Chow YN – Page 4 – A Learning Journey

Malaysia’s Compact Calendar 2018

A compact “one-view-see-all” calendar for 2018 inclusive of Malaysian public holidays and school terms is available for download. This version is optimized for Selangor State but is easily customized (if you download the Excel version) to any state of Malaysia.

I had prepared my Compact Calendar 2018 based on David Seah’s invention for a good few weeks when the official announcement on public holidays for 2018 was made by the power that be. I could not finalize my Malaysian version of Compact Calendar 2018 (optimized for Selangor State) due to be need to wait for the announcement by the Ministry of Education, Malaysia which happened on Oct 05, 2017.

I have given instructions on how my version of Compact Calendar can be optimized if you do not live (work) in Selangor in my 2017 posting on the same topic and will not be repeated here.

To download the editable Excel file, please click this link. For the Compact Calendar 2018 customized for Selangor State in PDF format, please click here.

Money Saving Tips: extending the useful life of razors

Disposal razors market is worth at least RM4 – 5 million a year in Malaysia. What if you can extend the useful lifespan of a razor blade by over 700%? Will you want to use this technique to save a few RM & cut down on plastic wastes?

Commentary: (Sep 25, 2017)

This article was written originally for an environmental portal for which this author was associated briefly. But since it was not utilized (more importantly, since the author was not remunerated for his work) he had decided to publish this in the previous version of his blog instead.

Seven years after this article was published, the author is still using the same technique to extend the lifespan of his razors and in fact most of the twin-blades and triple-blades razors that was mentioned in the 2010 edition of this article are still in “active service” today (Sep 25, 2017) , over 7 years after the experiment started!

Apart from the companies making razors, it can be deduced that most consumers should try out the method described below which not only will save you a few precious Ringgit a few months but will help to reduce plastic waste to the environment.

The author had also taken the opportunity to update his estimation of the size of the razors market and other figures accordingly in view of more “data” and a reflection on his initial estimation.

Money Saving Tips: Extending the useful life of razors

Written by Dr. YN Chow at 2010-08-31 12:08:09

Removing hairs from bodily surfaces for cultural or aesthetic reasons has been a big business. While traditionally this has been viewed as the guys’ issue where shaving has been viewed as a sign of one reaching “manhood”, in reality, the razor blades have more customers than just men.

It is not surprising that a significant amount of advertising and promotion have been levied on selling “new” designed razor blades to the consumers and now they have even segmented this into the “guys” market and the “ladies” market. While the writer has not a single clue about how large this market is, a simple estimation of the market for Malaysia can be “guessimated” as follows:

There are 27 32 million people in Malaysia, about 50% are male
60% of the males are late teen or older = 50% * 32 * 60% = 9.6 million people
Assuming 30% of the 9.6 million late teen to older males shave regularly = 2.88 million people
Assuming each “shaving customer” uses equivalent of 3 razors per year @RM1.50 – RM2.00 per razor = RM4.32 – 5.76million
Every one uses the razor blade directly (self applied) or via your barbers or hairdressers, including ladies some of whom do shave their appendages!

Hence a conservative estimation of the market for razor blade in Malaysia is about RM4.32 to 5.76 million. Of course this figure will go much higher if we take into account of the fact that many of the branded razor blades sold are priced at much higher than RM1.50 a piece.

Even if you are spending RM3 a year on razor blades, and you are “hooked” on the twin blades or higher specs models…..you know that the razor will blunt itself after about 30 to 50 usages (or less, depending on how much shaving your face needs per day). What do you do? Throw away the old one and get a new blade? This article will tell you that is not a good idea as the average branded twin blades razor (or those of higher specs) have at least 80 or more good shaves ahead of it after the initial 30 usages!

A report in the Chicago Tribune in 2007 advocated that you should let the razor blades dry off before using again to extend its life. But there was no concrete proof that this was the case. And the writer has been letting his branded razor blades dried themselves each time after use but that did not seem to extend their lives. That is, until he reads an article about a video on how simple it is to extend the life of your expensive branded razor blades and actually went to view the video concerned, posted by a gentleman with the handle of Terrypun in late March 2010 that he was intrigued enough to want to try this simple experiment.

The Terrypun Technique:
This was taken from a short write up by Ben Popken of the Consumerist:

“When he (Terrypun) notices his blade getting dull, he rubs it on his forearm in the non-cutting direction for about 10 strokes. This is all you need to keep the blade honed and sharp. You can also rub it against the heel of your palm.

Contrary to popular misconception, it’s not water or rust that dulls the blades, which are often stainless steel. It’s just the fine edges getting dulled on your face (or legs, or chest, whatever you would like the shave).”

Traditional single-bladed razor — T-shaped single-blade razor was used as a control with new blade at each use.

This article is being written on 31 Aug 2010, Merdeka Day (and revised just over 7 years later,) and the writer has been experimenting with the technique shown in the embedded video for just about 5 months (over 7 years by Sep 2017!). He has summarised his findings (which, as a trained scientist, he must qualify that this was done without any statistically analysis, replicates, blocks etc. etc. & purely came from his own observations of his face & chin after each shave!).

Resurrecting An Old & No-longer-used Twin-bladed Razor
He tried to “resurrect” a twin-bladed razor (of a leading brand) which he had “abandoned” in his father-in-law’s house for close to 2 years using the Terrypun technique: He was able to sharpen the blades but no matter how much of the sharpening he has done, the razor still could not be resurrected and there was always remnant of stubbles left on his chin after shaving.Conclusion: You cannot flog a dead horse! The Terrypun technique will not return your very old & long abandoned razor blades to their former glory! Buy new ones!
Resurrecting Two Branded, Recently “Abandoned” Razors (a Twin-bladed & a Triple-bladed)
He has two branded razors (a twin-bladed & a triple-bladed) which he was going to replace their respective heads with new ones that he had bought (mind you at very high prices!) just as he thought about the Terrypun Technique. He applied the Terrypun Technique each day (by rubbing the razor on his forearm in the non-cutting direction for about 20 -30 strokes). He remembers his scientific training and replaced his T-shaped traditional razor with a fresh single blade and use this as a “control”, where he shaves with this razor once every week and compared the results with the resurrected Twin-bladed and Triple-bladed razors. The Terrypun Technique was able to return both razors to “functioning” level. ~~The effect lasted till recently, about 5 months or 60 shaves for each razor.~~ Over 7 years later, in Sep 2017, his two razors are still functional, each time after the “standard” Terrypun Technique is applied!Conclusion: The Terrypun Technique works for branded twin-bladed or triple-bladed razors, by extending their useful lives by more than 700%, but there is a finite limit to which you can “flog the horse” before it becomes a dead horse! You should, using Terrypun Technique, expect at least ~~80 – 90~~ 300 – 400 shaves from a brand new branded razor.
Resurrecting Cheap Disposable Razor
The writer had to travel to China in Sep 2010 for work and was supplied with disposable razors at the hotel that he was staying. When it comes to disposable, supposedly single-use razors, it is quite a shame to have to throw these away after only a couple of shaves. Often you can use it for at least 3 -4 shaves. He therefore decided to apply the Terrypun Technique on one of the single-bladed disposable razors supplied by the hotel. The razor was good as new even after the 10 shaves (which the author “consumed” after his 5-days trip to China when he went on a few short local trips to the hometown).Conclusion: You can apply the Terrypun Technique to extend the lifespan of those disposable razors for as long as the plastic holding the blades are intact. Each of this type of razor can give you, via the Terrypun Technique, at least 10 100 – 200 shaves or more.

The observations given above were done on twin or triple bladed razors and the writer had tried doing the same on an old fashion “T-shaped” razor which he had used as the “control” in this experiment (the type where you have to pop open the contraption & replace the individual blade, risk cutting yourself in the process)….he lost some hairs from his right forearm. So a word of warning, apply the Terrypun Technique only on the “new safety” razors and leave those T-shaped razor well alone!

What has all these got to do with being environmentally aware? You may ask.

First extending the life of your razors by 3 – 4 folds save your some money.

Secondly, and more importantly, as most of the razor’s parts are made of plastic, the less you have to throw away, the less you will contribute to the mountain of waste.

Stop thieves from stealing your Wi-Fi bandwidth

The writer shares his learning experience on tweaking his home’s broadband Wi-Fi routers, after experiencing problems with his home webcam which he traced to a lack of bandwidth. If you do not take steps to safeguard your Wi-Fi network from thieves you will always have bandwidth problems which will affect the internet experiences of legitimate users. That is despite you paying around RM150 – 200 a month for the service!

To safeguard our house, especially when I was living close to 450 km away in Penang (from 2015 – end of 2016), I installed a couple of low cost but very reliable Xiaomi Yi Smart Webcam which worked on our home Wi-Fi network. I could, using my smartphone in Penang, watch over the key areas of my house in USJ! In fact I liked this model so much that I bought over 10 of these to be put around my former college to ensure that key installations and key exits were “guarded”. It put the night security staff on “higher alert” as my team and I would be monitoring these webcams periodically using our smartphones and took necessary actions accordingly.

Difficulties for webcam to access home wi-fi network

Things went well on the homefront in USJ but we did face periodic break in webcams connection to the network. The problem got worse in the last 10 months and at times in the evening till late night, the webcams would be blinking (meaning the gadget was working but could not log onto the home wireless network). We blamed everything from the hardware to Xiaomi’s server (which I think serves as the relay for the access from our mobile phones). It was then that I realized that it could be that thieves (or at least a thief) was/were stealing our bandwidth and this was the cause of the blinking smart webcams. I went on a search to find ways to strengthen the security of my home Wi-Fi network.

I have Telekom Malaysia’s Unifi service since 2012 and thus when I searched for instructions to manage my D-Link DIR-615 router on Google, I got a lot of instructions, but all were for newer versions of routers with the same name. I do not know why D-Link is so lazy as to not name newer versions of the same hardware slightly differently. An addition “C” or “E” or whatever after “615” would have made life easier for users.

So all those instructions and Youtube videos on how to manage D-Link DIR 615 router that I Googled were useless to me. I had to do this by trial and error and I was on my own. So if you own an old orange coloured TM-issued D-Link DIR 615 router modem, this is for you!

If you have a router that is newer, then the information I have may not be fully applicable to you and you may still get instructions by Googling. But the principles are the same.

Gain access to administer the Wi-Fi router

For DIR-615, (and I think for most routers) the default to access the admin functions is just type in 192.168.0.1 as the URL for your browser.

The “underbelly” of routers usually carry information on how to access the admin functions.

Change your Wi-Fi admin password

This should have been done by me in 2012 but I somehow missed this step. So the thieves around my neighbourhood could easily guess the default was “ “ (D-Link says, “leave the field blank”). The standard-issued username was of course “admin”.

While the firmware does not allow one to change the username from “admin”, one should change the admin’s password to something more complicated using combination of “spaces”, capital letters, numbers and special characters like “#” etc.

But if you have not changed the admin’s password on the onset, the thieves would have been able to settle in and still bypass your Wi-Fi password even you have, like I did, changed this to something more complicated. It is like having the front door locked but leaving the backdoor wide open!

This is how you can change the admin’s password on the old D-Link DIR-615 router (2012 vintage):

After you have logged in using the default admin access credentials….

Go to MAINTENANCE (among the top tabs) and you should be at Device Administration (on the left hand sidebar) by default. Change the admin’s password under “ADMIN PASSWORD” as shown above.

Change the Wi-Fi password

Although you would have put in a password when your Wi-Fi router was installed, like me, this could be a good few years back. It is necessary for this password to be changed! For the TM version of D-Link DIR-615 router, this can be done, relatively easily as follows:

From the “home” screen, go to SETUP and choose Wireless Setup on the left sidebar (as shown). You need to scroll down the screen to reach the sections of this screen that you want.

If you have more than one Wi-Fi router connected (including Wi-Fi extenders), you will need to look for MULTIPLE WIRELESS NETWORK SETTINGS. Under “Wireless Network Name” you should be able to find the names of the routers and you should choose the one that is given to DIR-615.

Next, go down one section to WIRELESS SECURITY MODE and at the drop down list, select “Enable WPA/WPA2 Wireless Security (enhanced)”.

Then move one section down to WPA/WPA2 and under “Network Key”, put in your new Wi-Fi access password. Do choose some phrases or names that are not common. You should also use a combination of UPPER CASE, lower case, special characters (like !@#$%) and numbers. Jot this down somewhere so that you need not remember this. But do remember where you have written down this new password!

Of course, your password is as strong as you are able to keep it a secret. If you or your family members share this password with the neighbourhood, sooner or later thieves will gain access and scrounge on your bandwidth!

So is there a way to NOT rely fully on Wi-Fi password as the gatekeeper? Luckily for us, there is. It is called MAC address.

MAC filtering to the rescue

Every piece of modern electronic equipment that can connect to the internet should come with its own Media Access Control (MAC) address, i.e. a unique set of identification characters that come in 6 “pairs” of characters (e.g FF), numbers (e.g 28) or one of each (e.g. G8). This allows a router to be set on MAC filtering mode which only allows intended devices with MAC addresses registered (manually by the Administrator) access to the Wi-Fi while keeping away thieves on the prowl!

Get the MAC addresses of your devices first

Before you start to activate MAC filtering, you should go and check out the MAC Addresses of all the mobile devices that your household has and jot these down in a physical notebook. Different operating systems will have different places where MAC Address of the device can be found.

For Android phones, this is “buried” under Settings → About phone → Status → WLAN MAC address.

For Kindle, you need to go to Settings → Wireless → Wi-Fi → select the top right “3 bottons” for additional settings → Advance Wi-Fi where MAC address is located.

For iOS devices, this site gives a very simple way to locate your MAC address.

Whichever device that you have, MAC address “comes” in as a “standard issue” for any Wi-Fi capable device and with a bit of probing, you should be able to find it. Once you have all the MAC addresses of your mobile devices which need Wif-Fi access, you can proceed to enable MAC filtering.

Relatively straightforward MAC filtering for TM’s DIR-615

You should choose ADVANCED → Advanced Wireless (on the left side bar).

Next, go to the section named WIRELESS MAC FILTER. Under SSID, you should choose the network that your router is associated, if you have only one network, there would be the only choice.

Then you should configure the wireless MAC filter under “Configure wireless MASS Filter Rules below:” and choose “Turn Wireless MAC Filter ON and ALLOW these computers access wireless”. This option will stop any devices not registered on your MAC filter list from connecting to your router.

The last part is to put in the 6 pairs of 2 characters MAC addresses of your chosen 10 devices in the next line under “MAC Address”. Note that the separator between each pair of characters for DIR-615 is a colon, “:”. Different routers use different separators!

When you have completed your list of 10 devices, you should click “Reboot” on the bottom of the left sidebar, then the router is now on MAC filtering mode.

What if my family has more than 10 mobile devices?

As TM’s DIR-615 restricts the number of MAC addresses that you can put in the list to just 10 which may not be enough for all the mobile devices that a modern family of four will have (4 smartphones, 2 tablets and 4 laptops and you have reached the limit!). If this is the case, like my family, and out of necessity to extend the range of our Wi-Fi coverage, we have another Wi-Fi router / extender which gives us another 14 slots! These extenders are relatively cheap nowadays.

No guarantee!

There is no guarantee that the thief or thieves who has/have been stealing my bandwidth will hack into my Wi-Fi routers again, but by doing the three steps, namely, changing the Admin password, changing the Wi-Fi password and dong MAC filtering to allow only “own” devices access to the Wi-Fi may keep the opportunistic thieves at bay. Of course the bets are off when there are more sophisticated thieves with better hacking software out there. However, if you do nothing, then the leakage of your bandwidth can surely affect the quality of your own broadband access which is not really cheap in Malaysia.

Lefthanders have “rights” too!

It is about time the lefties of the world (there’re 7% of us) stand up for our LEFT! Forcing a young left handed person to use her/his right hand is tantamount to child abuse!

Do you know that forcing a left-handed child to use her/his right hand is tantamount to child abuse? I wrote this article 3 years back when I was a columnist of the now defunct, The Heat. I hope to spread this message to help fellow lefties so that they do not have to suffer the irreparable damage like me. So by now many of my university mates should know why I did not take up engineering at Queen’s University of Belfast (though the admission officer, Mr. Sterling Weisner did offer me to read all engineering degree programmes in 1982, except for Electrical & Electronic Engineering)!

When I was studying for my GCE “A” levels in South Shields, Tyne & Wear, England, for the life of me, I could never figure out my roommate, TS Lau’s technical drawing, no matter how hard I tried. Later a fellow Malaysian student, Andrew Chew’s girlfriend who studied psychology explained to me that people like me suffer from spatial orientation problem and in severe cases, sufferers can go mad!

I understand there are cultural requirements for one to use the right hand to perform certain rituals etc. but that do not mean that a left handed person is supposed to use her/his right hand to do everything. Lefties are very adaptable. My daughter who is left handed learned to use the chopsticks using her right hand as it was the way her mother taught her. It did not do her any harm as she was free to use her left hand to do other crucial learning tasks such as writing and drawing. So there is one less excuse for forcing a lefty to be totally “righty” in whatever he/she does.

Hopefully, we lefties will have our birthrights respected and I hope more like me, will stand up for our LEFT!

Please click on the photograph of the article above to view a bigger sized image.

MRT: a good start, more attention to details needed

Sungai Buloh – Kajang MRT line is not perfect but it connects people from far flung areas of the Klang Valley together. Despite the teething problems it provides a great comfortable ride. All it takes to make it more attractive to car drivers is a more comprehensive “last-mile” connections of feeder buses that cover many more areas and run on more frequent scheduled services.

The launch of the MRT first complete line from Sungai Buloh to Kajang was done with much funfair on and prior to D-day of July 17, 2017.

As an avid public transport user and advocate, I too went on to test out the MRT line. My wife, daughter and I fancied having our favourite satay at Restaurant Malaysia, Kajang. So we took the LRT from Taipan station to KL Sentral to change to the MRT at Museum Negara.

Instead of writing a long story, I shall let the pictures speak a thousand words each! [but with my captions!]

Where is the link way?

tiny signage — So which way is Museum Negara MRT station?

Coming from Nu Sentral mall’s direction, the link way to Museum Negara MRT station is just beside McDonald on the right. But you will need to walk right near the entrance to spot the MRT logo.

Spot the MRT logo & you will know where to go!

Once inside, you will need to have very good eyesight to spot the tiny MRT logo on the signage inside the huge hallway (which was partly the waiting area for the ERL previously). Then it is a matter of “follow the crowd”. You will reach the “very deep” underground Museum Negara MRT station.

Where’s the contingency plan when technology fouls up?

The MRT train that we boarded at Museum Negara had problems with its “station indicator” LED screen. This was made worse by the fact that the audio announcement of impending station was linked fully with this. So if one kaput, all kaput!. The MRT coach was well lit. So when we stopped at an underground station, one would have to literally step out of the coach quickly, and look for the signs that tell us which station we were at. There was also not a single Sungai Buloh – Kajang MRT line map inside the coach (there would be many places to stick this), so we could not even use the age-old system of counting station to know where we were!

When it is working, this thing is great!

A tried and tested, simple map to show the MRT line like this on the old LRT coach will be great!

We should not place so much faith in technology working every time. A simple map of the MRT line like that found in the older LRT coaches would “insure” against the electronic announcement system (both audio and visual) failing.

Plenty of space in MRT coach to stick more useful information like stations along the line!

Instead of these self-congratulatory stick-on posters, why don’t we have useful information like a line map, bigger sized full RapidKL rail system map etc. put up?

One of the side benefits of the MRT line – Kajang satay vendors could not cope with demand!

We reached Kajang and went straight to Restaurant Malaysia for our favourite satay. We were lucky to have arrived 5 minutes earlier than the crowd. Many were eyeing our table! The MRT line really shortens the distances between towns within the Klang Valley and the first economic benefits felt in Kajang is the sale of satay! Many more economic benefits shall follow!

Seamless transfer between MRT and LRT, a great feature

We went home from Kajang Stadium to USJ by changing form the MRT to LRT (Kelana Jaya line) at Pasar Seni. The sight was great but I was more attracted to the seamless transfer between the two lines. This is the most crucial factor to ease the congestion (of people getting out of one line and joining into another). You will also be fully protected from the elements getting from the MRT line to the LRT. I feel that if more seamless transfer can be made available, it will make life a lot easier. One candidate up for seamless transfer will be the Monorail and LRT at KL Sentral.

My take on the MRT

Despite what the critics have said, I think the MRT system is a great addition to the Klang Valley public transport system. It will surely bring up the economic value of properties around the stations. Kajang folks have already seen more visitors than before!

If the teething issues highlighted by yours truly can be looked into, I think the MRT system, which has broader coaches (thus steadier to ride) will help to convince more people to follow yours truly, to take public transport as the first option. The only thing that is stopping this is the last-mile linkages which is still very rudimentary. Feeder bus service (more lines and more frequent services) need to be extended in coverage and hours of operation. It is often the last-mile issue that forces people to have to drive.

RapidKL needs simple lesson in maths!

RapidKL could have avoided this botched up if those in charge have done some simple mathematics like what I had done. It does not need a Ph.D. in Operational Management for one to figure this out and plan accordingly. It is clear from my calculation that RapidKL will not be able to complete the issuance of all 68,000 new MyRapid concessionary cards before the deadline of mid July 2017. I think the sooner that RapidKL owns up to this fact and makes an contingency plan, the better it is to salvage its tarnished reputation.

The much anticipated changing of MyRapid cards to the new version to coincide with the launch of the full first MRT line in the country started in earnest from mid June 2017.

No issue with changing of non-concessionary MyRapid cards

As one of the first holders of the original version of the MyRapid card, I went to USJ 7 LRT station and changed this to the new version on June 16, 2017 without any difficulty. The entire process, inclusive of waiting time (with 2 persons ahead of me) was around eight minutes.

Chaos reign in changing of concessionary MyRapid cards

But no sooner that this exercise was announced, the press had been receiving and reporting a severe botch up by RapidKL in the changing of concessionary MyRapid cards. This author’s daughter who holds an original version of the college student’s concessionary MyRapid card, which she just obtained less than two months ago, on hearing the chaos at Pasar Seni LRT station had decided to wait.

The social media was rife with horror stories of people, especially senior citizens having to wait for hours, often without any seats and still could not get their old MyRapid cards replaced. There were also announcements that only 200 concession cards would be issued at Pasar Seni LRT station each day and after the queue numbers are taken up, commuters would have to make another trip and try their luck the next day. Someone announced that there are only three new card processing machines at Pasar Seni. My wife who had been monitoring the social media on this issue also spotted a student whose old MyRapid concessionary card was due to expire soon being told that he must change to the new card, which will carry the same impending expiry date and when this card expires, he will be required to apply for another card.

My wife was fast in spotting the announcement on June 21, 2017 about the setting up of two additional card processing centres, one at Subang Jaya and the other at Awan Besar and alerted my daughter who got her MyRapid student concessionary cards done within 30 minutes. So did a couple of her friends but others were not so fortunate. By then, my daughter spotted chairs being decked out for applicants and RapidKL’s staff even provided free biscuits to her while she was waiting. While these acts of providing convenience to commuters waiting for their new cards to be processed are commendable, they came a little too late, the reputational damage to RapidKL had already been done.

A little maths would have spotted the impending chaos

I wonder if those who are responsible for this entire concessionay cards replacement exercise at RapidKL really employ any simple operation management practices to estimate the size of the job and thus the time needed to complete the exercise.

I had used a simple spreadsheet to estimate the number of days needed to replace all 68,000 concessionary MyRapid cards in Tables 1, 2 and 3 below. It was reported that each MyRapid card processing machine takes around three minutes to process and issue a new card. However, if we take into account the time needed to key in the command (assuming the data migration from the old to the new card would be seamless) and physically handling of the card during the process, this could easily add two minutes to the process, making it a five minutes job. This does not include the actual time taken for the applicants to present the old card, checking of credentials etc. On social media, a figure of 15 minutes was quoted as the “actual” time for a new card to be produced, from the time the applicant hands in the old card. Given that it takes 3 , 5, or 15 minutes to process a new card, I ask a few simple questions:

How many cards can be issued a day if the machine is made to work 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20, 24 hours?
How many cards can be issued if RapidKL has 1, 3, 6, 9 or more machines on seven different total working hours per day?
How many days will it take to issue all 68,000 concessionary MyRapid cards in each of the different scenarios as given in (1) and (2)?

Note: I have published a Google Sheet containing the data for Table 3. Readers can play around with two of the key parameters, no. of cards to process and how long to process each card to see how these affect the outcome.

Why the rush?
It is clear from my calculation that RapidKL will not be able to complete the issuance of all 68,000 new MyRapid concessionary cards before the deadline of mid July 2017. I think the sooner that RapidKL owns up to this fact and makes an contingency plan, the better it is to salvage its tarnished reputation. I wonder why was the rush to complete all concession cards replacement within 30 days from June 16, 2017 given the estimation in the tables above that even if it takes only 3 minutes (which is just how fast the machine works) to complete the processing of one new MyRapid concessionary card, it would take 9 machines working fourteen-hours-day a good 27 days to complete the job. If we put in extra couple of minutes, the 9 machines would have to work 24 hours a day to churn out 68,000 new cards within one month. If it takes 15 minutes of total processing time (including physical handling of the cards, sorting etc.) as has been reported recently, the 9 machines working 24 hours a day would not be able to complete the job in 30 days. In fact, with a 15 minutes turnaround time, it would take 24 card processing machines and the whole replacement card exercise to run 24 hours per day (assuming applicants and staff will be willing to get this done 24 hours a day) to churn out 68,000 new cards within 30 days! And if RapidKL just stick to 9 machines working non-stop with a processing time of 15 minutes, it will take 79 days to process all 68,000 new cards!

What should RapidKL do?

Here are some of the suggestions I can make to tackle this issue:

Own up that someone at RapidKL did not do his/her homework and bungled the whole thing.
Set up an online application system for replacement of MyRapid concessionary cards for students ONLY and drive them to use the online application, thus taking them (I would assume that this group is the largest of all concessionary cards holders) off the queue.
Continue to process MyRapid concessionary card replacement exercise at the three centres for senior citizens and the disabled. Open up the online application system to these two groups of people so that those who are tech-savvy will be removed from the queues.
Let all holders of MyRapid concessionary card use their old cards for another two month and continue the “token” system at the MRT system for these commuters. This will also remove the rush for all other concessionary card users to get their cards replaced by mid July 2017, thus removing the long queues at the three designated card processing centres of Pasar Seni, Subang Jaya and Awan Besar LRT stations.
Let the students nominate the most convenient LRT or MRT station to collect their new cards, thereby further reducing the crowd at the three replacement card processing centres.

With the students all applying online (this group should be the most tech savvy and will not have any issue), the overall processing time of the cards for this group will not be 15 minutes, as there is no need for the applicants to wait and the initial processing/ data crunching and verifications etc. are all done online and upfront. Thus if all the 9 machines (plus staff on shifts) working 24 hours a day, it will take an additional 45 – 60 days (i.e. total of about 75 – 90 days) to complete the exercise.

Why we need to round up the value to multiples of RM5?

In fact one odd thing that I noticed when I changed my old MyRapid card to the new one was the strange request from the nice RapidKL staff at USJ 7 LRT station for me to top up my card to RM45 (from something like RM37). She told me that the system would work better if the migration of data was done with stored value in multiples of RM5! This, I think added to the waiting and processing time, especially if the card holders (of both types of MyRapid cards) are not informed of this. Why we need the tail to wag the dog is one mystery that RapidKL needs to explain.

Have “organizational memory” and not repeat this botch up!

Having more card processing machines than the 9 at present may help to speed things up, but it may break the budget and may be wasteful when there is another change in the technology that mandated another round of upgrades. Thus planning and using logical thinking is the key!

Why was the MRT ticketing system being allowed to be incompatible with the first version of MyRapid card shall remain a mystery. More intriguing was, why the first version of MyRapid cards were allowed to be issued in the first place since these were clearly not fully compatible with the Touch N Go system which caused the replacement exercise? I think that RapidKL owes the taxpayer an explanation on both counts.

Of course if the intention was to reduce the 68,000 concessionary cards holders substantially, then the chaotic way the whole exercise is carried out and the short processing period are the “right” things to do!

Right to disconnect… can you disconnect the mind too

With almost every working adult in Malaysia now owning a smartphone, it is not surprising that work has been creeping into the “smartphone” during family / leisure time after work. So if you see an adult of working age, keeps his/her down while having a shopping mall outing with his/her family on a Sunday, it is not surprising that it could be work-related. The boss’s expectation aside, it is often the smartphone user’s inability to disconnect his/her mind that prompts him/her to use the smartphone to check work-related stuff, even on a rest day.

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Commentary (Mar 31, 2018):

This article was first published in June 2017 in theplantcloner.com. Subsequently, it was also published in the newsletter of Penang Chinese Chamber of Commerce. Since then, there have been many mentions of the issue of the right of employees to disconnect from work after hours. The latest development on this issue has traveled across the Atlantic from France to New York City council. But all discussions seem to centred upon the perspective of the employer or employee’s obligation, no one seems to have asked the same question as did I, “will the employee, even if he/she has the right to disconnect, choose to do so?”

When the rumour of a new French law to grant employees the right to be disconnected from the obligation to answer work emails after office hours hit the English press in 2014, there were lots of reactive comments. What really happened in 2014 was not a new law being passed, but in fact a collective agreement for certain categories of French workers whose worked was counted in days rather the 35-hours working week. So everyone thought that the English press overreacted to the rumour, and the Economist’s Paris correspondent took pain to explain this. And the British media had eggs on their faces! So it seemed!

The right to disconnect is real from 2017!

Fast forward just about three years on, in January 2017, France really DID make this “right to disconnect” into a law! Perhaps this could be tied to the phenomenal growth of the use of smartphones everywhere in the world during the past three, four years. Smartphones ownership in France was already at 64.1% in Quarter 1 of 2014, by the same quarter in 2017, this has risen to 71.1%. For the USA, smartphone ownership in January 2017 is around 77%. In Malaysia, smartphone ownership has already reached 65% as reported in February 2016 and is set to reach 17.8 millions people in 2017.

Can Malaysia adopt the “right to disconnect”?

With almost every working adult in Malaysia now owning a smartphone, it is not surprising that work has been creeping into the “smartphone” during family / leisure time after work. So if you see an adult of working age, keeps his/her head down while having a shopping mall outing with his/her family on a Sunday, it is not surprising that it could be work-related. The boss’s expectation aside, it is often the smartphone user’s inability to disconnect his/her mind that prompts him/her to use the smartphone to check work-related stuff, even on a rest day.

Asian bosses are notorious for being the “slave drivers”, the bulk of Malaysian bosses are no exception. By bosses, I don’t mean just those tycoons but immediate superiors, managers and even supervisors of the working masses today. In my experience, the expectation of bosses is simple, staff are expected to reply to emails or SMS or Whatsapp messages even long after the work hour is over. The days before the smartphones was better for staffers, at least you only have SMS messages to worry about, there is no spreadsheets to open, photographs to download, Facebook post to check etc.

Not all “tycoon-class” bosses are slave drivers

In fact not all tycoons have this “no right to disconnect” mentality. My former boss who belongs to the “tycoon class” is one fine exception who practiced, to a great extent, this “right to disconnect”.

During my stint as Tan Sri Clement Hii’s special assistant, it was between 2012 – 2014, before smartphones are so ubiquitous as today. So Whatsapp and other instant messaging platforms were not common. I was only given one special requirement from him, when I was off duty I was to keep the mobile phone switched on at all times.

My boss just wanted to send out SMS messages to his team as and when he had ideas and instructions for us, regardless of the time of day. The reason for him to have his team keeping their mobile phones switched on has got to do with the “double ticks” that we now see on Whatsapp. All he wanted, was to be sure that his instruction was delivered via SMS, he did not need to see the “double blue ticks”, i.e.; if the message was delivered, it would be fine, he did not need to see if the recipient had read it.

Once delivered however, the problem, task, or instruction was now became the accountability of the recipient! We were specifically told by him that we would not be required to respond to his SMS unless the matter was urgent, for which he would call the staff concerned instead of sending an SMS. To his credits, Tan Sri Clement only called me a few times during my stint with him and on all occasions it was really something urgent that needed to be taken care of immediately.

Bosses should observe ‘right to disconnect”

Here is a very smart man who knows how to maximize his brain power by clearing from his mind the least important stuff: remembering a “to do list”, about tasks, problems etc. which he could delegate to his team. By offloading these, as soon as possible, his mind power could be deployed on more productive tasks, such as strategising on new projects, thinking through new ideas or just simply to relax, to recharge. By not requiring his staff to respond immediately, he observes the staff’s “right to disconnect”. Of course, all bets are off when there is an emergency or something really urgent, such as guarding the company’s reputation on social media which is something that needs to be taken care of immediately.

I wonder how many “tycoon class” bosses are as understanding and wise as my former boss! By minimizing the intrusion into his staff’s leisure time, Tan Sri Clement stands to gain more by having his team members better recharged and refreshed to ‘fight another day”!

A couple of questions to ponder

Even if Malaysians working adults are given the “right to disconnect” as did their French counterparts, I wonder how many of us will judiciously exercise this right? Exactly how many of us can disconnect our mind fully from work after we have clocked off? I think both question are subject to further debate!

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The unlawful act of foreign universities teaching academic programmes in Malaysia

It is necessary for any foreign higher education institutions (especially Taiwanese universities who are the newbies to the Malaysian market) to respect the law of the land and only collaborate with approved private colleges and universities and do so within the confine of ACT 555!

Setting up your teaching centres in Malaysia without adhering to ACT 555 is like you setting up a barbecue party at someone’s backyard without the owner’s consent and without inviting the owner!

If one has been reading the Chinese press in Malaysia over the past few weeks and is, like me, very interested in higher education matters, one will not have missed two stories detailing foreign universities (from Taiwan & China) collaborating with Chinese non-governmental-organizations (NGO) in delivering academic degree programmes partially in Malaysia.

The sudden interest by Taiwanese universities to establish a foothold in Malaysia is understandable, given the excess capacities that they collectively had. In fact this author, through the grapevine has been informed to “expect more to come”.

However, the law of the land (that is the Private Higher Education Institution Act, ACT 555) will only permit a foreign university to offer its academic programme here under two circumstances:

It is an approved branch campus such as Monash University, Nottingham University, Curtin University etc. under the ACT 555; or
It is collaborating with a private higher education institution in Malaysia that is approved under ACT 555.

Thus, if you are responsible for bringing a foreign institution into Malaysia to deliver, even partially, an academic programme, and your organization or the foreign institution does not fall into either of the circumstances above, you are then committing an offence or offences under ACT 555!

Teaching in an unapproved institution is also an offence

Article 81 (1) (c) of ACT 555 states, “Where – (c) any person is working or is a teacher in a private higher educational institution which is not approved and registered under this Act;… such private higher education institution or chief executive or person shall be guilty of an offence and shall, on conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding ten thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one month or to both.”

Although I have not been to law school, but my reading of ACT 555 over the last 20 odd years tells me that Article 81 (1) (c) specifically requires that anyone teaching in any academic programme, be it a diploma, bachelor degree or Master’s must make sure that the said programme is offered by a private higher education institution that is approved under this Act. Under Article 51 of ACT 555, a teaching permit is mandatory for anyone delivering a higher education class. Thus any foreign professors delivering their classes in Malaysia will violate not only Article 81(1)(c) but also Article 51.

It also implies that any foreign institution which is not approved under ACT 555 to operate in Malaysia and conducts a course of study leading to an academic award, whether to be conferred in Malaysia or not, is deemed have violated this act.

You may teach in English or Arabic ONLY with special approval!

Further, Article 41 (1) and (3) (a) place restriction on the medium of instructions where it states, “41 (1) All private higher educational institutions shall conduct its courses of study in the national language.
…(3) Notwithstanding subsection (1), the private higher educational institution may, with the approval of the Minister— (a) conduct a course of study or a substantial part of a course of study in the English language; or (b) conduct the teaching of Islamic religion in Arabic.”

Any veteran of the private higher education industry will tell you that it will be a “matter of course” for a private higher education institution to obtain the approval to conduct a course of study in English or Arabic.

Delivering academic programme in Chinese is a different kettle of fish all together. There are only five private higher education institutions among close to 500 in Malaysia that have obtained approval to offer academic programmes that are delivered in Chinese. And these are all in the area of Chinese studies which, has been argued successfully, must be delivered using the Chinese language. Thus offering programmes such as sport science, management, MBA etc. that are fully conducted in Chinese, will contravene Article 41(1) of ACT 555.

Providing your premise to unapproved institution is an offence!

Further, Article 80 which states, “Any— (a) person who, being the owner or occupier of any house, building, premise or place, has failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent the same from being used as a private higher educational institution in contravention of this Act…….shall be guilty of an offence and shall, on conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding two hundred thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to both.”

Essentially, Article 80 means that any organization, NGO, persons who let their premise to be used as a private higher education institution that is not approved under ACT 555 will be deemed to have committed an offence. Thus the use of the premises of Chinese guilds and clan associations for this purpose is illegal.

There are some amendments to ACT 555 that have been passed by the upper house of the Parliament (Dewan Negara) which will further tighten the rule books. More amendments to ACT 555 can be expected in the near future.

What about the Malaysian learners?

For learners, they should be made aware by these foreign universities and their local collaborators who are not approved under ACT 555 that any qualifications earned, even though these are conferred overseas, will not received any accreditation and recognition by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency. Thus any local learners who aspire to use such academic qualifications for career advancement, or for higher level academic studies stand a chance of being disappointed. Furthermore if such academic qualifications are to be used for admission to professional bodies and for licensing purposes, the relevant bodies or agencies which often require a detailed career information will discover that the qualifications offered (which was partly delivered in Malaysia) were not awarded in accordance to ACT 555. These learners will have the option then to seek legal redress from the foreign university and its collaborator for having misinformed them! Hence foreign universities which deliver academic programme fully or partially in Malaysia without adhering to ACT 555 should also be aware of the legal risks that they are exposed to, which will extend beyond being pursued by the authorities in Malaysia!

What can foreign universities do?

It is necessary for any foreign higher education institutions (especially Taiwanese & Chinese universities who are the newbies to the Malaysian market) to respect the law of the land and only collaborate with approved private colleges and universities and do so within the confine of ACT 555!

Setting up your teaching centres in Malaysia without adhering to ACT 555 is like you setting up a barbecue party at someone’s backyard without the owner’s consent and without inviting the owner!

For those who are interested, a copy of ACT 555 (in Bahasa Malaysia) is available here with the approved amendments in 2012.

Venturing into corporate training arena: a game changer for MOOC players?

To be appropriate for corporate training use, MOOC players need to identify MOOCs that both they and their supplying institutions are able to re-purpose for corporate learning and market just these.

Asking corporate training practitioners to accept the academic MOOCs as the basis for their corporate learning programs is like trying to put a square peg through a round hole.

Just two months short of three years back, I wrote about creating tangible revenue channels for Massive Open Online Courses providers. I gave a few suggestions about how MOOCs players can generate revenue in articles I wrote on MOOC which were published even earlier.

Udacity, one of the three pioneer MOOC players(and the three largest players) , departed from the “fully free” model in 2014 and announced its highly successful “nanodegree” programs. The success formula of Udacity, the platform built by the father of MOOCs, Sebastian Thrun, is relatively straightforward: provide what industries need. Instead of being the “Jack of All trades” of MOOCs, Thrun steered Udacity towards providing for the technology companies which collectively have the most ferocious “appetite” for tech-savvy workers with Udacity serving as the “supplier” by training and job-guaranteeing pledge to all takers of its nanodegrees.

By focusing on the area of MOOCs that Udacity has an edge, that is the “tech” area, and linking up with high profile “tech” players like Google, BOSCH, Facebook, Amazon, AT&T etc., Udacity has been successful in attracting learners who have been willing to pay the fees (which is still modest in many ways) to get the knowledge and get certified by Udacity with a promise of jobs at the end of the training or “half your money back” guarantee by Udacity.

It is therefore not surprising that just over a year after the launch of nanodegrees, Udacity was able to announced to the world that it was the first MOOC player to show profit in August 2015.

In the meantime, the other MOOC players like Coursera, edX and Futurelearn have been relying solely on charging for certification as the main revenue stream. Concurrently, there are increasingly many smaller players which have “pay to learn” model like Udemy which provide many shorter courses and at pricing that are more attractive. Charging companies for access to MOOC students’ data as announced in 2012 seemed not to bear much fruit. This is not surprising with privacy protection being so prominent these days!

Recently, this author stumbled upon Coursera’s latest business model, aptly named, “Coursera for Business” (CFB) which was launched in August 2016. The Enterprise version of Coursera provided for co-branding of learning and certification as well as an attractive suite of packages for businesses of different sizes.

While it is still early days to judge the success or otherwise of Coursera’s model at this stage (at the time of writing, late April 2017, Coursera for Business is only eight months old), this author has done an evaluation on CFB based on what he has learned about Udacity’s nanodegrees and his being a “veteran” of over 35 MOOCs successfully completed.

Nevertheless, like Udacity, Coursera was able to rope in some big names from industry to be CFB’s pioneer clients, such as AirFrance, KLM, PayPal, Axis Bank, InGram, VIPKID, BCG, telenor, and L’Oréal.

On the “supply side”, blue-chip universities such as:

have been recruited to provide the necessary MOOCs that Coursera’s clients required. CFB boasts 1,800 MOOCs etc. as shown in below:

The billion US$ dollar question is this: Will these two seemingly ‘Udacity-like” features of CFB (having blue-chip clients and universities) again do the mojo for Coursera as they did for Udacity?

This author will provide a ‘cautious YES” to CFB which, as he had suggested in October 2013 for MOOC players to tap a lucrative revenue channel by moving to the corporate learning segment. To be successful like Udacity’s nanodegrees, Coursera perhaps need to consider the followings:

Udacity’s nanodegrees are very industry and skills focused which Udacity has deliberately targeted at the arena that it has an edge: the “tech” sector. Thus by specializing, Udacity created its niche in the MOOC arena which is difficult for other players to steal a slice of its cake. Coursera on the other hand, is a “Jack of All Trades”. It’s portfolio of MOOCs cover a very broad area. It has made the mistake of putting all its 1,800 MOOCs on the table.
It is not possible for Coursera or rather its “supplier institutions” to be best in all of the study areas. More important, it is impossible to expect company learning departments to check through all 1,800 MOOCs to identify the ones that they want, which will be different for different industries. Not all 1,800 MOOCs are compatible with corporate learning needs of the prospective clients.
Academic courses, especially those that involve abstract thinking and not skill-based are notoriously difficult to adapt to corporate training norm. Academic assessment items are often too “academic” for many to be applied in the corporate training sphere. Similarly, the bulk of Coursera courses are at least four weeks in duration. Unless a systematic system of classifying and structuring MOOCs is applied to Coursera’s plethora of MOOCs to make sure that there is a common measure of “one learning unit” that is say, four hours of learning time in length, it is not really practical to “mix and match” or personalize the learning as required by sponsors or even the individual learners. It is a double-edged sword. If rigidity in this sort of structuring of MOOCs is applied, there will be “academic freedom” issue with the academic staff powering the MOOCs. However it is still not too late for Coursera to, for those MOOCs to be placed under CFB, to be compliant with a new “learning unit” measure.

This author suggests that CFB be more narrow focused (Udacity’s model is proven in this aspect). Instead of 1,800 MOOCs, , Coursera perhaps could identify MOOCs that both it and the supplying institutions are able to re-purpose for corporate learning and market just these.

Asking corporate training practitioners to accept the current Coursera’s academic MOOCs as the basis for their corporate learning programs is like trying to put a square peg through a round hole.

Commentary:

Unknown to this author, while he was preparing and researching for this article, edX announced the launching of 15 Professional Certificate programs on Apr 25, 2017 (about 2 days before this article was first published, after adjusting for the time difference).

edX which has, for a long while branded some of its more prestigious or better participated MOOCs into a “Xseries”. It has been marketing verified certification for individual MOOCs as well as a series of MOOCs (as in XSeries). Many of the “Xseries” courses are in fact not in the “free to learn” category. Then in September 2016, it had packaged some of the MOOCs into Micromasters which essentially gain learners academic credits if they have taken verified certification where many of the MOOCs under Micromasters still are available on the audit mode (aka “free to learn”). To complete a Micromaster, one would need to take all the prescribed MOOCs which collectively could take at least 6 months. The Professional Certificate from edX is a stripped down version of the Micromaster which would take learners about 2 months to complete.

Of the 15 Professional Certificate programs, it is interesting to notice edX at least value the flexibility that “self-paced” MOOCs confer. Most of the 15 are indeed delivered in self-paced mode with a few still sticking to the “set timing” as before. Most also provide a “free to learn” option but notably the more business and management oriented ones are strictly fees-based such as those offered by New York Institute of Finance and Wharton.

edX’s latest offerings are still very academic-based and are mainly repackaging current entire MOOCs into different badges. It does not have the mix-and-match, small learning units (to allow for the mix-and-match) etc. mentioned by this author in the article above. The fact that more and more self-paced MOOCs are being offered does go some way to provide for the flexibility of starting that is lacking in many MOOCs.

Nevertheless this is a first step in the right direction for edX, but this author would have liked to see an offer of a program that comprises of a mix-and-match of components of MOOCs from different institutions which is what MOOCs, if designed in “standard” learning units would have allowed! This way, edX will be in the best position to customize the MOOCs (and components of individual MOOCs) to suit the needs of the market. It would be interesting, if this should happen, to see which institution will be offering the certification! Or perhaps it would be kind of joint certification by key employers, the institutions contributing the elements to their MOOCs to the program and edX?

Vivaldi, the “new” Google Chrome alternative – a powerful browser rediscovered

Vivaldi is a fast, features-packed Google Chrome derived browser that is great for power users who opens 10 -15 tabs at once anytime!

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Commentary (Jun 11, 2018): For over 8 months, I have not been able to upgrade Vivaldi on my old Linux (Ubuntu-derived LXLE). There is a file that is needed but not updated in the distribution. So far, I could still use Vivaldi without any issue but am afraid that as more security updates come along, I will have to switch from Vivaldi if I cannot use Gmail etc.

I have been using Firefox as my main browser since Google decided that it would not be supporting Google Chrome for Linux about a year or so ago. I am a Linux user by choice and am writing this piece using my son’s hand-me-down, a Dell Inspiron 1520 of 2007 vintage. I use LXLE, a lightweight distribution of the famed Ubuntu (which itself has grown very heavy for older personal computers) which is very suited for “ancient” personal computers.

I tried Google’s open source browser, Chromium which is still being maintained for Linux. For some reasons that I could not figure out, it refused to run after installation on my other “younger” laptop, a Toshiba Protege T210 (a couple of years younger than the Dell Inspiron) which is also powered by LXLE.

The reason for me wanting to use the latest Google Chrome is simple, a lot of modern websites just do not load properly or render well in older version of the browser. Although Firefox was good, lately it has become sluggish and often crashed. As I do most of my work, especially writing using Google Docs and data crunching using Google Sheets, Firefox had become very unreliable lately.

I tried using Opera. It somehow does not have full compatibility with Google Chrome and some of the websites and web apps just did not work well and like Firefox, it got to be very sluggish at times. I knew if I wanted to keep up my productivity, I would need to find a solution to my browser problem and do so fast!

Then I found (or rather rediscovered) Vivaldi Browser which I briefly heard of in 2015. Unlike Opera which has some issues with full Google Chrome / Chromium compatibility in terms of rendering some websites with heavy scripts and apps, I found Vivaldi intuitive, fast, and easy to use.

Vivaldi which was launched in March 2015 by Jon von Tetzchner, Opera’s former CEO, has a lot of features for people like me, those who open 10 – 15 tabs at one go and doing lots of research, writing, number crunching etc. fully online, aka the power users!

Although I still experience periodic slow response from my mouse and keyboard while “Vivaldi-ing” when I have more than 10 tabs opened, it is a darn sight better than the fully unresponsiveness I encounter when using Firefox or Opera. The full Chrome pedigree of Vivaldi means that anything that works on Google Chrome Store will be game for Vivaldi. So if you fancy any extension that you had been using on Google Chrome, it should work on Vivaldi.

For the very “tech” focused readers, there is a blow-by-blow “Opera vs Vivaldi” by Slant. I just learned from Slant’s article that Vivaldi allows one to stack up tabs which is handy when doing research by putting related content etc. together for ease of reference and location. Another Vivaldi’s feature that is great for people doing lots of research online is the “Note” function which allows you to take notes about a site you are visiting, copy the link, copy selected area and even take a snapshot of the site.

One feature of Vivaldi that Windows users may not be excited about but Linux users like me will, is the “Screen Capture” function at the bottom right of Vivaldi’s panel. It comes in very handy when you want to capture stuff you see online that you need for your research. The feature picture of this article was captured using this function and I got a choice of doing the entire page or just the selected area. In this case, I had chosen the latter. Now there is no need for me to run an external screen capture software then do an “Alt-Tab” to make sure I get back to my browser to do a F11 (full size) then repeat “Alt-Tab” to set up screen capture software to work. I did install some third party’s extension to do screen capture which worked. But this extension also added on additional weight to Firefox (and slowed it down). For Vivaldi, I do not think I need to install any extension at this stage!

The ability for me to see how a site I am visiting is loading on the status bar which is no longer present in many other browsers is yet another feature of Vivaldi that I like. It tells you how big a chunk of data you are consuming and how much of it you are loading. Also, when using Vivaldi, you will not be bombarded with advertisements like some other browsers.

You can download Vivaldi at its website. Vivaldi has cross platform compatibility which means that you can run it on Windows, Mac and Linux. It is just too bad for Android users that there is not yet an Android version for Vivaldi! If you signup for an account, you will also be given an email account from Vivaldi that allows you access to many of the community postings etc. that were the “key features” which were taken off from Opera. One article said that Vivaldi’s service which is rolled out of Iceland, a country that has one of the world’s toughest privacy protection law. The@vivaldi.net domain by itself offers a very attractive feature for users who seek to protect their privacy while sending and receiving emails!

Let us hope that I will not need to revise this article often and that Vivaldi as a project will continue to bring work efficiency for users like me.