Trucks are looking better

Nowadays, when looking at trucks….they look energtic and elegant…..why not?  I notice that passenger cars have developed into well groom in designs…..trucks too…

Recently, I was in a trucks exhibition and manage to take some pictures.

Scania

Look at this elegant MAN…

 

MAN

There are also trucks from China on the roads…. 

Howo Sinotruk from China

 Awesome!

 

Islamic banks are closer to the universal banking model

An Islamic bank is a deposit-taking banking institution whose scope of activities includes all currently known banking activities, excluding borrowing and lending on the basis of interest. On the liabilities side, it mobilizes funds on the basis of a Mudarabah or Wakalah (agent) contract. It can also accept demand deposits which are treated as interest-free loans from the clients to the bank. and which are guaranteed. On the assets side, it advances funds on a profit-and–loss sharing or a debt-creating basis, in accordance with the principles of the Sharīah. It plays the role of an investment manager for the owners of time deposits, usually called investment deposits. In addition, equity holding as well as commodity and asset trading constitute an integral part of Islamic banking operations. An Islamic bank shares its net earnings with its depositors in a way that depends on the size and date-to-maturity of each deposit. Depositors must be informed beforehand of the formula used for sharing the net earnings with the bank.

An Islamic bank branch

Following the above logic, many economists have given their preference to universal banking, because of its being more efficient. Commercial banks are not allowed to trade, except within the narrow limits of their own net worth. As we have noticed, many Islamic finance modes involve trading. The same rule cannot, therefore, be applied to Islamic banks. It may be possible for Islamic banks to establish trading companies that finance the credit purchase of commodities as well as assets. Those companies would buy commodities and assets and sell them back to their customers on the basis of deferred payment. However, this involves equity participation. We may, therefore, say that Islamic banks are closer to the universal banking model. They are allowed to provide finance through a multitude of modes including the taking of equity. Islamic banks would benefit from this by using a combination of shareholding and other Islamic modes of finance. Even when they use trade-based, debt creating modes, the financing is closely linked to real sector activities. Credit worthiness remains relevant but the crucial role is played by the productivity/profitability of the project financed.

~ A turtle request ~

I was in Kuala Terengganu for a business meeting on 20th October 2011…ooohhh ya,,but I am not going to talk about business here….it is about turtle…..

It been almost 10 years since I last been to Kuala Terengganu,,,somehow manage to find out an interesting pedestrian walkway located at the Chinatown that portray stories on turtles at both the side walls…

Look at these…..

It says…

The turtle turns to Maya and says, ” Please tell your people to stop stealing our eggs so they can hatch. We have lost so many children”.

“We do not have much time left as all of us are so old now. Please help us get our happy turtle village back”.

“Yes, I will tell my people what I now know. They have good hearts and they will listen to me,” Maya promises.

The turtle smiles, then brings Maya back to the Turtle Sanctuary.

 

More on little turtles…..

The non-Muslim perception on Islamic Finance in Malaysia

So I decided to share my thesis title ” The non-Muslim perception on Islamic Finance in Malaysia” to the public….

If you are interested,kindly email me at oystercove11@gmail.com and I will attached it to you…

Thank you for reading my blog..

Another Earth

Rhoda Williams (Brit Marling) is a high school student who has been recently accepted to MIT. She celebrates with friends and drives home intoxicated. Listening to a story about an approaching planet that looks just like Earth on the radio, she looks out her car window up to the stars and inadvertly slams her car through a stopped car at an intersection, killing John Burroughs’s (William Mapother) wife and son. Rhoda is a minor, so her identity is not revealed to John. After serving her sentence, Rhonda chooses to not go to MIT, but become a janitor at a local school, wanting to physically clean things with her hands, but not do too much thinking.

After cleaning a school for a while and hearing more news stories about the approaching mirror Earth, Rhoda visits John’s house, thinking she will apologize for the harm she did to him. He answers the door and she loses her nerve. Instead, she pretends to be a maid offering a free day of cleaning as a marketing tool for Maid’n Haven (a New Haven based maid service) to gain more business. John, who has nearly dropped out of his Yale music faculty position and is now living in a depressed and dirty stupor, agrees Rhoda’s offer. When she finishes, John, who still does not know she is the person who killed his wife and son, asks her to come back next week. Rhoda tells him someone will come, but it may not be her.

Rhoda returns to clean and develops a caring relationship with John that eventually becomes more significant and romantic. They genuinely like each other and are both intelligent and good at conversing. He is a lonely man seeking the first companion to come across his radar and Rhoda genuinely wants to be of service to him.

Rhoda enters an essay contest sponsored by a millionaire entrepreneur who is offering a civilian space flight to the other nearby Earth. Rhoda’s essay is selected and she is chosen to be one of the first explorers to travel to the other Earth.

Rhoda tells John she has won the space flight, but he asks her not to go. However, when she tells him that she was the one who killed his wife and son, he forces her out of his house.

Rhoda hears in a telecast that the citizens of the mirror Earth identical to those in this planet in every way until the moment they learned of the other’s existence. From that point on, the identical people on the planets probably began to deviate in small ways, changing their actions. Rhoda hopes her identical self on the other Earth does not make the mistakes she made on the night of the accident.

Rhoda returns to John and gives him the ticket to the other Earth, telling him enough information to give him a small hope that his wife and son might be alive on that planet. John accepts the gift and becomes one of the first civilian space travelers to the other Earth.

Months later, Rhonda approaches her back door and sees her identical self from the other Earth standing in front of her.

Another Earth had its world premiere at the 27th Sundance Film Festival in January 2011. It was released in dramatic competition. Variety reported, “[It] has been deemed one of the more highly praised pics of the fest as it received a standing ovation after the screening and strong word of mouth from buyers and festgoers.” The distributor Fox Searchlight Pictures won distribution rights to the film in a deal worth $1.5 million to $2 million, beating out other distributors including Focus Features and The Weinstein Company.

Fox Searchlight is the distributor of Another Earth in the United States, Canada, and other English-speaking territories. The film had a limited release in the United States and Canada on July 22, 2011, expanding to a wide release in ensuing months.

Pandan cake, Raspberry cake,,,,enaknya…..

Today is a state holiday,,,was thinking of what to eat for my lunch,,,yea,,then,,I headed to Tesco to buy some cakes….yummy!!

The green colour one is the Pandan layer cake.

Pandan is sold fresh at the market, or grown in home gardens. It is also available dried, as an extract, or in a concentrated paste. Fresh pandan paste is easy to make, has a good flavor, and keeps fresh for up to two weeks in the refrigerator.

 

Follow these instructions to make Pandan paste:-

 

1) Cut pandan leaves into small pieces with your kitchen scissors.

2) Place cut pandan leaves into the blender.

3) Add just enough water to almost cover the leaves. It’s better to start with too little water, you can always add more as needed.

4) Blend water and pandan leaves, adding more water as necessary.

5) Refrigerate paste for up to two weeks, and use as needed.

 

Cheerio!

 

Arsenal vs Malaysia 13th July 2011

It was back again at Malaysia soil after Arsenal was last time here on 19th May 1999. I still can remember the experience of going to the Stadium Bukit Jalil 12 years ago as a teenager by taking public transport..Time really fly….I was there again on 13th July 2011 to support the team…Arsenal,,,is getting better than before,,, I have to say,,,they won 2-0 in year 1999 with goal from Nicolas Anelka and Emmanuel Petit….

but this time they came out winner at 4-0……

One man, I want to salute is the coach,,Arsene Wenger,,I was so happy that he is still here guiding the team ,,,,I wish him to be around for another 12 years and be here again in year 2023 for a possible friendly re-match.

Arsenal….the great team…

5 Tips to Monitor Your Projects

You need to carefully monitor your project, if you want to stay on track. So read these…

Tip 1: Time Management is Critical
If you want to deliver your project on-time, then you need to have a good understanding of what your team spend their time doing. That makes sense, right?
Start by using time tracking software to record time spent. Make sure that every team member records the tasks they are working on and the time they have spent, every day of the project.
You need to then review that time and make sure that it’s appropriate. Are they spending the right amount of time on the right tasks, to achieve the right outcomes?
As well as monitoring the time spent, you need to understand the time remaining. So update your project plan weekly with the revised planned finish dates. Only then can you calculate the actual vs. planned progress of the project.

Tip 2: Track Percent Complete
One of the easiest ways to monitor the project is to keep an eye on the overall “percent complete”. You need to identify the actual % complete of every task and then compare it to the planned % complete (i.e. what the % complete should be as of today).
If overall, your project should be 50% complete and yet you are only 43% complete, then you have a lot of work to do, to get back on track.
Tools like ProjectManager.com can monitor this for you automatically.

Tip 3: Monitor Spend vs. Budget
You also need to continually monitor the current cost of the project vs. the budget set. Record:
One-off expenses, using “Expense Forms”.
The cost of your resources by calculating the cost per hour of each person in your team, times the number of hours spent working on project tasks.
All miscellaneous, recurring and ongoing expenses.
Summarize your project expenses every week and compare them to budget.

Tip 4: Keep one eye on tasks and the other on your team
Projects are always stressful. Your team has too much work to do and limited time in which to do it. So given that your team will be under stress for the length of the project, you need to monitor their motivation levels at all times.
Every week, hold a team meeting and while communicating the status of the project, find out where their motivation levels are at? Are they happy, fired up and ready to kick-ass? Or are they de-motivated and don’t really care?
Motivation comes from having shared goals and enjoying the experience in achieving them. If your team has low morale or poor staff satisfaction then they will not meet the goals set. So keep an eye on team motivation constantly and run “up-beat” workshops to get them excited about the next phase ahead.

Tip 5: Changes are the Death of Projects
The biggest risk of the project is that the business wants to change the goalposts, the minute they are set. Seen this before?
How could you win a game of football, if the goalposts constantly change? The trick is to record every change that is requested and monitor the effects of those changes on the project. If they are likely to impact on the timescales, budget or our objectives, then tell the customer upfront and request more time, resources or budget in which to do it.

One easy way to monitor your projects is to use ProjectManager.com

5 Tips for Delivering Under Budget

Every project has a budget. It is one of those things that makes a “project” a project.
The challenge for a Project Manager is often that by the time they are assigned to a project, the budget has already been set and the Project Manager does not have any real “say” in the matter. So how to can you manage your project within budget, when you have not created the budget in the first place? Here’s how…

Tip 1: Revise the Budget
As soon as you are assigned to a project, make it one of your first jobs to revise the budget set. Is it sufficient, does it include contingency (if so, how much?) and does it account for the size, complexity and risk of the project? Challenge your boss immediately if you’re not comfortable with the budget set and explain why you need more money if it’s required. If they say “no” then at least you’ve raised it upfront.
A Project Charter is like an architectural drawing for a building project. It tells the builder what the end result is going to look like, so the client knows what they will receive and the project manager knows what has to be delivered and by when.
It helps you to direct your team towards the end goal, so everyone is on the same page.
Tip 2: Create a Financial Plan
Then, create a project plan and calculate the forecast cost of every task ahead. Use software to do this, as Microsoft Excel spreadsheets will quickly get out of hand.
Tip 3: Baseline the Plan
Then baseline your plan, which means saving a copy so that you can compare the actual expense of the project day today, to the original plan set.
Tip 4: Track Progress Daily
Every day, you need to calculate the total cost of the project vs. the total budget set. If you use online software to do this, then you can see in a graphical dashboard a task which tells you whether you are under budget or over budget at every step in the journey. Because it’s online, you can view the status of your project real-time.
Tip 5: Get Serious
If you notice that you’re consistently running over budget each week, then you may need to immediately stop and take action. This may include; informing your boss, asking for a larger budget (and justifying the reason for it) reducing the scope of the project or trimming expenses and trying to do more with less.

As you’ve probably realized already, the key to success is having software which tells you every day at a glance whether you are currently under or over budget.
Great decisions are based on great information. Use Project Software to get the right information for your projects, at the right time like ProjectManager.com

Shoes made in Gombak

Looking back to the year 1998 kinda reminded me of the schooling days..

I found this video on Gombak shoes…quite funny indeed…..morale of the story is that we should think positive and we can achieve our goal.

Anyhow,,I am proud of Gombak….,,,,it is a peaceful, clean air and strategically located outskirt of Kuala Lumpur.