Snowflake Taiwanese Dessert Secret 雪花栈 @ Kota Damansara

My friend Ken and a few of his friends started a new Snowflake outlet in Kota Damansara. You may recall that I blogged about Snowflake here.

Since it’s A and my favourite dessert house, A and I made a trip to Snowflake at Kota Damansara to say hi to my friends and try out the new place.

The shop was about a week old hence they were short of staff. Ken and his partners were working at the counter – together with the girlfriends of all the partners! Free labour!

As usual, we had the cold Best Seller.

But this time round, Sam of Stylesofia introduced us to another dessert which is sohai bean base. It is called the Soya Ice Series.

It comes with their famous taroballs, peanuts, red beans and grass jelly on top of soya bean flavoured shaven ice. Nais!!

This will be my new hangout spot 😀 Please say hi to me if you see me there!

Map and Address

p/s

There’s a grand opening promotion tomorrow!

Departure Lounge @ Damansara Utama

Departure Lounge is now my favourite coffee place.

Although pricey, their coffee is well worth it. My personal favourite would be their cafe latte (RM8.00). It comes with all sorts of coffee art – depending which barista is on duty.

The interior is nice and they have a rack of travel books for customers’ reading. If you’re planning to travel to any countries, you can head to Departure Lounge to read their travel books here while enjoying your coffee.

The drawback of this place is their food. It comes in very small portion at an expensive rate. Their all day breakfast is good but as mentioned, pricey and small (3 item breakfast costs RM8.90). If you’re planning to have mushrooms as part of your breakfast set, make sure you ask for fresh mushrooms. Canned mushrooms tasted horrible.

There are two outlets namely in Damansara Utama (Uptown) and Solaris Mont Kiara

Address
10, Jalan SS21/39,
Damansara Utama,
47400 Petaling Jaya
(Off Sunday)

Map

View Larger Map

10, Jalan Solaris 4,
Solaris Mont’ Kiara,
Kuala Lumpur
(Off Tuesday)


View Larger Map

Operating Hours
Mon:
08:00 – 19:00
Wed – Sat:
08:00 – 19:00
Sun:
08:00 – 17:00

How to create your own Twitpic-like website

I’ve been getting a few queries on my Twitter picture website i.e t.xes.cx. If you’ve not been to my Twitter picture website, it’s basically a website that hosts all the pictures that I post to my Twitter account (which is linked to my Facebook).

The reason for me to have a separate website to host my pictures instead of third party hosting sites such as Twitpic and tweetphoto is simple. For a low traffic website like mine, every unique hit counts. Unique hits dictates the rate of my banner advertisements and advertorials. The most unique hits I get, the higher the rate I can get.


Occasionally I post pictures of my cats

Sometimes weird or interesting pictures while on the go


Also traffic reports with pictures

After spending hours on research, I found the most suitable method. The method is as follows:

1. Install a subdomain (optional)
2. Install a separate WordPress account
3. Install 2 plugins namely Postie (Note: Postie does not works on WP3.2.1) and WordTwit.

Postie basically posts entries that you post through email. It doesn’t work on free emails such as Gmail. Hence you need to register a special email address e.g twitterpictures@xes.cx. All I need to do is send a picture to that email.

Upon sending the picture, Postie will create an entry containing the picture. The subject matter of the email will be topic of the entry and also the text of the tweet.

For details how to configure the plugins, read the instruction manual on the plugin website.

Once an entry is posted, WordTwit will update my twitter based on the subject matter of my entry. I have also syncronised my twitter account with my Facebook account so that my twitter update will show on my Facebook.

If you want a counter to calculate the amount of view of your post, you can install WP-PostViews.

The only problem using this method is that the preview pictures do not show on mobile Twitter clients. But it’s something I can live without.

Related Link
Roll Your Own TwitPic-like Media Hosting Using Posterous

Seremban Seafood Village @ Seremban 1

While having lunch with Adrian and A at Village Park, we decided to make a trip to Seremban for their famous roast crab for dinner. It was an impromptu plan.

We left KL around 645pm and reached Seremban in 50 minutes. Finding the place was rather easy. Check out the map below.

I initially though the place would be packed with people but there were plenty of seats.

Introducing the first meal!


Lai Liu Har. Tasty but not crispy enough.

Few minutes later, our main star of the night. Roasted crab!


Served with a faded green plate.

1kg of crab costs us RM40. It was covered with yummy marmite sauce.


And a spicy sourish sauce for us to dip our crab 😀

1 1/2kg was not enough for 3 for us. We ordered another KG. I was soooo full!!

After our cholesterol raising meal, we walked to a dessert shop nearby.

RM1.20 per bowl! Value maximum!!!

Address
Seremban Village Seafood (芙蓉烧蟹海鲜村)
3720-3724,
Jln Tuanku Munawir,
Seremban
Tel: 06 7641260 / 012 6287661

Map

Related Links
xes.cx – Tow Kee @ Seremban Market
xes.cx – Tow Kee Hakka Noodles @ Seremban 1
xes.cx – Yee Kee Seremban Beef Noodles @ Seremban 1
xes.cx – Tow Kee Hakka Noodles @ Seremban 1
xes.cx – Sotong Mee Hoon (Cuttlefish Noodles) @ Seremban Market

Guinness Stout

[Advertorial]

When I was young, I found a can of beer in my fridge. I’ve seen people drinking beer on TV and they seem to enjoy it. So out of curiosity, I took the beer and had a sip of it. It ended up in the rubbish bin thereafter. It was terrible!

Years later, I decided to give it a try again. It wasn’t so bad. However, I soon realize that whenever I drink beer, I get blocked nose and a few KGs heavier thereafter.

Then I found Guinness!

It was bitter at first but after a few drinks, I got fond of it. It tastes creamy and thick. Unlike beer, the foam of is best part of the drink!
After drinking it for a few years, I realize that Guinness has a long history behind it. It was created 250 years ago in Ireland by a man by the name Arthur Guinness. 4 years later, he acquired a 9,000 year lease on the four-acre brewery at St. James’s Gate from Mark Rainsford for an annual rent of £45. The lease still exists today at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin!

And this month, Guinness is sending someone to Dublin, Ireland!

Of course, you have to earn the free tip. Just take a look at the picture below.


Click on image for larger image
To win the tickets to Dublin, you need to:
1. Study the picture carefully.
2. Follow @GuinnessMY on Twitter or Facebook to get hints
3. Each hint is tied to an element in the illustration. Pairing them together correctly will give you the answer – a fact related to Arthur Guinness and his creation.
For example: The hint given is “How far Arthur saw into the future”. The illustration element that goes with the hint is a shop with ‘9K’ as its lot number and a sign saying it’s leased. The answer is “9,000-year lease”.
4. Compile all your answers and email to contest@arthursday.com.my with name, IC no., and mobile no.

The fastest submission with the most correct answers wins the Grand Prize to Dublin!

Other than the grand prize to Dublin, you are also eligible to win their weekly prizes. It is a pair of Arthur’s Day Mosh Pit tickets worth RM350 each.

Other than the grand prize to Dublin, you are also eligible to win their weekly prizes. It is a pair of Arthur’s Day Mosh Pit tickets worth RM350 each. If you don’t know what Mosh Pit tickets are for, it is for Arthur’s Day Celebration at Sunway Lagoon on the 24th of September!

You will get to see the following artists live!

Flo Rida
Sean Kingston
Colby O’Donis
Thaitanium
Pop Shuvit
DJ Fuzz
Melissa Indot
Mizz Nina

All you need to do is answer all ‘clues of the week’ as released on Facebook or Twitter correctly before the end of the week. First all correct entry wins the weekly prize!

Week 1 contest period: 23 Aug – 29 Aug
Week 2 contest period: 30 Aug – 5 September
Week 3 contest period: 6 Sept – 12 September
Week 4 contest period: 13 Sept – 19 Sept

Alsooooo… the top 15 fastest submission with the most correct answers win a pair of Arthur’s Day White Zone tickets worth RM98 each.

If you want the easy way out, then join the Man of the Action contest! To do so, you must first “LIKE” the Guinness Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/guinnessmalaysia

Then choose your favourite song. It could be any song – oldies, hiphop, rock, fengtau and recreate it any way you want on the video – sing, dance, re-enact the music video, anything goes.
As an example, check out the video of my fehmes friends Cheesie and kyspeaks the Korean pop star:

Alternatively, you can try the boy’s moves.


Man the harpoons!!!

Once it is done, upload the video onto YouTube. The video must feature a mention of Arthur’s Day 2010 in the title, e.g: “Arthur’s Day 2010: .”
Post your YouTube URL on the Guinness Facebook page together with your name and video title!

For the Man of the Action contest, other than the trip to Dublin, you can win:

1. A pair of Arthur’s Day Mosh Pit tickets worth RM 350 each (Runner-up Prizes for 4 lucky winners)
2. A pair of Arthur’s Day White Zone tickets worth RM 98 each (Consolation Prizes)

All winners will be announced on Tues, 21 September 2010! So hurry up!

By the way, if you want to get tickets for Arthur’s Day, head to

(one more line directing people who wanna buy tickets to www.galaxy.com.my and www.axcess.com.my. There’s 20% discount till 19th September!

Snowflake – Taiwanese Dessert Secret 雪花栈 @ SS15, Subang

I wish this place existed when I studied in Taylor’s College. This place serves awesome desserts and only desserts.

Its located on the 2nd floor of a shop house facing Asia Cafe. It’s a small shop and usually pack with people. Quite difficult to get a spot.

Queue to order is pretty long usually. However, meals are not served on the spot. A customer will be given an ‘UFO’.


It will beep when the meal is ready 😀


My personal favourite would be the “Best Seller” (Shaven ice + Grass Jelly + Grass Jelly Ice + Taroballs + Creamer) (RM6)

The orange colour stuff is called taroballs. They’re great! Chewy with tinge of yam/sweet potato in it 😀

Opening hours
Sunday – Thursday: 1pm to 10am
Friday and Saturday: 1pm to 12am

Address
No.61A, First Floor, (Directly opposite Asia Cafe, few shops away from Starbucks)
Jalan SS15/8A,
47500 Subang Jaya,
Selangor.
Tel: 017-623 8966

Tweet below the law

This time round, I’ll digress from food entries to an entry regarding legal mambo jumbo. This is old news but I thought this article is useful for internet users. I was featured in this article published in The Star. Many thanks to Nikki Cheong for hooking me up with Joseph (the journalist who wrote this piece).

Sunday August 8, 2010
Tweet below the law

By JOSEPH LOH
sunday@thestar.com.my

Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have allowed people to easily let others know what is on their minds. But users should be careful with what they post because the laws of the land apply to cyberspace as well.

THE Internet is increasingly becoming a virtual soapbox for people to vent their thoughts – and sometimes frustrations and dissatisfaction. The proliferation of blogs, discussion groups, and more recently, social networking, have emboldened many – with the assumption that making comments from behind a screen shields them from any legal repercussion.

However, the long arm of the law extends beyond solid ground, and reaches into the virtual realm as well.

According to H.R. Dipendra, from the Malaysian Bar Council’s human rights committee, there is no distinction between comments posted on the Internet and traditional print media.

“Internet posts are subject to similar laws as that of print media, aside from the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (MCMC Act) and Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984.


False sense of security: People on social networking sites and blogs tend to say more than they do in real life, thinking they can do it anonymously.

“You have to be careful what you write, and not just post what comes off the top of your head. If you know it to be inflammatory, then you should be careful,” he says.

Eddie Law, blogger and founder of elawyer.com.my and laweddie.com.my says that the www header is not an acronym for the wild wild west.

“Some think they can post or write anything, but that is not true,” he says.

Examples of legislation (see chart) include the Sedition Act, Internal Security Act, as well as civil and criminal defamation laws – all of which have previously been invoked to bring an individual to court, most famously in the cases involving blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin.


Dipendra

More recently, DAP member Teng Chang Khim was summoned to appear before the party disciplinary committee for a Twitter message that read “OMG! Real culprit freed.”

Dipendra says what has happened to Teng is fascinating, but does not believe anything will come out of it.

“His statement is not defamatory as it does not specifically refer to any particular person. It is a general opinion on a general matter,” he says.

Posting news content on Internet blogs, for example, is in some way similar to what mainstream news journalists do, but Law feels that bloggers are at a distinct disadvantage.

“They do not have proper media training or resources to help them determine what they are doing is legal.”

He opines that as social networking and blogging activity is still relatively new, there is little legal precedent to follow and there are many issues yet to be tested in court.

“The wording of the MCMC Act (Section 233 and 211) is very broad, and there is a lot of uncertainty. Because it is not yet tested, you can be snagged if its wording can be defined to suit your case,” he says.

Dipendra shares a similar opinion, and believes that when the law was drafted, it was intentionally broadly-worded.


Law

“It can be of any mode, medium or application – SMS, iPad or Twitter – so long as you type out a comment and post it, you will fall within the ambit of the two sections.

“The law is broad enough to include everyone, even an innocent disseminator,” he says.

However, he does not think it is a bad law.

“It may be uncertain and ambiguous, but not bad law. It gives enforcement agencies a lot of leeway so they would have the unfettered discretion for its use. The only question is if this discretion is used fairly,” says Dipendra.

Anonymity not guaranteed

Foong Cheng Leong, from Lee Hishammuddin Allen & Gledhill’s intellectual property department, says that people tend to say more than they do in real life, thinking they can do it anonymously.

“They think they can get away with it, but they may still get caught,” he cautions.

He gives the example of the Stemlife Bhd v Bristol-Myers Squibb (M) Sdn Bhd case. The co-defendant, Arachnid Sdn Bhd, who provided website maintenance services, was ordered to reveal the names of the persons who posted disparaging remarks against the plaintiff.

However, in a separate defamation suit involving the same parties, the judge struck out the suit against Arachnid, as it had never played an active role in respect of the content of the comments posted on the website.

There was another case where the defamatory contents of a website were deleted, but the lawyers were able to find the offending page using archived pages on waybackmachine.com.

“Simply deleting the page is not a defence, as the damage may have already been done. In a way, it is like destroying the evidence,” says Foong.

However, Law says web service providers need immunity from content posted on their website, something that United States law provides for in Section 230 of its Communi­cations Decency Act.

Foong informs that a similar “safe harbour” provision is being drawn up in Malaysia, and the same kind of immunity may later be found here.

Dipendra also says that what is posted on cyberspace stays there forever.

“Something that you said 10 years ago on a website may resurface, and you may have no recollection of even writing it.”

While existing Malaysian law appears to cover cases of wayward online behaviour at the moment, there are some who feel that there is a need for the law to be reformed.

Sonya Liew of the Bar Council explains that the world is currently undergoing both a revolution and evolution at the moment.

“Just like how there was the industrial revolution before, now we are having an information revolution,” she says.

She explains that during the agrarian age, laws were formed to protect the land, and during the industrial age, to protect intellectual property with laws regarding copyright and trademarks, for example.

“Laws regarding sedition and secrets were passed many years ago, before the information revolution. But now, society has evolved beyond this,” she says, adding that the people’s expectations regarding the right to information have evolved – together with technological advances.

“The whole world now has information at its fingertips, and if you withhold information, people start to question the lack of access to it.

“People expect information, and the question is if existing laws are sufficient to provide for the needs of a modern society,” says Liew.

She notes that signs of this can be seen in the increasing call for freedom of expression and the right to information.

“Later, we will hear of even more rights that we have not even heard of before, and it may even eat into the right to privacy,” she says, explaining that this may arise as people may want to know more about government officers’ or politicians’ lifestyle – in order to reduce graft.

“Laws exist to serve society, and society does not serve the law. We have this need now, and the question is if the Government is doing enough to provide for this need,” says Liew.

Any significant legal reform on the use of the Internet is not yet on the horizon, and until then, social networkers and bloggers should be vigilant on their online behaviour.

“People should behave the same way online as they would in real life. If they do not shout and curse in public, then their behaviour should remain the same online. They should not wear a different hat in cyberspace,” says Law.

Foong succinctly describes the appropriate online behaviour with a biblical quotation – which is still as relevant today as it was 2,000 years after it was uttered.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” quotes Foong.

Other articles which I was featured can be seen at:
xes.cx – eLawyer Law Conference 2009 – Blogging & Law
xes.cx – Featured on Sin Chew Newspaper!
xes.cx – Keeping it Private