The Reader

Old buildings etc.

I am glad to see that some efforts taken by the state government of Melaka to refurbish some  of the old historical buildings.The photo above is a good example where the banks of the Melaka river were protected and undergone some beautification programme.For more photos,please click here.

However,the quality of river water needs further efforts.We can look and learn at what Singapore has done when it comes to river cleaning.

As a regular visitor to Malacca(i.e Serkam and Tanjung Batu),I observed that a lot of money being spent on new buildings and upgrading of roads/bridges.I think more money and efforts are needed to refurbish older and historical buildings and at the same time to maintain the exisiting historical sites.

By the way,what is Malacca without history?

To the state government,what ever you do,please don't paint the town red;-) Those painted red by the Dutch are more than enough.

Travel Note: This time I discovered Laksamana Point,a place to sit and watch the world go by and also a good plave to eat and drink.It took me three hours to reach Malacca from KL on the Chinese New Year day.Yesterday morning we came home early morning to arrive without any traffic crawls-just half the time.

Du'a for New Year

A reader asked me the relevant du'a for the new year.It is located here with Bahasa translation.

Open Air Massage?

Open air massage,anyone?
My family and me are in Melaka now to attend a wedding.Enjoy your holidays...

Latest moon sighting

I just got the text message from my learned friend in Falak syarie that he did the moon sighting last night and concluded that the month of Zulhijjah this year is 30 days and our new Hijrah Year 1427 falls on Tuesday 31st January,2006.

As reminder, we as muslims and muslimahs should make our du'a to bid farewell to the current year and welcome the new year before and after magrib tomorrow 30th January, 2006.

SELAMAT MENYAMBUT TAHUN BARU HIJRAH 1427.

Thumb drive

The photo shown are thumb drives belonged to the participants of the Project Management course conducted by my partners at IKRAM.After the lectures given by Dr SM Yeoh, a few of them requsted a copy of lecture and they just handed over their thumb drives.Those who donot have thumb drives requested him to give the notes in CD's.Gone are the days where I used to get hard copies of the lecture notes.The cost of these data storage gadgets has down that most people can afford them. I do carry a 256MB thumb drive, but  a few of my friends are having 1GB-and that store 20 times audio files of the whole Quran!

Technology is moving very fast,sometimes it is faster that what we can fully make use of them.On the other hand, misusage  is faster and greater...

Map and Matrix

Do you have a notebook where you draw sketches and write short notes?
Here is the link to a collection done by some creative individuals who use moleskine notebooks.I am fascinated by their creativity in using small size notebooks to produce works of art!Please click here.

A few days ago, I bought a blank notebook that cost me RM9.00.And last night I tried to do something creative,but I ended up with a map of all the places I visit every day,every week and every month in one page.Almost all of these locations are less than 30 minutes from my home.On the corresponding page,I managed to have a matrix of three columns-time travelled in minutes,what I do and where in tabular form.After one hour,I used 2mm of pencil lead and 3mm of eraser.The result is below my expectation-so it is not worth putting up here.

By the way,the map and the matrix produced tell a lot of my personal routine-what I like and what I do.And that is another reason why I am not uploading the image here;-)

To all readers and visitors to my blog,enjoy your long holiday and may I wish my Chinese friends/readers A Happy and Prosperous New Year.

New Year 1427

In Malaysia,the coming Islamic New Year,first Muharam 1427 falls on 31st January,2006.

It is a public holiday in Malaysia and I think it is a good time to ponder what we have done and not done  to become better muslims/muslimahs in the last twelve months.The desire or resolutions to become better muslims/muslimahs ( a general statement )is not enough with out proper knowledge and specific action plans followed up with  execution of the plan.To become better is a change, and for the change to take effect,it must be well managed.

One of the ways to become better muslims/muslimah is to improve our solat.How well do we perform our solat? Are we reading the surah Al-Fatihah correctly? What is the level of our khusyoo'? The three dimensions of solat(fekli,qauli and qalbi) must be performed properly in order our solat to be accepted by Allah swt.Just imagine the effects/impacts on our solat if we were to recite Al-Fatihah wrongly for the last 10 or 20 years!!!

How do you verify you do the right things? I am not qualified to expound in details on how to PERFORM our solat in this posting.My advice is to go and learn from a qualified teacher. From my experience the physical part is the easiest to learn,then comes to recitation(which I need to learn tajweed) and the most difficult is the khusyoo' part.There are five levels of khushoo' and many are still struggling in every prayer.

Solat is the pillar of our religion.If the columns of the building are rotten( technically speaking having structural weaknesses/ deficiencies), then the building can collapse anytime-even under its own dead weight.(no external load is needed).The external loadings -live or environmental will make the building collapse faster.

Most of us muslims pray five times a day,but just ask ourselves how much effort we took to make our solat today better than yesterday?

Solat is not the only one that we need to improve, but it is one of the most important.To know more of our responsibilities,I recommend a book The Ideal Muslim or The Ideal Muslimah .

Note on photo: I snapped this photo of the morning sun at Telok Chempedak,Kuantan ,Pahang.

It is not just a mug...

Today I just rediscovered a mug given to me by my sons on the Father's Day ten yeaars ago.It could be mistaken just like any other mugs that could have been stored away at the bottom of my kitchen cabinet and left there unnoticed forever.Luckily,my wife  used it to keep some pens and pencils.

They may be small gifts from family members and friends, but they really matter to me.Not only this mug and the likes,I also keep birthday cards that I received from my wife and my kids.It is good for me to read these cards once in a while...

As  travellers,we met many types of people,witnessed many events and encountered a variety of situations as we walked our path through these lives....some are good ,some are  bad and a few ugly ones.Whatever it is, there are a few things that I would like to keep and remember-even if it is just a mug.

Note of the photos: The above are two photos of the same mug snapped from two opposite sides.

Being creative..

  Writing notes at Delifrance 
  Originally uploaded by Mohd Adib Noh.

I have been writing my personal journal since 1998 and uploading short notes at my website at geocities.com and then changed to blogger.com.Two years ago, I migrated to typepad.com in order to upload photos.Now,most blogging softwares have features to upload photos.

Sometimes, I do have nothing to write-the writers called it writer's block.To get into creative mood, I visit cafes to get the right ambience to think and to write-alone in a madding crowd.

May I invite you to share your experience in getting into a writing mood or creative mood.Thanks.

PS:Tips on writing..

No more watch-less.

When my watch stopped working in 1998,I did not buy a new one till yesterday. All this while,I have been using my mobile phone/PDA when I wanted to know the time.But many a time,I ask someone for the time.

What made me buy a new watch yesterday? Well, the night before,when I was giving a talk,I kept on checking my mobile phone for the time so that I could keep to my schedule.What bothers me was that I may be misundertood that I was checking on my sms(text messages) instead of concentrating to giving a talk. The other reason is that I like a new watch on sale at Swatch Shop;-) I guess the second reason may be more powerful than the first one in order to make me wear a watch.Another reason is that I want to celebrate the coming New Islamic year 1427.

Eight years without a watch is a long time.Now,with the new watch I feel tilted to the left when I walk. It must be due to new additional weight pulling my left arm down.I believe it will take a few more days for the weight re-distrubution to take effect physically and emotionally so that I feel normal again:-)

By the way, what is a watch for? Is it to know the time,or to keep the time or to watch over the time?

Time is very cheap when one has a lot of it.But all the money in the world couldnot buy a second of a time if you don't have it.That is time!

	Shakir translation	Arabic script
	In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.	بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيمِِ
103:1	I swear by the time,	وَالْعَصْرِ
103:2	Most surely man is in loss,	إِنَّ الْإِنسَانَ لَفِي خُسْرٍ
103:3	Except those who believe and do good, and enjoin on each other truth, and enjoin on each other patience.	إِلَّا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ وَتَوَاصَوْا بِالْحَقِّ وَتَوَاصَوْا بِالصَّبْرِ