St0rY oF uNpReDiCtAbLe LiFe II

Well, being a smoker myself, one of the “must look” items from a new budget plan been announce every year is none other than the increase of cigarette’s price. The annual increase had been a trend for many years (as far as I can remembered) and to be honest, most smokers that I know (including me) will not stop this bad habit just because of price increase; they will simply find alternatives to satisfy their needs (buying cheaper/smuggled brand, shift to the traditional “rokok daun¹“, etc). I noticed today that British American Tobacco Malaysia had made an announcement that the company will increase all their tobacco base product which will be effective starting today. No need to make a guess; it’s because the new budget plan for 2009 announced by the prime minister.

Petaling Jaya, 1 September 2008 – As a result of the significant 20% excise increase, and taking into consideration the consequent impact of sales tax, trade margins and the higher than normal inflationary impacts on our own cost base, as global tobacco, paper and fuel costs have all increased by double digit amounts, British American Tobacco Malaysia has revised its cigarette prices.

The new cigarette prices, which will be effective Monday, 1st September 2008, are as follows:-
 • Dunhill Fine Cut 20s range RM 10.00
 • Dunhill D360 20s range RM 9.40
 • Dunhill King Size 20s range RM 9.00
 • Dunhill King Size 14s range RM 6.50
 • Kent King Size 20s range RM 9.00
 • Pall Mall Plain 20s RM 9.40
 • Pall Mall King Size 20s range RM 7.50
 • Pall Mall King Size 14s range RM 5.50
 • Pall Mall King Size 25s RM 8.20
 • Benson & Hedges King Size 20s RM 9.00
 • Benson & Hedges King Size 14s RM 6.50
 • Perilly’s 100s 20s RM 7.70
 • Perilly’s King Size 20s range RM 7.50
 • Perilly’s King Size 25s range RM 8.20

Source: British American Tobacco Malaysia

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Well, I got the news from The Star online today saying that Microsoft will take a step further to combat piracy on its products by implementing some sort of dark/black/blank (or they prefer to use the word “Blackouts”) screen for users of pirated Windows XP Pro.

PETALING JAYA: Starting Wednesday, users with pirated copies of Microsoft Corp’s Windows XP Professional operating system (OS) on machines that are Internet-capable could find their computer displays going black and with no screen icons visible.

There are 8.6 million users of Win XP Pro in Malaysia and about three million are expected to suffer the “blackouts,” according to Microsoft Malaysia.

To continue working, the user would need to reset the machine’s desktop background. Everything will return to normal. But when 60 minutes are up, the black screen will reappear and the user must go through the whole process again.

Source: TheStar Online

My Take

Well, I don’t know if this step only apply to Malaysian user but I have little doubt Microsoft will even stop there. Expect another fuss coming from either Microsoft or the *ehem* *ehem* community. You can read the full article by following the given url and evaluate everything yourself. I suddenly remembered a quote from Jurassic Park movie which sound something like “Nature will find it’s way” and seeing how Windows XP is still very popular, I kinda can see Microsoft latest move will end in vain (remember WGA¹ anyone?). I’m not praying it to happen though; just predicting

Owh….don’t make that gloomy face ; isn’t this the best time to jump to Linux?

Normally, I don’t post any politic related stuff. For me, politics is for real people with real knowledge to discuss. I admit I’m not “real” enough in those field. But, I’m getting sick when I encountered this picture from Mafrel site. Urghh…they manage to make themselves look stupid brilliantly. By doing that sick provocation act can they claim the other party rude? I’m not going to argue who’s right and who’s not because personally I don’t know. But action like this can initiate an uglier reaction from anyone and when things goes bad, who’s to blame? Owh…the picture is taken during the Permatang Pauh nomination day on August 18, 2008.

Well, today I realize that the new version of WordPress had been released. The version is 2.6 with the codename “Tyner“. You can read all related stuff about the update on WordPress.org blog. Then, you can download em’ at the usual WordPress.org download section. Before you do any upgrading, although it had been noted that “2.6 is pretty much identical to 2.5 from a plugin and theme compatibility point of view¹“, it’s advisable that you do a backup first. Or even better, you can first test it locally on your machine to see if the upgrade brake any of your current configuration (theme, plugin, hack, etc).

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What? Am I dreaming? Blizzard had officially revealed about Diablo 3!! I had waited for this game since 2002 after countless hours with Diablo 2 (and with Lord of Destruction as well) and believe me when I said I waited for this game up to the point I had easily been cheated by one of fake posters for Diablo 3 in 2003 . From what I read, there are several things about this game that excited me. First, to make this game capable of running in most systems, the developer had decided to make it a non-DX10 game (hope they stick with their promise since I’m kinda reluctant to upgarde any part of my current setup). Next, although right now only 2 out of 5 classes have been unveiled (Barbarian & Witch Doctor), it also been said that the player will be able to choose either to opt for male or female gender for their character. Kinda cool to me because I always wonder how the female character of Necromancer would look like. Head on to their official site, Blizzard.com for more info and although I do wonder how they will develop the storyline since all the prime evils were dead, I still can’t wait for the game to come out. I do hope this time, the archangel Tyrael, will have a lot more involvement in the game.