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Wednesday, December 31, 2008

I don't know what to post other than talking(i mean writing) about assignments. These past few days I've been busy trying to finish up the first part of programming assignment. Quite hard though. Been going to UIA from seksyen 14 everyday to meet up with Lat so that we can finish this project. The truth is I'm quite frustrated because we need to submit up the assignments on the 5th of january while I'm having BTQ on sunday and having more exams straight from 6-8th of january. I'm not trying to blame miss Azimah for setting the date that way but right now I'm trying to find a way to breath easily. I really appreciated Miss Azimah's effort in trying to help us by letting us to consult with her everyday and yeah she does help us a little to make it easier for us to do assignment. She change the question a bit so that the question will be less difficult (no jealousy here hehe. sape suruh x consult ngan miss??)

A quite wrong decision for me to blogging now cuz I'll keep moaning and moaning and moaning till I feel satisfied. Miserable life I have right now. Trying to focus with all of the assignments and the coming exams. But eventually I end up... not to study. Distracted by the new dramas that I've been downloading recently. Well it's not a recent drama la kan but still... a sight for the sore eyes hehe. I'm trying to keep myself sane here so better not to say anything. Just let me have some fun here (walhal exam btq is on sunday. damn i'm seriously insane. satu hape pn x bace lagi)

And tomorrow need to go again to UIA to meet Lat to finalize our project(i mean final for this part only la). Even when everybody else in the mood of new year. Masya Allah... dh new year ker??? I don't even realize that new year is just around the corner. Been busied up with stuffs and even now after I realized pon still don't have the mood of celebrating the new year. Do we even need to celebrate it? We already have awal muharram the other day and plus, we, i mean, all of us who were born on 1989 will turn 20 this coming 2009. Gosh u guys mmg dh tua(x sedar dia pon da tua haha no more teen-agers)

Neway cam bese tonight I'll let my laptop on to finish up all of the downloadings. Pray really hard for my laptop not to explode hehe. If any of you guys see me up all night on ym, it's not that I didn't sleep, it's just I didn't off my laptop. Not a good habit actually.

Haih been thinking of uploading pictures to make my blog more interesting but I'm not the type of taking pictures that much. Nnt la if I have some time I'll upload some pictures here. Any pictures that seems to be interesting to me(but maybe not to some of you guys la)

Wishes for new year? Well, currently not having any wishlist or something cuz I'm not that spoiled-loaded-rich-kid like you guys who can afford to buy expensive things (well except for gadgets. I'll do anything to buy the gadgets that I want). Just wanted another dean's list (tamak siot). Praying really hard to maintain my pointer. Only God knows how I feel.

Well, happy new year everyone ;)

Friday, December 26, 2008

I still keep thinking whether I want to make this blog as my second(or third?) blog or not. It's not that I'm afraid of stalker or something (as if there's someone wants to stalk me) but considering that this is a very public blog and it's like everyone in this lovely territory of UIA (or literally my classmates) can read my stories. My life recently has been heavily revolved around those people in UIA. So if I want to mengumpat or something, won't it be dangerous? (okay, don't take it seriously, I'm not going to mengumpat about you guys anyway).

Haih, life is getting hectic lately. Finally I managed to finished up the assigments that were given by Madam Ayu. Mind you that I'm not only taking IL this sem with Madam Ayu, but I also have computer 2 to deal with this semester. And one simple reminder, I'm not repeating the subjects okay (=.=)/

I just... one semester late. Considering that I changed course from engineering to ict. If not, I might be at Gombak right now (yea right, probably in engineering I need to extend another semester... or maybe 2 haha.kidding) Neway, hectic life I have been going through these past 3 weeks (or maybe 2. exaggerating). dengan assignments nye la, dengan quizzes banyak nk mati and need to deal with some other problems lagi, I wonder how my siblings can survived through this crazy hectic life that a university students need to get through with. I've been quite depressed la jugak but just pretending that I'm not. Not gonna show to my parents that I'm currently is depressed. Ala just a small depression, nothing much to deal with. Sumorang pon need to get through with this kind of depression, kn?

Cuti just arrived. And am supposedly to have the mood of cuti but I won't let it get through me. Mane nye bleh ader mood cuti kalu after mid break trus ade exam. X berpijak pade bumi yang nyate la camtu. Can't really have fun this beautiful holidays. Study, study, study is a must. And my mind pon is constantly thinking about cuti... eh, studying. Uwaa... I want a nice cuti with a nice vacation (T_T). unmi-dessu... i really want to go to the beach and have some fun... well, with my family. My precious family, walopon kadang2 diorang menyakitkan ati (well almost everytime haha).

Sudah babble begitu banyak and currently haven't start studying for mid-sem. Biar la. Let me have a little fun before I need to suffer the whole week next week. Just a little time of relaxing before my brain explode. Ni pn still haven't done anything on programming. Favourite subject all the time..(did someone really believes that? I can't believe that I typed those words hehe) Yeah but seriously, programming is quite fun if you understand the subject (almost type the word sh*t). At first I thought that programming is some kind of rubbish that was invented by some freaks but now I think programming is quite... okay. Okay je la. Not hebat or something. And I don't consider programming itu besh.

Orait enuff. Would not want to merapik lagi pjg lebar and make people feel bored. Shouldn't exposed your private life to the public that much, aite?

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Porter's Competitive Forces Model



KFC is one of the famous fast foods that has been developing since 1952 and had been first introduced by Colonel Harland Sanders. In Malaysia, the first KFC restaurant was opened in 1973 at Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman. And in this essay, the KFC restaurants that I want to focus is only the restaurants in Malaysia.

From the Porter’s Competitive Model, we can see that:

1) The threat of new competitors

The first KFC restaurant was opened in 1973 at Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman. Today there are more than 390 KFC Restaurants nationwide and still counting. Mc Donald’s can be considered as a new threat for KFC. Since the first Mc Donald’s restaurant has been opened in 1982 at Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur, Mc Donald’s has been one of the biggest KFC’s rival in Malaysia. Mc Donald’s does not only sell burgers but Mc Donald’s also has been developing “Ayam Goreng McD “ to compete with KFC’s fried chicken. In fact these days, Mc Donald's has far more developed than KFC. We can see that through the products that Mc Donald's has produced compared to KFC. Recently Mc Donald's has created more products. Creatively, they do create new ones and in the mean times they maintain and improve their current products. And Mc Donald's use the current popular movies and give free toys based on the characters of the movie and people can get that when they buy the "Happy Meal". KFC too, do gives toys. But somehow they don't connect the toys with the most current popular movie on the cinema. And they updated the new toys less frequently compared to Mc Donald's. This sum up that Mc Donald's is the new competitors for KFC.

2) The bargaining power of supplier

After some research through the internet, I found out that KFC was having some issues with their raw chicken supplier in somewhere around 2004. The supplier had done something horrible while slaughtering the chickens and forcing KFC to terminate the supplying from the accused supplier and find another supplier for raw chickens. This shows that the bargaining power for KFC is high since they can get another supplier than the supplier that they used to have business with. In some research that I've done too, I found out that KFC used to be under Pepsi.co. And they have some kind of contracts in order for KFC to not to have any business with other carbonated drinks company such as coca-cola and so on. And in the mean time too, Pepsi do supplies products to KFC's main competitors. All of this is lowing down KFC's bargaining power of supplier.

3) The bargaining power of customers (buyers)

The bargaining power of customers is high considering that they have lots of choices to be made. As mentioned above, the existent of other fast food restaurants do increase the bargaining power of customers. Customers can go to any fast foods restaurant that offered more affordable prices especially for students like us. As I have mentioned above, Mc Donald's has been developing products such as "Ayam Goreng McD" to compete with KFC. Some of us might think that KFC's chicken is far more good compared to Mc D's but some might not. And KFC to has been developing products that can compete with Mc D's product. This shows how healthy the competition between these companies are going on and how it will increase the bargaining power of customers.

4) The threat of substitute products and services

As we all already know, the main product for KFC is obviously the fried chicken. Fried chicken is the earliest recipes that been developed in 1930 by Colonel Harland Sanders. And recently in Malaysia, new products have been developed rapidly by the KFC owner in Malaysia. In example, the Kentucky Nuggets is the substitute product developed by KFC Malaysia and can be considered as the substitute product that has been a threat to the fried chicken.

5) The rivalry among existing firms in the industry

A&W is the first fast food from the United States that has set foots in Malaysia. Though A&W is not a famous fast food in Malaysia, it also can be considered as one of KFC biggest existing rival in Malaysia. The very first A&W is opened in Batu Road, Kuala Lumpur which is now known as Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman. KFC and A&W has been competing since the opening of KFC first outlet in Malaysia and has as the consequences of that, A&W had a declining business era from 1997-2000.


Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Why are information systems important to me?

Before I can really state why information systems are important to me, firstly I need to define what information is. Based on the text book and some researches that I’ve done, the purpose of information system is to get the right information to the right people at the right time in the right amount and in the right format. Basically based on the definition and the purpose given, I can conclude that Information Systems (IS) are really important to me. As I can read in the text book, it has clearly stated that IS are intended to supply useful information and closely related with the data and knowledge terms.

How really important Information Systems to me?

Well, in my humble opinion, as someone who studies ICT, information systems do somewhat will give me opportunities in having more choices of careers. Many fields of works are related with IS such as Information Systems Strategy, Information Systems Management and Information Systems Development. This will definitely deny the myth that says that there will be no IT jobs when I graduated. There will definitely be some jobs for me considering Information Systems are as a part of job opportunities.

Secondly, I do think that IS are making my life easier. Since I’ve been in ICT, most of the notes and works given by the lecturers are being uploaded in the specified websites. As for that, this somehow matched the purpose of IS. Compared to when I was in engineering, most of the notes are being given out by hands and sometimes not all of us can get the notes. When in ICT, the notes mostly being uploaded on the internet and if I missed getting the notes, in just one click I can easily get the information that I wanted. Even if I have some doubts, I can easily access the sites and ask the lecturers for the answers. Examples of the lecturers' sites : Madam Ayu, Miss Azlina and Miss Sarah.

Thirdly, as someone who always does an e-commerce business, I do find that IS are making my life easier. Easily I can find information regarding the stuffs that I wanted to buy. I can compare between one item and the other item. Buying stuffs are getting much easier with that. Without even need to go to the real shops, I can just buy the product through online shop. And I do sometimes sell my products in the internet too. Example of site for online shopping : ebay and example for online payment : PayPal

Fourthly, the pace world are getting much more fast than we could ever imagine. With the information systems, information is getting easier to get. With the fast pace of world, information is getting more important nowadays. And getting reliable and fast information is the best bet on the globalize world. Examples of good sites to find information : Google, Yahoo! and Dogpile.

Fifthly, information systems are important to me to organize the data that I have. Imagined if I have a lot of data and I didn’t manage it properly and if one day I need to use the data and some data are lost, I would be thrown into a real big trouble. With the help of information systems, data can be managed properly and the possibility of loosing data is small. Example of an open source software site where we can get free data manager or database manager : OpenOffice

With the reasons that I have stated above, I can truly conclude that Information Systems are important to me. Life will be much easier and will be more manageable.

Children of Heaven


This movie that has won a lot of awards is about two siblings who belong to a very poor family. The story takes place in Tehran, Iran and was filmed in 1997. The main characters of the story are Ali; which was played by Amir Farrokh, and Ali’s sister, Zahra which played by Bahare Seddiqi and both of them are still schooling but still need to help their parents to do chores because their mother just had a new baby and their father is still working . The movie started with Ali taking Zahra’s shoe to the shoemakers because apparently her shoe is getting worn. But he accidentally loses Zahra’s shoe on the way back to their house. The shoe is the only shoe that Zahra had and she uses that shoe to go to school everyday. Ali tries a few times to find Zahra’s shoes but failed every time. As the consequence of all the things that happened, it forces Ali and Zahra to exchange the pair of Ali’s shoe everyday in order to make it comfortable for Zahra to go to the school.

The scene of both of them changing the shoe repeated quite a few times. The scenes show how everyday Zahra has to run as fast as she could when the school ended in order to have Ali wear it to the afternoon school. In these couple of scenes, few adventures have to be faced by both Zahra and Ali because as we know it ain’t easy for two kids to share the same shoe to school. Both Zahra and Ali need to face their teachers and need to make few lies in order to keep the secret close from being known by their parents.

In some part in the middle of the movie shows how Zahra saw her missing shoe on a girl’s foot. Zahra followed the girl and found out where the girl lives. After that, she called Ali to go with her to find out what does really happen. Eventually, they knew that the girl has done nothing wrong. And when the girl has helped Zahra once, Zahra and the girl become friends.

In a part where almost at the end of the story, shows that Ali enters a footrace. The prize that catches the attention of Ali is the prize for the third place. When the race is on, Ali do manage to be at the front and he tries his best to maintain his position. Finally Ali manages to maintain the third place but unfortunately, Ali were pulled down by a boy. Not to admit the defeat, Ali raises and once again tries his best. Probably the thinking of desperately need to win in his mind, causes Ali to forget that he needs to get the third place. Finally after quite a long way towards the end, Ali manages to finish up his race and he “accidentally” wins the first place.

The story ended with the showing of dissatisfied Ali and the frustrated Zahra. But their sadness will probably be cured because at one scene before the movie ended, shows two pair of shoes on their father bicycle which can be assume one is for Ali and one is for Zahra.

This movie does have good moral values such as the love from brother towards his sister, as we can see the love from Ali towards Zahra, I can see that the brother really loves his sister from the way he treats her even though sometimes Zahra do gets on Ali’s nerves. Zahra in contrast, is more childish compared to her brother. Even though she does understand the situation of their family, she sometimes kind of forgets about that considering that she’s still small.

Second thing I can extract from the movie is the survival of the people from the poverty. This movie shows that not all of the people can afford to live in wealths or even in the moderate way. These people need to survive and they need to do everything in order to live one day without even need to starve. In the movie we can somehow really see the huge gap between the rich people and the poor people. This shows when the movie is focusing to the streets of the place where Ali and Zahra live. There are still people who do the rough jobs in order to survive. Even the father of the children needs to find new ways to provide more comfortable life for his family. The gap of these people really shows when Ali and his father go to the town to find some job as gardeners. The houses of the rich people are really big compared to the houses in the poorer city in example, their hometown. Their ways of living also do show the real gap between them. Children in the rich family can afford to buy some good toys while the children from the poor family can’t even afford to buy any toys. The children from the poor family even need to work in order to help improving the quality of their life while the richer kids need not to work at all.

The third thing that catches my attention is the way how the innocent children act. They are a good kids who willing to help their parents in every aspects. They’re willing to sacrifice their young life in order to help their family. They even are willing not to burden their parents more even though they have to face difficulties in their life. Just because of the working father and the ill mother, Ali and Zahra do willing to do house chores for their parents. They even sacrificed their own time of playing with their friends just because they knew that their parents need them. Ali also does follow his father to the city to work together with him. Zahra help her mother by doing house chores such as making tea for her father. This shows how they really care to do sacrifices for their parents.

This movie is a movie which doesn’t really require us to think but in some ways it does have something that will make us to think more. Even though the plot ain’t that complicated but somehow the main focus of the story is the children. The director simply put the story from viewpoint of a child. It is easy to understand yet have a really deep meaning for us, the adult, to think the way the children think.

The ending of the movie in some way, do make us think too. At first I thought that the ending was really bland because in such a sudden, the movie ended. But probably that’s the way the director wants us to be. Probably he wants us to think what does really happen when the director only shows the part where their father bringing home two pair of shoes. We might have guessed that those shoes are for the kids or probably the other way round. In some way, this is one of the specialties of the movie.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Post to be ignored

currently not having any mood to upgrade my blog or to put any eye-catchers thingy on the blog. some might think my blog is lame considering I have been blogging for almost 3 years now. just got back from selayang and feel really tired right now. the Muktamar for PEPIAS do consume a lot of my energy though. I had to listen to all of the speeches and mind you, the speech isn't that short especially when the mr. president delivered the speech. so looooong and felt really boring just to spend my whole two precious days just to listen to other people's babble. up till now I can't even believe that I have attended that ceremony considering I'm NOT one of the "ceramah" people. One of the most thing I really hate in this world is to listen to the speeches. believe that or not, heh...

I do have intentions to finish up all of the assignments that were given to me by this week. Tapi rase susah la pulak... I'm not good dealing with this kind of thing. I'm kinda lost when it comes to giving in my own ideas and this is one of my bad habit haha. slalu kalu need to do presentations ke hapa, I will hope that I will be partnered up with someone who has a lot, I mean, A LOT of ideas. senang la nk amek kesempatan kekeke. x der la. I do have my own ideas but not as much as other people do.

ish3 merapik je byk tp keje x siap. hape nk jadik la neh... so, harapan ku for this week is to finish up all of the assignments and study for the coming quizzes and test. sudah penat X(

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

New blog by me ;)

This blog is basically is all for the subject I take this semester which is Information Literacy so please take your time to enjoy your day by viewing my blog hehehe :D