Dor

It was a weekend. I was bored. There was nothing good on tv. I took the remote control and channel surfed. Then I came across this hindi film. It’s not a typical boy-meets-girl-singing-in-the-rain-changing-clothes kind of film. It’s a story about two women, Zeenat and Meera. Zeenat is a muslim woman from the colder north India. Meera on the other hand is a hindu woman from hotter south India.

The story began with both women getting married – Zeenat to the man she of her choice, and Meera, an arranged marriage. After a brief honeymoon, both women had to send off their husbands to work in Arab Saudi.

Zeenat lived in her own house near to her in-laws. She visited them regularly and willingly gave them the money that her husband sent her every month. Meera on the other hand, lived with her family and abides all they rules. We get this idea that Zeenat was very independent woman who views and opinion was accounted for. On the other side of the spectrum is Meera, who follows all the family traditions, and was always berated by father. Zeenat and Meera path crossed when Meera husband died.

It was said that Zeenat’s husband had caused the death. Being a widow means all privileges would be stripped from Meera. She no longer allowed to wear colourful clothes and bangles. She is expected to mourn for her husband and never to enjoy the pleasure of life till the end of her days. Zeenat had to travel across India in order to save her husband from death penalty. She needed Meera’s signature on some sort of ‘amnesty’ document for her husband.

Zeenat met her first stumbling block when Meera’s family refused to allow her to meet Meera. They went as far as spitting on her. Zeenat had to ask her travelling companion to spy on Meera. From him, she found out how to meet Meera without her family’s knowledge – during her daily trip to the temple. On her first meeting with Meera, Zeenat had wanted to tell her about the amnesty document. However, remembering how Meera’s family reacted, Zeenat hesitated.

Zeenat and Meera became friends. Zeenat was very much disturbed by the treatment that Meera received. She told Meera that it is okay to feel happy and alive after the death of her husband. She also told the naïve Meera that it is not right to be treated like a slave in her own house. As their friendship bloomed, slowly but surely Meera began to embrace the ideas brought by Zeenat.

Time was running out for Zeenat. The date for her husband execution was already fixed. When Zeenat finally confronted Meera, Meera was enraged. She felt betrayed by her newly acquired friend. In the mean time, Meera’s family found out about her secret meetings. Her father scolded her and ‘sentenced’ her to be locked in a room. Instead of keeping quite like she usually did, she gave her family a piece of her mind, before coolly walked to the room.

While being locked in the room, Meera came to her senses. Her husband was already dead. There was no point of letting another woman’s husband died too. With the help of her grandmother, Meera got away. She got to the railway station in time to hand the amnesty document to Zeenat. As the train was about to move, Zeenat stood at the coach door and extended her hand to Meera. She was inviting Meera to come with her. After a true-hindi-film-style-train-chase, Meera managed to grab Zeenat hand and climbed on board.

In a way, both women have saved each other. Meera saved Zeenat from becoming a widow while Zeenat saved Meera from a ‘dead’ life.

Monday morning - The Litmus test

The first time I heard about litmus test was in chemistry class years ago. There was this strips of paper known as litmus paper. Once put on the surface of a liquid, the paper would immediately change colour. Each colour corresponds to a certain pH (acid / alkali).

What that got to do with Monday morning? Recently I read some where about another kind of litmus test. You are suppose to evalute your Monday mornings. The test is simple. On Monday morning, do you (a) claw yourself out of bed and dreading going to work; or (b) jump out of bed with beaming smile and excited about going to work. You could add more options in between (a) and (b). This test doesn't have to be limited to work. Generally it could also be applied to other things in life.

Why is it call a litmus test? Because like a litmus paper, the answers to the question provides a quick indication of wether you should change things in your life (work, etc). Good luck with your test.

I Don't Read Well

I have to confess, I love reading but I don't read well. I know how to read. I just don't do it well.

I remember going through school by borrowing notes from friends because words seemed to swam on the chalkboard. At first, I thougth it was my myopic eyes. Got new pair of glasses. Sat right smack in front of the chalkboard. But that didn't solve the problem. I still had to borrow notes from friends.

I got through school with as little reading as I could. I paid extra attention during class so that I don't have to read about it later. If friends could finish reading and comprehend the reading materials in an hour, I would take two hours.

What does this got to do with this blog? I read some of my previous entries. They are littered with lots of spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. Some words were also missing (my fingers weren't fast enough to capture my train of thoughts). I know those mistakes could easily spotted had I read my entries before posting it. Unfortunately, I don't read well.

So, my apologies.

Configuration for Tungsten T5

Since the previous post was about configuring my T5 to blog, I should add more about configuring it to use the Celcom 3G.

I requote my first entry of this blog:

Before setting the T5, make sure your phone have been configure:
1. Follow the steps in the website (http://www.celcom.com.my) to configure the telephone
2. Verify that the setting is correct, try to access the celcom wap portal using the Nokia 6233.

Here's how you configure the T5:

Step 1: Configure the phone connection in your palm
1. Go to Preferences > connection
2. Click "new"
3. Name: Nokia<-[any name you want]
Connect to: phone
Via: Bluetooth
Device: [search for your phone but make sure you switch on the phone bluetooth]
Model: Standard GSM
4. click "details..."
5. Speed: 115 200bps
Init string: +cgdcont=1,"IP","celcom3g"
Click "ok"
6. Click "ok" to safe the phone connection.
7. Click "done"

Step 2: Setting up & making network connection
1. Go to preferences > network
2. Click "new"
3. Service: Celcom3G <-[any name you want]
User name: g
Password: g
connection: Nokia<-[same name from step 1]
phone: *99***1#
4. Click "connect" to log on to the network. (By the way, don't forget to turn on the phone bluetooth )

Step 3: Browsing the internet
1. Launch your browser. I use the Blazer that was pre'installed' in the T5
2. Type the URL of the site you want to go.

Test conclusion

I thought mo:blog don't work with the new blogger thingy because of the incredibly long new user id. So I created a new one, but it didn't work either.

Then I thought new blogger no longer support this thing call API. No, it's not the Malay word for 'fire'. It's a computer programming term.

I searched for the fix. Even downloaded and re-install the mo:blog in my T5. Still it wouldn't work.

Just now I chanced upon a website for developers (can't remember the URL). Glancing through a bunch of programming codes, I saw the word 'uri'. Similar word is in the mo:blog settings. So I tried replacing the 'www' in the settings, with 'beta'. It worked!

Test #2
First test seems to work. Test #2 is using different id

Test

This is a test entry
I've not been able to update this blog from my palm since I accidently upgraded to google thingy.

More New Gadget... Bluetooth Dongle

The old one had been intermittent since last week. Some times it wouldn't work. But after plugging and unplugging, as well as restarting the program, it would work. However this morning, it refused to work. Even after I restart my pc.

Reluctantly I headed to the computer shop to find a new dongle. Turns out some people don't call it dongle, they call it bluetooth adaptor. After scouting high and low (literally! I actually walked up and down the mall) I finally settled for one. Brought it back to theroom, but couldn't get the driver installed. Had to go back to the shop. I brought along my laptop, just in case the replacement was also faulty. Didn't want to have to go again.

So there I was, installing the thing. Yup the replacement cd could work. Unfortunately, the dongle refused to connect with my 6233. The shop assistant kept saying to me that use card reader to transfer stuff to handphone. Why would you use bluetooth only to transfer files. I told him I need the bluetooth to connect to internet. They were amazed. I guess they never heard of anyone doing that. Needless to say, they don't know how to get the pc to connect to the internet.

However, heads down to the the man, he helped to get the 6233 to connect to the pc. As he said, at least we know the new dongle works. The internet part, he don't know. We came to an agreement, I would take the dongle home for a night, and find out how to get it to connect to internet. If I still failed, I would return the dongle, and he would replace it with something of similar value. I was frustrated, I want my internet! But I agreed anyway.

I glad I did. I finally managed to get it connected to the internet. Turns out the new dongle is a bit more advance from my previous dongles (yes, I've had 2). That's why it was a bit complicated to get the thing configured. While connected to the internet, I could hot-synch my palm. My previous dongles would give the error message somewhere along the line "the bluetooth device is being used..".

With more configuring, maybe I could get my palm to share internet connection with my pc. For the time being, I just hope that I don't have to reconfigure everything after I shut down my laptop.