purchased the phone. This after the announcement that there is to be an iPhone OS 3 sometime really soon, and the heavy, mostly accurate speculation that there will be a new iPhone coming out sometime in June. It also seems that Caller ID doesn’t work out of the box and will require Maxis to update the software themselves (how true is this, I have no idea). But the chief marketing officer is right, 1,000 units being booked and snapped up, really does exceed expectations — I expected Malaysians to be a lot that valued their money a lot more.

Industry sources revealed that Maxis may have ordered as many as 150,000 units of iPhone 3G, as part of the conditions to bring the phone into the country. Willsher also declined to comment on this.

What it means: Wow. 150,000 units of a product that is to become obsolete within the next few months? Especially noting that it may not be exclusive to Maxis?

What’s the appeal of the iPhone? The AppStore. The iTunes Music Store. Not being able to have the music store seems like a big boo-boo towards Apple/Maxis.

And just in case you made it this far, read Jeff Ooi’s rather satirical piece Cut Maxis from broadband, please! When it works, its usually a breeze — when it doesn’t, its mighty annoying. Sadly, its usually not working… i.e. probably lacking capacity.

So Maxis’ mobile data business will be boosted – chances are lots of people are locked in for a year or two, and even if the service sucks, paying the penalty of quitting early, will probably derail most folk. Let’s see how they flog off the remaining 149,000 units in the next few months ;-)
(and no, no amount of advertising on blogs [I’m looking at you Nuffnang], and getting funny man Kenny Sia to write about it will help – read the comments, it seems at least his readers are smart!)

Google Friend Connect, revisited

About a month ago, I decided to try Google Friend Connect and their Social Bar. I still haven’t figured out its use fully yet, but maybe its there for keeping my readers connected to each other?


Is this what Google Friend Connect is for?

A modest number of folk have joined, but today I noticed them becoming friends. Win?

Its good to see that Business Times in Malaysia has something similar. All this is the work of @kedai. Lots of members, but no conversation yet, so it proves that there’s not much great use of it yet. I notice that there is a “Like!” activity (look at this for example), which then gets shared in the stream (not a comment but it says “username liked article”). This is again something kedai wrote, which is a very simple activity.

He, like I, wants to know how else you can socialise a site?

Update: Robert Scoble speaks to Kevin Marks about this, and the video itself is pretty interesting. There’s also a little discussion happening on FriendFeed.

Break up over Twitter

This one’s too good to pass up. Jennifer Aniston (from the comedy sitcom I grew up to, Friends) has reportedly dumped John Mayer, because of his Twitter addiction. I quote:

The source said: “John suddenly stopped calling her or returning her emails and when she would finally catch up with him, he’d say: ‘I’ve been so busy with work. I’m sorry I haven’t had time to call you back.”

The source added: “Jen was fuming. There he was, telling her he didn’t have time for her and yet his page was filled with Twitter updates.

“Every few hours, sometimes minutes, he’d update with some stupid line. And in her mind, she was like ‘He has time for all this Twittering, but he can’t send me a text, an email, make a call?’.”

Twitter, used as evidence that one actually has time, to at least send a text, email or make a call, it seems. Apparently, John Mayer even took the break up like a man, and sent a message to Twitterverse: My six word story: “This heart didn’t come with instructions.” Candid!

From a quick take on his feed, it seems he uses Tweetie, TwitterBerry and the web a lot for updates. So not only is he addicted to his BlackBerry, he loves his iPhone/iPod Touch, and apparently twitter.com. Maybe someone should introduce him to desktop clients like twhirl or TweetDeck? :-)

On Twitter, there’s been some conversation about this, naturally. At first, I couldn’t believe it, but it seems its possible. We know divorce via SMS or email is shunned upon, but in this part of the world, you can divorce someone just by saying “talak” three times. Its not clear if its allowed in Malaysia or not (the BBC suggests it was OK, but is unacceptable).

This stuff is almost as interesting as getting killed over your Facebook relationship status.

Do you know of people that got together because of Twitter or Facebook? Broke up because of Twitter or Facebook? I’m interested to know the stories behind them.

Suara Keadilan and Harakah banned but still online

The Home Ministry has decided to censor opposition newspapers like Harakah (by PAS) and Suara Keadilan (by Keadilan/PKR?) for a period of three months, with immediate effect, since their reporting is “wrong, sensational and sensitive in nature”. Malaysiakini also reports that DAP’s Rocket is having issues renewing its annual publishing permit, as well.

Why do I get the feeling that its just another slap in the face for the BN-led government. After all, before this hoopla, I’d have never read these dailies. I probably still wouldn’t.

However, if you did, there’s a good chance you’re going to read them online. HarakahDaily.Net and Suara Keadilan are all online, and free for all to read. The latter even comes with an RSS feed. DAP’s Rocket doesn’t seem to be online yet, but Lim Kit Siang himself is an active blogger.

The BN-led government will retort saying “but everyone reads it in print” (which is what they can control). Nay. Now, those that don’t get the print versions, will get information from their friends that read the online versions. Soon, you’ll get a scenario like Chinese whispers, which will probably only anger more people.


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