After finding out that Concepts wasn’t recycling and having spotted recycling bins around Brunei I wanted to find out more about the recycling company Daikyo. So I started by calling them and asking about the locations of their recycling bins in Brunei. To my surprise the lady told me that she could not give that information to me which seemed to defeat the purpose of placing recycling bins around Brunei for people to use. I was told that the recycling bins were placed upon request of the school / company / organization where the bins are located and that people can actually come down to their site to sell things. Curious at the ability to sell stuff I took a trip to their site located at Serasa (Map location on Wikimapia).
Daikyo was formerly known as Matusin Recycling and as you can see from the sign below they buy all kinds of scrap metal items ranging from plastics to scrap metal to old computers. I wish they were more willing to share information about their operations in Brunei but alas perhaps I will try another day. In the meantime get a look at the place from a few photos I took while I was there
Daikyo Environmental Recycling Sdn Bhd
We buy all kinds of scrap metal: Zinc, Brass, Lead, Copper Wires/Pipes, Aluminium Wire/Can (Beverage), Scrap Iron, Unserviceable batteries, Waste Papers/Cartons/Books, Magazines and Used Computer Tempat Pembuangan Kerata Buruk (rubbish dump for condemned cars)
School Terms
Term I: Mon 4 Jan – Thurs 18 March (51 days)
Term II: Mon 29 March – Thurs 3 June (48 days)
Term III: Mon 21 June – Thurs 2 Sept (50 days)
Term IV: Mon 20 Sept – Tues 30 Nov (51 days)
School Holidays
Term I: Fri 19 March – Sun 28 March (10 days)
Term II: Fri 4 June – Sun 20 June (17 days)
Term III: Fri 3 Sept – Sun 19 Sept (17 days)
Term IV: Wed 1 Dec – Fri 31 Dec (31 days)
Examination Dates
7 – 14 Jan: Lower Secondary Assessmen Retakes
12 May – 11 June: Brunei-Cambridge G.C.E. ‘O’ Level (May/June)
12 May – 11 June: Brunei-Cambridge G.C.E. ‘AS’ & ‘A’ Level (May/June)
4 – 7 Oct: Primary School Assessment (PSR) (Penilaian Sekolah Rendah)
11 – 16 Oct: Student Progress Examination (SPE) (Peperiksaan Kemajuan Pelajar)
11 Oct – 20 Nov: Brunei-Cambridge G.C.E. ‘O’ Level (Oct/Nov)
11 Oct – 20 Nov: Brunei-Cambridge G.C.E. ‘AS’ & ‘A’ Level (Oct/Nov)
24 & 26 Sept: Arab School Candidacy (PCKSA) (Pemilihan Calon Ke Sekolah Arab)
20 – 29 Nov: (SSSRU) (Sijil Sekolah-Sekolah Rendah Ugama Dh VI)
11 – 21 Oct: Student Progress Evaluation (PKP) (Penilaian Kemajuan Pelajar)
20 Sept – 9 Oct: Certificate of Regilous Studies (SPUB) (Sijil Pelajaran Ugama Brunei)
20 Sept – 9 Oct: Pre-Certificate of Regilous Studies (Pra-STPUB) (Pra-Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Ugama Brunei)
20 Sept – 9 Oct: Higher Certificate of Regilous Studies (STPUB) (Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Ugama Brunei)
Public Holidays
2 Jan (Sat): New Year’s Day (In replacement of Fri 1 Jan )
15 Feb (Mon): Chinese New Year (In replacement of Sun 14 Feb)
23 Feb (Tues): National Day
27 Feb (Sat): Maulud Nabi Muhammad SAW (In replacement of Fri 26 Feb)
31 May (Mon): Royal Brunei Armed Forces Day
10 July (Sat): Israk Mikraj
15 July (Thurs): Sultan’s Birthday
11 Aug (Wed): Start of Ramadan
28 Aug (Sat): Anniversary of the Revelation of the Quran (In replacement of Fri 27 Aug)
11 & 13 Sept (Sat & Mon): Hari Raya Aidilfitri (In replacement of Fri 10 & Sun 12 Sept)
16 Nov (Tues): Hari Raya Aidiladha
7 Dec (Tues): Islamic New Year
25 Dec (Sat): Christmas Day
The Apple iPad was just announced yesterday and Engadget has a nice launch day roundup for their coverage and if you read the editorial many are disappointed or don’t see anything great about the device. While it is an evolutionary device it could have been killed by the hype of what it would be and how it would revolutionize the way we use tablets (which it doesn’t as the moment). Touted too much of a tablet, it is actually more of a media player / content consumption device / ebook reader.
Coming for a netbook background all these specifications look great except for the iPhone OS and possibly the price point. Most netbooks have a 10” screen with a resolution of only 1024×600 and most websites made for these lower resolutions especially since the browser window (with toolbars + menus) already consumes some screen real estate leaving an even smaller portion for proper web browsing. Having a 1024×768 resolution screen that can be oriented landscape or portrait gives the device added flexibility in rendering webpages.
Having 720p HD video playback and 10 hours of battery life the iPad trumps almost all netbooks and to add insult to injury it is lighter and smaller. Now while this battery life estimate is not tested, Apple’s battery life specifications typically hold up in real world testing (I can personally attest to the 13" Mac Book Pro battery life). Having a 1st generation netbook that gets about 4 hours of battery life and having a 13" Mac Book Pro with 7 hours battery life, 10 hours of usage out of the iPad is simply outstanding especially given the size and weight of the device. A typically netbook will be about 3 pounds and about 3 times the thickness of an iPad with a battery life of about 9 hours (current Pine-trail netbooks) and costs in the range of US$300-$400.
The biggest issue is that it comes with the iPhone OS which limits connectivity with only iTunes and that it does not do real multi-tasking (limited multi-tasking ala iPhone). Multi-tasking is a huge factor if they’re touting it as a tablet which is why I don’t really consider it a full-fledge tablet but more of a bigger iPod touch and fits in between an e-book reader and a tablet (both of which where widely seen at CES this year: e-book readers and tablets at CES). For now I will stick with my netbook and wait for ION (or similar technology) to get better for possibly gaming netbooks like the upcoming Alienware M11x.
So in essence the iPad is a bigger iPod touch: more than an e-book reader, less than a tablet
Other notable facts:
Seemed very responsive (kudos to the processor)
3G models are unlocked
iWorks available (US$10 an application)
Projector output possible (with an additional adapter)
Bluetooh / Accelerometer / A-GPS (A-GPS available only in the 3G model)
After stumbling across this complaint on DST’s promotion of bundling an Acer Aspire One with Go! subscription I went down to DST to find out whether the complaint was valid. The promotion banner is shown below
The complaint basically says that the $543 up-front payment advertised is for the laptop + modem and not the 6 month subscription which would add up to the same amount. If this was the case it would have been a real scam and after my findings that Concepts is not recycling and also Sheraton pizza issue makes me wonder if we need a consumer rights / better business bureau in Brunei to monitor and catch any businesses doing any sleight of hand tactics or wordings that will misled customers.
So I went to DST in Delima and asked if the promotion was still valid. I was told that it was no longer valid so my hopes were dashed to find out if the complaint was valid. So a few weeks later I went to pay my mom’s DST bill and thought I would ask if there were any laptop promotions for the Go! subscription as previously had and I was in luck. The lady at the counter told me the offer of the Acer netbook was still valid, though low on stock (about 6 units left). So after she explained things to me I found out that the complaint that $543 was to pay for the laptop and modem is not true for the current promotion. Now things could be different now than what was previously told to the customer when they made this complaint. It could have also just been a staff member who did not understand the promotion or was simply trying to personally scam the customer or it could even be DST changing the promotion. But that aside, according to her the lady basically you are just paying $78 x 21 months for the regular non-student Unlimited plan and that the only extra charges is for the deposit ($50 for locals, $100 otherwise) and license fee ($25). The $543 is an advance for the last 6 months of the subscription meaning you pay ($543 + deposit + license fee) up-front and 15 months of $78 (or 24 months of $58), starting from the month after purchase. This means locals will pay in total $1713 ($543 + 15 * 78) for the regular package or $1815 ($423 + 24 * 58) for the student package (foreigners add $50 due deposit of $100 instead of $50)
So in essence you are signing up for a 21 (or 30) month contract and you pay a flat rate of $78 (or $58) a month and you get a free netbook and modem which is a pretty darn good deal. As with all contracts you are tied down to the provider and in this case it’s for 21 (or 30) months which may seem long but you could easily get a 3G wireless router (eg. Prolink 3.5 mobile broadband router) to connect the modem to and use it for Internet at the office or at home. A very viable option for office use without having to pay commercial prices for an E-Speed line.
So DST has this offer going for their mobile broadband while bmobile has their iPhone promotion. Being somebody who is looking for an unlimited 3G broadband plan both these offers seem enticing and will be something I cover in a future post as I decided which one to take, if any at all.
VobEdit (download link) allows you to extract the audio and/or video files from DVD VOB files. Typically I will use ffmpeg to extract audio or video streams from DVDs, but sometimes the DVD were not burned properly giving ffmpeg an error that prevents the extraction. Here is where VobEdit comes it. Select the VOB file, click the "demux" button, select the stream, select save location and you’re done! Other features include splitting, joining and remuxing VOB files
Kudos to Doom 9 for providing great resources for VOB tools and many other DVD/encoding/transcoding information
Ever since bmobile and DST launched their mobile broadband offerings (Zoom! and Go!)I was interested to see which one offered the best deal. I’ve had a few weeks with the bmobile’s Zoom! service using the older modem with 3.6Mbps max speeds and did some speed tests and real world tests. In the real world tests it got frustrating at times with quite a few timeouts and YouTube videos loading only to stop loading half way. Real world download tests weren’t fantastic, typically under 512kbps which is even slower than the lowest tier E-Speed plan. My regular locations were at home in Jalan Kebangsaan Lama, and at the old airport road which is basically just across Telbru Headquarters. After a while I found out that doing a regular speed test at Speedtest.net was not giving optimal results, I would get less than 300kbps (~40KB/s) download speeds but in actual fact when I download podcasts I would get over 500kbps (~60KB/s) easily.
I found that if I do multiple downloads/connections I would be able to get faster speeds. I was able to roughly max out the modem to the full 3.6Mbps connection (but that was close to Telbru, not at home). At home torrenting some music off Jamendo managed to get up to 100KB/s but it was not consistent. Below shows a torrent downloading at over 200KB/s.
I know location and people/connection saturation are important factors for any mobile broadband connections and honestly I’m pretty jealous of David Cheok’s reports on his Go! getting goodspeeds in Subok
“actually.. have been getting avg 500KB daily.. last night was good coz it broke 700KB..” (via Twitter)
He also went on to say the following statement which I totally agree with:
“if downloading is your thing, Go for GO. If good response time/less lag, Zoom. Even better, espd.” (via Twitter)
That also brings me to another important fact that Go! seems to have pretty bad upload speeds (up to 20x less than Zoom!). If you’re planning on uploading photos or doing some streaming video from your webcam or even Skype, Go! may not be the answer you’re looking for. For anything to do with uploads, stick to E-Speed or Zoom!
If you haven’t heard, b-mobile has subsidized iPhones 3GS’s with a b-mobile subscription contract of 18 months. This is one of the first subsidized mobile phone price plans I’ve seen in Brunei. The other would be DST‘s October promotion offerings that offered a Nokia E75, Nokia E52 and Sony Ericsson C901 with contracts of 6 months. With b-mobile having first introduced their mobile broadband Zoom! which was followed up by DST’s Go!, what I hope to see is more competition among the 2 mobile phone providers which in the end leads to the consumer winning. Recently in Singapore, M1 and StarHub released their iPhone plans which led SingTel to change their previous plans (most notably the increase of free data to 12GB, from a typical measly 500MB/1GB), so as consumers we have to love competition.
I went down to b-mobile to find out more about the iPhone and they mentioned that is it the never locked version and that they are handling the mobile phone service while AV Electronics handles all the other iPhone/Apple/iTunes/Applications related aspects of this deal. While talking to the guy at the bmobile counter he did mention that bmobile was getting the iPhone and DST was going to get the Blackberry. Rumour has it that the Blackberry will be reveal next year but timing is still not confirmed. If it does come to fruition people will be happy (especially the High Commissioner of Canada, who urged Brunei to set up a Blackberry Network).
Initially when asking about the HTC Touch Diamond Pro and Samsung Jet (which was a few weeks back) the guy told me that the details would be released later, but on further inquiry today I was told that both are available but you would have to custom order it and the personnel could not disclose the price plans as marketing was not present. I find that awkward that they are selling a product but have not disclosed the pricing. Anyway the price plans for the subsidized iPhone are as follows.
Note: Contract is for 18 months and the total costs listed are based on the prices for locals that included 1 annual license fee of $25 and a deposit of $50. For foreigners add another $50 to the total cost (as deposits for foreigners is $100 vs $50 for locals).
iPhone 3GS 16GB
Phone Cost (B$)
Monthly Cost (B$)
Total Cost (B$)
Smart $35 Package
999
35
1704
Smart $45 Package
799
45
1684
Smart $55 Package
599
55
1664
Smart $65 Package
399
65
1644
iPhone 3GS 32GB
Phone Cost (B$)
Monthly Cost (B$)
Total Cost (B$)
Smart $35 Package
1199
35
1904
Smart $45 Package
999
45
1884
Smart $55 Package
799
55
1864
Smart $65 Package
599
65
1844
Price Plan Details:
Free Voice minutes
Free SMS
Free MMS
Free Data
Smart $35 Package
300
100
20
1.5GB
Smart $45 Package
500
200
30
3GB
Smart $55 Package
1000
300
40
10GB
Smart $65 Package
1200
500
50
Unlimited
Note: Beyond the free data, the user is chargeable at 20c/MB up to $40 at which the user can use unlimited data
If you are planning to take b-mobile up on this subsidized iPhone I would recommend subscribing using the Smart $65 Package as it has the lowest up-front payment, the cheapest in the long run and provides the best in terms of perks (especially the unlimited data). With the iPhone you use it as a broadband modem at it would be easy to exceed the 1.5GB/3GB of the 2 lower priced plans and considering that $40 corresponds to 200MB which isn’t much at all. If you take the $65 package, the iPhone can be considered as a Zoom! subscription ($65/month for iPhone vs $60/month for Zoom!) but has so much more benefits.
If you’re looking for a iPhone or even if you’re just looking to get a mobile broadband subscription (Zoom! from b-mobile or Go! from DST) I would recommend the Smart $65 Package bundled with the iPhone of your choice. You get an unlimited broadband connection which can be tethered to your computer wherever you are and the highly coveted iPhone which is currently the best smartphone platform at the moment.
With the input from the community this survey will help the Prime Minister Office to identify which e-Government services are important to the citizens.
The survey is 28 pages in total and can get pretty time consuming. A compiled version is available here if you want to peruse the questions or even if you want to prepare your answers before answering the real survey.
This is organized by the Prime Minister’s Office, Infocom Federation Brunei in collaboration with E-Government National Centre and BAG Networks. I have to say kudos to the people in charge for taking the initiative for getting the public’s stand and input on something as important is this. I hope other organizations will take an example and try to communicate with the public to understand what is desired. This will help save time and resources of implementing a system only to find out that it is not wanted, thus not used and thus goes to waste.
Participants stand a chance to win prizes such as:
If you are inclined to meet the people in charge and ask further questions there are two more roadshows this coming Tuesday (15th December in Seria) and Sunday (20th December in Temburong)
The Wheat Field 
