It was a great news on the recent Mobile Number Portability implementation in Malaysia.  I have been on Maxis since I got my first mobile phone, and I have been with the same number since.  I can’t remember how long I had this number, I believe it is almost 10 years.  I have got nothing from Maxis all this time, except for huge hefty bill and unreasonable roaming charges.  Their royalty program were mediocre, and it was off for some time, and now have this rewards program that give you discount coupon, which I need to spend more money instead of saving money.  It would be nice if Maxis would give a free phone for being with them for so long, but I guess that is wishful thinking.  The one thing holding me back was the news that Maxis was the telco carrier that will release iPhone in Malaysia and it would be less than RM1000.  Then again, after looking at their current myMaxis Phone deals, to get a Samsung Omnia i900, it would be RM2399 with Value Plus 150 with 24 month contract.  What a joke, a 24 month contract tied to RM150 per month, and still sell the phone at RM2399, its more insulting rather than a promotion.  So, when it comes to iPhone, which is up in the Omnia class, I don’t think there would be any sweet deal at all.  For < RM1000 price tag, I would bet Maxis to tie you down for years with their Value Plus 500 plan, which force you to spend RM500 a month.  This is my speculation, looking at the so called myMaxis phone deals that they are giving now. 

So, thanks to online billing, I cut and paste my calls for the past few months onto an excel and computed my call cost with different scenarios.  The two that I was thinking of was moving from current standard plan to Maxis value 50 or move to Digi DG20 plan, and guess what, DG20 came out as the winner by saving me up to 25% of total cost.  This is inclusive with two supplementary line.  With this much saving, I am no longer waiting for iPhone from Maxis, of which I predict it would be too expensive anyway.  I rather go for 25% savings on monthly basis, than to wait for something that I end up could not afford anyway.   So, in short, thank you and goodbye Maxis, I am moving over to Digi. 

One of the most formidable rule of shopping is not to settle on the first price you see.  I was looking for a skin for my iPhone, and was browsing at one of the IT mall at Hua Qiang Bei.  As I was going up the escalator on the first floor, I spotted the item I wanted, it was RMB 35 for one, with a simple question,’can it be cheaper’, the price drop to RMB 30.  It was a little more than what I was willing to pay for a piece of rubber.  So I soldiered on to the 4th floor and came across another shop, with many more color choices and the price was RMB 15.  With much haggling, the price remained the same.  So I bought two, for the price that I would pay to get one on the first floor.  This is why, never settle for the first price you see.  You never, know, it might be much cheaper just a few floors up.  Oh, by the way, pink is for my wife, so don’t get any funny ideas.

The 21st Century Outsourcing phenomena have reached a new personal level. In the last 10 years, companies have been outsourcing jobs to 3rd world or to a cheaper provider. This probably inspired Thomas L. Friedman’s book on this subject. Just early in the year, I blog about my wife’s job being outsourced. Now, outsourcing becomes personal. Companies like AskSunday.com or GetFriday.com can help you complete task that you are too busy to do. Too busy to buy flowers for your Girl Friend? AskSunday.com can help. These companies market their services as Online/Virtual Personal Assistance, which in fact, are outsourcing your task to them. UK university students have been outsourcing their coursework to India, and there’s a term to this, ‘Contract Cheating’. So, if you have outsource all your task away, what do you do with all the extra time? Go play Pachinko?

Well, its fine to remove the subsidy. It is fine to spend the money or future development. But what is not fine, is the leak of money that have been plaguing the country for so long. It is not right to pay 40 ringgit for a screw driver that cost only 2. Fix problems with inefficiency. Fix problems with incompetency. Heard of Cost Savings? Fix these problems first instead of ignoring it and allow the people to suffer or force the people to change the lifestyle or even worst punish them for not believing in your ideology. Raja Petra is right. We need to be angry on the right things. And I am pissed for the fact that the people in charge are not focusing on the right problems. Elevate the people’s sufferings, not adding to them. Where is the sense in that? All these goes to show how blind they are to the real situation. How incompetent they are to lead us. For those who are still caught up by all the racy issues, wake up. This transcend race, this transcend gender, this affects us all. Is it right to pay 10 times more just because one can do so, while the people suffer? The answer is no, it is not right. And these are things that we should be angry about.

Oh, by the way, today sees the highest jump in fuel price in Malaysia, > 40%, one day the future generations will read about this in Sejarah. If its not in the text book, atleast my blog will serve as a history testament, of how I and the generally overall felt on this day.

Someone over at JPJ must have been very innovative and smart to sell the roadtax space for advertisement. As this is all good for JPJ, I hope to see this to be turn into something more beneficial for the rakyat. After all, the rakyat pays road tax, and if JPJ is getting money from advertisement on roadtax stickers, why not transfer that to the rakyat? It can take off the rakyat’s burden on current escalating economic situations.