Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Changing and renewing IC (Identifiy Card) in Putrajaya

  1:38 PM      PropFessor


A few weeks ago I had to get my IC (Identity Card) replaced as the old one's chip was peeling off and I had hard time getting banks to verify my biometrics. In Malaysia now, all transactions done over the counter in banks requires biometric verification using your IC.

The office for changing IC (Jabatan Pendaftaran) was only 20mins drive away from Cyberjaya. Getting there was easy, parking was also easy as there was a huge piece of open air parking lot in front of the building also.

The entire process of getting a replacement consists of 3 phases where you need to go to 3 separate counters to do. The 1st one involves getting your fingerprint biometrics verified then you will need to go to the camera counter to take photos and finally the collection counter to collect the actual IC. The IC can only be collected after 1 hour. I tried my luck and managed to get it within 30 mins. 

The whole process of changing IC was smooth and straightforward. Just that a lot of people do not know that at the collection counter you do not need to wait for number to be called, you need to inform the counter people that you are there to collect your new IC. They will then pass you your new IC.

I managed to take some pictures of the surrounding architectures around Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara. Many people were also there to register weddings.









Subway Cyberjaya at Shaftsbury Square

  10:40 AM      PropFessor
There's a Subway sandwich branch at Shaftsbury Square. Today needed to rush back to office for some work so I decided to do a take away. I actually have not had Subway sandwiches for more than 1 year already so I just wanted to do a review as the current sandwiches seemed slightly different from what I remembered.


I found their bread seemed more crisp than last time, it is less fluffy but more on the crunchy side. Texture and taste still very tasty. This time for toppings I requested for Jalapeno peppers which brought out some heat into the bread. The BBQ sauce seem less messy that what I recalled as I prefer less sauce because the sauce makes the bread become more sloppy and messy. The meat fillings were normal turkey ham. 

 Lots of people tell me it's the sandwiches are easy to make but nowadays most people like me don't even have time to sit down to eat so there will always be demand for such fast food. 

 There's another sandwich chain called O'briens a few blocks away also from Subway Cyberjaya. 



Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Cyberjaya Food Review : Green Banana Leaf at Shaftsbury Square

  12:12 AM      PropFessor
Green Banana Leaf South Indian restaurant is located at ground floor of Shaftsbury Square. I went one day just to test out their Banana Leaf Rice. Taste wise it's not the best but ok and very filling. I could barely stand after eating all of it. 

The place was semi full when I was there. The service was quite good when I was there, the waiter kept on refilling parpidam for me. 



Monday, May 8, 2017

Cyberjaya Office Review - POS Digicert Sdn Bhd

  11:03 PM      PropFessor
POS Digicert is the sole digital certificate issuer in Malaysia. It is a subsidiary under POS Malaysia (Malaysia Postal Services).  There is another issuer called MSCTrustgate Malaysia, also located in Cyberjaya but I do not consider the company a digital certificate issuer as it is only issuing Symantec digital certs rather than from MSCTrustgate.

Many banks and Bank Negara get their digital certificates from POS Digicert. A lot of Bank Negara applications are using Digicert's certificates. Its previous location was in Bukit Jalil but have moved to Cyberjaya.  It's cert can be used for website authentication and website SSL. Mykad and IRB (Inland Revenue Board)'s efiling are using customers of Digicert.

The registration form for digital certificates can be obtained from their website at https://www.posdigicert.com.my/. Overall their services was quite prompt based on my experience, certificates were issued on time. 

 Address : 
8-3A-02 Star Central Lingkaran Cyberpoint Timur, Cyberjaya, 63000 Cyberjaya, Selangor, Malaysia

Sunday, May 7, 2017

Strong Wifi Signal but lagging connection to Internet possible fix - Unifi, Time

  10:09 AM      PropFessor
Both Unifi and Time broadband provides the default AC router as Dlink Dir-850L. This router is suppose to be using the current Wireless 802.11AC standard which is able to do beam forming and achive higher throughput. Beam forming is a technology where the router is able to focus its power towards the direction of the requesting source, theoratically making the signal stronger (of course the other side needs to have a wireless AC network card also).


Recently I was stump by a hair pulling problem after TMnet came and replace the router together with my Fibre modem. The wired performance was very good but the wireless signal was kind of like moving fast and then slowed down, a bit like a car which was speeding and then had to tap the emergency brakes. The Wifi signal strengh indicator on my phone and laptop showed the signal strength was as "excellent". Running a speed test using www.speedtest.net does not show any visible issues, one moment I could run speedtest and then the other moment when I try to run it it won't work. I tested all the settings like changing the channel, different 802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11n but could not identify the issue.

I chance upon this setting of 20/40 Mhz channel width. I just switch it to pure 20 Mhz range and my Wifi seems ok again. Some people in tech forums are saying 40Mhz channel is too crowded and could be interfering with neigboring Wifi signals. The 40Mhz channel is suppose to be faster because it combines 20 Mhz channels into 1 big network pipe. I didn't thought this setting would cause problems as 40 Mhz is suppose to be the better setting.

 If all else still don't work, I suggest going to buy a better Wifi routers like those from ASUS. Their RT series routers seems to yield better performance. My tech colleagues told me that the ASUS routers uses desktop cpu from broadcom so it should yield better results. I can't really quantify it here but at another workplace I felt the ASUS routers seems to be able to handle bigger workloads. 

Saturday, May 6, 2017

Kung Fu Restaurant at Shaftsbury Square

  6:46 PM      PropFessor
Kung Fu restaurant is a chinese restaurant located on the 4th level of Shaftsbury Square. 
I came today and ordered their yellow noodles with ribs. The ribs were served in curry sauce and place on top of brown sauce yellow noodles. 
I particularly like the decor of the place, has an oriental feel to it.
Do not that this place is Non-Halal. 




Cyberjaya Food Review : Al-Mukalla

  12:31 AM      PropFessor

There are 3 main Middle Eastern restaurants recommended by people in NeoCyber. They are Hammurabi, Sanaa and Al-Mukalla. Today I paid a vist to Al-Mukalla. This restaurants was a bit hard to find as it is located right at the end of the row of shops. It occupies the corner unit but that particular corner is quite quiet.


Despite arriving at 930PM, there were just a handful of people but the crowd started to build up after 10PM. 

Al-Mukalla is a Yemeni restaurant. It derives its name from the port town of Al-Mukalla in Yemen. Initially I wanted to order some sort of fish dish but decided against it and chose their signature Lamb Bindy. They told me the roasted lamb was sold out already and offerred steam lamb instead. For drinks, I ordered black current drink.

The lamb dish was serve with biryani rice. The lamb turned out to be pretty well seasoned and tenderized. The rice was not too bad but I wished the rice was more flavorful. The best biryani rice I've tasted was from Restaurant Half Moon in De Centrum City Kajang where the biryani rice is cooked with lamb stock.

The place is air conditioned inside but they is a smoking seating area outside. Service was good, the waiter was very helpful and willing to explain all their dishes patiently to me. After eating I had to loosen my belt by 1 notch as the portion size was huge.

The bill came out a bit expensive (RM37) for 1 person but they gave a 30% discount which helped reduced the bill to a more reasonable amount (RM 25.90)

Thursday, May 4, 2017

Cyberjaya Office Review - Dell Malaysia Cyberjaya

  10:31 PM      PropFessor
Dell was one of the pioneer global IT companies that setup offices in during the inception of Cyberjaya.  The office is call Dell Global Business Center. The entire Dell company consists of Dell, DellEMC, VMware, RSA, Pivoltal, Virtustream and Secureworks.

After merging with global storage giants EMC, EMC's support and admin staff are now required to check into Dell offices in Cyberjaya. 

Dell offices practices hot desking policy where employees have to share desk space (cubicles) on demand. Employees are not given fixed spaces and are given lots of flexibility to work from home or at any corner of the office location.

A little trivia about carpark allocation in Dell offices. The managers got basement carpark. Some of the basement car park lots are allocated to their top performing employees. Each month the selected employee of the month gets to park their car in the basement.

There's a 24 gym inside for employees to workout anytime. 

As this is a global center, employees can expect their working hours to be non fixed and need to accommodate to certain global time zones depending on the job scope. 

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Cyberjaya Food Review : Sanaa Middle East Cuisine

  11:33 PM      PropFessor
Today I found a middle east restaurant called Sanaa. It's located at NeoCyber in one of the endlots. It took a while to spot the place  as the sign board of the shop was placed on the 2nd floor of the building.

From the outside it looks pretty normal just that I notice lots of middle eastern people sitting outside puffing shisha and play some kind of board game. The background was filled with some middle eastern song. Upon entering the glass door you see a row of seats with middle eastern looking motif sofas.

Apparently, this restaurant is a Yemeni restaurant and Sanaa is the largest city in the country of Yemen. There's another restaurant just nearby called Al Mukallah which is also named after a city in Yemen. 

Their signature dishes looked pretty decent with mostly meat based meals consisting of lamb and chicken. They had a Shawarma on a plate which is essentially a Shawarma without the wrappings put on a plate.  Their signature drink seem to be Aden milk tea (named after the port of Aden in Yemen).

As I had already taken heavy supper meal and was night time, I didn't manage to order their signature dishes. I opted for something light and ordered their Yemen flatbread (Mulawah), tabouleh and a fruit cocktail consisting of papaya, watermelon, mango blended together.

The Yemeni flatbread was kind of like an Indian Naan bread, only less puffy and spread out over a bigger surface. The bread seem dryer and less oily compared to Indian Naan but it is still quite tasty. The Yemeni flatbread can be considered to be like the pizza equivalent of thin crust. It was topped with black sesame seeds as garnish. The flatbread came served on top of a mini basket.

The tabouleh is basically some sort of Middle East salad. It consists of chopped onion, parsley, tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice. There was some other hint of some unknown spices (maybe is cloves) but I couldn't identify it. The 1st few bites were pretty average tasting but I could not finish it in the end because of the strong spices smell and also the tangy lemon juice. It's best taken as a side dish where you can share it around with more people. 

The fruit cocktail seems to be a bunch of fruits blended into a shake sweetened with condensed milk. 

 Note : I just found out the heavy spice mix was called Baharat. It is basically something like the Indian garam masala and chinese 5 spices. It consists of 7 spices blended together (black pepper, paprika, cumin, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and coriander). I'm not a big fan of the taste probably due to the strong cloves flavor.


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