Cat Can Talk!

At first, the government showed like they allow the rally like that. Then when the venue was fixed and everyone was informed to gather at Dataran Merdeka, then last minute the government issued a ban to prohibit anyone to step their foot into Dataran Merdeka area.

At first the police said they go to Dataran Merdeka earlier and setup things as preparation to ensure the safety of the rally (according to a fucking fake news maker on the TV). Then suddenly last minutes, announced said Dataran Merdeka was sealed off and everyone is prohibited from stepping their foot into Dataran Merdeka, until 1st May 2012!? WTF!?

I don’t think I need to write much about Bersih 3.0 things anymore, as most of you, had already read a lot about it from other places, such as Facebook updates, blogs as well as some Twitter updates. I am just going to share some information which might be useful for you, if you are going to join the rally later.

Here are some of the things I found from http://amenoworld.blogspot.com/2012/04/16-tips-bergambar-untuk-demo-bersih-3.html
And I believe it will be very useful for you if you are joining the rally later.

There are also 5 tips given at that blog on what you should be careful about when you are at the rally. I have translated it and altered them a bit to make it more understandable.

1. Stay away from things like cones, or anything which looks weird, as there might be possibilities that bombs are planted by some terrorist to take advantage of the situation.

2. Do not vandalize anything, as there might be possibilities that those who are from “other side” will record down the video and use it as their propaganda materials to tarnish the images of Bersih supporters. You are there to demos, not to vandalize!

3. Mo littering. Do not simply trow any rubbish on the rally venue, for the same reason as above. Keep the places clean!

4. Please report about anyone that looks suspicious, as there will be a lot of provocation agents and saboteurs might be sent to create chaos. Please stay calm and do not get influence by them and follow their offensive acts.

5. Do not expose any personal details to anyone you do not know. Example, when someone you do not know, asked you “Are you a student? Where you study?”, or “What is your name? Where you live/from?”. Any personal identity details shall not be expose to anyone during the rally. Keep your identity anonymous to avoid yourself to ensure your own safety!

Below is what I have copied from http://www.suaram.net/?p=2733 and it will be very useful in case you are arrested by police during the rally.

SUARAM URGENT ARREST TEAM

OFFICE NUMBER: 03 77843525 (DIANE)

Dear All,
Attached is the Suaram’s urgent arrest team for 28 April.
We have given our name and contact numbers.
This what we want you to do:
If you see or witness anyone being arrested at your respective place, please send sms to the number that given.

SUARAM URGENT ARREST TEAM

OFFICE NUMBER: 03 77843525 (DIANE)

NO TEMPAT SUARAM PIC NOMBOR
1 CENTRAL MARKET NALINI SARAH 019 3043159 018 3181179

2 MASJID NEGARA SYUKRI 011 15542640
3 JALAN SULTAN MAISARAH 012 218 7476
4 MASJID INDIA ANDIKA 016 224 7255
5 BRIEKFIELDS THEVA 013 384 5740
6 KLCC HASBEE 014 925 4010

You only have to type:
a. Name
b. IC Number/passport number
c. Police station that the person being taken to or detained
SUARAM will send the sms to the lawyers as well as to the our person in charge in office.
You may also call our office and you can talk to Miss Diane and please give details to her.
Its easy… Dont get panic when you arrested by the police or being stopped by the DBKL. All you need to do is CALM DOWN and Call US!
Released by,
Nalini
On behalf of SUARAM Team

These numbers are very useful in case if you or your friend are arrested by police during the rally. Save them inside your cell phone!

By the way, besides the things which recommended to bring during the rally, I also recommend you to bring along a goggle, a swimming goggle would be good enough to protect your eyes from tear gas. And also, a gas mask, or at least, any type of mask which you wear during heavy haze, as it can help to at least, reduce the intake of toxic gases emitted from the tear gas canister.

Proposal for “Freedom” campaign, in case of our voice are ignored by MOSTI and insisting on implementing BCP2011.

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“Freedom” Campaign
Our Demand For Freedom In IT Practitioning, As in:

1. Freedom to select skills that we have to perform in our job, not restricted by any parties or law.
2. Freedom to select products or softwares that we prefer to deploy a system, without interference of any parties or law.
3. Freedom to select vendors we prefer, to deploy the system as we see fit, not under the pressure of any parties.
4. Freedom to select which skill we want to learn and using it to serve the people and the IT industry, not restricted by any parties by telling us we should only learn skill that they certified.
5. Freedom of selecting any certification we wanted to pursue, without any parties telling us that the certification we pursue, are not recognized by the government or such.
6. Freedom of innovation, in order to design a system set as we desire without restricted by the law which forbid us to use tools/softwares that are not certified by them.
7. Freedom of selecting providing service, as long as the deal is agreed by the service provider and the clientèle, not restricted by any parties to interfere regarding the certification of the service provider.
8. Freedom to select softwares to use, as in its license. No parties shall impose the restriction on what type of software license we should use. Which means, we are allowed to choose softwares which is license in any type of Open Source softwares, and not restricted to only paid and patented softwares.
9. Freedom to decide whether we want to submit our personal certification details and skills sets list to any ruling party, if that service is not a service which is provided to the government.
10. Freedom to not register to the government agencies under the BCPM bill for doing IT business which is not related to the government. And the government must allow IT practitioners to run their business without any special IT registration or interference. Only registration to SSM is needed.

Don’t worry, there will be nothing in this article that scolding anyone like the rest of the Merdeka articles of mine.
This article will just be about my thoughts and opinion regarding the celebration of 31st August and 16th September.

16th September is Malaysia day. Our prime minister Y.A.B Najib Razak had announced last year that this day will be public holiday start from year 2010 and will be celebrating as another Merdeka day.

To be honest, I don’t think 16th September is appropriate to be officially know as Hari Malaysia in this country.
Below will be the reasons why I think this way.

I personally, think that 31st August should be officially only known as Hari Merdeka/Hari Kemerdekaan(Independence Day) and 16th September to be officially know as Hari Kebangsaan(National Day). You might think that, “What stupid thing you are talking about? aren’t these two words are the same meaning!?” Here is my answer to you. No, the words Hari Merdeka and Hari Kebangsaan carries different meaning.

According to the history, we get our independence from the British officially at 31st August 1957. That is the day Malaya is formed. But please be noted that this day is the forming day of Malaya, not Malaysia. But still, it is a very important day as it is the day where we gain our freedom from colonization. Our land was freed from the British colony at this day. So it is a very important day, hence celebrating this date is essential.

Our country today, Malaysia, was not formed until 16th September 1963. Our country, Malaysia was formed by combining Sarawak, Sabah and Singapore at this date. Although the original plan was to scheduled the official formation at the 6th Merdeka celebration, but due to some issues where there is objection from Indonesia and Philippine regarding the formation of Malaysia(Please refer to Wikipedia).

When all the issues that caused by Indonesia and Philippine was solved, Malaysia was officially formed at 16th September 1963. Therefore, the real age of Malaysia is only 47 years old, not 54 years old, since our country now is Malaysia, not Malaya. Although later on, Singapore was left at 1965, Malaysia was not dissolved and reform. So still, officially our country, Malaysia is still a legitimate nation.

Since the word “Hari Kebangsaan” is carrying the meaning “National Day”, so 16th September should be officially known as “Hari Kebangsaan” as this is the real date of the forming of our current nation.
And in another case, the word “Hari Merdeka” carries the meaning “Independence Day”, so 31st August is very obvious to be officially known as “Hari Merdeka” since it is the date our lands retain independence from the British.

Please continue to read the Part 2 at http://garfield.in/?p=2110

A blog community website owner, Rei, has asked me before, why do I sponsoring blog hosting to people.
My answer is very simple. I have space which I don’t want to waste. So I use it for sponsoring people.
It is an effort to promote open source softwares since when there is people running a self hosted blog, they will need to use a blog script. And the most common use blog script nowadays is WordPress, which it is an open source project.

There is another reason.
Nowadays, most people is using blog service like blogger.com and wordpress.com.
They are not flexible enough for total customization, there is too much restriction where you can only do very little customization.

The wordpress.com I just mentioned is actually a free blog service running on the WordPress script. Although it is using the same script, but since it is a shared hosted service, you are not provided access to modify the files and install plugins as you like.

While blogger.com, people think it is very customizable.
Actually it is not correct. Although you can edit the layout via the xml file, but still, you are not able to upload plugins and totally customize it. You can only use 3rd party widgets or widgets that is already provided.

To get the blog hosting sponsorship, is very simple.
Just go to http://fik4.com/signup.php and register.
There will be 2 registration option. But the best is if you choose the first one as I will install and setup the wordpress script according to my hosting server’s configuration.

If you have any question after you had started to use the blog hosting service, you can always go to http://forum.garfield.in and ask your question there.

Tutorials on how to setup the wordpress script yourself will also be posted in that forum.
Of course, if you already know how to setup the blog yourself, you can always write your own version of tutorial at there.

There is no limit on how many account a person can own, as long as you want another account, just register.
If you intended to use the hosting for other thing besides blog, you can also do so as long as you know how to do it yourself. So this means you can even register an account to run a forum, personal website, charity website or anything.

You might be curious about the hosting specification.
Here is the link where you can see what you will get for this hosting.
http://fik4.com/features.php

You might feel that the space and bandwidth that provided is too less. But I can tell you, it is more than enough for sustain more than 1 year. If really not enough, then it means you already become very popular and had earn a lot from your blog. Then that will be the time you should upgrade to paid hosting service. But until then, it should be enough.

My blog until now also didn’t use that much bandwidth and space, it has run for about 2 years already. So I think that the space I sponsor should be enough for use very very long time.

I hope that this program can help more people to have more freedom in blogging.
And I also hope that you can promote it to everyone just in case they are looking for a hosting for their blog.
A link/blogroll to http://fik4.com is much appreciated.

If you wanted to place a badge of Chicken Run Project at your blog/website, you mat use the codes below.

<a href=http://fik4.com><img src=http://www.imagechicken.com/uploads/1259439478083499000.png></a>

A lot of people who are blogging in the blogspore nowadays usually are using services from blogger.com or wordpress.com. But they do not realise that actually they do not have total freedom to control their own blog.

Usually people think that they can edit the xml(layout of the blog) and add 3rd party widgets in blogger.com is already means they can totally control their own blog. This is not true as you cannot modify the way these plugins behaviour and modify the some of the important thing.

While in wordpress.com, you also have a lot of build in features to use, but you cannot install any custom plugins. You also cannot put advertisements and any java scripts. This has totally restricted you to totally customise your own blog.

Other word, if you are running your blog at these share hosted services, you will have less freedom and there is a lot of restriction.

One of the restriction is you cannot really write some sensitive things such as politics and adult stuff…
Why? Coz when someone complaint, these service provider will either close down your blog or lock your blog and remove the sensitive contents. Usually these happened to politic blogs. One of the example is Tun Dr. Mahathir’s blog which was running on blogger.com before this. Someone reported to blogger.com and make false accusation saying that he is writing sensitive articles which are not the facts(in facts, those articles are written based on real facts). blogger.com immediately locked his blog without further investigation.

So this clearly shown that shared blog services do not give you the freedom of doing what you want.

Usually, people who running their own blog are using the wordpress.org script.
Please do not confuse wordpress.org and wordpress.com.
WordPress.org script is a free and opensource project, so anyone can just download the PHP script and install them into their web hosting and run their own self hosted blog.
While wordpress.com is the shared blog service that run by wordpress.org which is using the same blog program. Some restriction is placed on wordpress.com can be removed by paying certain amount of money. The money is actually for their servers and also development of wordpress.org script.

You might wonder that since it is running on the same program, what makes the different if directly use their service and run it on our own web hosting account?
As I said above, the restriction of contents and plugins install. You are not given the rights to install any plugins you want like self hosted ones, you can only use the widgets that they already provide you. And you are not allowed to put any java scripts. While blogger.com, although you are allowed to put java scripts and 3rd party widgets, but you cannot have total control on these 3rd party widgets.

This is the reason why most of those bloggers who intended to have more control on their blog is running their blog using the wordpress script on their own web hosting account. There is several examples of these blogs like below:
http://www.kenwooi.com
http://www.irenelim.com/fashion/
http://blog.bloggerunited.com/

Running a self hosted wordpress blog seems like something very hard. A lot people is having assumption that it is hard to install plugins and maintain it. This is actually not true. Maybe the setup for the wordpress script itself is hard for most of the people, but installing plugins is not hard at all. You just need to search for the plugins in your wordpress control panel, and click install at the plugins you prefered, it will automatically installed and run by just a click.

Another false assumption where people always concern.
Most people think that you must have a domain name like yourname.com in order to run a self hosted blog. This is totally wrong. You can actually use some free sub domain services like co.cc and use them like a normal domain name. And about the web hosting? You can use free web hosting service for this as well. But of course, free web hosting service will be not as good as paid web hosting. There might be a forced ads at the bottom of the pages, or might be there is limitation of file size. But this is not important as you can always host the pictures and video at some other services like youtube.com and photobucket.com. This will actually save your web hosting bandwidth if you host these files using these services.

If you do not know how to use services like co.cc as your blog URL, you can actually directly use the sub domain name that the free hosting service give you. If using these sub domain names, you actually no need to do or know anything, it is already completed the setup of the sub domain name itself. You just need to setup the wordpress script only.

Anyway, if you need a free web hosting account for your self hosted blog, you can go to http://fik4.com. It comes with a free sub domain name when you register, so you will get a URL like http://yourname.fik4.com for your blog. And if you wonder, yes, this is a blog hosting service sponsored by me. Everyone can get it, just need to go and register, and you will get it.

What is the limitation of my sponsored blog hosting account? It only have 300MB space and 10GB monthly bandwidth. The rest, it is just the same with paid web hosting account. 300MB is more than enough for a new blog, even a lot of blogs that already 3 years old with lots of articles also didn’t fill up 50MB of the database space that is provided yet. Of course, the pictures is hosted at photobucket.com and videos is hosted at youtube.com to save the space. If you are so lucky to be so popular, until the space and bandwidth is not enough, then it will be the time you transfer to paid web hosting. High traffic means you had already earn a lot of money via your blog.