of g(oogle)mail's dots, capital letters and plus aliases

I just found this out today about Gmail, and I think it's super cool. Heh.

From https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=10313# :

“Gmail doesn't recognize dots as characters within usernames, you can add or remove the dots from a Gmail address without changing the actual destination address; they'll all go to your inbox, and only yours. In short:

homerjsimpson@gmail.com = hom.er.j.sim.ps.on@gmail.com
homerjsimpson@gmail.com = HOMERJSIMPSON@gmail.com
homerjsimpson@gmail.com = Homer.J.Simpson@gmail.com

All these addresses belong to the same person. You can see this if you try to sign in with your username, but adding or removing a dot from it. You'll still go to your account.”

And as many people may already know, letters in small or large caps does not really matter.

Plus, both @gmail.com and @googlemail.com would go the same email account.

Additionally, from https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=12096 :

“Gmail doesn't offer traditional aliases, but you can receive messages sent to your.username+any.alias@gmail.com. For example, messages sent to jane.doe+notes@gmail.com are delivered to jane.doe@gmail.com.

You can set up filters to automatically direct these messages to Trash, apply a label or star, skip the inbox, or forward to another email account.”

For example, your email address is supermanbatman@gmail.com. You then sign up to an Asda account for online groceries, so you write down your email as supermanbatman+asda@gmail.com. When Asda sends an email to that address, you will still get it in your supermanbatman@gmail.com email account.

Now why would you want to do that you may ask. Well, just like in the Google help answer above, you can filter emails that are sent to supermanbatman+asda@gmail.com to automatically label them as ‘asda’ or just put them in the Spam or Bin folders.

Apparently, these features have already been in Gmail for several years now. Ain’t that kool yo?

Let me finish this post with examples of different email addresses that will re-direct emails to the same email account.

So, for the email address supermanbatman@gmail.com, all of these are actually the same:

superman.batman@gmail.com
SupermanBatman@gmail.com
supermanbatman@googlemail.com
supermanbatman+robin@gmail.com
SuperMan.BatMan+KryptonGotham@googlemail.com
Su.Pe.Rm.An.Ba.Tm.An@gmail.com
suP.Erm.aNb.At.maN+WonderWoman@gmail.com
SUPERMAN.batman@googlemail.com
Superman.Batman+FlashMartianGreenLantern@gmail.com

I guess that should be enough! Heh.

So what are you waiting for, move to Gmail if you haven’t already done so.

student march or student riot?

There has been a series of student marches in London recently to protest the increase of the capping of university tuition fees from £3290 to £9000. This is a maximum amount to charge local students. If you’re wondering what this is all about, here’s a good page for some Q&A info. For international students, there are no caps, so it’s hugely expensive to get a degree here in the UK for non-European students.

Anyway, back to the topic. Protests are okay if they are peaceful ones. There was a march at around noon that passed by the office and it was quite peaceful. Some police officers were flanking the march and there were several police vans at the end of it. It caused a little bit of a traffic jam later on but it was quite peaceful.

However, it became worse as the sun went down. Many students were protesting near parliament. When it got a bit out of hand, police started ‘kettling’ to one place in order to control them easier.

Even Prince Charles and Camilla didn’t escape the violence. They were on their way to the Royal Variety Show when protestors chased their car and threw paint on it. They even attempted to smash one of the windows.

This has gone a bit too far. If they want to protest, then please do so, but peacefully, not with violence. It seems that there were some of them who intended to cause problems.

Videos of the march/riot showed that it was a real mess. Protestors vandalised public property and were violent to police, while the police were hitting some protestors with their batons. Click here for a page with many photos of the day.

I’ve always thought protests in the UK were exemplary as they were always peaceful ones. People would march on the streets with their protest banners, and the police will watch over, making sure there were no funny business.

But these student protests are getting out of hand. Too any damages to public property and injuries to people. It’s worse than other countries where the police will just spray water to protestors.

Protests and marches usually will only have a small probability of changing things, but the violence will certainly not help them to achieve their cause.

royal engagement

I took the morning for Raya Haji, so after the prayers, I went back home to lepak a while before going to work.

Amer and I watched TV, the This Morning show on ITV1 to be exact. Suddenly, the host, Phillip Schofield, was touching his earpiece and then he said they just received news that Clarence House just announced that Prince Williams and Kate Middleton were now engaged. Clarence House is the official residence of The Prince of Wales by the way.

Anyway, we were quite surprised that this was considered ‘breaking news’, but I guess it’s some sort of good news considering the current economic climate. And the media seemed to love it as it was all over the news yesterday afternoon and today as well.

Well, I must say that they are a very good-looking couple. Will their wedding top the recent Swedish royal ‘fairy-tale’ wedding I wonder?

back home for raya

I keep having to dust off cobwebs from this blog. Doesn't matter anyway since I don't think there's much traffic anyway. Hehe.

I'm now back home in Shah Alam. Will be in Malaysia for 3 weeks. Cuti Raya yeay. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up with some old friends.

The flights home were okay, but both of them were delayed, quite unreliable really.

Maybe I should update this blog more often, but with short snippets instead of long posts. Wouldn't have to dust the cobwebs then. And write paragraphs which don't have much connections or flows, like the above.

Short snippets good, long posts bad, random paragraphs ugly, no?

for the ladies...

For those in Malaysia, if you're interested in buying Tie Rack scarves and tops from Zara, Mango, Bershka and H&M, just click here.

Hurry, stock is limited. Happy browsing!

[Oh btw, if you were wondering, this isn't spam.] :)

age++

In C++, age++ is equivalent to age = age + 1, which just means increase age by 1.

You dah kat ofis ke?

Belum. Tengah siap2 ni.

Boleh tak tolong bukak pintu?

I had a surprise visitor in the morning of my birthday bringing breakfast, flowers and presents! =)

A breakfast of delicious home-baked New York cheesecake and hot white tea. I was given a lovely hand-made card and a nice portrait of myself pencil-drawn by her. Then, after work, there was another present: an iLap! *More smiles.*

Thanks Nina! :)

For dinner, we bought risotto and sushi and ate at home while watching HIMYM.

A couple of days later, had a great time with some friends eating dinner at Nandos.

Thanks Nabilah & Belle and Arin & Amer!

Pretty awesome birthday if you ask me. =)

wave to google

On Friday night, I opened my email and lo and behold, I had an invitation to preview Google Wave! Never thought I'd received one because I didn't get an invitation when Google first let it out into the world a few weeks ago.

Don't know what the fuss is all about? Well, I'm not gonna explain it to you. Haha. Read about Google Wave here. There's a (really really) long video about it. There's also some stuff written about it in Google's blog here.

Already craving for one? Request an invitation from Google here, or to my friends and family, you can ask me nicely for one. I have a few more invites to give. Taraa for now (wave!).

cobweb

bersawangnya blog ni!

It's been quite a while since I added an entry to this blog. I do have ideas sometimes but just too busy (or too lazy) to construct sentences to release them into the world.

That's all for now. Cheerio!

my projects

Nope, I’m not gonna write about projects at work, or the ones at uni for that matter. It’s a little bit different. Since I have some spare time and I’ve also bought stuff but haven’t used them yet or rarely used them, I decided that I’m going to commit to certain projects in my life.

nope, not this type of project

What is a project? From the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a project is a specific plan or design, similar to a scheme. And what is a scheme? It’s a plan of program of action. Both of them have plan in them. So what is a plan? It’s just a method for achieving an end, or a detailed program. Okay, I think I should stop giving endless meanings of words now.

Basically, by having a project or a few projects, I’ll keep myself occupied and not get bored. So, if I suddenly don’t know what to do, I can just continue with one of my projects. You can also think of it as a to-do list, but that’s a bit boring isn’t it? I’ll have this and that to do, then after doing them, I’ll just tick some boxes indicating that they’re done. However, for a project, I’ll ideally put more effort into doing something, no matter what it is.

Okay, enough gibberish. So my first project will be… wait for it… wait for it… playing the Prince of Persia. You may disagree with me and laugh this project off, or belittle my enthusiasm for these projects of mine. If so…

Pedulik hapa aku.

prince of persia, with its wonderful water-colour-ish animation

Anyway, one of the reasons I thought about this project thing is that I’ve actually bought the game in November or December last year but had only started really playing it a couple of weeks ago. That’s a long time isn’t it. I guess I was preoccupied with other stuff.

Also, it’s something that I enjoy doing, so I think it’s rather a cool project to commit myself to. And I do a little bit of research as well on how to get certain achievements in the game so that I’ll certainly maximise the time spent on playing the game. If you’re thinking ‘Ak ela, semangat gila mamat nih,’ then please refer to the quotation above the Prince of Persia picture.

Another project that I’m currently doing is to sort out the photos from my Easter roadtrip. I went to Bath, Bristol, Tintagel Castle, Lands End, Eden Project and Stonehenge with some friends a month ago and I still haven’t sorted out all the photos from other people’s cameras. We went to a lot of places so you can imagine how many photos there are, hence many unnecessary photos will have to be deleted.

us at tintagel castle, cornwall

Other projects in the backlog, in no particular order, are as follows:

1. Read The Kite Runner (which I bought last summer)
2. Read The Heirs of the Prophet Muhammad (which was also bought last summer)
3. Play Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (which was bought last year)
4. Play Kungfu Panda (hmm.. I seem to have bought a lot of stuff last year)
5. Study some engineering stuff related to work
6. Study history (interesting ones of course)
7. Read and understand the tafsir
8. Watch every f1 race this season if possible
   
9. Cook stuff from the recipe books that I also bought last year
10. Go back home for Raya!
11. Go travelling somewhere
12. Movie or series marathon?
    
13. More exercises and workout maybe?
14. Learn a new skill and/or polish up existing ones
15. Volunteering

See, it’s not just fun and games. You need to develop your skills not only at work but also for yourself, your life. I won’t need to draw up Gantt charts for my projects or do proper and detailed planning, but I’ll have things to do that I hopefully will enjoy. Oh there’s a Batman: Arkham Asylum game coming out and I am so gonna play it, so that should be on my project list I guess. If you’re thinking ‘Geek gila mamat nih,’ again, please refer to the quotation somewhere in the middle of this post..!

proton exora

The latest Proton car has been launched today. It’s Proton’s first MPV, the Exora and it looks quite good too don’t you think. It’s much much better than that horrible Juara.

The name Exora is derived from Ixora, a flower commonly seen in most bushes or shrubbery around Malaysia. It’s called bunga jarum-jarum if I’m not mistaken.

The Exora is built on a newly developed platform, and it’s the second platform (ever) developed by Proton, so it is something to be proud of, I guess, for a Malaysian.

The new MPV is powered by a 1.6-litre CamPro CPS engine with 125bhp and torque of 150Nm, with prices below RM80k. Apa lagi, kalau ada duit tu, pegi la beli! Heh.

And woohoo! Man Utd just won 1-0 against Porto FC in the Champions League second leg quarter-final. Yeayeah, we’re through to the semi-final against Arsenal. Yeah I know, very off-topic but who cares.

new logo, new pm, new/old tax haven (?)

The foundation for the open source mobile software platform now has a new logo:

It’s supposed to be a software company/foundation, but the logo doesn’t represent that at all. It looks like some toys company or something. Well maybe mobile phones are toys to some people, *shrug*. Anyway, it doesn’t look professional to me. Good thing I’m not working there (anymore?). Go to their website to find out more, or just go straight to the foundation’s blog for informal-ish kind of updates. There should be an explanation somewhere in there explaining the beautifully-challenged logo.

*******

So we now have a new prime minister in Malaysia, and it seems that lots of people hate him. I guess I should also say a lot of people like him as well. I should, but maybe I don't want to, but I just did, but hmm... too many but's already. Maybe he’s not the best choice, but maybe he’ll be better than that previous one. Ish... too many maybe's la pulak. Oh well. I just hope that they concentrate on reviving the economy instead of playing stupid, childish politics. Good luck on your new job because you’ll sure be needing it, my dear sir!

*******

I read in the news today that Malaysia is one of four countries blacklisted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for not agreeing with tax standards. One in four. Wow. And it’s not everyday that Malaysia goes in the news here. My beloved country is apparently a tax haven. Hmm better stash away money there ASAP. Oh yeah, now I remember, I don’t have that much money to stash anyway, *blaargghhh*.

*******

earth hour

Yes, it's as simple as what the poster says. It doesn't matter which country you're in, it's the planet you're in which matters. On Saturday 28th March, switch off your lights for 1 hour from 8.30 to 9.30 (local time) to vote for Earth. Leaving your lights switched on means a vote for global warming.

Yeh, maybe it won't make a major difference, but every little helps!

Visit earthhour.org for more info.

Come people, let's switch our lights off!

recycle

We produce a lot of waste and some of them can be recycled or reused, but not many people bother to do it or even think about it. There are also those who want to recycle, but don't know or aren't sure what they can do or where to throw recyclable waste.

Firstly, just separate the stuff you want to recycle in a different bag. It depends on your local authority if you need to separate the materials or not. For me here, it's easy. I just have to put all recyclable waste in one bag because there is a recycling bin outside my flat which is for everything, so I don't need to sort them out myself.

However, there are certain things that you must remember (and do) before you recycle:

1. Empty and rinse off cans, bottles, and plastic containers.
Food waste and liquid remaining in the containers will contaminate the recyclables. If there is contamination, the whole batch of recyclables will not be recycled. Not only will your recycling effort be wasted, others whose waste are in the same batch as yours will be too. Now you don't need to wash them with dishwashing liquid, you just need to rinse them with tap water.

2. Don't recycle paper with grease or food waste on them.
This is also contaminated waste. Unfortunately, there is nothing to be done except to throw them away. *Sob*.

3. Crush cans and squeeze bottles to expel as much air as possible.

4. Remove caps and lids from plastic containers.
Also remove paper clips, staples and plastic envelope windows from paper.

More recycling etiquette can be found here.

Bear in mind that these are the general 'rules' applicable in the UK. It may be slightly different elsewhere. More information can be found in the Recycle Now website, or you could just google it. Don't forget to recycle, folks!

the rescue

We had located where the bad guys took my brother. My two friends created a diversion while I went to save him. He looked tired so I carried him away. Even though I had the ability to run at superspeed, I didn't want to show it to the bad guys so that they won't bother my family anymore. I just ran, not too fast so that they don't know my ability, but not too slow either.

The diversion only distracted them for a while. They saw us running away and immediately chased us. We ran into the woods. I went a different path from those two friends of mine in the hope that I can bring my brother to safety. When we got out of the woods, I thought we had lost them, so I went home. My family was very happy to see us and very glad that my brother was rescued.

Suddenly there were noises outside. Damn it, those bad guys followed us! I was very very angry. I told them to get the hell out of our lives. They wouldn't listen. I could've just used my superstrength to beat them all up, but that would just blow my cover. Instead, I just pushed them back into their car and shouted at them.

Since they wouldn't listen, I had to use my powers. I pushed their car away, pretending that I was exerting all my strength to do so. Another friend came by and he lit a fire and threw it onto the car. I used my heat vision to make the fire spread faster.

The bad guys were now very scared. They promised to never bother my family again and drove their burning car away, out of sight. I thanked my friend and went home to see my brother.

*****************

What drove me mad was that the brother that they kidnapped was the one who died nearly three years ago. Rest in peace, bro! Anyway, it was really cool to have superspeed and superstrength, plus the heat vision. Hmm.. I should've tried flying too. Oh well.

bowl swing

Some people are just inconsiderate. Always thinking about themselves only. Well, maybe not always. But it's goddamn annoying. After wasting more than an hour of my time trying to find the best date and seats for everyone, I've somehow been blocked from the bloody ticketmaster website!

On a different note, I've had a haircut today. It's the first one that I've had at a proper barber's in the UK. Before this, my barbers were Helmi and Hanep. Thanks guys.

nokia tube is out

The Nokia 5800 is finally out in the UK. It was launched at Nokia's flagship store in Regent Street. Many crazy people queued hours before the store opened just to be one of the first ones to buy the phone in the UK.

nokia 5800 xpressmusic

Yes, ladies and gentleman, it's a touchscreen phone. Everyone wants to compete with the iPhone now and the 5800 is a worthy contender. Cool phone bebeh!

more the wiser

All smile to the camera. =)

happy january

I haven't updated this blog for ages now. It's not that I have been very busy with work, but it seems that my life has been full of activities these past few weeks, which is of course good because it shows that I have a life after all. Woohoo! Oops, I wouldn't want to celebrate too soon lest I become very occupied with challenging projects at work.

So the last couple of weeks of 2008 were spent with my family. My parents and 3 smallest brothers were here on holiday. Well I guess I can't call one of them small anymore. Fauzan has grown much much taller since I last saw him and his voice has gone a bit deeper. It won't be long before he outgrows his Abang Long. Faizuddin is his usual cheeky self and Faiq is becoming a very cute 3-year old. Yeah, I had a good time with them.

Faiq became easily tired after a walk outside (of course he did, he's just 3 years old!). So while we were sightseeing in Southend, which was where my parents did their A-Levels, they bought a stroller from a second-hand shop. He really liked the stroller and liked to sleep in it too, and Faizuddin also had fun pushing the stroller. My parents didn't bring the stroller back to Malaysia, so now I have a stroller in my flat. Whoever wants to borrow it, just let me know ok.

Then came the hanging out with friends who are still in uni. It was a very pleasant coincidence that I had the day off when they suddenly felt like going bowling and skating. So I joined them. In just one day, we bowled, ate waffles and went skating. During bowling we were separated into 2 lanes and the team who lost had to belanja the winning team. Even though we had a poor start and were conspired against by the pins machine thingy, we (Ahmad, Bone, Nina and I) eventually won. Terima kasih ye belanja, Baya, Aida, Yaa and Belle. Skating was fun too albeit the sakit2 kaki due to the very hard skates. And we also had dinner at Tinseltown the next day.

At New Year's Eve, I thought I wanted to go see the fireworks but it was freezing cold outside, so I invited some friends over for makan2 and maybe you could call it a house-warming session. In theory, the view from my flat which is on the tenth floor faces London Eye directly so we should be able to see the fireworks. However, there's this one building which obstructs the nice view so we could only see the skies being lit up slightly and some few sparks which managed to avoid that fireworks-view-spoiler building. I do apologize to my guests for this. By next year, I will make sure that building won't be there anymore. Muahaha. Well, at least the TV was on that night.

And then I turned 24. Yeayeah. Thanks for the surprise party, girls and guys! I really appreciate the effort. The spaghetti carbonera and karipap were delicious, not forgetting the Chicken Cottage and profi'telos'. And thank you very much for the cards and presents. I like them all. I was actually thinking of writing some wise words because, you know, I am a bit older. Nah... malas la. Hehehe. Anyway, it was a great birthday for me. Plus, playing Cranium at the weekend was very enjoyable too. Like the game said, you'll never believe what your friends are capable of doing. Great fun!

On another note, the strikes by Israel on Gaza are really really saddening. They say that they are reacting due to the attacks by Hamas, but to take it out on such a huge scale without any mercy is inhumane. For goodness sake, those children and innocent people are helpless! Nothing good will come out of this. They'll just incite hatred towards them especially from the Muslim community. How despicable! I do pray that the days to come will bring peace to the victims in Gaza and to all those facing injustice in this world...

sale?

There's no doubt that everyone has heard of that word before. While some people don't take notice of them, there are also those who worship sales anywhere. I'm more towards the ignoring sales group. One, I'm not a shopaholic, and two, I'm a bit cautious with my money (usually). I guess this is due to me not having a lot of money when I was small, and hence the act of saving became a habit to me.

I'm not saying I don't buy anything. Gila ke apa. However, I do think we should always live within our means. So if you're not rich, don't act like one. And if you are rich, then, urm, I guess you can act like one. Just don't forget to pay zakat. And maybe belanja unrich people like me once in a while. Just kidding of course. Well, maybe not.

Currently, there are sales everywhere. And it's not even Boxing Day yet. It's probably due to the credit crunch. The retails want to boost their sales up and hence are forced to cut the down the prices. Even the VAT has been decreased to 15% until the end of 2009. I suppose the 2.5% reduction isn't a huge drop but it's still significant. Every penny counts.

I guess the government reduced the VAT so that people and companies don't suffer so much. Maybe they think that the cut will encourage people to spend and hence 'stimulate' the economy. But it may bring a false sense of reality where people don't feel like the economy is down and merrily spend their money like nothing's wrong. Or maybe they are aware of the current economical situation but want to drown their sorrows by shopping. Oh if you're looking for shoes, go to Clarks at Oxford Street, near Oxford Circus (I tolong promote ni, Kat, hehe).

Many people seem to go shopping online nowadays, and who wouldn't. The discounts are sometimes ridiculous. I've already bought a Prince of Persia game plus some other goodies at a good price. Hehe.

I've been eyeing the Xbox 360 for a long time now and currently the best on offer is from Amazon. If you buy a 60GB one, you can get a free HDMI cable, a selected game for £10, plus an Xbox 360 Wireless Entertainment Pack which contains an Xbox 360 wireless controller and 2 games for only £20. So in total, it would be less than £200! Oh did I mention the free delivery? There's a very high possibility that I'll be buying one anytime soon and I'm gonna choose Star Wars: The Force Unleashed from the list of discounted games. Actually, I would prefer to buy Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 or Gears of War 2, but they're still a bit expensive. I'll just have to be patient.

Arin's Xbox 360 is already here in my flat, but my brothers keep playing with it, so maybe I should buy my own one. Karang rosak pulak Arin punya tu. Hehe, thanks Arin! Ah yes, my parents and 3 smallest brothers are here in the UK. So to those who want me to belanja them, I'm sorry but this month my gaji is for my family (and myself!), unless you're going to give me a birthday present of course. Hmm, just a few more weeks to buy one. And I've already hinted what I want. Haha perasan nya aku, dah la nak benda2 mahal je, ish ish ish.

Well, anyway, it's time for bed. But maybe I should go 'boost the economy' before I go to sleep...

lunch with housemaster

In Kolej Tuanku Ja'afar (KTJ), we stayed in 'houses' and each house had a housemaster and/or housemistress, usually British. I was in the Nadzimuddin house and we had David and Karen Hitchman.

They are currently in the UK and we had lunch with them at Khan's today, which was organised by Chia Wei. Last year they came as well at around this time of the year and Chia Wei also organised the lunch then. Mr and Mrs Hitchman must be really proud of Chia Wei, the boy they've seen growing up has become a man! Hehe.

Anyway, it was nice meeting them again and also seeing my juniors, who have grown taller. Man, when I left KTJ, Ashari was damn small, and now he's freakin' tall, but still as thin as a lidi. Hehe.

The Hitchmans will teach in KTJ for another year and then they'll retire peacefully in Cyprus. And Mrs Hitchman was proudly saying she has a Facebook account, so I'll just wait for her to post the photos there then, and hopefully someone would tag me (or I could just tag myself). Hmm, I should probably search for her account soon then...