Merdeka! Merdeka! MERDEKA!!

Negaraku

Negaraku
Tanah tumpahnya darahku
Rakyat hidup bersatu dan maju
Rahmat bahagia
Tuhan kurniakan
Raja kita selamat bertakhta
Rahmat bahagia
Tuhan kurniakan
Raja kita selamat bertakhta

Jalur Gemilang

Merahmu bara semangat waja
Putihmu bersih budi pekerti
Kuning berdaulat payung negara
Biru perpaduan kami semua

Puncak dunia telah kau tawan
Lautan luas telah kau redah
Membawa semangat jiwa merdeka
Semarak jaya kami warganya

Empat belas melintang jalurnya
Semua negeri dalam Malaysia
Satu suara satu semangat
Itu sumpah warga berdaulat

Jalur gemilang... di bawah naunganmu
Jalur gemilang... kami semua bersatu
Perpaduan ketaatan
Amalan murni rakyat Malaysia
Jalur gemilang... megah kami terasa

Jalur gemilang... kibarkanlah wawasan
Merah putih biru kuning
Jalur semangat kami semua

Berkibarlah, berkibarlah
JALUR GEMILANG!!

Keranamu Malaysia

Buruh, nelayan dan juga petani
Gaya hidup kini dah berubah
Anak-anak terasuh mindanya
Lahir generasi bijak pandai

Pakar IT, pakar ekonomi
Jaguh sukan dan juga jutawan
Berkereta jenama negara
Megah menyusur di jalan raya

Alam cyber teknologi terkini
Kejayaan semakin hampiri
Biar di kota ataupun desa
Kita semua pasti merasa bangga

Keranamu kami mendakap tuah
Keranamu kami bangsa berjaya
Keranamu kami hidup selesa
Limpah budi kemakmuran negara

Keranamu kami bebas merdeka
Keranamu myawa dipertaruhkan
Keranamu rela kami berjuang
Demi bangsa kedaulatan negara

Keranamu negara Malaysia...
TERIMA KASIH MALAYSIA!!

Akademi Fantasia Music Files!!

If you're like me, you've missed watching Akademi Fantasia on Astro Ria. And I know most of the people who checked out this blog are looking for AF stuff. Well, here's a treat - go to the Tribute to Akademi Fantasia website for lots and lots of .WMA music files.

Most of the recordings are OK but I think Vince fans would be a little disappointed 'coz his songs seem to either abruptly start or abruptly end. But these will do untuk mengubat kerinduan until some other person come up with better edited recordings! :-)

The search for the BEST FREEWARE e-mail client continues

My search begun some time last year I guess, when I first discovered Compustream - provider of reliable & free POP3 e-mail accounts. Yes, I know that Windows comes with Outlook Express and yes, I know about Microsoft Outlook (which I chose not to install when installing Microsoft Office). But considering the many controversial privacy issues revolving around Bill Gates' products, I'd rather use software released by other companies whenever possible. It's not like I have a contract to stay loyal to Microsoft or anything anyway!

The first e-mail client I used was Calypso, a shareware-turned-freeware because the program's development has been discontinued. Feature-wise it was really good but the user interface wasn't very attractive. And since it's no longer being developed, there will never be a better (nor prettier) Calypso. My search continued until I discovered Incredimail - feature packed, great looking interface, lots of pretty backgrounds, sounds and animations, plus a whole bunch of TALKING notifiers! But the free version contained ads (and I HATE ADS!), the developers NEVER acknowledge your support requests, the program calls home FREQUENTLY using ports not related to e-mail, you can't customize it according to your needs and lots of other ANNOYING features. Incredimail just had to go! After uninstalling I discovered that it doesn't do a clean uninstall either! Just thinking about the stupid program drives me up the wall!!

I have since used PocoMail - nice interface with all the features I need in an e-mail client (and some that I don't need but can't get rid of). Every time I download e-mails they would be distributed to several mailboxes. The junk mails go to one box (which is fine) while other mails go to Inbox (which is also fine). Copies of the mails that goes to Inbox would also be sent to this other mailbox called New Mail (this is where I get annoyed). This feature would have been fine if I didn't have to delete the same e-mails from BOTH mailboxes! I mean, if I delete this particular e-mail from Inbox, why can't it be removed from New Mail as well?? It's the same damn e-mail isn't it?? There's also a bug with PocoMail's selective download system. Sometimes certain e-mails (usually useless junk mail) would get downloaded BEFORE PocoMail finished listing all the headers on server, especially if there are too many headers to retrieve. The fact that I'm using a "lanun-ised" version of the program also restricts my usage sebab terpaksa bergantung kepada lanun-lanun siber. That's why I'm continuing my search for the best freeware e-mail client.

I've checked out some freeware and shareware sites to look at program ratings and stuff. Pegasus Mail is the only freeware e-mail client that's highly rated EVERYWHERE. It is rather ugly but the features are wonderful and it's much more secure than most shareware clients! Only problem is Pegasus Mail isn't very user friendly, especially if you have more than one POP3 account. Throughout my search for the best freeware client, I've tried several versions of Pegasus. Today I tried version 4.12 (their latest release) and I still can't figure it out. I did find the option to add more POP3 & SMTP configurations but I stopped after entering three of my accounts. If a single identity can use different e-mail addresses, how do I send e-mails using different e-mail accounts when I can't even make the "From" field to appear on the "New Message" window?? If I have to use different identities for different e-mail addresses, why can't I customise the identity directly from the "Identities" option?? Pegasus Mail was just too frustrating!! Maybe when I have more patience I can slowly figure out how to use it according to my needs.

Other freeware clients are either unstable, too unattractive, lack some vital features that I need or possibly infested with spyware. It's really tough trying to find a real freeware these days 'coz most sites list adwares as freewares. If the programs' developers are customer-friendly, they would mention this annoying fact on their website. Unfortunately, many don't and this makes distinguishing adwares from freewares even harder.

Will this search ever end??

Daranaga reviews free hosting services

I've promised to share this piece of info with some friends and I think it's kinda long overdue - sorry! It's just that most of the good free hosting services are not accepting applications at the moment. Either that or the sign-up process has become much more complicated and there are no guarantees that you're gonna get picked by the admins.

First of all, when I'm searching for a free host I always make sure that:

1. No forced ads are displayed on my pages - no pop-ups, no text links, no banners, no ads whatsoever!
2. I would be able to upload my files via FTP
3. My site would have a subdomain URL i.e. none of those "http://blabla.com/dir1/~dir2/~dir3/mypagefinally" sort of URLs

XSzone (which also happens to be my blog's host!) is definitely the BEST free hosting service on the Web. It is based in The Netherlands (a.k.a. Holland) but the admins are nice enough to post important infos in Dutch AND English. The support forum is excellent - questions are usually answered within the same day, either by an admin or by other users. Except for the hard disk crash that happened some time last month, I've had no problems whatsoever using XSzone. I never get one of those annoying "Server connection closed, retry in 10 seconds..." messages when trying to connect to XSzone's FTP server. I registered for free hosting with Portland.co.uk not too long ago and I would ALWAYS get that message when trying to connect! Portland (and all its co-branded sites!) REALLY sucks - not once was I able to connect to my account because the server connection is NEVER open! Hmm...where was I? Oh yeah...XSzone :-) A free hosting account entitles you to 50MB of web space & some other features that you can check out at XSzone's forum. You can participate in the forum WITHOUT having to register and I really, really like that. XSzone will begin accepting new sign-ups after the server transfer is completed.

I suppose there are other free hosting services that offer more impressive features than XSzone but they are usually extremely hard to get. One really impressive free hosting offer was made by Sonnex Hosting. They offer three different hosting plans which are all free - check out their site for the complete details. They started offering their services on July 22. By July 28 they stopped accepting new registrations and when they re-opened sign-ups a couple of weeks later, they had all kinds of new rules - you must participate actively in forums to "earn" your accounts, you have to e-mail and let them know why you deserve to get the third hosting plan (which offers the most web space - when they first started out you could sign-up for any of the three hosting plans), etc. I've noticed that they've redesigned their site (AGAIN!) so there must be more new changes. And I seriously doubt those changes are gonna make signing-up for a Sonnex account easier! You can always try your luck :-)

Speaking of luck, another free host that's supposed to be good is Distant Host but you really must have Lady Luck by your side to sign-up with this one, especially if you don't live in their time zone! Like Sonnex, they also have 3 different hosting with lots of nice features, especially useful if you plan on running a big site. Distant Host only accepts sign-ups on Mondays & Thursdays (their time). There's a clock on their sign-up page that displays their time and your time - just do the math to determine when you have to get online to register. Only problem is, they DO NOT STICK TO THEIR WORD. You can get up at 3AM Tuesday morning Malaysian time to sign-up but their server would most probably still be offline! And more often than not, it would stay offline for weeks and weeks. You just have to check the site as often as possible I guess...but I warn you it does get really frustrating. Distant Host does not display ads on your pages but there are some banners for you to click on your control panel. Details on their site.

I almost forgot about Piwko, a Polish free webhosting service (host of the Perkumpulan Perempuan Sabah official web site that I have been working on). You get 60MB of space & you get to choose from a selection of domain names. FTP is almost always accessible. Not as reliable as XSzone but almost as good. They have a support forum but as far as I know everything's in Polish. You can always refer to an online translator though - a nice Polish-English translator can be checked out at Poltran.

Here are some other interesting sites offering free hosting services but I have never tried signing up for their services. I'm only gonna mention the amount of web space offered here. You can get the full specs (supported scripting languages, e-mail, bandwidth limit, etc) at the sites. Needless to say, all of them do not display any annoying ads. Some offer several upload methods but FTP is definitely one of them or else I wouldn't bother listing them here ;-) And by the way, as of the time of posting all the sites below are still accepting sign-ups. [Added on Sept 8,2003: I have just discovered this really good free hosting site by accident - I was actually looking for free e-mail - but I'll get more info on it before posting a link here]

I'm not sure about the amount of free web space offered by EasyHostz. They only list out specs for their paid hosting services on their website. I found it through ClickHereFree Hosting Directory, my absolute favourite free hosting services directory. Another good place to find free hosting offers is at the FreeWebspace.net Community forum 'coz many free host owners would advertise their services on the forum. Quite a number of paid hosting owners would sometimes offer free accounts at the forum as well. The forum is actually a part of Freewebspace.net free hosting directory but the directory sucks! Only the same old hosts are listed (no updates) and some hosts have actually ceased their operations ages ago.

I definitely recommend checking out ClickHereFree and the FreeWebspace.net forum for the hosting service of your dreams - or at least something that's close enough to your definition of a perfect free hosting service ;-)

Groovy Stats!

It's been over a week since my last post and my blog's complete make-over! I've been quite busy this past week. Plus, with Akademi Fantasia over there isn't much to report anymore ;-)

I made some changes to the Perkumpulan Perempuan Sabah website that I finished last month - I guess I just got bored of the way it looked (especially the main page). I figured since it's an official website and everything it should at least have some sort of counter but with the old design there was just no space for one. I also needed some space for several reciprocal link 88 x 31 buttons since I'm using some free search engine submission tools to promote the site.

Anyways, I spent quite some time surfing for a good site statistic tracker. Yeah, I know about Bravenet's counter but I'd rather use something with NO ADS. I was gonna sign-up with Extreme Tracker (which is used by many sites I go to and does not display any ads except for a small square image of thier logo that's linked to your statistic page on their server) when I came accross RetroStats. Instead of displaying your tracker's logo, with RetroStats you get to use some really nice looking 88 x 31 buttons! It doesn't display numbers though so I signed up with its sister site GroovyStats. The only difference between those two sites is GroovyStats offers nice looking buttons with numbers (like the one on my blog) & RetroStats doesn't. Best of all, there are NO ADS!! They've also got a Top 50 list of member sites and that should be nice if you're looking to promote your site for free. The script was really easy to install too - just copy and paste in the area where you would like to display your counter and you're done! Totally unlike Extreme Tracker and OneStat scripts which you have to add using Notepad (HTML editors might change the codes or something, so they say). I liked GroovyStats service so much that I decided to get one for my blog too! :-)

Hmmm...I think I'll go surfing for house plans before going to bed. I've been rather obsessed with searching for house plans this past week - my family's building a new house and I want to make sure my room is spacious enough to fit in all my stuff. I even downloaded FloorPlan 3D (an architectural software) - all 92MB of it! - so I could try drawing my own plan for the house. It's not as easy as I thought it would be so I think I'll leave the drawing part to the experts. I'll just give them some sample plans as guidance or something so they'll know what we want in the house - the plans they gave us sucked big time. The house was ugly and they didn't utilise the available space to the fullest!

Daranaga's Merdeka Theme!!

I've decided to change my blogplate in honour of Malaysia's 46th National Day this coming August 31! Yes folks, 46 years of independence. I think I'll leave it this way until September 16 or so, 'coz that's the actual date when Malaysia was born :-)

MERDEKA!! MERDEKA!! MERDEKA!!

Melayu oh Melayu...

Take a look at this posting by a stupid person nicknamed YehPJ from Malaysia. I copied it from the AF community message board. Please note that nothing has been altered - be it the language, the abbreviations, the spelling and yeah the jackass did use all caps when he posted:

MELAYU MUDAH LUPA. ITULAH UNGKAPAN YG SELALU DR M LAUNGKAN PADA BANGSANYA. SKRG MMG TERBUKTI BAHAWA MELAYU MMG MUDAH LUPA. DULU AKU KATA VOTE PADA BANGSA SENDIRI REPLY YG AKU DPT MENGATAKAN AKU NI PERKAUMAN DAN TAK PROFESIONAL. HAMPIR 90% PENONTON AF ADALAH BANGSA MELAYU DAN AF ADALAH PROGRAM MELAYU TERBITAN ASTRO TAPI SYG ORG MELAYU TETAP KALAH. KERANA APA? MUDAH SAHAJA KERANA BANGSA MELAYU TIDAK BERSATU UTK MENGALAHKAN WALAU SEORANG PUN BANGSA ASING. INILAH HAKIKAT BANGSA KITA YG CUKUP MENYEDIHKAN. SAMPAI BILA BANGSA KITA NAK KEHADAPAN JIKA KITA TAK MENYOKONG BANGSA SENDIRI. KITA MENYANJUNG BANGSA ASING, MEMUJINYA, MENYAYANGINYA DAN MENGUNDINYA TAPI ANAK BANGSA SENDIRI KITA KETEPIKAN. FIKIRKANLAH BANGSAKU KITA BUKAN MEMAINKAN ISU PERKAUMAN TETAPI KITA MEMPERJUANGKAN BANGSA SENDIRI. SAMPAI BILA KITA NAK MELIHAT BANGSA KITA MUNDUR DAN SAMPAI BILA MELAYU MUDAH LUPA. KALAU DINILAI PADA KONSERT FINAL NIJA DAN KHAI LEBIH BERHAK MNG. DAN BUKANKAH MEREKA BER2 ITU MELAYU

Kalau benar-benar ikhlas nak perjuangkan nasib bangsa Melayu supaya bangsa kita maju, learn from bangsa lain yang dah maju and ambil inisiatif untuk majukan bangsa! Jangan pula bersikap bodoh sombong - dah tau bodoh, tak nak belajar pula. Bangsa kita mundur sebab ramai yang cuma tahu ikut benda buruk daripada bangsa lain, benda yang baik tak pulak nak diteladani. Hakikatnya Vince memang the best candidate - takkan lah orang Melayu tak boleh undi dia just because he's of a different race? Are you saying we HAVE TO vote for AF students yang tidak mempunyai ciri-ciri lengkap untuk jadi seorang penghibur yang versatile simply because we share the same race? Puh-leez! Kalau macam tu lah keadaannya, then terbuktilah bangsa Melayu bukan sahaja mudah lupa, malah we are also proving to everyone that bangsa Melayu memang bodoh! I, for one, do not intend to do that!

I absolutely DESPISE the way he referred to Vince as "bangsa asing". Vince orang Malaysia, apanya pulak yang bangsa asing? Dalam bulan kemerdekaan ini pun masih ada Melayu yang tak sedar betapa pentingnya keharmonian kaum! Sebenarnya orang-orang macam YehPJ ni lah yang buat Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad selalu menangis mengenangkan nasib bangsanya. Dah lah ketinggalan dari segi ekonomi, masih jugak tak nak belajar dari bangsa lain! Penat-penat otak Dr. M fikir to come up with Wawasan 2020 but it looks like we are not gonna be able to achieve one of the vision - untuk mewujudkan BANGSA MALAYSIA yang bersatu - sebab ada orang Melayu bebal macam YehPJ and ada orang Cina bodoh macam those who were against pembentukan Sekolah Wawasan.

Yes, Melayu memang mudah lupa. Mereka mudah lupa that duit pinjaman MARA dan PTPTN bukan untuk beli handphone baru, beli motosikal, beli-belah, enjoy sakan. Mereka mudah lupa bahawa jadi MPP tujuannya untuk membela nasib pelajar DI DALAM KAMPUS, bukannya medan untuk join sekaki dalam urusan politik negara. Mereka mudah lupa mereka kerja dengan kerajaan sebab itu mereka terlibat dengan kegiatan anti-kerajaan. Mereka mudah lupa kita merdeka sebab semua bangsa bersatu-padu 46 tahun yang lalu.

But in the case of AF, buat julung-julung kalinya Melayu tidak lupa kerana mereka telah mengundi yang terbaik.

Why you so like that Rosma?

I suddenly remembered the title of this funny Singlish (that's Singaporean English, for those of you who don't know) song that was really famous several years ago - I think I was still in high school back then. It fits the Q I wanna ask Rosma.

In my ramblings during the week when Rosma was voted off, I mentioned that there's something about her that I don't like but I couldn't quite put my finger on what. I think now I know - it's her attitude! She admitted in one episode of Diari AF (after Atie was voted off) that she hates Atie and another person at AF. When interviewed in Musik@Ria, she admitted on TV that the other person she hates is a guy. And her selection of words to describe her feelings was "orang yang dibenci" (the person I hate) - that's a strong word. If she really didn't despise anybody, she would have just used the word "tidak suka" (dislike).

She's not even really an artist yet and she goes around saying she hates people?? Mati lah bila dia dah jadik artis besok dik oiii...asal tak suka somebody, terus announce her feelings in papers and on TV. She has the potential to become artis paling kontroversial one of these days. I think the fame of being on AF has really got into her head. Some of her fans would defend her by saying she's only 18, it's just darah muda and she's not mature yet. That may be so but still doesn't make what she's doing right. Singer Elyana is 15 and you don't see her going around announcing who she hates do you?

Some people say she is only displaying "sikap berterus-terang" and they like it. My friend, if Rosma seorang yang suka berterus-terang, dia tak mengumpat - she would say it directly to the other person's face. I think she's a hypocrite. There she was crying her eyes out when Atie was voted off and then a couple of days later, there she was on TV saying she hates her guts? Imagine what Atie felt when she saw that episode! Atie may not be a good singer but when she was interviewed on Imbasan AF and was being pestered by Seelan to tell bad stuff about the other students, NOT ONCE did she say anything bad about any of them. As far as I know, none of the other students who were voted off ever burukkan their friends except for Rosma. Moreover, Rosma is always saying everyone in AF baik-baik & everybody was nice to her and she got along fine with them all. But at the same time contradicts herself by saying there's one guy that she hates. How could you hate anybody if everyone's nice to you??

At the AF community forum, some say the person Rosma hates is Vince, others say it's Sahri. Whichever guy it may be, they both cried their hearts out when you were voted off, Rosma. Whatever fault they may have, unlike you mereka betul-betul ikhlas bila berkawan dengan Rosma. It's too bad you couldn't see that. You may be talented but you are also a pathetic b***h and that's REALLY sad. Azza mentioned during her Imbasan AF interview that Khai already has a girlfriend - I sincerely hope he's not stupid & dumps her for a hypocrite like you.

Vince Vince Vince :-)

I should have posted here on Saturday night or yesterday but the words won't come out. Last night I actually put some thoughts on paper instead of blogging!Both my body and mind are experiencing weird phases at the moment and I really can't put my finger on it. Anyways, Vince won last Saturday night - YAY!!

Before I continue my ramblings on AF, I need to say that I am soooo happy I got to chat on MSN with Ju on Saturday afternoon! And if you're reading this, HI JU!! Her comments when she visited my blog - "Tu website ko ke website AF?" Hehehehe...aku dah takde benda lain nak tulis la Ju. Takkan nak cerita pasal kerja aku sebagai surirumah sepenuh masa pulak kan ;-) Besides, this isn't really a personal homepage...I don't have a personal homepage yet. I wouldn't really know what to put on it anyway. I'm glad you finally got to read your "letter" on this blog though.

I also got to speak with Lina on the phone a couple of times on Saturday which - first to tell me ada jemputan makan nasi minyak from Ju, and the 2nd time while she was driving on the road (thankfully she used hands-free!). Lina has got her own homepage but you really need to get a free host with no ads girl, especially since you are using frames. Hmmm..I haven't actually told Lina about my blog yet so she might not be reading this! I'm thinking of putting up links to some great free hosting services here some time soon but most of them aren't accepting new applications at the moment.

OK, moving on to my weekly AF ramblings...as mentioned, Vince won! He does deserve it 'coz out of all the five finalists, Vince is definitely the most versatile. We NEED versatile individuals in our industry! But reading some comments at AF's community forum, I feel I need to make up a new AFFAQ - I can't believe how thick some people's heads can be! I think what angered me most while reading the postings there was the racist views of some people. I was so angry I got myself an e-pass (you have to register to post at the forum) just to lash back at those people! Yea, I haven't got anything better to do.

I guess yes, it was Nija who got the standing ovation - the audience was obviously impressed by her performance of "Kenangan Pahit". Tetapi sebagai penghibur, Nija masih belum boleh masuk kategori versatile. Her performance cuma outstanding bila nyanyi lagu rock. Nija must distinguish herself from her idols, Ella and Ziana. We really don't need another clone in our industry. She also needs to polish her ability to sing in English - as noted before she did well singing "How Do I Live" (much better than Rosma's rendition of "My All" during the finals, that's for sure!). I guess it wouldn't really matter if she can't speak well in English yet...the important thing is she has to make sure an English song SOUNDS like an English song when she sings it. Setakat boleh nyanyi lagu Melayu sahaja, she won't be able to go far. There are places where people don't listen to Malay rock songs, you know.

Same goes for Khai. Some say he has the package to make it in our music scene. Good boyish looks, nice personality, sings ballads and pop-rock songs well, all he needs now is a few jiwangish songs and he'll make it BIG! He already has fans after all. I think Khai needs to work on his English pronunciation and his vocals - among the finalists he's the only one yang masih menyanyi dari hidung (the typical method of singing among Malay guys, especially in boy bands). You can still hear some "kesengauan" when he hits the higher notes - a good example would be when he sang "Jesnita". The song is mostly sung low and Khai would use his real voice (it would come out from his diaphragm) but once he gets to the parts where he needs to sing higher, his would use his "sengau" voice. That is also why he had trouble during the "Mua ha ha ha" (I dunno what else to call it!) vocal trainings - he would croak every time he gets to the high part. I like Khai but I think some of his dance sequence masa final tu kind out of place...and the spinning thing is kinda stupid 'coz he should have known he would be out of breath faster after doing that. Tapi kesian jugaklah when his microphone didn't work - that was pure bad luck!

Next to Vince, I do believe Azizi is the most versatile. His rendition of "Truly" in concert #3 was truly (no pun intended!) heart-wrenching. He can sing well enough in English and while in AF he had been given different types of songs. He also seems so nice! I would like to have somebody like Azizi to talk to when I have problems...he seems to be the patient kind, like a loving big brother. I enjoyed his performance during the finals very much. It's too bad that Ramli MS guy gave bad comments about him - the guy sounds like he has an attitude problem or something. Nothing wrong with him criticising because that was what he was invited to do but it was the way he presented his comments that made him look like a jerk, y'know? The tone of his voice and facial expression...it was like he was angry at the contestants or something. I've read in AF forums that Ramli MS is really good at his profession though. A bit of news flash - there's a rumour circulating that the Ramli MS guy is Siti Nurhaliza's boyfriend! *GASP!!* I dunno if it's true but I hope not - I'm sure you can bag a MUCH BETTER guy than that, Siti!

Liza...I dunno what to say. I think it's funny though that she was surprised the picture was of Vince...hehehe. And I absolutely laughed my heart out when Aznil made fun of the Chong family sitting in the same row as Liza's family! It's too bad Mr Chong didn't understand what "besan" means. People have been arguing whether those two padan atau tidak. I think they would make a good couple :-) Ada sesetengah Melayu bodoh yang timbulkan pasal bersunat at the community forum. Really people, bersunat is not even a big deal! Bukannya lama pun nak bersunat! I mean come on la...there you are preaching like hell supaya orang tertarik untuk mendalami Islam & embrace it. Tapi bila ada peluang terbuka untuk kita tambahkan jumlah umat Rasulullah you'd talk about stupid stuff like bersunat instead of grabbing the chance! Anyways, Liza always does well during practices...I guess she still hasn't overcome her shyness yet 'coz when it's time to perform, she would always get really nervous that she can't show her true ability. That's something she needs to work on really hard if she wants to succeed...and her English too, of course! :-)

As mentioned earlier on, Rosma performed "My All" during the finals. I knew she would suck at it as soon as I recognised the melody as an English number! Had it been a Malay song, she would not have breathing problems while performing. Her pronunciation was terrible and I couldn't understand certain parts. Enough said - I'm making a special entry in this blog later on, just to diss Rosma ;-) Nana, on the other hand, was the STAR among the ex-AF students performing during the finals! I love her selection of outfit although it was rather awkward to dance in. Her rendition of "I Will Survive" was even more energatic than in concert #4 - it was as if she was dedicating it to all those people who bad-mouthed her while she was in AF. I have no comments on the rest of the students' performances but it sure was really nice to see them all together again like that!

Wow..this is long! I guess once I have an idea on what to type about it's really hard to stop :-)

The Unofficial Akademi Fantasia FAQ

I've noticed that whenever they are not happy with the results, AF fans would ask the same old questions over and over again. The answers to some of those Qs are really quite obvious if you'd stop biting people's heads off and think about it. Therefore, I've come up with this unofficial AFFAQ to provide answers to those who are too lame think the facts over themselves.

Q1 : Kenapa tiada juri professional? / Why are there no professional juries?

AF is based on a Mexican reality TV show called La Academia (visit the official website and use an online translator if you wish to understand the page - it's in Spanish). Astro bought the show from TV Azteca but does not own the copyright. Therefore they cannot change the program's format much because they would then breach their contract with TV Azteca. This was mentioned by the shows producer in a newspaper interview. It was Berita Harian's Bintang Popular section - I would have put a link here but it is no longer available. Berita Harian only keep their articles online for a week - after that you have to SUBSCRIBE to browse their archives! So much for free knowledge huh? Anyways, that's why there are no professional juries.

To be honest, I think it's better this way. If there were professional juries Sahri wouldn't even make it to the 8th concert. And Rosma probably won't have such a huge group of fans 'coz she's rather plump and that's a big no-no for a new female Malaysian singer. Some of you might say "Ruben Studdard is HUGE but he won American Idol!" Well pal, that's in the USA - listeners and record companies there value talent more than good looks. This is Malaysia, where looks come before talent if you want to be a singer. It is a horrible fact, but it IS the truth. Just read the papers. Heck, just listen to the invited panel of critics. Every now and then the statement "mempunyai pakej untuk jadi penyanyi" would come up.

100% viewers votes is OK - Astro just needs to tune up their SMS system 'coz that's where the problem lies.

Q2 : Kenapa Rosma disingkirkan? / Why was Rosma voted off?

This is a Q that many viewers still ponder upon, even though it has been weeks since Rosma was voted off the academy. I was shocked too when it happened 'coz she was definitely in my Top 5 list (in fact, she was the only girl in my list!). As noted in a previous blog entry (browse my July archives), to me Rosma was the female equivalent of Vince.

There were many speculations & accusations when Rosma was voted off because she really is talented. Sure, she falls into the "similar to Siti Nurhaliza's voice" category but she's undeniably a good singer. Even I, at first, thought that AF voters must have been blind or deaf for not voting Rosma. But I have since come to my senses.

I think the main reason was because many people left it to other people to vote for Rosma. They were confident that she's bound to have lots of loyal fans who would be voting for her and ONLY her so she'll make it even if they don't vote for her. They decided to spend their hard-earned money voting for other contestants that they like instead i.e. those who are less likely to make it through another concert because they aren't getting enough votes.

Q3 : Kenapa Liza diserapkan kembali ke AF? / Why was Liza readmitted to AF?

This is the stupidest Q of all I think. As everyone now knows, Liza was voted off AF in the first week but was readmitted before the concert ended. As mentioned in the letter read by Aznil (the show's host) that night, this was the management's decision. The letter stated that "pelajar yang disingkirkan pada minggu ini akan diserapkan kembali ke dalam Akademi Fantasia".

Note that the letter DID NOT mention the pelajar's name. Why? Because even if it was somebody else who was voted off AF that night, that person would be readmitted to AF. The management did not readmit Liza to the academy because she was Liza, they did not readmit her because she's beautiful, they did not readmit her because her father works at Jabatan Penjara. They readmitted her because she happened to be the student who was voted off in the first week and would have done the same if it had been Vince, Azza, Atie, Adi, Burn, Nana, Sahri, Azizi, Rosma, Khai or Nija!

There's a simple reason behind all that really. AF is in its 1st season, and that was the 1st concert - Astro had just wanted to give AF viewers a preview of what's gonna happen in the next few weeks. The voting process, the results announcement, the student's reactions, the works. Doesn't anybody who watch AF know marketing strategies? So everybody should stop blaming Liza like it was her fault she got readmitted and made it into the final five.

Q4 : Kenapa Nana dapat bertahan lama? / How come Nana managed to stay in the academy?

Most of the kutukan on message boards and AF@17 was directed at Nana - people made fun of her voice, called her a lot of rude names, and some of them even said bad things about her parents and family. And when Rosma was voted off in the 6th concert, more people directed their anger at her.

The fact is, there are more people WATCHING the show and VOTING, compared to those who are chatting on AF@17 and posting messages at the AF community forum. So even though it appeared as if almost everyone on the message board and TV chat hates Nana, there are more viewers out there who actually like her and are still voting for her. I mean, come on folks, THERE ARE other people who have jobs and have better things to do rather than sit in front of the TV or PC all day long!

Another reason is probably because Nana is one of those lucky people who happen to have lots and lots of friends. A visit to her old homepage would confirm that fact. But really, I don't think it was just her friends who were voting for her. I'm sure she has her own fans too. She may not sing as well as Rosma, but her voice is definitely more unique than Rosma's or any of the other female contestants - Rosma sounded too much like Siti and all the other singers yang suara lenggok macam tu, Nija sounds TOO MUCH like an Ella-influenced Ziana Zain, Liza's voice is too common and Atie would be better off as an actress rather than a singer. If Nana ever makes an album, her voice would definitely stand out among the lot of female singers that our music industry currently have.

Q5 : Kenapa Vince dapat no.5 dalam konsert baru-baru ni? / How come Vince was #5 in the recent concert?

I believe there was a glitch in Astro's SMS system last Saturday. I remember in previous weeks I would get a thank you message not too long after sending it my votes. Last Saturday, I did not get a thank you message for almost all my votes that were sent during the concert - I only received several thank you messages soon after Aznil announced "masa untuk anda mengundi berakhir di sini". And while I was sleeping hours later, I received a whole bunch of those "undian anda akan dibawa ke minggu hadapan" messages!!

I'm not familiar with how the SMS system works, so pardon me if my terms are incorrect, but I guess Astro's SMS system was jammed with too many votes and by the end of the concert, their system still haven't finished processing all the votes submitted. Plus, people were also still chatting throughout the concert and I think that made the problem worse. After all, everything is sent through the same number. And if the chat board was lagging, then there's a definite possibility that the votes were lagged as well. How else would you explain the "undian anda akan dibawa ke minggu hadapan" messages that I received while I was already in bed?

This would also explain why Vince's vote percentage rose up tremendously on Sunday morning - he scored a whopping 34%! Even Khai's percentage (who got 4th place in the concert) rose up to 28% on Sunday morning! The rest are pretty much unchanged and are waaaaaay behind Vince and Khai, even as I type this. Did Sahri became a victim of Astro's system problem? I guess we'll never know 'coz they will never release how many votes he received now that he's out of the academy.

Don't feel like blogging 2day...

There are so many thoughts swimming in my head - I haven't even posted my weekly Konsert Akademi Fantasia ramblings! - but I can't seem to be able to express them at the moment. I've caught the flu (again!) and to make things worse I've got a headache too masa ni. There shall be more words when I'm up to it.

Anyways, Sahri got voted off last Saturday. He's talented - I did expect him to make it into the final five - but I guess it was just not his night. Or maybe it was a glitch in Astro's SMS system - it must have got jammed or something 'coz there were LOADS of votes but not enough bandwidth or perhaps slow processing speed. I have my reasons for suspecting this but I'll elaborate on that when I feel better.

Added on August 6, 2003:

Nija performed Leann Rimes "How Do I Live" better than I expected pronunciation-wise. Those sessions with Adnan Abu Hassan paid off and I'm quite certain she must have had private tutorial sessions with Vince as well throughout the week. But I think her confidence level was kinda low 'coz banyak sumbang - this was noted by Cikgu Adnan as well in Monday's edition of Diari Akademi Fantasia.

Liza sang "Cinta Gila" rather expression-less. The song is supposed to be fun (and funny!) but she didn't look like she was enjoying it much. I read in an AF blog somewhere that she always sings dengan "selamba". That's where her problem lies I think. She can sing, she can set the mood, she can "feel" the song, but everything just doesn't show on her face. Her face just doesn't "light up", know what I mean?

Tan Sri S.M. Salim was one of the critics on that night. I wonder what he was getting at with his comments after Vince's performance. I don't remember exactly what he said word by word but it gave me the impression that he feels Vince shouldn't be in the final five, maybe because he's a non-Malay or something. I don't think he even commented on Vince's performance - all he said was everyone's really good tonight and he doesn't know which one yang patut kena "pancung" (voted off), but that's the reality that should be accepted.

When I heard his comments I went, like, DUH Tan Sri! We've been following this show for ages now...we KNOW how the story goes. But there's just something in the way that he said it that makes me feel...weird. In truth, I was rather offended (?). I felt like he was denying Vince's talent because he's not Malay (and that embarassed me 'coz I would like to think that my bangsa would feel happy if somebody of a different race can sing in my mother tongue as good as Vince). He didn't utter one word to exclusively compliment Vince, the way he complimented the other contestants. Why go on and on about siapa yang patut dipancung? That decision is not up to him. He doesn't even have to vote!

They responded when...

Some time ago I was browsing through this free services forum (not looking for anything in particular - I was just bored) and came accross a posting promoting MyWay, which is EXACTLY like Yahoo! except for the fact that there are no ads on it's interface. MyWay has got a search engine, they offer free 6MB web-based e-mail, you can customise your own start page - I've noticed that even the news updates they display are exactly like the ones you find on Yahoo!

Anyways, I'm really into everything that has no ads so even though I have more e-mail accounts than I need, I registered myself for an account at MyWay. It was great - I love the 100% customizable interface, and because there were no ads it does load faster than Yahoo! But (yes, there's a but!) when I tried logging in again the next day, I keep getting this error message that says my session has expired and no matter how many times I try to log in, I wouldn't be able to do it. There was something in the error message that said it could be my cookie settings but that's stupid - my cookie settings work well with other sites like Yahoo! and Hotmail and every other cookie-enabled site. And let's face it - are there any commercial sites that don't use cookies on the Net these days?? So how come my cookie settings work on most places but not at MyWay?? I do let them install cookies - I just don't let them KEEP the cookies on my machine forever!! In the end, I had to disable my ZoneAlarm Pro to access MyWay - and I find that really annoying!

As I usually do when I am annoyed, I complained to the admins - hey, they say they value feedback and that they read all comments! I told them that the "Remember Me on This Computer" box should be unchecked by default, and I asked them why I can't log-in with ZoneAlarm turned on. I waited for a reply...and waited...and waited. It finally dawned on me a few days back (July 29, to be exact) that they're NEVER going to respond. So what do I do? I e-mailed again, of course!

This time I just sent them a shorter feedback, saying that I still haven't received a response from them so I guess I'll be removing the banner I placed on my website to promote their services. I also chipped in the fact that I like the customizable interface - which I honestly do (I always get bored looking at a particular design & colours after a while), just out of courtesy. Anyways, wouldn't you know it - I got a reply the next day! I think it was the banner removal thingy that made them reply so fast! I guess they really do need promotion huh? Anyways, MyWay is a great service - at least the customer support team does reply your questions. Try requesting customer support from Yahoo! - I'll bet the only thing you'll ever get is an auto-responder!!