What an awesome semester it has been, for IMT, that is. We managed a car company and made big decisions regarding the marketing aspects. It has been a 10 week process, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Here’s a brief summary of what I’ll be presenting to the “board of directors” who will then hand over my team a nice 20 / 20 marks!

We started in a weak position, weathered through the economic storm, outwitted our opponents, caught a lucky break, you name it, we’ve got it.

We are leaders in 5 consumer segments across 4 different classes of vehicles. Net income dipped, but cash flow and balances are excellent and healthy. Not to mention the dealer rating of 75 being highest (tied with Michelle Yong’s Firm E) but our customer preference is a sky-high 29%, closest competitor at 20%!!!)

Very very very happy, and thankful to the team.

But will it transform into real world applicable knowledge? One can only ponder the realism aspect of this game…

1. Short documents to analyse. Case study. On course website 1 week before exam.
2. Two big questions relates to situation analysis & marketing mix.
3. Half of the given information is useless, don’t overanalyse.
4. Do futher investigation on company background (optional).
5. Analyse stratsim results (predicted vs actual)
6. More marketing mix, less models.
7. Revise lecture material in IMT.
8. Follow sequence of question.
9. Paper: 2 hours 30 min. Not much time, partly because you have been given the case study. Short, concise, punchy = win.
10. Give you rationale.

One word: awsm.

1. Latency

Tracing route to philipkhor.com [202.190.176.100]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1   212 ms   189 ms    97 ms  172.18.44.14
2   127 ms    86 ms   659 ms  172.18.48.2
3    84 ms   106 ms   112 ms  203.92.154.60
4    87 ms    69 ms    79 ms  203.92.138.93
5   108 ms    90 ms   116 ms  210.48.192.154
6    83 ms    99 ms   116 ms  bkj96-ge0-1-1-9-106.jaring.my [161.142.0.45]
7    90 ms    81 ms    76 ms  te3-0-1.bkj2.jaring.my [61.6.10.26]
8    89 ms    82 ms    75 ms  202.190.176.100

Not bad.

For comparison, TM Net’s Streamyx has more consistent numbers (due to it being wired)

Ping statistics for 61.6.10.26:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 39ms, Maximum = 45ms, Average = 41ms

The gap has shrunk from the 1000 ms of WAP and EDGE days, even faster than 3G on Maxis at 400ms average now to really really competitive standards of 90ms. Nais.

2. Speedtest

Very healthy for a wireless connection.

3. informal test

Downloading from Revision 3 servers a 12 MB file in under 2 minutes! That’s over 110KB/s average.

All ports on Bit Torrent are blocked. But with UDP on latest versions of uTorrent, I can sneak 80KB/s past. Not too shabby (for emergencies)

Price? RM 58 per month.

Sign up now, RM 48 for 1st year (first 12 months)

I think Digi hit a home run here. Kudos and bravo to the team!

*Personal note: This test was performed inside my room, which has only 1 bar signal. At 4-5 bars, you can expect huge speed improvements and better latencies.

Wimax, what is your reply?

Steve Jobs ranked most valuable CEO!

The signs of love

The message of love

[check utube]

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!
Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!
Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah!
Roma-Roma-ma-ah!
Ga-ga-ooh-la-la!
Want your bad romance

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah!
Roma-Roma-ma-ah!
Ga-ga-ooh-la-la!
Want your bad romance

I want your ugly
I want your disease
I want your everything
As long as it’s free
I want your love
Love-love-love
I want your love

I want your drama
The touch of your hand
I want you leather studded kiss in the scene
And I want your love
Love-love-love
I want your love
Love-love-love
I want your love

You know that I want you
And you know that I need you
I want a bad,your bad romance

I want your loving
And I want your revenge
You and me could write a bad romance
I want your loving
All your love is revenge
You and me could write a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!
Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!
Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah!
Roma-Roma-ma-ah!
Ga-ga-ooh-la-la!
Want your bad romance

I want your horror
I want your design
‘Cause you’re a criminal
As long as your mine
I want your love
Love-love-love
I want your love

I want your psycho
Your vertical stick
Want you in my room
When your baby is sick
I want your love
Love-love-love
I want your love
Love-love-love
I want your love

You know that I want you
And you know that I need you
I want a bad,your bad romance

I want your loving
And I want your revenge
You and me could write a bad romance
I want your loving
All your love is revenge
You and me could write a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!
Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!
Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah!
Roma-Roma-ma-ah!
Ga-ga-ooh-la-la!
Want your bad romance

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah!
Roma-Roma-ma-ah!
Ga-ga-ooh-la-la!
Want your bad romance

Walk walk fashion baby
Work it
Move that bitch crazy

Walk walk fashion baby
Work it
I’m a Freak bitch baby

I want your love
And I want your revenge
I want your love
I don’t wanna be friends

J’veux ton amour
Et je veux ton revenge
J’veux ton amour
chorus-(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!
Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance, Caught in a bad romance…)
I don’t wanna be friends
I don’t wanna be friends
I don’t wanna be friends
Want your bad romance
Caught in a bad romance
Want your bad romance

I want your loving
And I want your revenge
You and me could write a bad romance
I want your loving
and all your love is revenge
You and me could write a bad romance

chorus-(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!)
Want your bad romance
chorus -(Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance)
Want your bad romance

chorus-(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!)
Want your bad romance
chorus -(Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance)

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah!
Roma-Roma-ma-ah!
Ga-ga-ooh-la-la!
Want your bad romance

My birthday

“Are you happy?” This is the question I like to ask to friends who seem happy. Believe it or not, sometimes we fail to acknowledge happiness, and when asked, we just shrug and bitch about how our lives are mundane. Just like Pam in “The Office” does, “take a mental photograph of a happy event”. *click*

Here’s a list of 10 Latin phrases you “pretend to understand”! [link]

Of note,

Cogito Ergo Sum

(CO-gee-toe ER-go SOME): “I think, therefore I am”

Quid Pro Quo

(kwid proh KWOH): “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”

Right. Sounds like some Harry Potter spells. Nevertheless, amusing to the ear.

Also, 2010′s most fuel efficient cars [link]

The Smart for Two actually made it to the Top 10, which is not a hybrid.

On the other end of the scale, we have the Lamborghini Murcielago and Bugatti Veyron giving us about 13MPG on highways. Ideally used in countries like Venezuela and Brunei!

Last but not least, a bit of CSI and Hollywood magic! [link] the surveylance camera must be running Hollywood OS!

Today is the Launch of Windows 7. I can report to you that the experience has been awsm thus far. I recommend buying a fast 4GB thumb drive, plug it permanently to the computer and enable ReadyBoost. The overall response of the computer would just increase many fold. Solid state “flash drives” have access times of under 0.5 ms (even after interface overheads, interface being USB) whereas mechanical hard drive heads needs at least 10 ms to get warmed up.

[technical jargon alert] ReadyBoost will write the small 1K to 4K chunks of memory dumps to the flash drive because its faster than Hard Disk. For bigger memory dumps, 1MB above, Win 7 is smart enough to revert back to the hard disk for scratch space.

Bottom line is, to launch all 7 Microsoft Office 2003 applications at the same time takes under 1.5 seconds on my machine, compared to the 5 seconds it would take sans ReadyBoost [/jargon]

*thanks Kathryn for the treat last night. And the fun games of pool at Asia Cafe with the “big holes”.. mmmm :)

Have a nice day, everyone!

1. Windows 7 Ultimate is awesome. Everything loads instantaneously with ReadyBoost.

2. Come chat with me across the next 48 hours (20 Oct / 2000 hrs – 22 Oct / 2000 hrs GMT+8)

Only leet people know how to access this:

#pippo @irc.freenode.net

And leave a message ;)

Here’s a preview of Google Wave, an amazing piece of technology by Google.

This system really changes the way we communicate, and how we interact with the blogger, the commenter, the bystander and even the silent one. Should be publicly available early next year!

And today’s SIB service was good. We the cell were the hosts, and it was quite a nice experience. People were nice, and the food thereafter was decent!

And Telok Gong dinner was awsm.

Furthermore, Chelsea’s defeat and our slim victory brings Man Utd back to the top of the Table.

‘Grats to Arsenal too who is slowly climbing up the board.

Here is Lukas’ go kart experience earlier this month!

I learnt 3 things:

1. Video compression takes a lot of firepower. Rendering a 640×480 10 minute video takes about 40 minutes. No effects or editing whatsoever. Need Quad Core processors soon :) hehehe….
2. Streamyx is fast. I averaged 48KByte/sec upload throughout the 55MB upload. Amazing consistency. As for downloads, I can touch 160KB/s, and average 140KB/s. Oh, there’s no caps.
3. Solid State Drives (SSD) are very fast. By multiple factors. Like loading Win Vista takes 70 sec on a fast Core i7 system. But with SSD, that process completes in under 10 secs. Cons: Rm 1200 for 120GB?

Ammortisation?

Hire purchase?

Here’s the Math according to Phailed Pippo

I didn’t include Rent (which might go up to 500 a month)

These are typical prices of a house and a car. Depends really, on your balance.

And then, there’s the luxuries, like phone, computer, or a nice European getaway! These things costs a lot, even after amortizing it.

I’m a big fan of Suzy Orman’s “Can I afford it?” on CNBC. Tells you whether you can afford to buy stuff.

Her favourite phrase: “SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!!”

lol.

Diwali is one of the biggest festival of Hindus, celebrated with great enthusiasm and happiness in India. The festival is celebrated for five continuous days, where the third days is celebrated as the main Diwali festival or ‘Festival of lights’. Different colorful varieties of fireworks are always associated with this festival. On this auspicious day, people light up diyas and candles all around their house. They perform Laxmi Puja in the evening and seek divine blessings of Goddess of Wealth. The festival od Diwali is never complete without exchange of gifts. People present diwali gifts to all near and dear ones.

1. Our French lecturer from Mauritius is Hindu. She was ranting about the Star publishing pictures of Deepavali on the day itself (today), usually of prominent politicians (think uncle Samy) going to Batu Caves for the rituals. She claims that a lot of youngsters nowadays do not know the meaning of Diwali. They merely follow their elders to the temple out of obedience and compliance.

The point is: today’s pictures in the Star, yeah, they were taken YESTERDAY! Its a 5 day event, so the REAL excitement climaxes today and shall be reported tomorrow (lest your source of news in the internetz).

2. Fireworks. Whilst being driven home from cell last night, there were crackles of fireworks along the PJ NKVE toll near Tropicana. Isn’t it amazing that a cultural phenomena lasting thousands of years backdated “before Christ” is still being practiced and observed. Once you think about it, there are quite a number of things that has lasted through the ages. War, conflict, jealousy but at the same time, cooperation, collaboration and superstition.

3.  Loy Krathong is held on the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar. This year, it is end of January.
“Loi” means “to float”. “Krathong” is a raft about a handspan in diameter traditionally made from a section of banana tree trunk (although modern-day versions use specially made bread ‘flowers’ and may use styrofoam), decorated with elaborately-folded banana leaves, flowers, candles, incense sticks etc. During the night of the full moon, many people will release a small raft like this on a river. Governmental offices, corporations and other organizations also build much bigger and more elaborate rafts, and these are often judged in contests. In addition, fireworks and beauty contests take place during the festival.

Need to make booking to Thailand during this time. Excuse me, did you see “beauty contests” :) woohooo!!!

4. Breathtaking DVD + Audio CD. Ordered my copy, throughly excited. I really like the tracks with detailed synth and effects, the happy ones :)

Oh, our cell will be hosting today’s Saturday service. @joelvergis VALIDATION (of parking ticket)

lol, it would be nice to smile to people and make them excited about service (and the fellowship thereafter).

And tonight, Manchester United vs Bolton. Big win for United on the cards!

22 years old, from University Technology Sydney!!!!!

He’s a scholarship holder, a fat chubby kid with the poker face :)

This fella was in the World Series Poker 2009, Day 6! That’s insane!

I think Taylors University College needs a representative for poker tournaments!

Quick, go watch

World.Series.of.Poker.2009.E23.Main.Event.10K.Buy-In.Part.17.of.26.HDTV.XviD-FQM.avi (at 27:00 min)

I’m just stoked!

Whoa, college really makes you grow fatter. Here he is, back in 2005 when he entered university!

[link]

University Technology Sydney