tembeling’s muse

Everything was not expected.

One fine day I was travelling from Kuantan to KL. I took a flight. From KLIA I took ERL to KL Sentral. In the train, a mat saleh (white man or caucasian) sat before me. I was using my iPhone to read & reply email, also to read few PDF files. And then this guy took out his iPad, wrapped in a cool Apple’s leather case, attached a headphone, browsing some musics, then open a document to read. Wow! It was so cool man! Especially when you yourself were reading too but using that tiny iPhone screen.

I immediately put my ‘wow-iness’ as my Facebook status. And to my surprise, a friend, a close friend of mine, from my college days (in MRSM Terendak) offered me an iPad. She said she got it as a present for one month already & was not using it. What a pleasant surprise! I called her & the very next day I went to her office & collected the iPad. Thank you Natasha.

The iPad is a 64GB version without 3G. I reckon it is from Australia looking at the serial number.

I know nothing about iPad. But the first thing I did was to jailbreak it using jailbreakme.com. Then I realized that I need an internet connection to make iPad useable, else it will almost useless. So I jailbroke my iPhone (yup I JB my updated iPhone & succeeded in doing so), install MyWi & walla! I can now use the iPad connected to my Celcom 3G via my iPhone through WiFi tethering.

Since then I never look back. Reading articles is now extremely fun especially with Papers. Papers can manage all articles & can ‘match’ the PDF to get its metadata like authors, journal, date etc. I can sync my references between my iMac, iPad & iPhone. With Papers, I can annotate the PDF file I am reading. I was using iPad during a critical appraisal session with my students.

Reading & replying email is definitely better with iPad compared to iPhone due to its bigger & brilliant screen resolution.

I also installed iFiles to store & manage documents, especially the attachments from email. I also have iFile, without ‘s’ (from Cydia) of which I can access the root & whatever folder in the iPad if I want to via SSH from my iMac or Thinkpad.

Pocket Informant is a better GUI alternative than the built-in Calendar. But it can’t sync to my Windows Outlook directly. I have to rely on Google Calendar. So what I am doing is syncing my Outlook 2010 to Google Calendar, then I can sync Pocket Informant with it.

For word & spreadsheet, I bought QuickOffice Connect Mobile Suite that I like & I even have it in my iPhone. Its photo album also cool. Now I can show my portfolio in style! *grin*

For Facebook, I just use Facebook app for iPad & for twitter I prefer TweetDeck.

To sync documents between iPad, iMac & Thinkpad I use Dropbox (an online storage solution or cloud solution many people said). The first 2GB is free. Dropbox will automatically sync all the files between these computers/gadget.

iPad is one new experience with me. A good complement to the notebook that I have. But what I wish iPad can do is at least one USB port to transfer files & ability to print directly to a printer. Was thinking to use a wireless keyboard & mouse but I realize, iPad is not a notebook. It is not meant as serious working or business tool. But it surely complement it perfectly. How about using it as a presentation tool…..also super cool if its for few people. As for now I prefer my Thinkpad with Logitech Presenter.

Not…how to install Photoshop in the iPad..heh heh

I have a 3Gs version. Was eager to JB my phone since ages but did not seem to be able to do it due to its complexity (it should have been peanut if I really wanna do it actually) but now with the existence of www.jailbreakme.com website where one can JB on the fly (using Safari)……and it was extremely easy. I did everything in less than 2 minutes (could be faster if my 3G is not congested).

So what is so great with JB? Basically, you allow your iPhone to accept more applications even though it was not registered with iTunes. The JB fans will say that JB will unlock the true potential of iPhone. But I would say…..the restriction to few other capabilities on iPhone are because of two things, (1) business (monopoly) purpose by Apple and, (2) allowing to modify many things exposed the phone to instability & errors.

Having said that…not being able to do multitasking (now is OK with iOS4 but it comes with the slow speed and poor reception problems) is not acceptable.

No one forced me to JB my phone. So I did everything at my own risk.

I like some of the packages (they called it app in iTunes) especially the iBlacklist, iFile etc. But I encountered few problems to install some packages & error to connect to some repositories (the place where they place all the packages I guess)…..and I really hate those ads (yeah…I know Cydia is free….so they must survive with sponsors). And one thing should be clear here, packages in Cydia are not free….eventhough I know there are some crack available & you can crack them if using Cydia & you can’t for apps using Apple’s iTunes. Well….nowadays…as far as phone app is concern, I prefer to pay for what I like.

So what is my verdict?? Using JB reminds me of using Windows…with so many apps but one will endure the crashes most of the time. I will unJB my iPhone….so I am going to upgrade to iOS4 4.0.2….

Update: I jailbroke my iPhone again! Can’t stand plenty of software options offered from so many repositories.

Medical lecturer can be defined in two ways. A medical doctor who is teaching medical students in university or any teaching institution; or any lecturer who is teaching medical students in medical faculty. And medical lecturer is further divided into clinical and non-clinical. Clinical means they work like ordinary specialist with ward, clinic & OT to look after AND at the same time they have to teach, handle students seminar, do research & manage student’s research. Well that’s my definition. And one more thing to remember, medical faculty in Malaysia are governed by Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE).

Recently the Ministry of Health Malaysia decided to give automatic promotion to all doctors serving in Malaysia based on duration of service. So many doctors are happy now. Doctors in hospital do rounds, handle clinic & OT. They don’t teach formally even though they have to supervise junior doctors. Young doctors or housemen will fill log books & will proceed to medical officer if they are recommended. That’s basically the teaching in hospital. If they, the MOH doctors, teach undergraduates, usually because they are appointed as honorary lecturer & they will be paid extra for that. Research? Not really. But recently I observed more research from MOH especially when the top managers put research as one of the KPI.

What about medical lecturer. In most public university, clinicians use most of their time like ordinary specialist but they also teach. I know in some private university, the lecturers are just teaching & no service required. Despite the automatic promotion in MOH, MoHE, so far decided not to follow that exercise. Instead they introduce special teaching allowance for medical lecturer….but for me, looking at the amount given, it is peanut. It is not comparable with what our friends in MOH are getting.

JPA came out with new circular. But I don’t see any changes to my salary tho’.

Someone postulated that MoHE afraid that medical lecturers won’t do research anymore if they give automatic promotion based on service duration. They might also worry the non-medical lecturer won’t be happy.

Being a not so clinical lecturer with no ward, clinic, OT to look after and no need to do night calls; I say follow the MOH. MOH even give same promotion to non-clinicians. Many medical lecturer will not be happy if our salary is lower than our colleagues in MOH when we have to do more that them.

Even though many will be automatically promoted to DU54, they should not be considered an Associate Professor. Because AP or Professor etc are academic title & should be based on academic merit. Therefore they should be another special allowance for AP or Professor. That special extra academic allowance can also be applied to non-medical lecturer. For that matter more and more people will make an effort to get the title.

Overall I don’t understand two things:

1. Why MoHE failed to see the urgency & sensitive this problem is. We are trainings doctor for the government, for the country. And our salary is already peanut if compared to our colleague in private, and now….even lower than governments’ doctors!
2. Why non-medical lecturers are making noise? We do not follow the usual classroom teaching….thinking only about credit hours. The clinicians see real patients in ward, clinic & do surgery in OT. How many non-medical lecturers are really practicing for FREE? We don’t have semester holiday. Sorry my non-medical friends. I know some do consultancy work. But is it for free? I am not bias here as I am also not so clinical. I prefer those relevant get what they deserved.

That are all my opinion on the matter.

It is not nice talking about money. But what matter is justice & fairness. Those clinicians are superhero. They teach but they still care for their patient. They were paid for their teaching, and everything else is FREE. May Allah bless you guys!

Kemapan is actually a tributary of Sungai Endau in Endau-Rompin Rainforest Park that cover two states in Peninsular Malaysia.

View Larger Map
On 17th July 2010, me & my fellow friends from Kuantan & KL went there for 2 nights.  We started the trekking from 6:30AM, a 6 hours delay from the planned time due to various problems. It took us 7 hours to reach Kemapan campsite.

Total journey was about 10 km. We stopped at few places. The first was when we crossed Kincin River, after about 1 hour trekking. Then we stopped at a place known as 100 Plus, basically to check for leech & to have a quick dip in a cool & fresh river. After about 5 hours trekking we arrived at Genat Waterfall.

We had a long rest here. We ate instant noodle to give us some energy before the 200m uphill climb. About 2 hours later, we arrived at the campsite near Kemapan River.

We spent 2 nights there. On the second day, we went upstream the river to photograph the waterfalls. We were not so lucky because it was raining from afternoon till late at night.

On the third day we trekked back to Taman Negeri Pahang entrance.

I used porter to carry most of the heavy stuff like tripod & tent. I just carried my Nikon D3, 17-35mm & a macro setup. I used Lowepro Primus to carry the camera equipment. That was already 12 kg including 3L of isotonic drink. I used the local rubber shoes & it was indeed a great shoes but not suitable to walk on hard surface.

Overall the journey was fun but the view was just OK. Maybe I was tired to enjoy the scenery, and the rain managed to spoil the mood. Despite a very long journey, Ulu Kemapan is surely easier than Buaya Sangkut expedition!

I am using Adobe Illustrator & Adobe Photoshop for my watermark.

For example this one is made by writing on my Wacom Bamboo using Illustrator, add some more text & save it in .ai format. Then I created an Action File using Photoshop. I’ll try to outline the steps (I’ll add in some screenshots when I have more time):

1. Open the photo I want to edit in Photoshop, whatever format.
2. Start to record an action file (Go to Windows > Action and file an icon to ‘Create New Action”)
3. I normally set the image size by using File > Automate > Fit Image (set to 1200 pix for both dimensions) & also Image > Image Size & reduce the Resolution to 72 dpi without Resample Image (i.e. keeping it at 1200 pix at longest dimension). This step is to ensure that the size of image will be standardized so that our watermark won’t appear too big or too small.
4. Then I pause the recording of my action because I have to transfer & create path for the watermark.
5. I open my .ai watermark file in Photoshop. I just click continue/OK to whatever default steps after that. And by using Move tool I move my watermark to the photo I just resized.
6. Once my watermark is on the photo, I moved it the upper left corner of the picture & resize it as appropriate. But don’t make it too small because it will cause problem when we select later.
7. Then on the Layer panel (please don’t tell me you do not know where Layer panel is if you are using Photoshop!!), I select the watermark by pressing CTRL & click on the layer that has the watermark.
8. I then adjust the selection by going to Select > Refine Edge. I normally use ‘Shift Edge’ to make the selection bigger (in CS5).
9. Then I go to Path panel (next to Layer & Channel) & click icon Make New Path From Selection.
10. I highlight the path layer & then I go back to my Action panel & Insert Path (I can’t describe the icon to access this Insert Path – later I add screenshot). No worry even though we pause recording…..Photoshop will still record the path.
11. Then run action record again, add a new layer, select the path on the path panel.
12. Then using whatever colour you like, Pain Bucket the selection. Walla!! You got your watermark ready.
13. The next things to do are just to resize & reposition the watermark to the place you like. Please use Select, Layers>Align for this purpose. Do not use you mouse to move the watermark. The action you are recording must make every steps accommodating both portrait & landscape layout.
14. Then you can stop recording your watermark action.
15. Use the action to whatever photo you want after that.