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.

This will keep happening until the user licenses the copy of Win XP Pro on the machine by going to a Microsoft reseller or getting a licence online at the www.microsoft.com/malaysia/genuine. Each licence costs RM580.

This initiative is part of Microsoft’s antipiracy campaign, dubbed Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), aimed at educating users on the benefits of using genuine software, K.T. Ng, Microsoft Malaysia’s director of client business group, told The Star on Tuesday.

Win XP Professional was chosen for the antipiracy blitz because it is the most pirated version of Microsoft’s Win XP operating system. The other version is Windows XP Home, which is for home users.

This is the second time that Microsoft is needling users of pirated copies of its operating system to go legitimate. Two years ago, it sprang its WGA initiative on local users of Win XP Pro and Win XP Home.

That time, a pop-up message showed up whenever the PC with a pirated Windows OS was switched on, with the intention of shaming business and home users into getting legitimate copies. The message said “This copy of Windows is not genuine.”

It was quite successful. At that time, there were about 5.1 million pirated copies of Windows XP Pro and after the exercise, about two million of the copies were validated, said Microsoft Malaysia.

“We are encouraged by that response,” said Ng. “So this time, we have escalated the penalty to a black screen that reappears every hour until the user validates his or her copy of Win XP Pro.”

Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, chief executive officer of Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC), lauded the WGA campaign.

MDeC is caretaker of the country’s MSC Malaysia initiative, which is working to build up the nation’s knowledge economy.

“MDeC respects the rights of companies to protect their intellectual property. It’s a reminder that software piracy doesn’t pay, especially when Malaysians are themselves putting a lot of effort into creating original software,” he said.

Not clear
Several users and industry pundits that The Star spoke to believe Microsoft is using its WGA campaign to herd business users into upgrading to its newest operating system, Windows Vista, which hasn’t garnered interest among companies because of its higher hardware requirements.

“Microsoft has stopped selling Win XP in the market, so you have to wonder why it is spending time and money to take down users of pirated copies of this OS,” said a PC user, who asked for anonymity. “Why isn’t it also targeting users who have pirated copies of Windows Vista?”

“So if I’m using a pirated copy of Vista at this time, I won’t be hassled? Got to wonder about that.”

Ng replied that the concern now is XP Pro, which is widely pirated. “Vista isn’t pirated as much. WGA is continuous and should there be a Vista piracy problem, we will address it down the road,” he said.

Meanwhile, Congrats to Datuk Sri Anwar Ibrahim to his Permatang Pauh winning. Political world of Malaysia is certainly getting hotter by day. Let’s watch how the game is being played and learn about the art of politicking.

As for Novinthen, life goes on with M.I.C.

Click to enlarge. Poster is 1024 * 768 size. Can be used as wallpaper

And guess what!? Our lovely PM actually took the worst train service , KOMUTER today!

KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi took rides on the commuter and Kelana Jaya rail line from Serdang to the city centre Thursday to get a feel of the transportation problems faced by the people and came away less than satisfied.

Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi taking a ride on the KTM Komuter from the Serdang station to the City yesterday to gauge the effectiveness of the train services in the City. The Prime Minister came away less than satisfied.- Bernama

Throughout the one-hour journey, during which he switched trains, the prime minister noted the congestion, especially during the peak hours, and spoke to his fellow passengers to get their feedback.

I LOVE PAK LAH!!!!.. Please DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT SIR!. Hopefully you will screw up all those high level people in transportation industry firs thing in the morning tomorrow!. And make sure they come to Putrajaya via Public Transport!...

India’s haphazard route to development has left gaping holes in environmental and urban policies, and the number of cars on the road has increased steadily over the past decade. Its cities are traffic-jammed, exhaust-choked nightmares even without the Nano. But that growth puts the Nano at the heart of an emerging debate. Should India embrace a future where every man, woman, and child owns a carbon-spewing, space-hogging, four-wheeled vehicle? Or should cities focus their efforts on public transportation systems that reserve private ownership as a luxury?

This article is ’so malaysianised” . When malaysian government had to increase oil price , a lot of people were going against it , and some were asking to lower road tax , car prices and so on. They are just asking for a leverage to counter their monthly ‘oil spending’.Is lowering car price and road tax will give us a good solution for our transportation problem? Lowering car price and road tax will only encourage more people to buy more 2/4 wheelers and hog our ever packed roads more.

Even lowering the petrol price is not the real solution which might end our ’suffering’ of traveling between home and work. And I heard people are doing demonstration over HIGH price of petrol. Mostly done by Oppositions parties. Come on guys,you know even if you are the Federal government you cant keep up with the world oil price. USA , China , Indonesia , India are some of the countries which has increased their oil price between 10-40 % . Even these WORLD SUPER POWERS ‘tak boleh tahan dah’

What rakyat really should protest for,is a better public transportation which will end all our misery!

Let’s just take myself as an example. Commuting from Cyberjaya to down town K.L ( K.L SENTRAL ) takes me 3/4 buses! .  From house to K.L SENTRAL , 2 Bus , From K.L Sentral to house , 3 Bus.  Alltogether it will take me about 1 hour to 1 hour 30 minutes to reach K.L Sentral. Why on earth Rapid KL cant have buses straight from Cyberjaya ( house of thousands of students ) to K.L Sentral? Which will cut short the travelling time at least by 30/40 mins. Haigh! if only the Rapid KL CEO listens to me!. Now,This will just become yet another blog post lost in cyber space. Rapid KL has one of  the best infrastructure compared to any bus company in Malaysia. It’s just their implementation is damn damn damn poor!

RAPID KL, I love u a lot!. But PLEASE buck up yourself la

Anyway, the easiest solution for this problem is, “tarik balik” all the menteri’s car and force them to take public transport!!

Note : This article was written the few days after they increased the oil price.

Try downloading a crack or keygen of a unpopular application and thats the end of your OS. Mostly it will be a virus or something like that which is to ruin your computer.

So how do we get these good paid softwares for free?

Well, u can head to Give Away Of The Day and try your luck!

So what is Give Away Of The Day? Do they give cracks and keygens? The sad answer is NO!. Instead cetak rompaks, They give away the full paid application for free!

Let me quote something from their website.

Giveaway of the day is a win-win solution for both publishers and clients.

Basically, every day we nominate one software title that will be a Giveaway title of that day. The software will be available for download for 24 hours (or more, if agreed by software publisher) and that software will be absolutely free. That means - not a trial, not a limited version - but a registered and legal version of the software will be free for our visitors*.

So what you are waiting for ? Go to Give Away Of The Day and download today’s free software!!

Its actually a roti bakar and choco  drink,but we are in Cyber Jaya what. So we call it , Bread Toast and Mochachino!

If it is a “normal” shop,the roti bakar would cost around RM 0.40 to RM 0.60 cents. Here its RM1.70!! *sigh* Haigh, burning money only if stay in Cyberjaya!

Anyway,the food was nice . So ok la!

Thank god they have a nice vegetarian restaurant there. After taking our favourite dishes,we went to take fork and spoon at nearest utensil counter just beside the vegetarian restaurant.

No words can express my disgust when I saw those dirty,oily utensils. Unfortunately we had to eat lunch using those utensils because most of the forks and spoons were EQUALLY dirty.

The best idea we could come up was, order hot water,clean those utensil with the hot water,wipe it clean with tissue and whack our lunch. Haighh.. Malaysia mah!. Have to adjust lor!

Damn you Berjaya Times Square Food Court! Two thumbs down! I’ll give more thumbs down,but I only got two!.

So, still wanna eat eh…