Several weeks ago before I went to UTHM, a friend of mine Daniel CerVentus messaged me and told me he was looking for volunteers for an event call “BarCamp”. I asked him, “What’s BarCamp?”. He then led me to some links and after reading it over and over, I still couldn’t figure out what BarCamp is. I think I can only describe it when I go for the event itself. Anyway, I missed their first volunteer meeting and I don’t think I can commit on becoming a volunteer.

Basically, it’s not that I can’t understand what it’s all about. It’s basically an event where people with like minded geeks gather around and share or maybe show off something to the rest of the people. Now that makes me wondering, what am I going to share? I’m not a programmer nor am I a software developer. I just happen to be very good in putting things together and make it work.

Last week, I decided to drop by The Garden Midvalley and take a peek and spy what the volunteers are doing. My intention wasn’t to join the volunteer group but just to give myself a reason to visit the brand new The Garden shopping mall. Here is where the BarCamp Malaysia volunteer meeting was held:

BarCamp KL Volunteer Hang Out Place @ Starbucks The Garden Midvalley

The event will be held next on July 26 – 27 at xTrain in KL. Khai Lee explanation of BarCamp is the best I’ve read. If you are interested to meet me, I’ll be there on the 26th since I have a weekly commitment every Sunday morning. Make sure you register first.

See you there!

Two days after I went to Singapore, I headed down south again. This time, I had to drive my own car accompanied with a colleague of mine. I was lucky I managed to fill up my tank with a full tank of petrol the night before the price of petrol increased the day after. Unfortunately, I still have to claim back from my company the same mileage before the price hike.

Anyway, I drive off from Equine Park where my office is located at around 6am in the morning. The journey took 2 and a half hour with a maximum speed of 120km/h with my red Proton Iswara. I arrived at Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) Kampus Bandar at 8.40am just 20 minutes before my training session starts. I have never conducted any training session before, the closest I have done was organizing a training session so this would be a great experience.

There were 10 participants in my training class. The best thing about the class is how well the computer training lab at UTHM is equipped. The PC they have are all brand new Intel Core 2 processor with vPro technology. I wonder how much does it cost for just one desktop computer alone. Before the training started, we had an in-house “nasi lemak” breakfast and then to set up the network and computer for a localhost connection with Joomla.

The Computer Lab at UTHM

At first my partner suggested to install every PC that is going to be use with XAMPP. I insisted that we save up the time to install on every PC to only setup and install XAMPP on one host computer and the rest of the connection is pointed to that PC’s IP address. That would be easier to control and make it almost as the same as a live website. Unlike Wordpress, the best thing about Joomla is the only setting that is needed to make the image, link and database connection is configurable at configuration.php file. After all that is done, I started the class with a brief introduction of why Joomla is suitable to handle a portal instead of a static HTML and the difference and similarities between a blog and Content Management System (CMS) website.

After lunch, sensing that the class was a bit bored over the technical jargon Joomla administration has, I organized an activity exercise which was a competition between the guys and the girls. The objective was to produce the most content entered and the best-looking website into a brand new empty Joomla system one. My partner facilitated the girl’s group while I handled the guy’s group. Obviously I helped the guy’s website look much more impressive than the girls since I know a lot of short-cuts and trade off of Joomla administration.

My objective before the class is to get the participant to grasp at least 50% of what I’ve taught them. From my observation, they have achieved it and I am quite happy about it. Overall, it was a good class and I’ve gained a lot of valuable experience which I couldn’t have got if I only keep the skills to myself.

It’s been a while since I had fun. It could have been a lot more fun if my friends didn’t backed out from me when I asked them to join me. It was kind lonely but at least I still experience the colours, the light and sound and the best part, the show and performance.

Unlike last year Citrawarna 2007 where I have no idea where to go, this year I was given instruction by both LV and Colours of Malaysia website on where to park, where to head and where to go. This saves a lot of my time and energy of searching and figuring out where and what to do. Since LV is one of the 1,500 dancers that night, being alone without any of my close friends is not something I enjoy.

My only mistake this year was I should have borrowed my father’s brand new HD video camera instead of relying on my pathetic Kodak DX6490 camera where the pictures and videos taken are more likely useless in dim lighted scenarios. My Sony Ericsson W810i cameraphone is much better than the Kodak camera but of course the 3gp videos taken are not that visible. Anyway enough writing, let’s see what videos and photos I have for you:

Check out my Citrawarna 2008 Gallery

Now let’s see some videos I’ve taken:

Forgive me if the videos are low quality and unedited. I’m not the kind of person who spend so much time making thing looks good. As long as things work, I’m already happy.

I guess that’s all for now. I’ll definitely come again next year for Colours of Malaysia 2009 (Citrawarna 2009).

This might be kind of old news but I just feel like blogging about it anyhow. On the 3rd of May earlier this month, I went to Mutiara Damansara. My intention was to find Parkson Grand but I soon found out that there was only Metrojaya store over at The Curve. Anyway, after I’ve parked my car at the RM2 per entry (on the weekend) Cineleisure Damansara, LV and I got occupied looking at a dance performance road show by Tren Production.

I know how much LV love dancing. Even I myself went for 2 dance classes (although not for long) last year, I am always amazed and excited at how people who can really dance. Making it even more interesting the second season of So You Think You Can Dance Malaysia at 8TV. Check out the videos below taken using my Sony Ericcson W810i cameraphone:

I really like the final group’s performance. Tren Production is a new dance studio production with it’s main dance studio class located in Kepong. That’s just like 10 minutes drive from my house. I don’t have the detail information of Tren Production. I must have lost the phamplet along the way somewhere. If anyone wants to add information, please feel free to add the information on my comment box down below.

Its just so cool to be able to dance. I guess the movie Shall We Dance? has really gotten me into this dancing interest.