Penang Bridge is close on tonight

Penang Bridge will be closed the lane exit to Bayan Lepas and exit lane to Georgetown will remain open.

Date : 19th December 2007 (Wednesday)
Time : 12 midnight to 5 am
Duration : 5 hours

Bad Credit Card Choices

Shell Citibank Credit Card - A Cash Draining Card ?

Are you fancy of getting a credit card that offers 5% rebate on shell petrol and 1.5% rebate on other purchases?
If your answer is yes, then you are draining your money away!
The newly launched Shell Citibank credit card is not as good as its sounds - to enjoy the rebate, you must have a carry forward balance. Yes, a carry forward balance that you have to pay Citibank 18% interest per annum. But that's is not all, your so called 'rebate' is based on your current month spending. That means if you have a carry forward of RM10,000 but did not use the card at all for the current month, you get 'zero' rebate.
To be precise, this 'rebate' card is an old card - it has been around for about 2 years. But now taking advantage of the fuel cost concern, Citibank co-branded it with Shell.
This is how the rebate scheme works:
- First, you need to have a carry forward balance. The amount of that carry forward determines the rebate rate (%) that the card holder is getting.
- Then based on your current month spend, you will get the rebate (as shown by the rebate table above) - your rebate is not based on your total carry forward balance. Repeat: your rebate is not based on your total carry forward balance, but current month spending.
In short, to get your 'rebate' you must have at least of RM2,000 outstanding balance in you card AND continue use the card. The outstanding balance is the net of previous month balance minus current month payment. If you do that, every month you will be paying RM30.00, or RM360 a year for the minimum RM2,000 outstanding balance.

Let's do a simple math here:
If you spend RM500/mth on shell petrol and your classic card has a RM2,000 outstanding balance, at 1.5%, you are getting RM7.50 as 'rebate', while at the same time, paying RM30.00 for the interest. The 'nett' profit for Citibank is RMRM22.50. Your are essentially "over paying" 4 times the price (30/7.5)
To 'break even' (so that your RM30.00 interest payment = rebate value), you need to pump RM2,000 shell petrol a month, or charge RM6,000 a month for non-shell related purchases.

The USD100.00 per barrel of crude oil won't kills you, but the Citi-Shell card will.

Publish by http://smartconsumerbanking.com/2007/11/23/shell-citibank-credit-card-a-cash-draining-card/

As Good As Cash Back - UOB One Card?

The lure of cash rebate on everything from grocery shopping to entertainment is always tempting, but does UOB One Card’s Everyday needs, everyday rebate lives up to its claim?
Credit card is a very lucrative but is also a highly competitive business. If the statistic from the newspaper is correct, on average, each of us is having 3.5 credit cards (2.5 million people owned credit card and there are 8.8 million credit card in circulation). The challenge to the banks is how to get the cardholder uses its card every time, or to make that particular card the ONE and preferred card? An attractive loyalty programme, may be? UOB Bank thinks it may have found one with it Cash rebate credit card. Cash rebate credit card allows you to get cash rebate when you use your credit card. Cash rebate credit cards is a powerful incentive for consumers – we all like the idea of getting something back every time we make a purchase.

Cash Rebate is not Cash Back

- First thing first, UOB One card’s Smart$ cash rebate is not a cash money; it does not gives you cash back. Instead of reward points or air miles, the UOB One card rewards you with Smart$ cash rebate, a sort of ‘currency’ that you can use to purchase services or good within its merchant network. The Smart$ cash rebate is not exchangeable for cash.
How it works

- The UOB one card gives you a predetermined rate of cash rebate whenever you use the card. The one good things about UOB one card is it uses an ‘open’ merchant system which means you earn cash rebate every time you use the card, the down side is you only earn 0.3 cent for every single Ringgit charged, or 0.3%. If you want more, you can use your card within UOB Smart$ Merchant network that gives you 3% cash rebate. In addition, you will get a higher cash rebate when shop with the One Card Merchant network, pending on the retailers/merchants, the cash rebate is between 2-4%.
How to redeem

- Since those hard earn Smart$ cash rebate is not cash money, you can only redeem them with the One Card and Smart Merchants network, like it or not. And you better hurry, because the Smart$ cash rebate is only good for one year. All together, there are about 400 different types of merchants available but realistically speaking, the most relevant redemption will be on grocery purchases and some dinning, considering the how hard to accumulate those Smart$ cash rebate.
The merchant coverage

- Since UOB One card use an ‘open’ system where Smart$ cash rebate is rewarded every time the card is used, the coverage is not an issue. However, you might want to take note that some of the participating merchants have a similar deal with other banks and that mean you can have the similar ‘benefits’ without having the UOB One Card.
The Bottom Line

- Cash rebate offers a very attractive proposition for consumer. Most of the people would find the word ‘cash rebate’ more powerful then the reward points of air miles. But does the powerful cash rebate translate to better ‘benefits’ to credit cardholders? If you are like me looking at the reward conversion rate i.e., how much is given back on every single Ringgit charged (forget the form of reward for awhile), you will find the UOB One Card is on-par with other credit cards – no better or worse. On top of the conversion rate, there are some details that worth paying attention. Take Carrfour for example, no Smart$ cash rebate will be given on special price or promotional items – a tough task of not to pick up any promote/special price item given how the hypermarket competing with each other now. And on the BH Petrol, the cap of RM400/mth means the maximum Smart$ cash rebate one can earn is only RM8.00.
The best way to think about UOB One Card is to treat the Smart$ cash rebate as a discount coupon that you can use on selected stores. The good thing about this coupon is that you decide how and where to use it, thus offers a relatively greater flexibility (subjects to the participating merchants) then the ‘traditional’ points or air miles redemption programme.
Lastly, remember to pay your card balance in full and on time. If not, you will find the 18% interest rate outweigh what ever cash rebate awarded to you.

Publish by http://smartconsumerbanking.com/2007/05/11/134/

New Born Baby - Part I

The egg passes through about 15 centimeters long narrow oviduct hovers to the womb, around it the vegetative cell looks like a beautiful string corona to revolve it. Very quick, it will meet with the sperm and starts the fertilization process.

















5,000,000 sperms simultaneously swim to theirs end point - - hiding in the oviduct egg. Although this army is so huge, but finally can break through the egg actually only one.



















Egg's outer layer is being protected by a transparent thin films, this causes it to look like elephant aerosol in the heavenly body attractive star.
Finally meets after all sorts of barrier sperm with the egg, the egg external coat periplast becomes the checkpoint which their first needs to break through.
This time, the sperms drill to on egg's outer wall, the tail is whipping unceasingly, egg along with sperm rear part movement slowly anti-clockwise rotation.















This time sperm's head already has wormed one's way into, we also may see its middle and the rear part, it looks like the drill bit which revolves unceasingly, whips in the tail under the actuation enters the egg diligently.




















The sperm already entered the egg, completes the fertilization.













Fertilized egg one divides into two.











Fertilized egg fast fission.

Fertilization latter 8 days. The embrionic tooth completes " to land “, inserts the endometrium slightly. This time it splits the growth is several hundred cells.
























The fertilization latter 6 weeks, the human form has visible faintly. By now, under embryo palpitation by 140-150 each minute. It’s two times of mother palpitation.
























This time appearance and young pig, cat, puppy's embryo not wide difference.










This is as long as 11 week embryos. Enters to pregnancy of fourth month, embryo is form from 5 centimeters as long as 10 centimeters.
























Embryo.

New Born Baby - Part II

This time embryo already long until four half a month, he moves the arm, places the finger nearby the lip, this may promote it to the reflection which sucks in.





















Small life form.











In mother womb 10 week big embryo.
















In mother womb 28 week big embryo.
















Already was a miniature young villain, looked at me to be able do so many movements!





Embryo movement time.
















lovable young embryo!












7 month big embryos in mother's womb are like this composed and the tranquility, looks like a young sleeping beauty.
















You saw my tootsie bifurcation.
















Dizzy I had to leave the womb and arrives the world with the preliminary test cry!

Scuba Diving

Scuba diving is one of the famous water sports in the world and is most expensive water sport. Scuba takes u to a different world with new colors, shapes, textures and creatures. It's the act of swimming underwater where using the self contained underwater breathing apparatus. U will be carrying a source of breathing gas which allows u to stay underwater longer than with the simple breathing hold technique normally used in snorkeling and free diving. U will swims underwater by using a pair of fins attached to the feet. Before u can start for your own scuba diving under the seawater u need to get certified as a scuba diver is fairly involved process but it worth it because of the underwater freedom it giving u. To get the diving license u can get it from some of the dive shops like PADI and etc. For Beginner u will need to take the "Open-water" course. It takes u several weeks of lecture and textbook study for the whole course. The course also includes safety precaution during underwater and taking care of the sea environment. U will go on dives in swimming pools and after familiar with the skill of diving u will supervise for few trips to Open-water dives in sea water. After u completed the full course u also can continue to have the advanced class and up to the Dive Master. Today the sport of scuba has been bringing us to more attractive swimming pools as below picture.

Good To Know (New Plant)

I never see this plant before, looks like "buah petai" but it bigger than the buah petai.
I try to search from google search but can't find it.
This plant was put in the one of the temple in the town and is hanging on top of the roof.
If u interested to know where it is i can provide u the location.

New Business Idea

This is a great idea as i visit one of the hospital and found this machine.
Guess what is this for?