“This articicle was originally posted on Aug 2, 2005 and was lost due to Host HDD crash. I reporduce it here from my original draft.”

There was a mail forwarded to me this morning claiming that thieves these days have the capability to detect notebook kept in cars, even in the booth of the cars. The forward was actually a mail exchange between a consumer and Tesco executive regarding laptop theft in Tesco Penang. I was curious on the “advance technology” that could detect laptop in cars and even in the booth of the car.

Initially I though it was some kind of Electromagnetic (EM) detector, that could distinguish EM signals emitting from laptops. Laptop is full of micro circuitry and no matter how great the design is, there are somehow some level of EM emission. The question I was trying to answer was how strong the EM signal would be for a laptop during sleep mode and during normal operation mode. And if the signal was strong enough to go through the car body. Could anyone develop a handheld device to detect such EM signals.

After googling for “detecting laptop in cars”, I found that the answer was not EM detection at all. It was actually the use of Bluetooth technology. Laptops that are in stanby mode (sleep/hibernation) still have the bluetooth active. And because of this, anyone with a bluetooth enabled phone could just scan the environment and detect the laptops. Now, there are several questions regarding the practicality of this method. Can the user triangulate the signal? Meaning, if the thief has another laptop in his car (3 of them) and he drives around scanning, can he use software to triangulate the Bluetooth signal and determine the location? Possible theoretically and with some more engineering, it might work.

EM, Bluetooth, are sophisticated ways to commit crime. The interesting thing is no one (at least I have not found any) has reported these thieves to be caught red handed. Therefore the idea still stands as technologically possible and possibly a myth. (lets forward this to the myth busters to see if they could test it out)

There are many low tech ways to find out or guess if a laptop are in the car. In Penang, especially close to the Free Trade Zone areas, many companies provide laptop to the employees, and by looking at the car for company badges one could guess if a laptop is in the car or not, especially on a week day right after working hours, the employee could have came straight from work and not go home yet. The laptop will most likely in the car. On a different approach, the thief may not need such knowledge at all. Many people who carry laptop put the device in the car seat as they enters the car. And when they arrives at the shopping complexes, they transfer the laptop to the booth, and go shopping. A thief could just sits in the car and wait for such people to appear and when the victim leaves the car for shopping, the thief just does his job and leaves.

There are no total protection from laptop theft. Its like there is no total protection from thieves breaking into your home or thieves stealing an expensive art from a well protected museum. Exercise situation awareness and good protection practice will deter the small wannabe thieves. Nothing will stop the Pro.

Due to my host HDD corruption some time back, I lost more than 6 months of posting. Fortunately for me, I write my postings on Microsoft OneNote first before posting them, and so I still have the draft on OneNote. From time to time, I will search and re-post the old articles, only those that I think have stood the test of time. The posting will be marked with Re-Post!.

For quite some time now, I’ve been wondering if the printed media is still relevant. One could get the latest info online, printed media info is old news, especially tech news, who would want to buy printed media? Everytime, I read the tech pullout on The Star, I quickly skip through it as it is old news to me, why can’t they have something new, at least something that I don’t know, I exclaim.. If you are subscribed to PetalingStreet project, you will never be outdated (though the post quality have drop as it is flooded with yuppies complaining about their life demise). And so my mind was made up that printed media is no more relevant. I was so wrong.

Through jeffooi.com, I came to know of a new magazine just being launched, and its about the local web scene. I was curious, why would people want to report about news that happen 2 weeks back, that people already knew about it the minute it happen? One the web, the latest “sensation” is either get Blogged, Digged or Syndicated. Why would people online wants to buy a magazine on things that that they already know. People who don’t go online wont be interested in an online megazine, so the target audience must be people who gets online. If the target audience is people who goes online, isn’t it like carrying coal to Newcastle?

With all the wrong reasons, I picked up a copy of Surf, and didn’t expect much. I wanted to re-enforce my thought that printed media is no more relevant. The minute I finish the fist article, I concluded that I was dead ignorant. Printed Media is still relevant and very much alive and for time to come still. The first article was about legalized digital download in Malaysia, the musiccanteen startup and Tmnet’s efforts to bring big labels content to Malaysia. I knew about music canteen, but not how it started up, and I didn’t know about Zainal Abidin’s effort to release his next album of 5 songs online and Tmnet’s bid to sell digital music at an affordable price to Malaysians.

The fact is, online penetration to the average Joe is relatively low, printed media penetration is much higher, newspaper and magazines have been around for ages, and their exit will also be slow. The world will not go without printed media at least for the another 20 years, the amount of time I predict to get everyone on earth Online. Even so, old habits are hard to be broken. I just had a discussion with my boss about setting aside some money for books next year, and I suggested to subscribe to online books referenceware, where for a small fee, we could get access to thousands of books. He commented how he still like to feel the book when reading it, and reading on the palmtop is harder. So, even with the right tools, the old habit will still die hard, people still like the feel of the book, rather than a palmtop or maybe an e-book reading device.

Congratulations to Ah John for taking Penang Hokkien to a new height. Penang Hokkien Podcast recently celebrated it’s one year anniversary, captivated my attention when it first startup. I’ve always felt that there is a lack of Hokkien media around, and Ah John and his gang fills the gap. For me personally, I’ve always felt like Hokkien is a dying breed and the podcast gives a certain sense of security that the language is still holding on. Penang Hokkien is different from the southern Hokkien and also Mingna of Taiwan, but the podcast is truly global, and have participants from all over. Not to put any un-necessary pressure to Ah John and his gang, I hope his podcast could be a platform for the language to flourish. I hope to listen to Penang Hokkien Podcast for many years to come, up to my graves..

Congratulations to Ah John for making the news on The Star Today.

Crocs-asadi is equally feather weight and soft as its big brother Crocs. Once you have them on, it is hard to take them off, literally. Its like walking on air, well, that’s not true, but it does feel soft, comfortable and nice. I am enjoying the shoe so far and A1 recomended, especially for the price.