Weired Day Is Coming

 
 

Kenapa agaknya ngan title tu? Tak ada apa-apa... Just wondering, sejak dua menjak ni, Beberapa perkara yang agak pelik dan jarang berlaku. Apa tidaknya, Sudah dua minggu kebelakangan ni, kalau tak setiap hari Jumaat, Penang Bridge mesti penuh sesak bila aku balik dari keje. Tapi, sejak minggu lepas, keadaan tu berlaku pada hari khamis. Dan bila dfikir balik, dan bilamana e-mel tentang mass shutdown company in Penang... telah menjadi punca. Most of the company dah mula kerja empat hari seminggu. Dan ramai yang mula pulang pada hari khamis. Dan untuk rekod bulan disember 2008, suasana mula terbalik sebabnya, perjalanan dari Butterworth ke Penang pula jadi sesak. Semuanya adalah penangan Pesta Pulau Pinang. Just look at the pic. Pic told the story.. Anyway.. Blog aku mungkin tak akan dikemaskini dalam beberapa hari ni. Aku balik Kampung kat Teluk Intan. Sebabnya, aku juga kena bercuti. Dalam sejarah kerjaya aku, inilah kali pertama aku diberi cuti selama hampir 9 hari...What else? Global Economic Crisis....

Corporate Bad News!!

Western Digital To Cut About 2,500 Jobs


By Chad Berndtson, ChannelWeb
8:31 AM EST Wed. Dec. 17, 2008 Western Digital announced plans Wednesday to cut approximately 2,500 jobs—5 percent of its workforce—as it restructures and attempts to counteract what the company calls a "softer demand environment."
According to a Western Digital press release, the Lake Forest, Calif.-based vendor also will reduce compensation of the company's executive officers, board of directors and senior management; reduce manufacturing work hours by 20 percent through fewer temporary workers, less shift overtime and employee attrition; close one of its three hard-drive manufacturing plants in Thailand; close one of its two substrate manufacturing plants in Malaysia; and reduce capital spending for fiscal year 2009 by about $250 million.

"In the current macroeconomic climate, we expect demand weakness to last well into the middle of the 2009 calendar year," said President and CEO John Coyne in the statement. "Consequently, we are taking additional steps to immediately reduce production capacity and operating expenses on a longer-term basis across our entire business as we approach the seasonally weaker second half of our fiscal year."

Western Digital spokespeople said the demand for hard drives in the company's second fiscal quarter, ending Dec. 26, is "significantly below the expectations outlined in the company's original revenue guidance range of $2.025 billion to $2.150 billion." Western Digital said it now expects revenue for its December quarter to be between $1.7 billion and $1.8 billion.

Coyne expects Western Digital's restructuring to be completed by March 2009 and for the company to incur $150 million in charges comprising asset impairment, employee termination costs and other exit costs. The vendor expects to generate $150 million in annual savings, according to the statement.

"We are taking these actions in order to strengthen our financial position and enhance the ability of our business to withstand an extended period of depressed demand while continuing to invest in the technologies, products and processes required to assure the continued success of our business," Coyne said.

Acer Mini Notebook

Memangnya aku tak berminat langsung nak beli notebook ni. Tapi bila ditengok-tengok balik, ini je peluang yang aku ada. Chances only come onces. Tanpa berfikir panjang. Aku beli juga satu. At least senang aku nak berkomunikasi atau nak buat projek yang mungkin akan menguntungkan. Siapa tahu.

Dan yang pasti, esok atau lusa mungkin aku akan dihantar ke Selangor untuk support operation kat sana. Mungkin saja. Semuanya serba berkemungkinan. Memandangkan ekonomi dunia dalam krisis yang sangat membimbangkan. Apa yang perlu aku lakukan ialah bagi memastikan setiap simpanan aku adalah berbaloi. Dan setiap pelaburan aku mendatangkan hasil untuk jangka masa panjang. Tapi, kita harus ingat, rezeki itu adalah pemberian allah s.w.t. Selagi mana kita berusaha, selagi mana kita bersyukur dan selagi mana kita bertawakal, insya-allah. Rezeki itu ada. Sebagaimana kata bekas mufti Perlis, Dr. MAZA, kejatuhan ekonomi dunia adalah disebabkan terlalu banyaknya riba dan rasuah. Sebagai contoh perbankan secara konversional. Apa yang pasti, ekonomi dunia dikawal oleh Yahudi.

Sebagaimana yang umum ketahui, rata-rata kilang perindustrian mengambil langkah berjaga-jaga dan yang pasti untuk mengelakkan dari terus menanggung beban krisis, pemberhentian serta mengurangkan tenaga kerja menjadi jalan mudah bagi memastikan syarikat tidak muflis. Hari ini, Honda dan Nissan juga mengambil langkah yang sama. Krisis semakin kritikal. Para penganalisa kewangan juga telah memberi amaran, untuk pulih mungkin akan memakan masa yang agak lama. Ini adalah krisis yang paling teruk sejak 1930an.

"The market's reaction to the directive was decidedly bullish, but not above questioning considering the bleak economic outlook that was conveyed in the wording of the directive and the recognition that oil prices actually closed lower," said Patrick O'Hare at Briefing.com."

Secara realistik, saham-saham dibuka rendah, penutupan saham-saham semasa adalah bercampur. Untuk rekod dalam beberapa hari ini, Wall Street dan Dow Jones menampakkan sedikit peningkatan. Itupun setelah beberapa kali "bail out". Ini mengingatkan aku pada masa aku membeli rumah pada tahun 1998. Sewaktu itu, kita menghadapi krisis matawang. Risiko yang terpaksa aku ambil bagi mendapatkan sebuah rumah. Alhamdulillah, setelah sepuluh tahun berlalu, akhirnya aku dapat menyelesaikan hutang dengan pihak bank. Yang paling penting di sini ialah, kesabaran dan setiasa yakin, rezeki itu datangnya dari Allah s.w.t. Syukur dan sentiasa berdoa akan dipermudahkan kehidupan.

Jutaan pengguna Internet Explorer berisiko digodam

LONDON - Berjuta-juta pengguna yang mengakses internet menggunakan
pelayar Internet Explorer dari Microsoft mungkin menghadapi risiko
komputer mereka digodam kerana terdapat satu kecacatan tahap
keselamatan baru, lapor sebuah akhbar semalam.

Pakar-pakar keselamatan menggesa pengguna internet bertukar kepada
pelayar internet yang lain seperti Firefox, Opera atau Safari sehingga
masalah itu dapat diatasi.

Masalah itu pertama kali didedahkan pada minggu lepas dan ia
membolehkan penjenayah siber mengawal komputer serta mencuri kata
laluan rahsia sekiranya pengguna melawat laman yang dijangkiti virus.
Syarikat antivirus, Trend Micro menyatakan terdapat 10,000 laman web
berkompromi untuk mengambil kesempatan terhadap kecacatan tersebut.
Setakat ini, laman web itu yang kebanyakannya dari China digunakan
untuk mencuri kata laluan permainan komputer bagi dijual di pasaran
gelap.

Seseorang penggodam komputer boleh memperoleh sehingga £9,000
(RM49,110) dengan menjual kata laluan itu kepada penggemar permainan
komputer.Namun, seorang penasihat keselamatan, Paul Ferguson berkata,
terdapat kebimbangan kecacatan itu mungkin dieksploitasi bagi jenayah
yang lebih bersifat kewangan. - Agensi

Gmail on your Google Desktop

Posted by James Yum, Developer Programs Engineer, Google Desktop

On the Google Desktop gadgets team, we've seen countless requests for a Gmail gadget over the years. That gadget is finally here, so if you've got Google Desktop for Windows, give it a try.

You'll see that it covers the basics such as reading, searching, and sending messages. You can star messages, use the same keyboard shortcuts, and we didn't forget about contact auto-complete. It doesn't take up much space in your sidebar or desktop, and you can also resize it to show as few or as many messages as you'd like.


When I'm at work, I keep two instances of the gadget open: one logged into my personal Gmail account and the other set to my Google Apps account for work related stuff. Instead of getting lost in a sea of tabs or browser windows, I can bring up the gadgets in an instant (hint: pressing the shift key twice brings up all your hidden Desktop gadgets).

The Gmail gadget currently works with the latest release of Google Desktop for Windows. Try it out and please let us know what you think.

Update: Changed title to clarify this is for Google Desktop.

View Original Article

Blogged with the Flock Browser

US stocks rise on bargain hunting, oil skids

**Apa sangat la citer ni kan? Pada sesetengah orang ia sesuatu yang gumbira.. Ada pula yang "thrill". Dan ada langsung tak kisah pun. Don't Be Sorry and Not Too Worry...**

NEW YORK: US stocks snapped back on Tuesday, a day after a massive sell-off, as investors scooped up beaten-down shares and oil fell more than 4 percent after an OPEC pledge to cut output was only partially fulfilled.

Fear of a prolonged global recession also helped drive down both crude prices and the yield on US government debt, which hovered near record lows last seen more than five decades ago.

But rising stocks encouraged investors to emerge from the perceived shelter of US assets, leading the US dollar to fall against the euro and a basket of currencies.

Equity markets continued to drive investor sentiment even as the focus remained on bargain hunting in the shares of financial services and energy companies.

News on Monday that the United States has been in a recession since last December added to fears the global economy is in the throes of a deepening and protracted downturn.

"Fears of a deep global recession continue to linger over the markets like a dark cloud as traders try to ascertain not only the deepness of the slowdown but how long it will take for the recovery to take hold," said Chris Jarvis, senior analyst at Caprock Risk Management in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire.

In such a scenario, Jarvis said, "crude oil remains on its slippery slope, looking for direction and a bottom as is the case with the majority of the asset classes."

Financial stocks surged on Wall Street after suffering their worst one-day loss on record on Monday. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke signaled on Monday that policy-makers were determined to stabilize the economy and markets.

The S&P Financial Index rose almost 8 percent.

Energy stocks, currently the cheapest S&P sector in relation to earnings, rebounded despite the dip in oil prices.

Shares of General Electric shares jumped 13.6 percent as the company pledged to leave its dividend intact in a tough economy, even though GE said it expects profit in the fourth quarter to come in at the low end of a prior forecast.

"There's been concern about GE defending its triple-A credit rating at its financing unit. ... The company is taking steps to bolster that unit, which will help protect its dividend," said Brian Gendreau, an investment strategist in New York for ING Investment Management Americas. "This is helping to pull the market higher."

The jump in GE shares marked the biggest one-day gain for the stock since at least 1981. The stock's dividend based on Monday's closing stock price is yielding 8 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 270.00 points, or 3.31 percent, at 8,419.09. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 32.60 points, or 3.99 percent, at 848.81. The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 51.73 points, or 3.70 percent, at 1,449.80.