World of Scam - Fake Kidnapping

Over 7 years ago, I've described a fake kidnapping scam in The Con of Men that happened to a friend's family but the father's wisdom had managed to prevent it from going through. Today, I've just read from The Sun Daily of the same scam:

On Sept 19, Yau Sau Har from Pekan Razaki received a call from a Mr Wong who demanded RM60,000 for the release of her son Lai Yin Hoe, 32. 

"I could hear my son's voice in the background asking to be released," she said at a press conference arranged by the Perak Barisan Nasional Public Services and Complaints bureau here today. 

Yau told the man she had only had RM35,159 and he instructed her to deposit the money into a bank account under the name of a Mr Koh. 

Her son, however was not kidnapped but at work. The "kidnappers" had kept his phone busy to prevent his mother from contacting him. 

She realised she was duped when she finally managed to reach Lai, a crane operator after depositing the money. 

I immediately alerted the bank which froze the account of Mr Koh," she said. 

Yau and Lai each lodged a police report. 

The mother learnt that RM10,000 had already been withdrawn. 

The public should be wary of such scam and seek the assistance of the bureau if they come across such cases, said bureau head Mohd Rawi Abdullah. 

He said the tricksters chose to carry out their ruse on Friday afternoons so that the intended victims would not have enough time to alert the banks. 

Please be aware and stay safe.

via The Sun Daily.

B&W Bun (Chinese: 包)

I would like to share with you this yummy lotus paste steamed bun that I had over the weekend. I especially like the lotus paste that really tasted like lotus paste and not just insanely sweet like some that you find out there! And it's not those that are more flour than paste. Yes, this one was a lucky find.

Letting Go Fuel Subsidies and Hoping for Better Aducation

Two things this evening:

No more fuel subsidies from 1 December 2014 - an eventuality which had long been in the making. RON95 and diesel pricing will be based on the same mechanism as RON97. I only hope that the subsidy money will be put to good use.

"...fuel prices would be determined on a monthly average price, which will be announced at the end of each month for the following month."

And, our prime minister has the ambition to take our aducation to the top of the class.

Najib said the government realised the country's educational system needed to be continually improved to produce knowledgeable individuals who were ethical and had a competitive edge.

via The Malaysian Insider.

Apple, Handoff My Sorrows

#93010341 / gettyimages.com

Recently, I've managed to test out Handoff with Pocket, the app that saves a copy of a webpage for offline reading. While reading on the Mac, I had wanted to move to a different spot in the house. Being a small house, this different spot is only less than 5 meters away but in a different room.

Even though mini, my Mac is still desktop class so what better time to test Handoff by bringing the iPhone along. To my pleasant surprise the Pocket icon appeared on the bottom left corner of the lock screen. I just needed to swipe that icon upwards (similar to swiping the bottom right camera icon to take a quick photo) and voila! Pocket launched and I resumed my reading.

However, I grieve because I didn't know that Handoff is not supported on my iPad generation 3 but works on the first iPad Mini! You know, I tried to put it behind me when Apple released the 4th generation iPad just six months after the 3rd generation with a much more powerful processor and a Lightning port. Oh the pain!

System Requirements

Handoff and Instant Hotspot

Handoff and Instant Hotspot are supported by the following Mac models, and require OS X Yosemite:

• MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later)
• MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later)
• iMac (Late 2012 and later)
• Mac mini (Late 2012 and later)
• Mac Pro (Late 2013)

Handoff is supported by the following iOS devices and requires iOS 8. Instant Hotspot requires one of these iPhone or iPad devices with cellular connectivity and iOS 8.1. Instant Hotspot also requires Personal Hotspot service through your carrier.

• Phone 5 or later
• iPhone 4s (sharing iPhone calls only)
• iPad (4th generation), iPad Air, iPad Air 2
• iPad mini, iPad mini with Retina display, iPad mini 3
• iPod touch (5th generation)

Get ready for work!

In what felt like just a blink of the eye, it's once again the end of Sunday. Sigh. Work begins in just a few more hours. :(

Work day starts in just a few more hours... Yawwwwwn!!!

A photo posted by @ionbuck on Nov 11, 2014 at 7:32am PST

Pixel Density Race

It had always been THE digital camera sensor megapixel race (mostly with megapixels so high that's not necessary but instead compromised low light photography) but recently it's pixel density. Sharp has got a 4.1" screen with 736ppi. And for the future...

Sharp is working to scale the size of the screen up and keep the high pixel density right now. The goal is to produce a 6-inch screen with 4K resolution and 736ppi in the future.

via Android Community.

Streaming Music - Impending Doom?

I was happily going about with my recent Spotify Premium account (RM10 per month with Maxis) only to read about its (and all the other streaming music services out there) impending doom as more and more artists back out remove their songs. Taylor Swift is one of the higher profile ones. Then, there's this other report that the highest streamed single only earned its authors $4,000 each.

Streaming music sounds too good to be true, especially to consumers, and as more artists come out to voice their opinions, it may indeed be true that the returns are way too little. With iTunes sales dropping, even Apple is rumoured to be on the verge of launching their own, what with the purchase of Beats.

These services don't seem to be losing out anytime soon, unless artists like Taylor Swift could convince others through their actions. It would be interesting to see how the streaming services react should the situation change for the worse. Well, there's still digital streaming radio to fall back on should things get too heated up...

Today's Superbike

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the world's most energy efficient, zero emission, and yet the fastest ever superbike:

Superbike.

A photo posted by @ionbuck on Nov 11, 2014 at 7:05pm PST

The Force Awakens

Star Wars Episode VI - The Force Awakens sounds much better than The Phantom Menace and I can't remember what Star Wars Episodes II and III are called.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens has completed principal photography. #StarWars #TheForceAwakens #StarWarsVII

Una foto publicada por Star Wars (@starwars) el Nov 11, 2014 at 9:01 PST

iPhone 6 Plus Not Replacing the iPad Just Yet

One of the main reasons why my colleagues bought the Samsung Notes was the "larger screen vs. older eyes" thing so it's not surprising that people would love the iPhone 6 Plus, too. I had seriously consider upgrading to a plus-sized iPhone in its next iteration (a big maybe now considering the huge price tag that this premium phone carries) and ageing eye sight is indeed one reason.

The other reason is awesome battery life. The third reason is a potential replacement for my similarly ageing iPad 3rd generation. However, news that Paper (the awesome drawing app by FiftyThree) isn't coming to the iPhone 6 Plus in the near future is a detraction altogether. There is life for iPad, yet.

via Pocket-lint.

Down Memory Lane with Spotify

During my 4-hour journey home, I had the opportunity to listen to the two Spotify playlists that I’ve made available offline - Television Theme Songs and Themes From the Movies.

It was back to the days of Friends where it’s like you’re always stuck in second gear or when the Swiss Army knife was THE thing that could've made my childhood as resourceful as MacGyver. There were Threes Company and a Full House of memories in the Television Theme Songs playlist. The bizarre Twilight Zone theme was also featured. Yup, everything was as fresh as a “prince in Bel Air” back when Will Smith still raps.

 The Themes From the Movies playlist reminded me that although life’s like an impossible mission with a beast at every corner, sometimes, there’s beauty in it. It was a disaster having to remember Kevin Costner’s exposed ass from Robin Hood and Dances with Wolves. Thank goodness the music was great, even when it was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

My First Days with the Mac Mini

#112299692 / gettyimages.com

I didn’t do much with the little teeny weeny desktop computer from Apple other than to install Spotify, Steam client, Gimp (because I’m totally confused with the iPhoto app - there are simply too many weird albums and events (what’s that?!) popping up… it got me so confused that I went to download the more complicated Gimp!). I also installed Civilisation 5 via Steam, a gift from my bud. Haven’t got the time to mess with the game yet, though. Been busy with something just as "mini" lately.

As I type more on the Mini, I discovered OS X or rather the Mac’s idiosyncrasies such as there are no page up, down or home and end keys. Did I tell you I had been a Windows user all my life since 3.11 days? I had some problems holding “ctrl + arrow keys” to skip words because on the Mac keyboard, it’s “option + arrow keys”. I’m also still confused with the file system like where should I keep photos. Oh yeah, I discovered that shortcuts are called aliases on OS X and “delete” on the Mac keyboard is actually “backspace”. If you want to do the Windows “delete” thing, you will need to hold “fn + delete” on the Mac!

Nonetheless, sitting back and surf the web is such a breeze, especially with the very nice Magic Trackpad. I can’t stop saying all the good things about the Magic Trackpad. Spreading four fingers would reveal the desktop (though I only have a “Applications” and “Games” folder on it but I’m sad to know I will fill up a large portion of it with stuff eventually). Tapping three fingers and holding on the top of a window will move it. There are a tonne of options to activate on the trackpad preference. Double tapping (which also means “right click” in the Windows world) on a word would produce a list of menus and one of them is to quickly look up the meaning of it. Nice. Unfortunately, with everything good, there’s still always something to complain. I can’t seem to be able to double tap and hold on to an icon or folder or window to move it. I need to press down on the Magic Trackpad.

Another reason I had to buy a computer was to backup my iPhone and iPad and I couldn’t help wondering why in the world would iTunes be THE app that does the job. The name itself would depict it as a media player app but I don’t suppose this bothered anyone else. I’m also puzzled why couldn’t I select to automatically backup on both iCloud and iTunes?

As you may notice, this post is quite unstructured. This and the Getty image above reflect rather well my current learning curve with the Mac and OS X so I guess that's enough confusion for the day. :P