About a decade later, things improved somewhat. I worked in a college that used a Learning Management System called Blackboard. The college emphasised 70% on coursework and 30% on final exams which I really liked as this forces the student to be more consistent throughout the course instead of just booking up for one final exam. For the first time I saw how effective an e-learning system like Blackboard can be. Instead of the traditional written quiz/exercise/coursework I made most of the pop quizzes and weekly tests in electronic form. It was the same content only that the students were in front of the computer to answer the questions. Of course the benefits were plenty. One of which is that I do not have to grade the answers. Everything was automatic. Another advantage was the students received the results immediately instead of waiting for the next day.

Anyway what I wanted to say is that I think the time is suitable now to have chess learning systems that make use of today’s technology. That’s one of the reasons I started Maribelajar.com - to create learning systems that can support virtual learning. Sadly back then people were not that receptive to the idea of learning online. They prefer to have face-to-face time with their instructor/teacher. Anyway, today I see that this perception has changed. There are even Universities in Malaysia that run all their courses completely via distance learning without face-to-face time with their lecturer (not directly anyway).

What I hope is to be able to build a good and practical site that can support virtual chess lessons soon. If I can make money out of such a system is great too but that’s not the main focus. It’s a dream of mine to see e-learning applied successfully to chess. Chess can really benefit from this as it bridges the geographical gap of students and chess coaches that are far away from each other.

The problem was the LCD screen. It could show the menu and text and pictures already taken but went black when showing what was in front of the camera.

I was reluctant to take it for repairs as I remembered that one shop told me that it was cheaper to buy a new camera than to repair it.

Today I unscrewed and open the camera. One of the connectors looked loose so I just pushed it in and now the LCD works again.

How silly of me. I should have done that earlier.

It now works perfectly. This picture was taken using my handphone.

The first picture I took with my now back-to-live Panasonic camera. A little reddish but that’s because the lighting is actually reddish.

That’s the download speeds I’m getting while connected to WiFi in a hotel in Vung Tau, Vietnam.

I’m in Vietnam to help out with the chess tournament website. Wish I had such download speeds back in Malaysia

Another 13.3 inch from Dell and they more or less look pretty much standard by now. The specs are not too impressive but for basic work and chess I think it’s more than enough.

Also at around RM 2000+ it’s getting competitive to the popular netbook prices like the Asus EEE PC.

 

•	Intel® Core™2 Duo processor T5670 (1.80GHz)
•	Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic*
•	1GB Dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM. 80GB* SATA Hard Drive
•	13.3″ WXGA Display with TrueLife™
•	1-Year Limited Warranty (Next Business Day On-Site* Service)

Current price: RM 2249

You can find this on eBay and Lelong.com.my.

I’m thinking of getting one to view chess videos. Early feedback by Malaysian buyers is that the video quality is good but the audio is not that great. Have to test this out first to see for myself.

Current market price for an 8Gb MP4 player like the one above is about RM 100. 8Gb is good enough to squeeze in about 20-30 full length chess videos in the compressed format. That’s a lot!

Anyway the MP4 players looks so much like the real thing that Walmart USA actually mistakenly sold these knockoffs as real iPods to their customers.

The highlights is that it is made for the Internet (built in WiFi) and boots up in just 7 seconds. Since it’s small and lightweight it’s ideal for carrying to tournaments. But then again can’t you do that with notebooks?

I guess so but do you know of any notebooks at the RM 1000 price range and can bootup that fast?

It would be ideal for tournament organisers as it is just as portable as a notebook but you would have to bring your own LCD. Anyway LCD monitolrs are lightweight and cheap nowadays. The only problem is that it is not as portable as it does not have it’s own batteries. So you need to be near a power socket.

Specifications

Also, since I’m using Google latest browser - Chrome, it has the necessary tools already installed - namely, Google Gears.

However the most surprising of all is that THIS BLOG is the highest Adsense earnings for the month of September 2008. As you can see I haven’t even post anything this month except for today’s posting !!

Because of Adsense Terms of Service, I cannot reveal exactly how much I made for this month just from this blog for September but I can say that it’s enough to have a nice steak dinner for two.

This means I’d better pay more attention to this blog and post more interesting stuff here.

Also this reinforces my theory about early pioneers who have their blog on auto-pilot making money even though their blogs are no longer as active as before. One good example is LiewCF.com which I predict is earning well over RM 10K a month even though his blog is not as active as it was several years back when it started. That’s the advantage of early adopters. It’s pretty hard to overtake these bloggers in terms of success even though you come out with fantastic content that surpasses them. They have gained fantastic search engine karma by starting early and posting great content back when there were few competitors. Sounds unfair but that’s how the internet just IS.

I still don’t have a good phone with Internet connectivity. Being able to blog directly from the chess tournament venue is always my dream but I still can’t afford to get myself one. Anyway, here’s another dream phone that I like as it gives me the option to use Joiku (www.joiku.com) software that makes your phone become a WiFi hotspot access point.

I don’t mind getting Digi’s EDGE connection with this phone instead of Maxis or Celcom 3G packages. Moderately fast and consistent is Digi’s EDGE feature that I like the most.

Besides the cool extras are the 3.2 Megapixel camera - solves my lack of camera problem. Also the QWERTY keyboard is said to be Nokia’s best so far making typing on it a breeze. This means I can leave the notebook at home and blog directly from this phone. Nice!

Current market price in Malaysia is RM 1300-1600 (~ USD 390-490).

My Lumix camera (above) is officially not working anymore. Being an active chess blogger, I feel really lost without a camera. The recent National Championship blog updates just didn’t feel complete without some digital pictures. Thankfully chess enthusiast - A. D Genius generously gave me some pictures of the prize giving. Otherwise the final result post would be pretty pathetic indeed.

Anyway, I’m targeting a new camera before the Malaysian Open this coming August.

I’m currently looking at the Canon Powershot A590IS as a replacement. My first camera which I used extensively during the early days of GilaChess.com was a Canon Powershot. The above camera looks a bit bulky but I don’t care. Based on the reviews, the quality and features make this an ideal camera for me.

I like the image stabilisation and big LCD screen. The minusses mentioned by online reviews is that the recovery time between flash is about 10 seconds. I don’t mind because since most of the pictures I take is in chess tournament, I will be taking pictures without flash. Current market price for the camera is RM 500.

It is feared up to 1 million people may have died in this disaster, and although this is disputed, if Nargis did kill this many people, it would be the deadliest cyclone ever recorded, and the third deadliest natural disaster ever recorded in history, behind the Yellow River floods of 1887 and 1931 in China. At least 10,000 people have been reported to have perished in the delta town of Bogale.One aid worker has claimed that the death toll from the cyclone and its aftermath may reach 300,000; if this was correct it would be the 2nd deadliest cyclone and fourth deadliest natural disaster.

~ Wikipedia

Got an email from Fide Trainer / FM Peter Long relaying the appeal by Myanmar Chess Federation for donation.

Here’s a quote from the email:-

I just met Maung Maung Lwin, President of Myanmar Chess Federation at the ASEAN Age Groups in Danang, Vietnam www.aseanagegroups.blogspot.com and he asked me to help circulate the attached appeal to the chess world.

Maung has tirelessly and singlehandedly kept Myanmar chess alive for over 20 years and despite losing all his businesses (factory, restaurant, etc.) in the recent Cyclone Nargis he is more concerned about his people’s plight and is still helping promote chess by agreeing to be our Chief Arbiter here!

More information at http://www.thefidetrainer.blogspot.com/

It’s exactly 18 months and my original Dell 640m notebook battery is giving out. I finally got the above message when i booted up.

I still get about 30 mins with WiFi on. I clicked on the link to get more info and it advised me to get a new Dell battery from their website. Going to the local Dell’s site (dell.com.my) I found that there is no Dell 640m battery for sale. That was another disappointment

Above picture was released by Engadget. It’s supposed to be sub-$USD 500 and in the footprint of the EEE PC.So far only pictures are out.It’s 8.9-inches comes in both Windows XP Home or Ubuntu Linux flavour and with 8-in-1 card reader, integrated webcam, direct media playback buttons.

I can’t wait for more specs of this notebook to be released.

It’s good to see that my chess blog is well indexed by Google. Even though there is an official tournament website for the 2nd Philippines Open International, my relatively new blog has taken top 3 spots on Google for the keyword “Philippines Chess Open“.

That’s the advantage of applying a little SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) into your website. I’ve been getting international traffic for people wanting to know about the results from the tournament. I’ve not done much but reformatted the results from the tournament into a more web-friendly format.

(Note : no.3 is my chess-malaysia blog aggregator which is a collection of the latest chess blog news in and around Malaysia)

I am still fixated at the Asus EEE PC as it’s the coolest sub notebook that I’ve seen. Picture taken from Kansir’s Flickr album.

So here’s a reminder. If you want to find chess content and news it’s at gilachess.com. Just add the word “blog” in front of it.

Mr KZ at the Selangor Open chess tournament is actually using the DiGi package that I talked about.

He didn’t bring his ASUS EEE Pc and connected his modem to his notebook instead.

From the initial browsing, it looks like the speed is pretty good. The modem is very portable too.

Finally this blog managed to break the 4000 visitor mark after 6 months.

It’s good that after changing the theme topics to chess gadgets, chess money and chess tech, the traffic has not dropped drastically. In fact, it’s going back to it’s normal trafic levels. There is an average of more than 100 visits daily.

Thanks to all readers for their support.

Even GilaChess website has a big increase in traffic for April. If you are a chess blogger, I am sure you would have seen a spike too. There is definitely a growing interest in Malaysian chess over the last few months. No wonder chess money is flowing in!

This ultraportable notebook from Asus has certainly been making headlines last year and I read about it on top review sites like CNet.com. It hit Malaysian shores early this year and looks like it has a warm reception especially by the geek community.

As a chess patzer I’m attracted to it for it’s size.

Now I’m more attracted to it as I’ve been looking for a good mobile solution to blog live from chess tournaments.

DiGi came out with a nice and attractive package including the Asus EEE PC and Edge internet connection. I know Edge is not as fast as 3G but from the feedback I’ve heard, Edge is stable. I don’t need a fast connection while on the move anyway. As long as I can post text and the odd picture in my blog post, I’m happy.

Back to the Digi package. This is what you’ll get:

Simple Plan (Data Only)

• Asus Eee PC (Intel Processor, Genuine Windows XP Home Edition, Lightweight 0.92kg and 7-inch display)
• Data Modem
• Data Unlimited Plan (24 months subscription)
• RM123 per month

Smart Plan (Data + Voice)

• Asus Eee PC (Intel Processor, Genuine Windows XP Home Edition, Lightweight 0.92kg and 7-inch display)
• Asus P527 PDA Phone
• Data Unlimited Plan (24 months subscription)
• 1 Plan (24 months subscription)
• RM193 per month

Check it out at Digi’s promo page.

The offer is only from 21 April 2008 to 21 July 2008. I’m seriously thinking about this offer as I just found out that you can install Fritz interface in Asus EEE Pc even if you install the Linux OS (The DiGi offer comes with Windows Home). Coupled with Rybka, Scid and ChessDB this makes the EEE Pc very appealing and handy for patzers as well as the chess bloggers like me

I could get used to the small keyboard and 7 inch screen and even the 800×600 display. Small price to pay for ultra portability. Anyway I’m so used to blogging from tiny screens on mobile phones and PDA, the 7″ screen is HUGE in relative comparison

However as you know, Vista is far from perfect and many people are having problems with running older software and missing software drivers for some devices. Dell will still be bundling XP as an option to customers via a loophole by selling XP “downgrade license”. Effectively this means you are buying Vista with a “downgrade” option that includes XP.

For example if you were to buy the Vostro 1200, one of my favourite 12.1″ patzer notebook to get in the future (fingers crossed). That’s because it’s really compact and light. Not as elegant as the Mac Book Air but certainly close and beats the Mac Air in terms of features. The Vostro 1200 base price currently is RM 2,449 which includes Vista Home Basic. Personally, I think Vista Home Basic is not worth it as so many of the features of Vista is not there.

With the “downgrade” license, you’ll have to pay only RM 200 extra to get 2 operating systems:

• Vista Business and
• Windows XP Pro

Total price for this notebook option is RM 2,754.

That would be my option if I were to buy the Vostro 1200. However, the current base system comes with only 1GB which is terribly insufficient if you turn on Vista Aero graphics interface. Adding 3Gb is just nice but that would push the total price to RM 3,093.00 (80 Gb harddisk).

I just met a friend who just bought a Compaq V3759TU which cost RM 2559 with 4 Gb RAM!! However that came without OS - meaning you get Free DOS only.

I’m using this new blog theme called SEOadMax from Gary Conn on the chess malaysia aggregated website. SInce this is just a summary site, I guess it’s ok to plaster it full of Adsense ads