THE new fuel hike is going to spell hardship for medium income earners and devastating to the poor. This is ridiculous especially when you don’t have a reliable public transportation system. KTM, the LRT and buses are providing a pathetic service. I am talking only about the situation in Klang Valley. How about other states and townships?

Come today, I hate to imagine the overcrowding of these public amenities that are never on schedule and subject to frequent disruption without any announcement at all. Taxi drivers who do not use natural gas too will impose new rates on their own. Haulers and other goods transportation networks are going to be hard-hit. The profiteers and going to have a field day as the government is so weak on enforcement. The overall impact on the cost of living is simply frightening. The hardcore poor may even face starvation.

We urge the government to cancel or postpone all the proposed mega projects and growth corridors that are not going to benefit the rakyat at this point of time. The government must eat humble pie and engage economic experts to advise and restructure spending. It ought to consider the plight of the poorest. I dare say this fuel price increase is enough for the government to lose further support as the rakyat has nothing to lose by voting the Opposition to replace the federal government.

THERE are two ongoing campaigns – anti-smoking and rear seat-belts – which the public seems to be ignoring. Both are for the good of the people, but just look at the response.

The anti-smoking campaign has been running for years, but it appears that more people are picking up the habit. The Health Ministry and other agencies must have spent millions, if not billions of ringgit on advertisements and other efforts to educate the public, especially the young on the dangers of smoking.

Pictures showing how a damaged lung looks as a result of nicotine blockages and other horrible pictures simply no longer have any effect. Similarly, banning smoking in certain confined areas have not achieved the desired result. What is more disturbing to non-smokers is that even those who are supposed to enforce the law on smoking are themselves happily puffing away in restricted areas.

The same with enforcement of the use of rear seat belts. There have been many complaints about this new law. Forget about its advantages and the safety aspects. Most of the complaints I have read are of how much it is going to cost to install rear seat belts, and show no appreciation that the government is doing something positive for motorists. It seems the lives of loved ones must be calculated in ringgit and sen.

Perhaps the only way to shock the peo-ple would be to let smoking-related deaths soar. Only then will the public wake up.

The same applies to rear seat belts. Stop the campaign, fatalities of rear passengers will rise and maybe then car owners will come to their senses and install the belts.

So if people do not wish to heed warn-ings on the dangers of smoking and not using rear seat belts, so be it. Let’s channel the money to some other worthwhile cause like helping the poor.

Just like rogue employees in the 1990s forced instant messaging into corporations, the new Google Apps Team Edition being launched on Thursday offers a way for workers to slip a hosted apps service into the enterprise.

This could help Google in its efforts to lure more people off desktop applications sold by Microsoft and onto the mostly free Web-based apps Google offers.

Google Apps Team Edition is a free service that lets people within the same e-mail domain collaborate easily with Google Apps, a package that includes Docs, Calendar, Talk, and Start Page.

Unlike IM applications, which open communication to anyone on the Web using a compatible IM app, Google Apps Team Edition lets you share with people only in your same organization.

Google’s stand-alone hosted apps for consumers haven’t really made a splash in the corporate world, largely because of the security threats posed by how easy they make it to share sensitive work data with people outside the company.

So Google created Google Apps, a free Standard Edition and a Premier Edition that has a fee. These editions give an administrator control over how the apps are used, allowing for services to be disabled, new services like Gmail to be added, and integration with apps for things like single sign-on. Google offers security and government regulation compliance services for those editions 9789901 through its Postini acquisition.

“People are already using the consumer (hosted Google) apps in the workplace, like they did IM a decade ago,” said Jeremy Milo, senior marketing manager for Google Apps. “We’re trying to bring more security by introducing the notion of domain awareness.”

The Team Edition offers a compromise for workers who want to use the apps in a company that isn’t already using Google Apps or if the company lacks an IT administrator. An administrator can always step in and switch from Team Edition to Standard or Premier if they want. And a new domain can be acquired through the Standard Edition for $10 for those who need a uniform e-mail domain.

(Credit: Google)

With Team Edition anyone can open an account and start using the apps with anyone within the organization. For instance, a group working on a team project could use Google Apps Team Edition and be able to access the shared documents from any computer over the Internet.

“Google Apps Team Edition is another on ramp” to Web-hosted apps, Milo said. “They are one more way for businesses to get comfortable with computing in the cloud and anywhere, any time access to critical information.”

Now we are in 2008, a new date has begun, and it should begin with a new stories. I’m sorry couldn’t write so much in the past few months due to heavy works and simultaneous tasks that I have to complete.

2007 has left me some significant issues and events. I can only summarize what have come across my mind at this moment:

1. The year when Manchester United win Premier Leagues title and fail to beat Chelsea in FA Cup final and lost to AC Milan in CL semifinal.

2. When a rookie made a major headlines in Formula One with Louis Hamilton of McLaren consistently make a podium finish, but failed to win the title when it goes to Kimi of Ferrari. McLaren has been fined USD 100 million on spying Ferrari’s setting and Alonso is the scapegoat! BMW Sauber Petronas grab the runner-up.

3. Dr SMS of Malaysian made it to the space, harbouring with another astronouts at Russian Space Station.

4. Fuel and Cigarettes price extremely increase. It’s all about political issues in this country.

5. Swisscash left thousands of people kaput.

6. Get involved in Foreign Exchange (FOREX) market.

7. Can’t make it to the Sepang for the first time since Formula 1 live at Malaysia.

8. Finding new business opportunity in fertigasi agriculture.

9. Lost USD 2k in forex within few minutes when Tony Blair (UK Prime Minister) is ready to announce his resignation.

10. Selling of my second car.

11. Settle down at my own apartment. 15 years loan, i think that’s enough. 11 years to go!

Well, that’s all I can figure it out at this moment, maybe there are some left behind, and of course the are some significant events that I think better for me to keep it myself.

See ya 2008!

WidgetBucks, who until today were featured quite prominently on my blogs, have just changed their payment policy.

Now, ad networks changes their terms and conditions all the time, but the WidgetBucks change is the most mindblowingly stupid idea I’ve ever heard:

From now on, publishers will only be paid for trafffic from the US and Canada.

For many publishers, that will completely wipe out their earnings, and they may not even be aware of the change. Meanwhile, WidgetBucks are continuing to accept clicks from outside the US and redirect them to their own affiliates. (I just checked – one of my links was redirected to Amazon via mpire.com)

In short, they’re generating money from your traffic, while refusing to pay you for it.

Now, there’s a possibility that this is just a really, really bad attempt to try to stamp out fraud and not a ’scam’, but the consequence for publishers is exactly the same – WidgetBucks is stealing your traffic and not paying you.

I’m not sure whether to remove or not all WidgetBucks widgets from my sites, but I will closely monitor their progress and statements. My personal recommendation is that you should do the same but obviously, the decision as to whether or not to remove WidgetBucks is yours at the end of the day.