Smart Vending

It's been many years that the technological progress in the vending machine industry has been slow, and snail-ly slow as opposed to the advancement in all aspects of life. You still see many vending machines around you operating in the ways that are not much different than 10 or 20 years ago. ATM machines, for example, has been going through vast changes and improvements since its inception.

However, this situation for vending machine industry is changing now. Next few years will witness the unprecedented vast leap in vending industry in terms of technology deployment and improvement. With the falling price of new technology such as touch display, wireless connectivity, camera and so on, the adoption rate of these technology which will make up the concept of Smart Vending will increase drastically in the next few years to come.

Smart Vending is a concept that encapsulates the application and integration of multimedia interactivity, cash and cashless payment, digital signage, video analytics, telemetry and cloud-based remote manageability as well as other emerging technology with the objectives to enhance the user experience of the vending machines and the effectiveness of the operation from the perspective of the vending machine operators. The vending operators always seeks to improve the effectiveness of their operation with their vending machines with the end in mind of lowering their operation cost thus increasing their profitability.

Users at the vending machines, while looking to buy what they want to buy from the vending machine, are also expecting something other than just inserting coins and pressing a selection button. They have been pampered with various convenient and interactive web and mobile applications, devices and gadgets such as smart phones, smart TV, and smart "many things". Yes, the user expectation on everything has been raised. Anything that is not on par with this expectation is deemed as outdated and lame. The users are addicted to cool stuffs and fun. The users or rather the crowd, are the kings nowadays. Pleasing user experience is no longer an additional luxury, but a basic requirement for all consumer-facing applications, products and services.

Running a business is always challenging since the days of barter system. Running a vending business is even more challenging in the current era.The trend of the retail business is going automatic and self-service direction. Vending machine is already on this track since many decades ago. With the availability of Smart Vending technologies, vending machine operation should be no longer regarded as selling merchandises on automated cabinets that accept money and dispense products automatically. There are more to be offered and more to make from the same estate. The possibilities and opportunities are great and beyond limitation.

For fast time-to-market deployment of Smart Vending, Silkron provides all-round product and solutions: https://www.silkron.com/smart_vending

Penang to be an international city

We have been hearing the toutings that "Penang will become an international city" for many years in the past and with the very positive progress in the recent few years, that has become quite optimistic and closer to becoming reality now.

Penang is already the most livable city in Malaysia. It ought be more livable in the global context. Penang has many features and attributes that can be the pre-requisites to be an international city, such as variety of nature attractions (sea, hill, forest), balanced mix of city lifestyle and nature, harmonious mix of multiple cultures, great and variety of food and cuisines, vibrant economy with various industries and tourism, availability of good educational and medical institutions and so on...

To turn into a true international city, we need more push for the following:

• Great minds (many seeds of great minds are grown and nurtured in the good schools in Penang but sprinkled and scattered around the world currently. We need them back)
• Opera theater for cultural and musical performance and concerts (did I say opera house? Some might say this is not necessary as the streets in Penang are all the open opera houses under the sky for the folk custom and traditional operas throughout the year)
• International convention center (there is one underway finally - SPICE, and another one in the plot - PWCC) for more global events and conventions
• World-class stadiums and sports centers for more global sports events
• Mass transit system (subway or underground rapid transit, is more suitable for Penang due to its scarce land and high density development, instead of monorail / elevated rails)
• Green parks and more parks (with many trees) throughout the city (and must be well-maintained, not built-and-forget)
• Sculptures, art masterpieces throughout the city and streets (the recent murals around the city is a good start)
• Science center (for kids and tourists)
• Fountains and large fountains with musical rhythm where kids can walk into it and play (the weather is hot, we all knew, so why not give them some splashes...)
• Museum (do we have one? I think yes, but certainly it needs better attention)
• Zoo (Balik Pulau can be a good location candidate for this)
• Marine park and aquariums
• Sea cruise along the coastline from north to south of the island (this can be a good business idea)

If you have more ideas, just throw into the comments.... Bravo Penang!

Giving way on highway, in a safe way

Yesterday another deadly car accident happened again on the north-south highway near Slim River leading to 5 deaths. And according to the news report, right before the accident occurred, the driver was giving way to a rear coming car that flashing beam light to him and as soon as he changed his car to the left lane, they banged on the punctured lorry on the left lane.

If you have been driving on the north-south highway, you will get to be flashed with beam light or be approached closely from a car on your back from time to time especially when you are taking the right lane, even though your speed is already at the maximum allowed speed limit of 110km/h. I have seen few cases where the car being flashed react near-panicly by immediately changing to the left lane to give way to the flashing car. Giving way is something gentleman on the foot, but on highway in such scenario, is it something wise to do?

Everyone has the right to use the highway safely, not to say you have paid for it. And when you are already driving at maximum legal speed (even on the right lane) and being urged by some hasty car behind you, be it a super luxury wagon or sporty car, I think it is not your obligation to give way to it, of course unless it's any emergency response vehicle like ambulance etc. Just take your time as long as you are comfortable with, and definitely until you have found a safe spot to give way to the hasty fellow. But if you are driving a turtle, please do not occupy the right lane unless you are overtaking, ya, the right lane is supposed for overtaking.

Nobody like to be rushed, so if you are someone who used to be the hasty fellow, be polite and gentle even you are on hurry (by the way, why so hurry?). Do not simply flash your beam light to the front car. Just follow it at a safe distance (not too close of course) so as not to give any pressure to the front guy. After a while, he will be aware of you and give you the way you wanted at his comfort. Everyone has equal right. Respect every drivers and the precious lives of every living creature on the road.

May there be no more unwanted casualties on the road...

If you are using Ubuntu and not used to the Unity user interface, the better choice will be gnome-shell. Gnome-shell comes with many extensions that can be added easily. Below are some of the must-have and nice-to-have extensions:

Must-Have:
- AlternateTab
- Alternative Status Menu
- BackSlide
- Bolt
-Disable Window Animations
- No Topleft Hot Corner
- Panel Settings
- Places Status Indicator
- Settings Center
- Status Icon Fixer
- TaskBar
- Weather Indicator

Nice-to-Have:
- Coverflow Alt-Tab
- Dock
- Journal (if you are using the original Gnome Activites instead of Bolt)
- SystemMonitor

You can also remove the maximized windows title bar to give you more working space. Install "Maximus" from Ubuntu Software Center, then run gconf-editor (install this also if you don't have it), and go to apps -> maximus and enable "no_maximize". You will need to logout and login back to get it in effect.

Hibernate on Ubuntu 12.04

Hibernation in Ubuntu has been always a sky-high difficult thing to achieve successfully without some struggle. It's been a while I have been looking for a solution to hibernate my Sony Vaio laptop with hybrid ATI graphic card. All the while it can only hibernate but always freezes on resume flash screen, until I find 2 solutions:

1. Disable the uswsusp (more recommended)

You might want to upgrade to the latest kernel first. Also, if there is any error caused by any driver, such as psmouse-alps-dkms, remove it first.

It seems that uswsusp is not working properly on Ubuntu 12.04. The possible way to get your hibernation works like charm is to remove this package:
sudo apt-get purge uswsusp

After removal, try to do a hibernation by issueing:
sudo pm-hibernate

2. Tux On Ice

Kindly be noted that as the Tux On Ice is using non-PAE (Physical Address Extension) kernel, hence after installing Tux On Ice on 32-bit Ubuntu, you will find that your physical memory is capped at 2.4GB only even if your RAM is more than that, say 4GB or above. It might slow down your laptop performance if memory consumption is high.

To install Tux On Ice:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tuxonice/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tuxonice-userui linux-generic-tuxonice linux-headers-generic-tuxonice


Then try to hibernate with:
sudo pm-hibernate


Take note that Tux On Ice might not always support the latest linux kernel. If during installation it complaint about not supporting latest kernel, try to revert to the previous one.

=============

If you would like to hibernate on power button press, in dconf-editor, ensure the following:
apps.indicator-session.suppress-logout-restart-shutdown = unchecked
org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power.button-power = hibernate

Thanks to this reference:
http://www.pauljoyceuk.com/codex/2012/howto-make-ubuntu-12-04-hibernate-successfully/

Transfer User settings from OpenOffice to LibreOffice

To transfer user custom settings such as user-defined colors from OpenOffice (Windows) to LbreOffice in Ubuntu Linux:

- In Windows,copy the whole "user" folder from:
 c:/Documents and Settings//AppData/Roaming/OpenOffice.org/3/user

- In Ubuntu, rename the folder $HOME/.config/libreoffice/3/user to another name for backup.

- Overwrite with the user folder from the source you copied.

Note: Take note that there might be other libreoffice folder in your home folder in Ubuntu but do not bother with that. Only the folder under .config will take effect.

Note: If you don't to replace the whole user folder such as that you would like to only transfer specific settings, just look into the folder and edit the file accordingly. For example, custom colors are defined in standard.soc file in XML format.

Lost files when switching users on Windows 7

In case you finds some of your files stored in Desktop folders or any user folders after switching users in Windows 7 (logout and login as different user), stay calm. You might be able to locate your files in "C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile" folder.