News RSS Readers

Hi Everyone,

We can our PCs and mobile devices such as IPad and smartphones to get the latest news. Here are some of the notable apps that I use:

Flipboard

Available on iOS, it is one of the best apps on IPad and the IPhone. I like the interface and the mini graphics for the news. It provides a summary of the news and provides the full link to the full website.

 

Google Reader

It is a very good news reader. I can add the RSS feeds from newspapers websites (BBC, CNN, The Star), magazines (Readers Digest, Popular Science), blogs and websites such as Paul Tan Automotive Blog.

Unfortunately, it will be retired on 1st July 2013. I have downloaded the archive using Google Takeout.

Mobile RSS Reader

It is able to connect to Google Reader and supports other RSS Feeds as well. We can get the latest news updates. 


Feedly

This is an app available on both Firefox' App Store and Chrome Web Store. Similar to Flipboard, it provides a graphical summary of the news for the day. It is connected to the powerful Google reader whereby all the news from the different sources are summarised into a single page. You can click individual news feeds as well. For example, clicking on BBC will list down the BBC news for the day. 

All these provide a summary of the news and the link to the full details of the news.

Cheers,

Rogerkoo

Wars

Hi Everyone,

There is still war going on in various countries at this age. World War III may be imminent with the nuclear threats of North Korea. War is still going on between Israel and Palestine. Wars may be caused by people disagreeing in politics, ideology or past history. Humans want power and control over all things. It corrupts the minds of people and leads to violence, greed and malice. When this happens, people choose to attack one another instead of negotiating with one another. We do not want wars such as World War I and World War II to repeat itself. We should be able to forgive one another and move forward. We cannot dwell in the past any more.

We should make efforts to make peace with one another although we disagree on various things. There are always disagreements and differences in opinions. We can negotiate and have a win-win situation. There must be no more killings and massacre of innocent lives such as the genocide during Pol Pot’s regime and Hitler’s assassination of the Jews. Discussions can be arranged to solve all these issues. Compromise may need to be made as well. World peace can be achieved if we make efforts.

Israel and Palestine

Israel and Palestine have been at odds with each other for a very long time. The leaders of Israel and Palestine have made efforts to have peace but they still have not reached a mutual agreement yet. Leaders of both countries should continue to discuss on all the disputes without any disagreements. Both countries should not further agitate the situation further by imposing other conditions or expand their settlements. They should settle the territory disputes once and for all. The war and dispute between these two countries needs to be stopped. More innocent lives will be killed if the war continues on.  More information on the Israel-Palestine conflict and the peace talks can be found here such as:

• Wikipedia, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
• BBC News – Middle East Crisis
• Human Rights Watch – World Report 2013 – Israel / Palestine

The territorial rights including the borders for each country should be returned accordingly. Those that belong to Israel belongs to Israel and those that belong to Palestine belongs to the Palestine.

Japanese War

The Japanese was involved in the World War II which causes the US to use the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The Japanese actually apologised to the world. This is the list of apologies issued by the Japanese government after the war.

The British has conquered and ruled a lot of countries many years ago including Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Pakistan and Nigeria. All the countries gained independence after World War 2 ended. All the countries are part of the Commonwealth of Nations organisation now. Commonwealth countries have common values and goals such the promotion of democracy, human rights and free trade. There is no more war and colonization any more. Our country used to have war against the British to fight for independence. After independence, the war has ended.

We have been living in peace and harmony with each other regardless of nationalities and religion for a long time. There are a lot of multi-cultural cities in the world such as Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, Sydney, London, Beijing, Shanghai, Jakarta, Bangkok and New York. In all the cities that I have visited, I can see Chinese there. There are Chinese churches in Bangkok and Jakarta. There are Malaysians, Singaporeans and Indonesians living in Melbourne and Sydney. Expatriates are also living in various countries to support the operations of companies and for transferring of technology to developing countries.

An interesting fact to note is that all of us are embracing each other’s cultures, products and technology. We embrace the good values of other countries. Almost every country is a multicultural country. Let's take a look.

Entertainment

Gangnam style dance originating from South Korea is so popular that Glee also made a cover in one of its episodes in Season 4. We listen to English, Chinese and Malay songs on radio. One Direction, Westlife, N-Sync, 98 Degrees are some of the popular boy bands from the U.K and the U.S. A lot of people like K-Pop bands such as Super Junior, Beast, Girls Generation and Wonder Girls. We are interested in Japanese animes and Hong Kong and Korean drama series. We also watch drama series such as CSI, NCIS, House, Chuck, 24, Glee, Scrubs, The Big Bang Theory, Law and Order SVU, Bunheads, New Girl, Miss Advised, American Idol and The Voice. We watch blockbuster movies such as Lord of the Rings, Spiderman, Iron Man 3, Life of Pi, The Avengers, Les Miserables, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Finding Nemo and Infernal Affairs. Roda Impian was adapted from Wheel of Fortune. Business news are widely available through Bloomberg, CNBC and Business Insider.

Technology, Cars & Brands

Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, Volkswagen, Ford, Mercedes, BMW are car brands that we buy and appreciate. Some of us prefer Chery. China made things are common. Printers sold in Australia are made in Malaysia.  Most of us use social websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We like to own an IPhone, IPod, Samsung Galaxy series such as Tab, Note 2, S4, HTC One, Windows Surface Tablet and Amazon Kindle among others. We use the PC everyday. We like Nike, Adidas and Reebok shoes.

Food

We have various restaurants showcasing the different cuisines of other countries. In fact, Papparich and Kayu Nasi Kandar has opened outlets in Australia. We have restaurants such as Tony Roma's, San Francisco Steakhouse, Sushi Zanmai, Baverian Bierhaus, Dae Jang Gum, Amarin, Dapur Penyet, Shihlin Taiwan Snacks here. Most countries have Japanese, Korean, Western, Chinese, Thai, Taiwanese, and Malaysian cuisines served.

Others

We all dream to work in Google or Facebook.  Most of us want to learn Mandarin to improve our command of this language. Everyone likes discounted offerings from Groupon. All eyes were on China and London when they hosted the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the London Olympics in 2012. We support international football teams like Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid. 

Do you notice that the idea of all these things above come from various countries such as U.S, U.K, Japan, China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia and others? All of these things unite us. These are the things we share in common although we are from different countries.

In a nutshell, please do not start a war again in this age. Please live peacefully with one another embracing the good values of various cultures. If we can embrace each other's technology and culture, we can also end the war. 

Cheers,

Rogerkoo

Taking Things For Granted

Hi Everyone,

I attended a memorial service for a church acquaintance who passed away at the age of 22 due to ovarian cancer. She has a bright future ahead of her and can experience marriage, successful career and other significant events of life had she survived her battle with cancer.

Are we taking things for granted? Are we spending less time with our family due to work commitments? Are our jobs completely secure? How about our health? Perhaps we do not realise it. We cannot always think that all these things are always there. It can just vanish or crumble in an instant.

Sometimes we wish that we could have done something about it when we lost it. The question is “If only I have done this”. The Bernas Chinese New Year advertisement this year depicted a son who has not gone back to celebrate Chinese New Year with his mum for a few years. His mum is living alone at her own home while the son was too focused on his friends and work. He may think that his mum is fine living alone by herself until his colleagues reminded him of the significance of family reunion during Chinese New Year. He then recalled and reminded how his mum sacrificed herself to support him. She rushed to fetch him from school after her clothes washing job. She had dinner with him no matter how busy she was. He had meals often with his mum. His mum will ask him whether he needs more rice (ka fan?). He then went back to his hometown to celebrate Chinese New Year with his mother. It was a very good advertisement.

We should cherish our family and friends and not take them for granted. Family and friends are important in our lives. They are always there when we need them most especially our immediate family. We will only realise that our family is there for us when we are away from them. It is the reason we feel homesick when we are overseas studying or migrated overseas. We want to have home cooked food. With the help of technology such as webcam, Skype and Facetime, we can chat with each other. Just like God, a family loves one another unconditionally regardless of what we do. Our fathers and mothers sacrificed a lot for us. Please spend time with our family through meals together, sports, recreational activities, movies and holiday trips. Come back earlier from work. The strength of a family is important. Please cherish our family.

Best friends and good friends are built over time. It can be childhood friends, school friends, college friends, university friends or colleagues at work. It can be someone at church or the friend that you mix with during a conference or training. It can be a friend’s friend. We can share things with friends that we cannot share with our own family. We can share our troubles and prayer points with them. I am talking here about friends that we can trust. Some people are supposedly friends with us but they leave us when we are in trouble. We can take for granted our friends who help us. Sometimes we don’t show that we know their presence there. We should also cherish them and not assume that they are always there.

Our career may not be as secure as it seems to be. We may not see the signs sometimes. Then when something happens, we only realise that it is too late. We could have done something so that that thing will not happen. We need to perform the best in our career. Something will happen if we are not careful.

We also cannot take money for granted. During my younger days, I did have a thought that money falls from the sky. Money is actually earned through our career. It is hard work. We should not gamble it away. We can spend it but not to the point that we have nothing left at the end. We should have some savings and not spend it all at once. We will have bigger issues when we are slaves to money.

Health is important as well. We thought that we are healthy. Some don’t eat vegetables at all.  Some can’t control in their intake of fried and oily food. We should always look after ourselves no matter how busy we are. We should not overwork ourselves. We should not sleep too late. We should eat 3 meals a day. We should have dinner before 10pm. We need balanced and healthy meals. We need exercise. We need to see dentists twice a year. It is too late when we find out they have heart disease, liver disease, cancer, diabetes or high cholesterol. Tooth decay and gum problems may occur without us knowing it. It happens to both young and old. It does not discriminate. Please take care of our health.

Here is the music video of S Club 7's Have You Ever:

It talks about this.

The chorus goes like this:

Have you ever lost and love somebody

Wish there was a chance to say I'm sorry

Can't you see, that's the way I feel, about you and me baby

Have you ever felt your heart was breaking

Looking down the road you should be taking

I should know, caused I've loved and lost, the day I let you go

I am a happy go lucky person but there are things we need to do to ensure we do not take things for granted. We need to remind ourselves daily on this. We should cherish our lives, our family, our relatives and our friends. We need to seek work life balance and lead a healthy life. We should not think that everything will be okay throughout our lives.

Cheers,

Rogerkoo

Domestic Violence

Hi Everyone,

We still hear of many child and family abuse, maid abuse and animal abuse in Malaysia. We are shocked to hear of all these cases regardless of our religious beliefs. As a Christian, I feel it is very sad that this is happening today.

It is sad that some parents abuse their kids for no reason. Parents who are supposed to take care of their baby / babies reacted differently when they are crying. We have heard of news that some fathers actually beat their baby up when they are frustrated with their cries. We hear of fathers raping their daughters in Austria and also in our own country. We also heard of cases of brothers raping their sisters as well. Mother and children are sometimes at the receiving end of a father’s anger. All of these happened rarely but there are a small number of fathers who are like that. Domestic violence is also depicted in the books such as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo written by Stieg Larsson.

The responsibilities of parents are to raise their children to be good and responsible persons. Parents give unconditional love to their children regardless of their attitude and behaviour. They discipline their children when the children are turning to the wrong paths such as befriending bad company, involving in gangs, bullying and rebelling. They train their children to inculcate good values such as:

• respecting elders
• honesty
• integrity
• kindness
• polite
• hardworking
• compassionate
• patience
• generosity
• perseverance
• caring for others
• trying our very best in what we do

For Christian parents, they are also planting the seed of the gospel in their children. Parents are supporting and encouraging their child / children when they fall and when they are facing difficulties in life. They are there when their children gets married and graduated from university. They are there to help you cook and clean the house when you need help from them. They give advice when we are facing troubles in our life.

There are also husbands abusing their wives and vice versa. The numbers are much less now unless I am mistaken. Husbands are the head of their families. They should look after their wives and families. Anger and impatience must not result in violence at all. Both husbands and wives are supporting each other in their roles and responsibilities at home.

Maid abuse is especially common in Malaysia. Indonesia and the Philippines have been sending less maids to our country due to the number of abuse cases here. The percentage of people abusing their maids is possibly little. We heard of cases whereby the employee struck her maid with an iron. Another case was the maid’s hands were burnt due to her employee using the hot iron on her hand. Slaps and bruises are common among these cases. A small number of employees are giving their maids leftovers of their meals for dinner or lunch.

Most of us will treat our maids as normal people, providing them with a place to stay, food and other necessities. We will bring them to the clinic / dentist when our maids are not well or have toothache. We allow them to call their family back at their country every few months. Some of us buy our maids mobile phones as a reward for their help at home. Maids are helping families with two working parents to look after their children, ironing clothes, cleaning the house, washing cars, cooking and tending our garden. Our family will give her the dishes first before we start eating. We will also buy her favourite coffee and biscuits from the supermarket. She will also have new clothes occasionally. We will give her rest when she feels tired.

Animal abuse has been in the radar for some time now. The recent euthanasia of the police forces’ K9 dogs raised the ire among people. Animals in some shelters are not treated in the right way. Wrong food was being fed to the animals. The hygiene of the animal shelters is not good and cleaned often. It is smell of urine and faeces of animals. Dogs are given the title “Man’s Best Friend’ and yet these are happening. We know that a dog can be very loyal its owner from the movie, Hachiko starring Richard Gere.

We are made to take care of animals and the people around us. We must not abuse them at all. Each one of us has civic consciousness and we know that domestic violence is absolutely wrong. Please help our society to change.

Cheers,

Rogerkoo

Songs That I Like Listening To

Hi All,

Here are some of my songs that I always play on my IPod. The first song is Just The Way You Are by Bruno Mars. It is a good song with meaningful lyrics that a guy likes his girlfriend / wife just the way she is. Glee, Jaylesslee and the Philiipine acoustic singer, Sabrina have also made covers of this song. This is definitely one of the best love songs today.



I will also embed here the Jaylesslee version of the song:



Secondly, the next song is One Direction's Little Things. Bringing almost the same message, it is also a nice song to unwind.



Listening to oldies such as Bee Gees, Air Supply, Rod Stewart, The Drifters, Carpenters, ABBA among others has a calming effect too. Christian songs are also good for my mind as well. It reminds me of God. 

Another song that I like to listen is Fun's We Are Young. Glee and 3 Youtube artists comprising Jake Coco, Corey Gray and Caitlin Hart also made covers of this song.

To Give or Not To Give, That's The Question

Hi Everyone,

We passed by people who are begging for money everyday. The question that comes to mind is whether we should help them or not. Do we give or do we not give? Monetary or food? Most of the time we just walked away or just give about 10 to 20 cents.

It is not that we do not want to help them. We have been warned and heard of cases where the beggars / people in need asking for money are not genuine cases. They may appear to be pitiful or limping but they may be putting an act thus our givings will end up in vain. There are definitely some who are impostors and we will get swindled by them. It is very hard to identify genuine ones. We can feel bad after these incidents yet if we give, the money may end in the wrong hands.

I do give a small amount sometimes but usually I ended up without giving them. I may also buy one or two packet of tissues from them.

Should we show sympathy and give to some beggars / people asking for money or all of them? What do you think?

Cheers,

Rogerkoo

Taxi Services: Revamp for the Better

Hi Everyone,

The taxi services in Malaysia is known for its inefficiency. It is perceived to be not save generally. 

These are some of the feedback / complaints on taxi drivers:

• Taxi drivers are refusing to fetch passengers to certain places because of traffic jam
• Cheating foreigners and expatriates by charging exorbitant rates.  Taxi rates can be RM100 from Pavilion to KLCC and vice versa
• Taxis may not come whe needed 
• Not using metre
• Rape cases if they are fetching passengers to secluded areas
• Speeding

The attitude of the people of the taxi company manning the operations at KLIA and LCCT are not good as well. Some of them answered questions rudely when we asked them about the different zones for an area or about the pricing. Some of them do not know certain areas well such as Cheras. Cheras is a very big area with covering KL and Selangor (towards Kajang). The Cheras area nearer to KL is in a cheaper zone but we may get a more expensive rate for it.

Having said that, not all taxi drivers are like that but most of them are. There are a number of good taxi drivers. For example, we have a taxi driver friend who is honest and drives carefully. He also arrives on time to pick us up. The taxi service at the Bandar Tun Razak LRT station is quite good too. They are courteous and they agree to fetch passengers to their homes. I commend all the good taxi drivers.

When I was at Indonesia, I sat in taxis operated by Blue Bird and Gamya. The taxi drivers are willing to fetch passengers anywhere near or far. They will pass through traffic jams everyday and so they will still fetch passengers. The service will be more limited during rain but they will still come. The number of vehicles on the road is far more than the number of vehicles in KL. This is the same for Bangkok as well. However, we also met some taxi driver who did not use the meters durnig the ride.

MyTeksi is an organisation that aims to improve the perception of taxi drivers in Malaysia. It also seek to improve the efficiency of taxi services in KL. Some of MyTeksi's missions are:

• Improves the efficiency of taxi services in KL through smartphone bookings
• Nearest taxi is available to reach customers' starting point for each booking
• Provides a safe and pleasant taxi ride for passengers

For more information, please visit MyTeksi's homepage.

Here are some suggestions for taxi services to improve:

• Willing to fetch passengers to any location regardless of traffic jam and weather
• Be courteous to passengers
• Honest
• Give passengers a pleasant and safe ride
• Use the metre for both locals and tourists / expatriates

Just 3 months ago, taxi drivers gathered at the ever busy Bukit Bintang to protest against SPAD's move of introducing the GO-KL free bus for both tourists and locals. It covers Bukit Bintang - KLCC area and Bukit Bintang - Central Market routes. SPAD knew about the report of the taxi drivers and they introduced the GO-KL free bus services to make it more convenient for tourists to travel around the Golden Triangle area. A lot of people are satisfied with the services provided by the free bus.

In a nutshell, the perception of the taxi drivers should be improved over time so that people feel safe to take taxis anytime. They can be confident of taking taxis anywhere and know that the taxi services are efficient here. They also should drive safely There will be no more worries of taking taxis at KL.

This year is also Visit Malaysia 2013 so please let customers give a feedback on the taxi services here. Please help to improve the image of taxis in KL not only this year but the future as well.

Cheers,

Roger TJ Koo