Notice the set of buttons at the bottom of the picture? Barely right? You may have to squint your eyes …

Now, take a few steps back and look at them again. Try to figure out which button lets you play the cd and which lets you to pause. Can’t do?

Yup, this is simply bad usability…

Nak elegan punya pasal, sampai nak tekan button pun tak tau yang mana satu. Itu kalau tengok dari atas. Dari side view, memang out. You know what I finally did?

Pinjam markers kakak, pastu color buttons yang ada. Then, I emailed the pic with the colored-buttons to the company which engineered this thingy, huhu…

Want to know what else is as ‘good’ as the one above? With great pleasure I present…

Nuff said!

the so called ‘4G’ Internet service provider let me down …

Back up plan?

Celcom 3G via my N73. The speed is not that bad though. Still I have to fork out RM6 for it…

As a paid customer, I believe I’m entitled to lodge a formal complaint to the former (which I just did just a couple of mins ago). Now. let’s see what they got to say about this.

p/s: Their customer service informed me that the problem will only be rectified this coming Monday.

MONDAY?! In Internet world, dah kira berkurun lama tu. Tak pasal2 je, surat ‘cinta’ dah selamat dikirim di angin lalu tadi…

Pengurus – Emo la pagi2 cam gini, huhu…

Temui Ayu Emelda dengan novel terbarunya ‘Cinta Kepala Batu a.k.a CKB’ pada 30 dan 31 Januari 2010 (Sabtu dan Ahad) di Karnival Karangkraf bertempat di Seksyen 15, Shah Alam…

Datang, jangan tak datang k?

Pengurus – Tengah sibuk dok buat promosi ni. Kang tak dapek la komisen tu, huhu…

Seriously, I couldn’t recall when was the last time I had such a blast watching a flick. Tropic Thunder was a bomb, bro! Two thumbs up! 82% on Rotten Tomatoes tu…

Paling best sekali, that guy who plays Les Grossman, the producer. I didn’t even realise it was Tom Cruise all along until the last scene, hahaha…

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been depending a lot on online version of mainstream newspapers to feed my hunger for information.

Tahun ni rasanya boleh bilang dengan jari je berapa kali sy beli newspapers kat kedai …

One great thing about these news portals is that they provide RSS feature for those who prefer to scan and browse through the titles (plus the excerpt) first before reading on . This is of course achievable via RSS reader like Google Reader.

And  once you got your eyes on something you like, you can just click on the title and it’ll take you to the actual page on the news site for your perusal.

So far so good kan? But…

Lately, I’ve been noticing something on these sites that makes my blood go up, up and away. Bukan sekali sekala, dan bukan satu news portal jer. Boleh kata majoritinya buat benda ni.

Those irritating pop up flash advertisements!

Ada yang kekadang sampai setengah skrin diameknya…

A big NO, NO!

I wished they have done some user research first before they started to go all out applying this technique. For readers who just want to read the news (like me), they DO NOT care about the advertisements especially those yang tetiba je ambush and kidnap your screen. Tambah2 lak, kalau yang guna imej grafik yang tah apa2 tu.

Hello, ever heard of banner blindness and seducible moment?

Instead of providing readers with good user experience, you’re actually distracting them. Then of course, they’ll get annoyed.

Now what do I normally do when I’m in this kind of situation? Macam biasa, cari button ‘close’ atau ‘tutup’.

Abis cerita…

Btw, if you want to learn from the best when it comes to great techniques for online ads, Google AdSense perhaps is your best bet. Include the ones that are relevant to the content your readers are reading, and use text instead of image….

Sekian sahaja laporan untuk hari ini. Majulah Liverpool untuk semua …

Pengurus – Baru je balik dari Taman Tema Keriangan Genting. Semua ngadu kaki lenguh/sakit. Mana taknya, masa naik bot kayuh tak ingat dunia. Pastu lak, kejap kat outdoor park, kejap masuk dalam, huh…

Cuti-cuti 1Malaysia selama 4 hari bermula hari ini. Tapi yang bestnya, pepagi lagi sy dah ke opis @ TIMA. Nak kena submit kertas R & D untuk semakan peruntukan kos. My upcoming project; kalau lulus ni, memang mantap bro…

Pukul 9:00 pg sy dah ada di Shah Alam balik @ Taman Sri Muda. Nak servis Ms MyVi tu.

Lama  betoi sy tak datang servis center Perodua ni. Last sekali 2004, masa zaman KAU 3660 dulu.

Bagus2, pagi ni kereta tak banyak lagi. Ada la dalam 5 – 6 bijik. Tp sy terperasan BMW 5 series satu, parking baik punya kat kedai tu. Issh, takkan beemer datang servis sini. Musti tokey punya. Ingatkan tokey pakai Perodua Limosin ….

Sy terus parking kereta dan masuk bhgn reception.

Fuhhh, canggih sekarang. Nampak kelas deko kat dalamnya. Ada coffee machine lagi. Lengkap tv/sofa/wi-fi/newspapers. Kalau kena tunggu 3 jam pun sanggup cam gini.

Baru je langkah masuk 5 tapak,

“En nak servis kereta?’

“Errr, yes2,” terkujat sekejap pasal kena ambush.

“Sila duduk di sini En.”

CS Perodua tu minta buku dan kunci kereta. Dia suruh tunggu kejap sementara dia gi check mileage etc. Pas tu dia masuk balik dan bincang benda2 apa yang kena tukar dan apa yang tak perlu. Jelas, sejelas-jelasnya…

“Last servis ada tukar gear oil tak?”

“Errr, boleh tak refer to resit yang lepas?” Hehehe, kalau tanya pasal komputer tau la skit …

After a few mins, the very the polite CS totalled up the amount and informed me the final figure. “Okay, still within the budget…”

“En tunggu dalam sejam yer. Dah siap nanti, sy panggil En.” It was around 9:15 am back then.

Kebetulan ada The Star ngan Berita Harian atas meja. Sambil pekena kopi, memang layan aaa pagi Isnin cam gini. Kena aircond lak tu, pergh. Tengah best dok membaca kejayaan gemilang The Reds membelasah Wolves 2 – 0,

“En, kereta En dah siap.”

“Eh, kata tadi sejam? Ini baru 40 minit. Baguih betul korang ni. Under promised, over delivered.”

Punyalah puas hati dengan servis yg diberikan, rilek jer masa nak bayar bil tu. Nak sign resit pun tak pikiaq panjang. Ni baru kata Good User Experience. I like! Dari mula sampai habis, mantap!

Today, the four of us did the unthinkable. Tengok wayang.

Yup, for the first time ever as a family. Punyalah lama tak pi, sampai kena consult my brother .

The night before, we have decided unanimously it’ll be Alvin & The Chipmunks 2 since Aqif has been asking tiap-tiap hari bila nak kuar kat tv. Ironically, HBO was showing the Alvin & The Chipmunks @ 9:00 pm last nite. What a coincidence, huh?

Memula ingat nak ke MV, tapi bila check online, ada flat rate lak. Or rather ‘increased flat rate’ is more like it. RM12/adult. UNBELIEVABLE! A big NO, NO.

Then survey kat Bukit Raja, RM7/adult and RM5/kid. Great bargain eh? Dekat ngan rumah lak tu. Tak kena bayar tol kalau ikut Seksyen 7…

So this morning around 10:00 am we were already on the road, on our way for our first ever movie outing (masa kat Disneyworld dulu tak kira, pasal shownya tak lama – kejap2 jer. Paling lama pun Finding Nemo for 30 mins gitu2) . Needless to say, the kids were estatic, mama & abah pun sama, huhu…

After spending 1 1/2 hour watching it, the verdict (don’t read aaa kalau tak nak, ada spoiler kat bawah ni) is as follows:

Tak best macam the 1st one, pasalnya…

• Dave tak banyak scene sangat langsung, ganti ngan mamat from Chuck tu pulak. The kids took quite some time to get used to that idea. And he’s not as funny as Dave…
• Too many characters and too many dramas. Dengan bekas pengurusnya lagi, masuk si chipettes tu, pastu the high school boys and girls. Konpius anak2 aku jadinya.
• Bila the chipmunks masuk sekolah for the 1st ever in their life, boleh terus masuk high school ka? Quick research shows that the average life span of En Alvin, En Simon dan En Theodore  is between 2 to 3 year-old. Sapa tulis skrip ni? But then again, sejak bila lak chipmunk boleh cakap & nyanyi, ye tak? Moving on…
• Ada ka patut principal boleh tatu kat lengan? Kena tindakan tatatertib kang nanti. Tak pun kuar surat tunjuk sebab, huhu…

But don’t just take my word for it. These are just my 2 cents.

Wiki’s entry on the movie. Try reading the ‘Reception’ part. And not forgetting my ever reliable source of movie’s review site, the Rotten Tomatoes

Over the past couple of months, I noticed something funny when I’m online. Blogs are rarely updated and instead their owners have resorted to Fesbuk. Alasan paling popular ialah tak perlu nak tulis panjang2. Cukup sekadar 1 atau 2 ayat…

For me, the main reason I blog is because I want to let my creative side of my brain (errr, right side rasanya) to … well, be creative, tulis je apa yang terlintas. Biasa la orang teknikal ni, tambah2 QS. Nampak ringgit ngan sen jer.

And as for Fesbuk, dah nama pun social networking. I’m not an island. And so are you & everyone else. I want (or is it need ) to keep tab on what my friends are up to nowadays, and sambil2 tu sempat gak promote novel yang baru tu … *wink*

Last week, jumpa juga dengan one of my good friends masa di Salford dulu. Keeper team bola kami, Tn Seme …

Initially I was thinking of getting an alarm radio for myself. Up till last night, I’ve been using the radio function in my N73. Boleh la. The only thing that keeps bugging me is that everytime I want to listen to it, I have to hook it to the wired head set. For those of you who have experienced this before, surely you’ll know how tedious it can be. So many steps involved ler…

Furthermore, I noticed something. The battery drains gila2 lepas tu. Pergi ofis the next morning, sure dah low batt. It happened again today. That’s it! that’s the final straw…

Petang tadi @ Tesco, tarus beli ni, abang Philips. RM99. At first, I was like 50-50. But after giving it a second thought, bayar bil tipon bulan2 boleh jer, tak ada nampak apa pun. Baik beli radio, boleh gak dengar. Tahan lama lak tu kalau pandai jaga …

While I was tuning for channels, I realised something. If the laptop is fire up, the reception gitu2 jer. Puas nak tune betul. But if I place the radio away a bit, no more irritating static noice…

Selamat, cuti dah diluluskan. Makasih, hidup boss…

25/12/2009 – 4/1/2010

Ganaz2, I like

Nota: Selepas sy dah hantar artikel Isnin lepas, tetiba rasa best lak nak sambung ngan tajuk yang lain pulak. Layan gak aaa menulis ni. Yang best sekali, part research tu. Patut la orang kampung sy selalu dok kata,

It’s the journey that counts, not the destination Ayien …