hey my soul ...

hey my soul

I see you do not want Heaven 

these desires are empty 

my heart is happy 

you are a drop of water 

in the water pouch 

hey soul

even if you do not fight

you will die one day 

now the dove of death is near 

whatever you want

he will give you, my soul

Abdullah ibn Rawahah

The Battle of Mu'tah

poetry, my life

There are many statues in Ashgabat, one of it is this guy, Karacaoğlan a 16th century poet whose poetry stemmed out of nature, love, longing for home, and death. Maybe Ashgabat is a city of love after all. He is said to have a big heart (like yours truly), and fell in love with women and wrote poetry about them (right) ...

Doa dan Harapan di Sebalik Tembok Maya

teruskanlah hidup ini

dengan penuh tabah

jika rintangan ditemui

yakini itu suatu hikmah

dari mana entah

datang dia mewarna 

aku pula perlukah

tidak menghiraukannya ? 

tembok maya ini 

kurasakan mapan

untuk kau kusapai 

secara berdepan

kalau goyah (seperti aku)

dahuluikanlah masa

agar nanti resah 

bakal tidak menyiksa

di saat dan ketika ini

ku panjat doa harapan 

agar gigih kau hadapi 

hari-hari kehadapan

apa jua memagari

langkauinya dengan sabar

jaga diri mu srikandi

semoga berjiwa besar

At the Crossroad

It will be a really big one tomorrow. 

It will be like any other day, but this time it will be a day of a new beginning of life, if there is still ... God willing, at the crossroad. It's when you have to decide on the remaining days if any. Try to make the best effort for a firmer commitment on which path should one follow.

Looking back at the after-years, I have done many things. Some, I really am truly proud of. A few, I rather not mention them. Many were extremely exciting and adventurous. While others were inadvertently cliché.

Honestly, right now I felt the longing for Mutheera, the sweet smelling breeze in Paradise.

With all the shortcomings within me, I still have the desire wanting to answer the callings of the dark-eyed damsels, even though I'm such a unworthy slave of Almighty Allah. 

I'm begging for the Mercy and Kindness of Almighty Allah to grant His forgiveness for all my wrongdoings and all my untold sins that I've committed as well as all my disobediences to His commandments and all my ignorance to emulate the best examples shown by His Rasul s.a.w. And for all the times that I knowingly or unknowingly strayed from the straight path.

May Allah save me from all the calamities in this mortal world and in the Hereafter.

Amin.

Kebarangkalian

Kebarangkalian peristiwa E ialah: 



Fungsi kebarangkalian f(x) antara 0 dan 1 bagi setiap nilai x di dalam sampel ruang Ω, dan jumlah f(x) di atas semua nilai x di dalam sampel ruang Ω adalah bersamaan dengan 1. Oleh itu, setiap peristiwa boleh didefinisikan sebagai subset E dari sampel Ω. 

Jadi, kebarangkalian untuk keseluruhan sampel ruang ialah 1, dan kebarangkalian untuk sifar peristiwa ialah 0.

Apakah kebarangkaliannya sesuatu pertemuan itu berpeluang merubah segalanya ?

Kata Cournot, "Bukanlah sesuatu yang ganjil kalau peluang itu suatu kebetulan. Malah di sebaliknya, peluang inilah akan bakal mencetus banyak lagi kesempatan-kesempatan menarik yang lain."

Jadilah kamu seorang sahabat yang setia.

Semoga berjiwa besar.

Co-Authoring, Anyone ?

When I was fourteen years old, I remembered putting ‘writer’ in the first column, followed by ‘professional cricketer’ in the second column. Finally, an ‘engineer’ in the third column in the school report card, of which my late dad quickly upon seeing admonished me by saying that ‘penulis tak boleh cari makan nak’.

Here I am, decades later eagerly wanting to prove him wrong, not out of disrespect, but actually wanting to emulate him and his brother (my uncle). I have seen my dear dad’s draft with a title ‘Laungan Merdeka’ when I was really small, maybe seven or eight years old. I’m not sure whether the draft has made it to publication or not. Whereas my uncle Md. Akhir Leman, wrote a short prolific novel ‘Bahagia Sesudah Derita’, of which the copy is available even in the library of Glasgow University, some 11,000 km away.

Maybe, I could start my long lost passion by co-authoring a book, maybe with a friend (wink, wink). By the way, most of the famous authors did just that. Alexander Dumas did it, as he had a whole team of authors writing for him all the time. Even Tom Clancy famous for espionage thriller novels regularly hire co-authors.

Ketika Usia 21 Tahun

1988, usiaku mencecah dua puluh satu tahun. Ketika itu aku sedang menuntut di sebuah universiti usang berusia lebih separuh millennia di sebuah bandar purba yang dingin di negara Scotland. Universiti itu ditubuhkan pada tahun 1451, di ketika zaman keagungan dan kemuncak Kesultanan Melaka. Beratus-ratus tahun kemudian sehingga kini, universiti itu masih gah menerajui peradaban ilmu dan teknologi. Walhal, kegemilangan Kerajaan Melaka bertahan cuma sebelas dekad, sebelum dunia Melayu dihancur musnah oleh penjajah-penjajah Barat secara bergilir-gilir.

Di universiti, aku memilih bidang jurus kejuruteraan aeroangkasa. Memang sejak dari kecil, aku amat terpesona dengan pesawat terbang. Mungkin aku terpengaruh dengan cerita-cerita Abbas ibnu Firnas seorang cendikiawan pelbagai bidang ilmu yang khabarnya menjadi penerbang pertama menggunakan glider di zaman Khalifah Muhammad I di Cordoba, seribu tahun lebih awal dari cubaan Wright bersaudara di Amerika Syarikat.

Di dalam bidang aeroangkasa aku dapat mempelajari ilmu pembuatan dan perekaciptaan pesawat terbang dan pesawat angkasa. Ilmu penerbangan mampu mengolah rahsia yang menjadi penyebab sesuatu objek itu boleh bergerak di ruang angkasa tanpa memerlukan sebarang sokongan dari permukaan bumi. Ianya suatu cabang ilmu sains roket yang menyelidik daya pengangkat aerodinamik dan dapat mencongak daya tujahan serta mendalami kajian tentang pergerakan balistik.

Kesimpulannya, kejuruteraan aeroangkasa bukanlah suatu jurusan yang mudah. Sehinggakan ungkapan kolokial 'that's not rocket science' atau 'itu bukan sains roket' sudah sebati dalam bahasa bicara seharian bila kita berdepan dengan sesuatu keadaan yang begitu logik dan mudah difahami serta bukan terlalu sukar.

Mundar laju ke tahun 2017, tanggal 6 Februari, Ameerul Ahwaz anak sulungku menyambut hari ulangtahunnya yang ke 21. Dia seorang anak yang baik dan mendengar kata ibu dan ayah. Dia dikurniakan Allah swt tubuh fizikal yang sempurna dan berwajah agak tampan. Sekarang, dia masih menuntut di sebuah universiti Scotland yang bercawangan di Putrajaya di dalam bidang kejuruteraan petroleum. Mungkin bidangnya  bukan sains roket, tapi tentunya bukan dari sesuatu yang kolokial.

When I was 15 (some selective memories …)

27 July 2016

When I was 15 years old, the year was 1982. I was in Form 3A at one of the prestigious  boarding school in Malaysia i.e. Sekolah Tuanku Abdul Rahman (STAR) in Ipoh. When you were in Form 3, basically you have already survived the ‘torturous' year of joining the STAR ‘house system’, where every boy since Form 2 will join their boarding hostels which are named after colours Green, Blue, Black, Red, White and Yellow, together with other seniors students of Form 3, 4 and 5. Being the most junior among the hostel residents, most if not all of the cleaning and tidying up chores in the hostels will be done exclusively by the Form 2 students, which sometimes can be a bit torturous for the faint hearted.

The year was 1982, Tun Mahathir (Tun M) was just a year in his premiership. It was about seven months earlier i.e. on the 1st January 1982, Tun M changed the time of Semenanjung Malaysia to be 30 minutes ahead and hence matching the time of East Malaysia. Tun M leadership and thinking was so far ahead of time (unlike the current kleptocrats, who only thought of bankrupting the nation) until even Singapore elected to follow suit and change its timing.

At 15, I was beginning to understand things. I understood that I have my strengths and weaknesses. Let's start with weaknesses first. I came from a kampung, albeit not coming from a well to do family. Even though my dad was a teacher, probably because I was the sixth of the family and maybe my older siblings required more attention than me, and I was a bit more independent, then I felt that I was left out to do things on my own. Imagine, that the Biasiswa Kecil Persekutuan III (BKP III) which entitled me for a RM30 per month pocket money from the government, was used to pay my school fees. What about new clothes, what about sport shoes, what about other things that a 15 year old boy at a boarding school needs, like a new pair of glasses. What about exercise books now that SRP is coming. Off course, extra tuition class was out of question.

No problem, I said to myself. It’s not a problem. It should not be a problem. I knew that I was smart enough, and having other smart people around helped me a lot. Just using textbooks (skim pinjaman buku teks, to be exact) and by studying together with groups of friends, I managed to get 7As in my SRP (as a result of too much of lingo dwindling via Dewan Sastera that got my BM a 'C') and becoming among the top 20 in my batch, and even entitled me to be considered as a recipient of PETRONAS scholar (that’s another story). This small success gave me a lot of confidence in the coming years. 

At school you have to be active in sports and co-curricular activities. When I was in Form 2, I was with the U-14 school hockey team. Maybe because I was not so good at it, the coach normally put me as a reserved, i.e. coming only during the second half of the game. When I was 15, at Form 3 which was also termed as ‘the senior of the juniors’, I said to myself that I just cannot let this to happen. I needed some glory to myself and cannot be just playing as a second fiddle. I also cannot see myself to play rugby where STAR is famous for, as I had a very bad eyesight and had to wear glasses all the time. I can’t play football as I’m totally ‘kaki bangku’. I can run a bit, but not good enough to represent school, even though I did represent my White House.

So I quit hockey, and I joined the school cricket team. For whatever reason, the school cricket team is only joined by boys who don’t know how to play other sports. Maybe that’s true in some sense, but who cares. I thought that, maybe I can change things. Maybe do something small, but doing it great. I quickly find myself at ease with cricket. It’s actually more than a game. It teaches you about life, about camaraderie, about sportsmanship, and mostly about being a gentleman. Most importantly, cricket is played in the Commonwealth countries like the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Maybe, if I play cricket now, I could play it later if I managed to further my study in those countries. 

From then onwards, I make it a point that I wanted to go overseas and further my study and try to get the government scholarship and play cricket as well. This also means that I have to be good both in my study and cricket. Being an ex hockey player, I naturally can hit the ball. However, hitting a ball with cricket bat is totally different than with a hockey stick, which one tends to hit the ball across. Whereas, in cricket the batsman is encouraged to hit the ball with a straight bat as crossing the bat might cause the ball to go up resulting it to be caught and you are out. Moreover, the chances of missing the ball and getting out via LBW (leg before wicket) are much higher. When I was 15, I was made the U-15 Cricket Captain, and lead the school team to play with other schools in Perak.

STAR U-15 Cricket Team
Yours truly, the Captain, front row 2nd from the right

I can hit the ball quite hard, however I’m not quite a patient guy. Normally I bat at number 6 or 7 position which is normally reserved for an all rounder, i.e. for those who can bat and bowl. However, when comes to bowling the cricket ball, that was my real passion. Normally I was the opening bowler pair and bowl quite viciously. As my stature is not tall, my bowling style was more in the swinging action rather than hitting the deck. If the ball has some shine on it, I could make it swing and deceived the batsman. In a cricket match, normally I will take 2 to 3 wickets at a regular basis and at a very economical rate. I was good enough to be absorbed in the School U-20 Cricket Team, when I was 15. The team went on to secure runners up position in the coveted  inter-SBP Datuk Hamzah Abu Samah cup in 1982. A year later I was already in the Perak U-16 Cricket team playing at the national level tournament in Kuala Lumpur.

When I was 15, I realised that a boy needs to have friends other than boys. I have none. Nevertheless, I had an on-and-off long distance mail relationship with my primary schoolmate. She was also in a boarding school somewhere in Seremban. To be honest, she was my first childhood crush. She was very beautiful and sweet. This on-and-off letter writings were nothing special. It wont be another five years later when I actually had the opportunity to meet her at a KFC restaurant in Sitiawan, before I went to UK and she went to US (that’s another story). There were also one or two other pen pal friends once in while. Mostly we wrote about boring stuffs  about the coming SRP and exchanging cyclostyled exam papers.

When I was 15, there were some good songs playing on the radio. Songs like ‘Who Can It Be Now’ by Men At Works, and ‘Waiting A Girl Like You’ by Foreigner as well as ‘Rosanna’ by Toto were some of the memorable songs that you could asked the music shop to record them onto a personalised cassette tape. There were other songs like ‘Hard To Say I’m Sorry’ by Chicago, ‘Physical’ by Olivia Newton-John and the Rocky theme song ‘Eye of the Tiger’ by Survivor that could move the heart of a 15 year old boy. There were some memorable Malay songs as well.

When I was 15, beside studying for SRP and playing cricket for school, I was also in the Cadet Corps. I was not really keen to be the best but I was good enough to be part of the squad. Every Saturday morning the squad will practice marching at the basketball court as well as the nearby PLAW (territorial army) camp. We were given cadet corps uniform and marching boots and green felt baret. Joining the cadet corps have instilled a good sense of discipline within me, in addition to ensure that I could walk properly like a man should walk. Previously, when I was in Form 2, my squad and I attended a 2 week camp at PLAW where we learnt everything about the army life including marching, shooting live bullets with the SLR rifles, eating our rations as well as dinner at the mess hall, having our hair shortened and sleeping less as we have to wake up really early in the morning.

When I was 15, whenever there’s a school holiday I will either went on a school trip or went back to my kampung in Lekir, Sitiawan. Normally, I will clean up the big wooden house everyday, sweeping the dust and cobwebs, and wiping the window panes, mopping the  'tikar getah' as well as ensuring that the house courtyard was free from falling leaves. I enjoyed reading and have read all that can be read in the house, especially the 24 volumes of Grolier encyclopaedia and all the older Time and Newsweek magazines as well as all the Dewan Bahasa, Dewan Sastera and Dewan Masyarakat back issues. I sometimes rode my bicycle to visit my late grandaunt Opah Ngah who lived alone. She was having a bit of mental health condition, but she was very nice to me. I remembered that I sometimes did my study in her house.

When I was 15, I did many things that a boy of that age could do. Today 15 years ago on 27th July 2001 my son Waseem Akram was born in this world. He is experiencing an autistic syndrome which severely stops him from having the ability to do what I did when I was 15. In addition to his severe autistic condition, he is also enduring nephrotic syndrome, a condition where his kidney losing protein which could lead to edema. Imagine a 15 year old boy who is living in his own world, could not talk properly or walk normally and suffering a serious kidney problem and had to continuously take prescribed steroids to control his conditions. He spends his days streaming video clips on Youtube, talking gibberish mostly to himself and watching favourite cartoon shows on tv. However, he is indeed an ‘anak syurga’. He smells like a baby, and everything about him is pure and untainted.

All praise to Almighty Allah for giving me Waseem Akram. He is indeed a blessing to me and my family. Even though he was not like me when I was 15, but he is what he is and all of us already accepted that.

May Almighty Allah saves us all and grant us His infinite Mercy and Kindness. Amin.

back to aviation

About 25 years ago, sometime in the mild Summer of '91, I received my degree from the University of Glasgow (GU). That was after I spend four tough years enduring the harsh weather of Scotland and the  even tougher aeronautical engineering courses which includes the study of aerodynamics, propulsion, flight mechanics, lots of maths and computing ...

When I came back to Malaysia (after spending four months sabbatical in India and Pakistan ... well that's another story) I was not able to find a suitable job in the aviation industry to my likings. However, there were two related offers actually, one came from the national carrier for a 4 year apprentice job with a meagre RM400 a month perks. There other was an opportunity to serve the air force, of which my late mom had some reservations.

Later, I was  offered a RM1500 a month job as an Instrument Engineer in early 1992, and thus my long career in oil & gas industry started and lasted for some 23 odd years.

Now in 2016, my career is making a complete 180 degree wingover manoeuvre. I'm currently assisting my former GU classmate in his aviation company, and my aeronautical journey starts again ...

Some Random Photo Stories: Sydney's Journey

In Australia the cowboys are known as jackaroos ... jack & kangaroos perhaps 

Among the few heavenly food for me are fresh oysters. My personal record of eating them was two dozen in one go.
These one I bought it from Sydney Fish Market.

Howzat !!! I was in the cricket museum in Kingsgrove.

When the weather was cooler, it's always great to have a wonderful and tasty hot bread especially with the company of your loved ones.

Monkey business at the Sydney Opera House

Panoramic view of Sydney downtown skyline

I managed to play cricket with one of the local club and even got one sweet wicket

Going Down Under

Today is my second day in Sydney, attending a job interview as well as enjoying summer at Bondi Beach ....

Rintihan Hati

Malam sunyi terdengar

Sayup sayup lagu yang merdu

Menghias malam yang sedang hening

Melukiskan cinta hidupku

Dengan tidak kusangka

Airmata menitis membasah

Tersentuh dalam hatiku ini

Terharu pada kisah itu

Hari demi hari kutempuhi

Mengharap belas kasihanmu

Walau dikau selalu tak peduli

Ku mengharapkan cintamu

Dengarlah rintihan malam

Semuga dikau selalu bersamaku

Pada hamba yang kini berduka

Dari cubaan dugaan dunia

- Othman Hamzah

p/s:
I was a lonely young boy, growing up in a kampong. this song was my companion, among others

Berhenti Sejenak

Menyelusuri kehidupan 
yang sebegini lama

yang penuh dihiasi peristiwa 
dan berbagai kembara

Harus rasanya diri ini 
berhenti sejenak

untuk mengenang kembali 
dan cuba untuk menghitung 

Di manakah sebenarnya diri ini
dan ke manakah pula 
seterusnya harus diarah
destinasi ini

Kesan Kejatuhan Harga Minyak Mentah Sedunia ...

Saya mula bekerja di MMHE Pasir Gudang pada tahun 1992 dan kemudiannya berpindah ke berberapa syarikat seperti Foxboro, Honeywell, Yokogawa dan lain-lain, kesemuanya di dalam industri minyak dan gas. Dengan kejatuhan harga komoditi petroleum ke tahap paling rendah kepada kurang dari $30 setong menyebabkan saya tidak lagi mempunyai masa depan dan kerjaya di dalam industri ini. Sekurang-kurangnya untuk jangka masa 3 tahun lagi. Pihak PETRONAS baru sahaja mengumumkan pengurangan sebanyak RM50 billion di dalam perbelanjaan capex dan opex mereka.

Sejak akhir-akhir ini saya mula menulis sebegini:

Dear Sirs/Madam,

I'm looking for job opportunity in _____ . I have an extensive experience in the Oil & Gas Process Automation Control business. A graduate from the University of Glasgow with B.Sc. in Aerospace Engineering and an Executive MBA from UiTM Malaysia.

I'm an energetic and dedicated Senior Management Executive with over 24 years’ experience in management, operations, business development, sales and marketing. 

My experience across engineering services, maintenance services, technology services, consulting services, facilities management and business optimisation solutions in oil & gas. I have proven management and business development track record in revenue and profitability growth, people management and business strategy development.

In addition, I also have experienced in working with diverse groups of technical, business development, sales and operational personnel. As well as a confident and clear communicator, with skills developed through years of interacting at organisational levels. 

I'm hoping that I could contribute to your organisation with my years of experience ...

Now and Then

I have muscles aches after two days of playing in the Super 8 Championship at Kinrara Oval. Not much of batting, but I did produced a wonderful bowling spell with one wicket maiden.

Nowadays all the latest status or photos one can upload them on IG or FB. Unlike those days in the 80s and 90s where notebooks, sketch books or diaries were the only means to express yourselves.

Whereas, those days your status and opinions were meant to be private, come 2015 you'll be disappointed if nobody likes your entries.

Some Random Photo Stories: Glasgow - Years Apart

A 20-year old yourstruly wearing a British Army bundle jacket with 3 more layers of clothing (t-shirt, shirt and sweater) having a hot coffee outside Bonnypack, a cash & cash outlet in Glasgow. Two days after landed in Glasgow. Awesome hairdo.

Twenty eight years later, I came back to the same Bonnypack to get some Glasgow souvenirs.

Graduation, Summer of 1991.
Yourstruly posing with the Aeronautical Engineering degree scroll with my name written on it. 

Happier times with fellow Malaysian who graduated, friends and lecturer.

Years later, here I was in front of the Hunterian Building Glasgow University

Here I was years later strolling down the memory lane in Kelvingrove Park just in front of the University, the very same place I wrote the poem 'Di Kedinginan Begini' 

It was snowy, and my ladies were enjoying it.

Kampung Boy

Now that it has become a common knowledge, let me jot something about my hometown, Sitiawan. It was in the good old days, when as a kampung boy I grew up with the company of friends. Somehow, my dear dad enrolled me in the SRK ACS rather than the ones nearby my house. Thus, I had two groups of good friends, viz. the town boys and girls during school hours and the kampung boys and girls after school. 

At school, I was amongst the best Malay student. I managed to get at least the top 5 in the whole form. I represented the school in almost all of the reading contest, plays and sketches, recitation of the Holy Quran, you name it. After school, I did all sort of things with my band of kampung colleagues i.e. fishing, playing police-sentry, playing lala (something like rounders but with holes), hence nurturing my future cricketing skills, guli (marbles), spinning top, rubber band, self-made catapult, galah panjang, congkak, ad infinitum. I also joined the kompang group and made performances during weddings.

With our retro 70s bicycles, my kampung friends and I did the ‘round satu kampung’ rituals almost every day. The best of times were during the rambutan seasons. My house was surrounded by at least 13 different types of rambutan trees. There were sweet ones, sweet and ‘lekang’, slightly sour, etc. That’s why until now, I can’t stand to eat the rambutan bought from the fruit sellers, as the tastes are not to my liking and certainly they are not freshly picked.

My dad was a teacher in one of the school in Sitiawan. Every day he brought me two story books, of which I finished reading them in no time. In fact the whole collection of the 20 plus 20 volumes of the Grolier Encyclopedia and The Book of Knowledge respectively, in my house were my true close companions during the day and night.

By age of ten, I practically knew all the names of the 50 states of the USA and their respective details (flags, capital cities, rivers, flowers, birds, places of interest, population, etc.), and have read the abridged version of all famous literary works like Wuthering Heights, Huckleberry Finn, les Miserable (except I do pronounced Jean Valjean as ‘Jin Valjin’), etc.

Life then (with no Astro, no internet, no smart phones) was very interesting as all the international magazines such as Time, Newsweek brought by my elder brothers as well as all the Dewan Bahasa, Dewan Sastera bought by my dad, all of them were all accessible, and I read them all.

Then, there’s standard Five Assessment Test, and I managed to get good result. The next year, when I was 12 like all the other boys, I had my bersunat (circumcision) at the kampung health centre.

Later that year I was offered a place at a boarding school in Ipoh, the big city.

MIS750_5: Mobile (Smart) Phones, Mobile Phones Every Time

Ever been to a restaurant, either with friends or your own family nowadays, and when everybody starts staring at their mobile phones?

Yes? No?

Yes, mostly yes.

Mobile phones are in fact an important part of modern life. We somehow have to admit this very fact. However, during mealtime, especially so at the restaurants, there should be some of etiquette on using mobile phones, if possible.

Firstly maybe nobody should be allowed to look at a phone during dinner. The phone must be placed facedown, you can look at it but never touched. Not even a minute to check the email.

Definitely not Facebook, especially if you want to 'hipsterly' snap the photo of the food or selfie your ownself and upload it via your Facebook (or Instagram) to get as many likes.

What about when going to the toilet? Yes, using your phone is permissible, else like me I still bring the car magazines.

If during the dinner conversation to need to check some facts when suddenly you are out of ideas, then 'googling' Google might be permissible, but not encouraged.

What about Twitter? Especially you want to find out what actually happened to Spain in the FIFA World Cup, when it was the former champion which the first to pack their bags and did not survive the first round. Maybe a yes.

Sources:

New York Times, Wikipedia, Information Technology for Management 6^th Edition

MIS750_4: Alien Software

Ever watched the blockbuster movie called “Independence Day” (ID4) recently shown in Astro, starring Will Smith? In the movie, an alien mothership enters Earth's orbit and deploys several dozen saucer-shaped destroyer spacecraft, each about 24 km wide in circumference.

However, a MIT graduate computer geek devises a plan and introduced a computer virus and disrupted the force fields of the destroyers, and the aliens were defeated. In a not related circumstances in Chapter 9 of MIS750, there is a topic on Information Security and the many types of software attacks including the term alien software.

Among the types of alien software for humans like us are as follows:

1. Pestware: Clandestine software that uses up valuable system resources and can report on your Web surfing habits and other personal information.
2. Adware: Designed to help popup advertisements appear on your screen.
3. Spyware: Software that gathers user information through the user’s Internet connection without their knowledge.
4. Spamware: Designed to use your computer as a launch pad for spammers.
5. Spam: Unsolicited e-mail, usually for purposes of advertising.
6. Cookies: Small amount of information that Web sites store on your computer, temporarily or more-or-less permanently.

Back to ID4, during the movie screening, back in mid 90s the audiences (in America) were standing up in cinemas to cheer the trailer, which showed such US landmarks as the Empire State Building and the White House being obliterated by giant flying saucers. The truth was, ID4 was never going to be anything else but a massive box-office hit of over US$800 million.

However, once you've got past the “too much” explosions and the astonishing amount of vehicular, architectural, and airborne carnage, ID4 is basically a boy's own adventure with soap opera elements that has an entire species of technically superior aliens bested in all departments by good old Uncle Sam (an American) and his can-do (Amerika Boleh) spirit.

Sources:

New York Times, IMDB, BBC1, Wikipedia, Information Technology for Management 6^th Edition

MIS750_3: Strategy on Targeted Advertising

In MIS750 Chapter 7, we are exposed to a topic on “IT Strategy & Planning”.

In short, strategy is the direction of an organisation to achieve competitive advantage by allocating its resources for growth especially within a challenging environment. The organisation will then need to develop a strategy of performing activities differently than its competitors.

This includes making radical changes to the business processes for producing or distributing products and services innovatively which sometimes the fundamental structure of the industry.

For example Facebook has recently announced two major changes to its advertising policy that will let it track users across the web while giving them access to the advertising profiles created by the social network of their likes and interests. The site creates profiles in order to sell targeted adverts tailored to the individual but has never before let users view or edit the information in those files.

In addition to Facebook users, other web browsing activities outside of Facebook will also be added to this profile through the Facebook ‘Like’ button. Even if individuals do not click this on third-party sites it still registers their presence if they are logged into Facebook in the same browsing session.

Similar buttons from Twitter and Google have identical abilities, but this is the first time Facebook has chosen to utilise this wealth of data. If users don’t want to be tracked in this way then they can opt out via the Digital Advertising Alliance or for mobile browsing adjust their settings on their handset.

The strategy adopted by Facebook is via “targeted advertising” that the aim to make it clearer to individuals why they were seeing certain ads. It is anticipated that although Facebook is giving people more control over what sort of adverts they see they’re also becoming more aggressive regarding the types of data they collect.

Targeted advertising is a type of advertising whereby advertisements are placed so as to reach consumers based on various traits such as demographics, psychographics, behavioural variables such as product purchase history.

Most targeted new media advertising such as the one by Facebook uses second-order proxies for targeting, such as tracking online or mobile web activities of consumers, associating historical webpage consumer demographics with new consumer web page access, using a search word as the basis for implied interest, or contextual advertising.

A conducted a study on targeted advertising in 2009 revealed that targeted advertising has secured an average of 2.7 times more revenue per ad as non-targeted "run of network" advertising.

Sources:

New York Times, Wikipedia, Information Technology for Management 6^th Edition

MIS750_2: How to Steal a UAV?

I confessed that I’m a kind of a movie buff, especially if the movies or TV series are with a spy-thriller genre, the intelligent ones off course ...

In my last MIS750 blog entry, I did mention about the UAV. This time I wanted to elucidate a little more with regard to this wonderful piece of high technology and how actually MIS works in practice.

In Chapter 5 of MIS750, we learned a bit about what is called as the Enterprise Information Systems (EIS). An example of the deployment of EIS is by the United States (US) Military to enhance communications by allowing quick dispersal of combat intelligence and connecting support applications with tactical applications.

In the recent and on-going ‘24:Live Another Day’ shown every Tuesday 10.00 pm on AXN, the tv series plot is about a group of terrorist who managed to capture 10 drones (UAV) that belongs to the US Military and wanted to launch attacks at designated targets in London as possibly creating catastrophic disasters.

Actually at first the plot seems strange enough, as how a group of terrorist could hijacked sophisticated US Military drones. However,  the fact is, this has been done before by Iran in December 2011. Iran’s cyber warfare unit stationed near a city of Kashmar managed to brought  a US Military  drone down with minimum damage. 

According to one report, the drone was captured by jamming both satellite and land-originated control signals to the UAV, followed up by a GPS spoofing attack that fed the UAV false GPS data to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its home base in Afghanistan.

There is also an unconfirmed news that the very same drone technology is said to have undergone reverse engineering, fully decoded and was being smuggled from Iran to China via a supposedly safe route i.e. MH370 flight, and the rest is history (yet to be uncovered).

A typical US Military drone like the MQ-9 Reaper and RQ-170 Sentinel (the model captured by Iran) posses highly advanced avionics and complex mechanical systems technology to perform in any airspace environment.  These drones are equipped with precise and independent inertial position information for navigation, targeting and attitude reference. The drone power plant for example was designed for low size, weight and power consumption operating across the spectrum of rugged military environments.

For the US Military the EIS workload is largely handled by their Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). The DISA provides, operates, and assures command and control, information sharing capabilities, and a globally accessible enterprise information infrastructure in direct support to the US national interests.

As for the case of mobilizing the drones, the DISA provides support to engineer, develop, maintain, and operate a global net-centric enterprise in direct support to joint and coalition across the full spectrum of the drones’ operations. This includes designing and implementing a high-capacity, strategic communication network to ensure reliable communications and less dependency on satellite communications and tactical microwave links, which had limited bandwidth capacity and other limitations including possibly exposed to hostile cyber warfare attacks similar to what Iran has done in 2011.