Bahagia, walau mungkin tak sebebas merpati.
April 19, 2009
February 25, 2009
Enormous Phone Bill – part 2
Yesterday, I went to Starhub service centre to get more details about my data usage that amount to that HUGE charges in my bill. I talked to a nice guy who showed me a detailed log file containing every single site that I accessed, complete with its file size, time stamp, and all minute details you can think of.
The person showed me a column that he said containing the page size that I accessed (in Excel). We summed up that column, came out 226000, which according to him was in KB. 226,000 KB is close to 237 MB shown in my bill. Fair enough.
I asked the person to sort based on that column. The largest page I accessed was in http://m.google.com/ domain. The size column showed around 14000. I’m sure that column was in bytes, therefore the page size was about 14KB. The person insisted it was in KB, making that page size 14MB!! We’re talking about 1000 times difference here.
Singapore Rain Locations
Scroll up a few lines, we could see this line: http://www.nea.gov.sg/cms/mss/gif/rainloc0.gif (shown above) amounted to 8579 in size. It makes perfect sense that it’s 8579 bytes, therefore 8.5KB. The person, again, still insists it’s 8.5MB!! Now, try loading that image in your browser, right click, look at its properties, and tell me how on earth that image can be 8.5MB? Even the photos from my digital camera were only half of that size. Moreover I said, if I could load that image in my phone in 2 seconds, does that mean Starhub network speed can go 4.25MB/sec? Heck, even my broadband at home can’t do that.
The person continued to give lame answers that would be passable to other non-IT-savvy users, but I eat bytes, KB, and MB for lunch, I know the differences. The person probably gave up trying to convince me with those lame answers, he promised to call me back later. I went back to my office, and about 6.30pm, he called me again, saying that he has checked and confirmed with the IT department, it was in KB, to which I replied “Check again, and call me back after you get more reasonable answer.”
About 8pm, he called me again, he told me, he has tried to load NEA website, clocking up 100KB from loading the page, and would need to get a few pages before he can hit the page where I could get that image. Well, I replied: “First, I bookmarked that image, so I don’t need to go through few pages to see if it’s raining in Singapore or not. Second, if the home page was 100KB, in order to hit 8.5MB, I would have need to visit 85 pages just to know if it’s raining or not??!!”
He gave up and offered to waive all the extra data charges this month, and will monitor again for my next bill. Good. Unless you can prove how I clocked up 237MB in a month when I have used less than 10MB each month for the past year, you should not try to charge enormous phone bill. Yeah, I know there’s a cap at $36, but still, that extra $30 is enough for my 6 months subscriptions. I’m not letting go easily, especially knowing that Starhub log file didn’t show that I did anything extra (like Youtube) in that month.
To be fair to that guy who helped me, besides the lame excuses, he actually did a good job, trying to cover up what I think was an accounting mistake on Starhub part.
Tonight, I came home, surprised to see a tweet from Starhub, offering help to check for me. I’m surprised to know that Starhub actually checks Twitter and address issues of its customers who complains in Twitter. Excellent job I would say. That Starhub Twitter account was created in 15 Feb 2009, so I think they’re only starting to use this popular online medium to reach out to customers.
Tweet from Starhub
February 23, 2009
Enormous phone bill
My phone bill charges record so far was around $130, and that’s when I went overseas and uses did some roaming. With that in mind, I was shocked when I received this bill from Starhub today. $729.63 total data usage? What the heck did I do in two weeks so use up so much? I was in Indonesia for the other two weeks.
So, last week I called Starhub to ask for the details, and this afternoon, a lady from Starhub called me to tell me that she has checked with their IT department and confirmed I really have used that much. Puzzling. Especially if the counter on my phone shows only 8MB of usage.
I’m going to drop by Starhub tomorrow to get the details, see if I can spot something “strange” with my data usage.
February 12, 2009
Valentine’s Day
Also known as very-expensive-flower-day, Valentine Day is again around the corner. It felt like yesterday when decorations in Singapore were all about Christmas, then soon changed to Chinese New Year theme, and now suddenly shopping malls are having lots of flowers, chocolates, teddy bears, and other pink-colored stuffs on display.
My colleagues have decorated our wall panels in office with Valentine-related content as well, which I have to admit, as usual, brilliantly done. There are history of Valentine Day, tips and tricks to ask him and her out, gift ideas, and lots of other things.
So, what’s your Valentine Day plan, or will it be just like any other Saturday? 
January 25, 2009
Happy Chinese New Year
I’m in Jakarta from 23rd Jan to 2nd Feb for my Chinese New Year break. Besides obvious activities of visiting relatives, I’ll be shopping for stuffs that I need to bring for Europe trip in May. Jackets, gloves, shawl (not for me), money belt (not for me either), backpack, and lots of other stuffs.
I went to Mall of Indonesia tonight, and all I got was two pieces of wrist-band. I didn’t even a single new shirt for Chinese New Year, but it doesn’t matter as I don’t care that much anyway
So, wish everyone, Happy Ox Year ^.^
January 11, 2009
Januari
Berat bebanku
Meninggalkanmu
Separuh nafas jiwaku
Sirna…
Bukan salahmu
Apa dayaku
Mungkin benar cinta sejati
Tak berpihak
Pada kita
Reff:
Kasihku
Sampai disini kisah kita
Jangan tangisi keadaannya
Bukan karena kita berbeda
Dengarkan
Dengarkan lagu…..lagu ini
Melodi rintihan hati ini
Kisah kita berakhir di Januari
Selamat tinggal kisah sejatiku
Wow….pergilah
January 5, 2009
Year 2009 Resolutions and Goals
The last time I did all these resolutions and goals was three years ago, in 2006, most of which I didn’t manage to complete. I didn’t do any for 2007 and 2008, and I think it’s a good time to start again what has been ignored for some time. Here they are:
1. More regular Quiet Time and Prayers. This one has always been a struggle over the years, but it is not something that one can give up trying. Target: 80%.
2. Finish reading FOUR books this year that are at least 100 pages-thick. Not comics, not Reader’s Digest, but proper books.
3. Keep serving in young adults fellowship and start serving in church’s adults service. I think can start from usher. Not sure if choir will accept this croaked voice of mine.
4. Learn evangelizing other non-believers. The Word I listened yesterday was: If I don’t spread the Gospel, I am more cruel than people in hell !! (Luke 16:19-31)
5. To attend a service in GRII main church, Katedral Mesias (Messiah Cathedral), in Kemayoran, Jakarta, every single Sunday I will be in Jakarta. Hope to get my whole family together as well when I go.
6. Double up my investment portfolios while keeping six-month expenses in cash. Depending on travel plans and gadgets expenses this year, this goal could be in jeopardy. So far, there has been potential trip to Europe, potential for a new LCD monitor and potential for a new digital camera.
7. Call back home at least twice a month.
What do you think of mine? Have you set what you would like to achieve this year?
