why all this nonsense

Dutch MP posts Islam film on web - A Dutch right-wing politician posts a controversial film critical of the Koran on the internet:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7317506.stm

I am a Catholic of Indian ethnicity living in Malaysia (a Muslim country). I believe religion should be used to UNITE all class, colour or creed. We choose our own religion as a way of life and the best path for spiritual enlightenment. Some of my friends are Muslims and being matured about our life choices is true freedom. There is no such thing as total freedom of speech, talk is VERY cheap. Some people love to shout and that’s not the freedom we need. There should be only more tolerance, love and friendship.

Hypocrites are everywhere… among Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims too… all ages and levels of society. These religious fanatics preach and force religion on others just to feel good about controlling people. Control makes them powerful… and power is addictive. Violence is the normal means to power. What is right and wrong is not from human interpretation but should be from God’s definition of truth and justice.

When both sides (Christians and Muslims) are pointing fingers at each other, there will never be peace. The blame game will never cease. Only with compromise, forgiveness and love we can all make this planet a better place to live.

Come on lah… take it easy... stop this nonsense... stop fighting please.

lame excuses for liverpool's defeat... again..

All I can say about yesterday’s game… Liverpool was outclassed and outplayed throughout the whole game. They looked nothing short of misguided and unbalanced team of amateurs. MU played a smart game… waited and waited… they did not push too hard and the players were not over pressured.

Liverpool on the other hand could not take in the pressure… they played without much vision or direction. Am sick and tired of Benitez and his excuses… he should see the whole mess unfolding way before the send off. The red card was too harsh… but that might not happen if Liverpool had a good game plan or a working tactic to beat MU.

Competition is stiff and every game should improve the player’s performance… but in Liverpool’s case… it’s the opposite. Every season starts with promise only to end with bitter disappointment and frustration. This season is no better.

Election 2008 – Rawang

Gan Pei Nei

Saturday in Rawang was kinda quiet… maybe there is some sense of change in the air. Went to my old primary school… Sinaran Budi wit my sister and mother. As I am walking along to cast my vote… I remember running around this school… playing all kinds of unique Malaysian games (i.e. galah panjang, police & thief, marbles, top, kite, konda kondi etc)… making so many good friends… some of them still keep in touch till today. There were no race or money issues then… no segregation… no politics… it was fun to be in school. Some of my best teachers were Indians, Malays and Chinese. Sinaran Budi built a reputation for the most secular school in Selangor then for racial integration. We also had the best results for government exams together with San Yuk Chinese School.

So then… walking into the old classroom… the old block up on the hill… everything seems so small and narrow now. Its here in the same classroom…. I attended my Standard 3 lessons. This will be the very same room I will be making a political statement. Seeing so many familiar faces in Rawang … esp old timers… brings back a sense of nostalgia and sadness. Everyone had this new look about them… a new face. It all went peacefully tho… as if even the ruling party voters wanted some change. I can sense frustrations for the local issues we face in Rawang and admit a lot of work is yet to come for PKR, esp Gan Pei Nei.

We lost our golden era in Rawang… 70s and 80s. Those were the days when everyone knew EVERYONE in Rawang. The market, library, football fields, APMC club and the illegal video arcades had so many fond memories. We had better comradeship among various races, creeds and beliefs then. I suppose Rawang has changed a lot since... changed in the era of globalization and the ever moving job seekers. The youngsters (many of them my good friends) moved to KL and Singapore. Once or twice a year… the pilgrimage back to Rawang brings back so many of the children of a lost era … but that is also slowly dying. More old timers are moving out too… loosing the battle to stay independent in Rawang (a haven for gritty hard working people then).

This brings back the issues we face these days in Rawang and the amount of damage Tan See Hang and BN brought to this great town. So much new development and damaging changes in Rawang brought destruction to its identity and sense of belonging. Unplanned development also brings about more destruction to the environment and carnage to the great quintessential charm of this city. No more public libraries, parks or public places to meet and mingle among the local folks.

More and more shoplots that are not only esthetically ugly… but also damaging to the very fabric of social interaction. When we plan cities for human beings, we must take into account not only the economic aspect but the social, environmental and spiritual well being of its people. Of course we need these shops, nasi kandar restaurants, supermarkets and banks… but not right in the city centre. The city centre should have a place to meet… like a piazza or a park. There is nothing in this town that builds a common interaction ground among its people.

Rawang had a bygone era of neo-classical bond among its people. There were the APMC club, the football fields, LIONS club, library, coffee shops, churches, temples etc where people met and migled. Seriously, even in schools we had this great interaction among students and teachers. Our tamans had residential clubs and rukun tentangga... all this vanished when BN and Tan See Hang decided to blind the people with these horrible development. The damage might not be overcome... but a lesson for the upcoming candidate... u need to bring back the glory of the old days... and thats tough. Rawang boleh... :-)

geodata services... arcsde service... performance and speed

Hi there, we get a lot of support calls regarding SDE performance and speed. Now with ArcGIS Server and Geodata Services (publishing GIS data as SOA web services) there is a lot more confusion. Actually its pretty easy once we get the hang of it... and ESRI provides a lot of tuning tools to make your work as a DBA much easier.

Firstly, am beginning to slowly migrate all the older SDE Service (traditional windows and unix/linux SDE processes) to direct connect (DC). We can push many of these server processes to client machines (coz there are faster CPUs and bigger RAM these days) and take advantage of more tuning parameters in the RDBMS itself (Oracle 10gR2 / SQL Server 2005). I don’t think there is any problem with this… based on my experience. The default SDE service was designed many years ago coz client machines were slow and traditionally we depended a lot on high end servers for performance and speed. With direct connect, we can bypass SDE service and make direct connection to databases.

Secondly, IF you still want to make use of the traditional SDE services… then make sure you understand the tuning issues. Most ppl make the SDE installation by following the wizard. This is ok for most cases, but as data grows bigger and more users connect … tuning is paramount. In any database implementations or any serious DBAs will tell … tuning is all about optimizing hardware, o/s and software. Fortunately, the traditional SDE service has tuning parameters inbuilt:

• giomgr.defs

Populates the SERVER_CONFIG repository table. Server initialization parameters that define how ArcSDE uses memory. Before creation of the repository tables, edit the giomgr.defs file with a text editor. After the SERVER_CONFIG table is created, use the sdeconfig administration command to alter parameters.

• dbtune.sde

Controls table and layer storage, populates the DBTUNE table. Configuration strings that ArcSDE appends to CREATE TABLE and CREATE INDEX SQL statements. Before creation of the repository, edit the dbtune.sde file in a text editor. After the DBTUNE table is created, use sdedbtune to edit the table.

Finally, there’s a NEW update with ArcSDE now. This is extremely EXCITING. With the release of 9.2 and the merger or ArcSDE in ArcGIS Server. ESRI has released Geodata Services. This web service is totally different from the traditional SDE Service prior to 9.2. Geodata Service uses Web Services technology to provide access to the contents of a geodatabase for data query, extraction, and replication. This capability is always enabled when you publish a geodata service. Web Services is part of the SOA capabilities of ArcSDE that is released with 9.2. You can activate this Web Services if you already have a web server installed.