Yesterday, two friends moaned on Twitter that they find Twitter very boring. It’s not surprising how it’s boring, considering how infrequent they tweet.

I have since unfollowed them. Sorry, I only follow interesting people, and I don’t need to hear you bemoan about how lousy Twitter is every few weeks.

Twitter is immensely fun. Just ask those who just can’t stop tweeting every single day. If you don’t find Twitter fun, then you just haven’t been doing it right.

So how can you have more fun on Twitter?

Follow more people

This is pretty much given, but some people do just sit around following a few close friends and missing out on some real fun.

Some people say shortly after joining, that Twitter is no fun without your circle of friends around since you can not tweet each other. That is only partly true.

There are millions of other people tweeting. Following celebrities is a great way to learn how to tweet besides knowing their personal thoughts.

When I started tweeting, I followed comic book writers and artists to keep up with their latest projects. For you it might be famous actors, or musicians, or famous geeks, talk show hosts or whoever it is you love. Most of the time, they are already on Twitter.

Get a client

Tweeting on the Twitter website is okay, but it is certainly not that fun. Once you started following some people, it gets harder to keep track of conversations by using only the web interface. This is where clients, or specific softwares to handle Twitter, come in.

If you do not follow a lot of people, a single-column client might be for you. Popular ones include Tweetie, Destroy Twitter and Twitterrific.

But if you follow a lot of people, multi-column clients is the way to go. I prefer Tweetdeck, but Seesmic Desktop is also popular. What you can do with multi-column clients is you can group people, so it’s easier to keep up with important tweets from say, friends or people you really know. I have around ten columns separating friends, geeks, news, celebrities etc.

If you can not install a client (like in the office), I’d suggest using Brizzly, a great web-based client. If you need invitation codes, leave your contact details in the comments.

That’s just for tweeting from your PC. For convenience, you might want to install a client on your mobile so you can tweet from anywhere. iPhones and Blackberrys have great clients (Tweetie, Echofon, TwitterBerry, UberTwitter), but other phones do too, with Java-based clients like Snaptu and Twibble.

You can also use services like gladlyCast. Once you sync your mobile number to the service, you can just text your tweets to a special number, and gladlyCast will tweet them for you. Dead simple.

Join in hashtags and memes

Hashtags (like #hashtags) are just tags used by tweeters to label their tweets, for searching convenience. At the same time, it gave rise to memes, where people tweet on the same theme and append the hashtags at the end.

For example, on Mondays, a lot of people will talk about their favourite music and tag it #musicmonday. The same on Fridays, where people recommend other people who they think you should follow, and tagging it #followfriday or #ff.

Every so often, you’ll find people playing and joking with other hashtags like #oneletteroffmovies or #threewordsaftersex. There are always new memes popping up every week, so keep an eye on them and join in.

What to tweet?

The beauty of Twitter is that you can tweet about whatever you like, and people won’t complain about it. Some people treat Twitter as a personal diary or journal. Some use it to share cool links they found. Some use it as a free alternative to texting with their friends.

You can ask for opinion on Twitter, and sometimes people will reply back. You can get reviews on the current happenings, or new films, or new music.

For me, Twitter lets me keep up with my friends’ lives, and tvice versa. It’s also a wonderful place to have intelligent discussions with several people at the same time.

Twitter’s biggest advantage is having access to real-time news (and nasty rumours). Nowadays, more and more news comes out on Twitter first before arriving on conventional outlets. If I want a picture of a certain topic at the moment, I’ll just search it on Twitter, and I can get what people are actually talking about it now.

Tweet more

Twitter is not like Facebook. Enough said.

Do you have any other ideas on how you make Twitter fun? Leave them in the comments.

I hope you enjoy this simple guide, and have fun on Twitter. Follow me @zurairi.

Does your Facebook homepage look like this? Highlights bar cluttered with annoying tagged photos from evil distracting Fan Check or Pickup Friends applications?

Before: AAARGHHHH

With this (temporary) fix, you can hide them, and your bar will look a bit cleaner:

After: TADAAA!

This annoyance brings back memories of dozen stupid quiz updates appearing on your Facebook homepage. Luckily now we can hide those quiz results using filters on the homepage. The tagged photos however, are a bit harder since they automatically appear on the highlight bar, and you can’t filter them out by filtering a specific application.

Anyhow, I achieved the above by installing the Greasemonkey extension on Firefox, and using this handy script which will enable you to set what to show or hide on the highlights sidebar. After installing Greasemonkey on your Firefox, simply click the “install” button on the script page to install the script.

(I’m aware that Opera supports the script, and you can install scripts in IE7/IE8 using IE7Pro or iMacros, and in Chrome there are some tinkering you can do, but I’m afraid I don’t know the exact details since I use neither of these other browsers exclusively, sorry.)

After installing the script, there will be a tiny “Edit settings” link on top of your highlights bar, and clicking it will open the settings menu:

Just click on “Hide tagged” and those tagged photos are gone! You can click “Show tagged” to bring them back on.

Of course, the downside is all other innocent tagged photos will be hidden too if you click “Hide tagged”.

You can also just collapse the whole highlights bar by clicking the tiny arrow beside “Highlights”.

That’s why this is great as just a temporary fix if you can’t stand all those tagged photos (I know I can’t) until Facebook bans the applications, regulate the apps’ sidebar manipulation or until the hype dies down and people stop using the apps. Considering people still do quizzes up until now, that might be a long time coming.

You can also use this script to hide any other annoyances on your highlights bar! As you can see from the snapshot above, you can also hide certain friends from it.

Good luck! =)

Note: Greasemonkey is an awesome Firefox extension that lets you manipulate a lot of things on the internet with different scripts. Lifehacker has a feature on how to use it with  Top 10 Greasemonkey User Scripts.

Most of the time, I’m quite a bastard when it comes to charity. It’s hard to fork out some money for people on the other side of the world that I can barely relate to, or for a concept of Earth or nature too big to wrap around my head. It’s just worse that I hardly have anything to fork out anyway.

With great surprise, I have made up my mind to support To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA), a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide.

I’m doing this through a widget by SocialVibe and WordPress which I now have in my sidebar to the right. With this widget, one can choose a sponsor who will donate an amount of money to the charity organisation of one’s choosing, based on the number of people clicking the widget.

My campaign is sponsored by truth, which is a non-profit youth smoking prevention campaign. To help this cause, you just have to click on the widget and sign a petition on smoking, nothing big. It will ask for your zip code, so just enter your Malaysian postcode, it’s pretty much the same digits.

I am not going to actively pursue anybody to contribute. If you happen to be browsing through my blog, or blog-hopping, just give the widget a click if it’s not too much of a bother, yeah?

Depression is not something that is strange to me—having been its grip for more than a year. It wrecked my life and my relationship with my loved ones.

I also know a lot of people who are suffering or have suffered from the same affliction. It is a very much common happening, you are definitely not alone. Everyone in depression thinks the same—that there is no hope, and that no one will ever understand what they go through.

But I do know that, to beat depression you have to love yourself. You must know your self-worth and that people do love you, no matter how bad the situation you are in. Surround yourself with friends and loved ones, never be alone. Talk, no matter to whom. Find solace in the embrace of family. Pray to whichever God or Gods you may worship.

If you find it too hard to talk to someone you know, start by seeking a counsellor. You can also anonymously call the helplines. Here is a list of helpful services in Australia. If you are in Malaysia, there is Befrienders, which was inspired by Samaritans, a similar group in the UK.

Just know that things will get better. Somebody once told me “Where else is there to go, if not up, when you hit rock bottom?“.

Lastly, if you are right now battling with depression, I leave you with this blog post from TWLOHA:

You are going to move through this.

More importantly, I love you. YOU ARE GOING TO MOVE THROUGH THIS.

Don’t be defeated. Submit yourself to the process. You are growing. You are changing. You are doing LIFE.

I am not trying to make you feel better. This fucking hurts, and there are no two ways around it.

But I am trying to encourage you to not retreat. I can’t remove the pain, but I am going to hold your hand while it hurts.

Continue to reach out. You need people right now.

I’m here for anything you need.

You are LOVED in ways you cannot imagine. In ways that don’t depend on you. In ways that don’t depend on your performance. In ways that cannot be lost. Remember Remember Remember.

Love you my friend.

- Anonymous

You, yes you, we do love you.

My younger brother and a couple of his friends entered the Kami Anak Malaysia video contest, which was held by Tourism Malaysia and the Ministry of Education. His group from SMK Putrajaya Precinct 9 (2) won the 2nd prize (it was the third place actually).

The grand prize (1st place) was won by SMK Sultanah Asma, a premier non-SBP all-girls boarding school from Alor Setar. I told my brother earlier on, that there is no way that his group can beat a boarding school in these competitions.

It’s not necessarily because of they produce better quality entries. It’s just the way the system work.

I went to a premier boarding school too, so I know full well how it goes. Against a boarding school, especially a famous one, a public school has almost no chance of winning. The world is unfair, like.

This is because the ministry prefers the boarding school to win. By winning, it’s a solid proof that the boarding school system works, and the ministry is doing a good job. Can you imagine how shoddy the ministry’s image will be if a public school can easily beat an elite school?

In any case, I am proud of his work and his steadfast effort to prove me wrong. Well, he did win an iPod Shuffle.

He said he wanted to make more films as he gets older. So, I’ll give him a start by putting his winning entry here:

Salam Merdeka, Malaysians. Here’s to our forefathers and the freedom fighters. We might be independent, but we are yet to be free.

We can’t even get our information freely—it doesn’t matter that information by itself wants to be free. The government wants to put a firewall and filter our internet out so that we can only read what they want us to.

The newspapers are blatantly controlled by the ruling parties: their news is our news. Whenever we try to speak our mind, when we try to dig for the truth, we will get silenced. Enter the sedition act.

I dread the days where they get their ways, and bloggers would have to be registered and profiled, just like sexual offenders.

We are not free to watch films we want, much less make the films we want. Films arrived on our shores badly-mangled with various cuts, despite the fact that we paid to watch over-18 films.

We can’t make films about mat rempits, about cross-dressers, about transsexuals. We can’t even make films about supernatural any more, lest we want to get admitted to a counselling seminar.

Last Friday before Merdeka, sermons were given so Muslims will strive to be free from the enemies of Islam. Ask me, and I will tell you that “Islam” and “free” had no business being in the same sentence, at least not in Malaysia.

Everyone with the slightest authority in Islam will try to dictate on what you should or should not do.

They will tell us that just because some of us are women, our opinions do not matter. Just because our principles are different from theirs, we’re deemed heretic who should attend rehabs.

It’s haram to do yoga, it’s haram for women to “look like men”, it’s haram to swear. For reasons so vague and ridiculous.

Don’t like something? Just complain to the National Fatwa Council. They have been so kind to grant fatwas forbidding the smallest of stuff just because “the public demands it” or “the public is confused”.

The simplest form of joy, music is restricted to us. Numerous artistes surely had refused offers to perform in our country in frustration over the silly decency rule. Muslims are banned from attending certain concerts just because the sponsors happened to be in the alcohol industry.

A little mention of concert sends them into a berserk, no matter that the band is harmless Michael Learns to Rock.

Muslims can’t contend in pageants. Muslims can’t do this. Muslims can’t do that.

It’s discrimination, that’s what it is. Only it’s worst since the prohibition comes from the same group getting the bans.

Why are you so bothered with what every soul will or will not do? If you’re saying that Islam is the religion of the free and willing, you’re not convincing me. Not when you’re prodding and crushing people into submission.

God forbid that you’re an infidel, then! You can never get a house of worship in peace. They will try to impose their morals on you whether you like it or not.

All these are just a small slice of the liberty we’re denied of. We are not even free from the shackles of racial-centric attitudes. Every race is paranoid of each other.

I am grateful for the efforts of our forefathers and every freedom fighters who had shed their blood, sweat and tears since time immemorial to make our country sovereign, but it’s time we move on from that. Individual rights and civil liberties should be our next target.

Am I proud though? Of being Malaysian? Not really, no. Not this year.

I won’t pretend to be merry for this year’s Merdeka. There’s nothing to be happy or proud about.

We love you so much, Malaysia. Why won’t you love us back?

Are enjoying this year’s Merdeka? Do you think that we’re doing okay and I’m just a depressing bugger? Leave your comments.

I found this flyer stapled on the notice board of Yayasan Mohammad Noah Mosque in Genting:

The flyer was advertising five “little preachers” aged five to nine years old from Al Fateh Islamic School of in Batam, Indonesia. These “little preachers”, said the flyer, are ready and willing to give their religious sermons anytime, whether in schools, offices or mosques.

Here’s the interesting part. The flyer claimed that they can lecture on these following topics:

• Isra’ Mi’raj
• Maulidurrasul (The Birth of The Prophet)
• The Love of Allah
• The Love of The Prophet
• 5 Ways to Achieve Success in Life and the Afterlife
• Pious Children
• Death

et cetera.

The flyer ended with a reminder that roughly translates as:

Know that: Lessons from prepubescent children will grant repentance and stir the heart, Allah-willing

and a note clarifying that those speeches will be free of charge.

What amused me was not the photos of the “little preachers” with their commanding pose of fingers wagging, but rather the topics they cover.

Isra’ Mi’raj and Maulidurrasul are tales easy enough for them to simply memorise and narrate. The love of Allah and The Prophet, and about pious children too, are a bit abstract, but still easy doctrines to ingrain nevertheless.

What about achieving success in life and the afterlife then? Or for that matter, DEATH?

How likely is it that they understand said topics, much less master their depth and intricacies? In the case that they do really know what they are talking about, I can only despair at their lost innocence and childhood.

Don’t I wish to see them in action. Nothing scarier than a bunch of ankle-biters telling me that hell is waiting.

It makes me wonder how many people have seen them just for the novelty or their awesome cuteness.

Wait, if the talks are free, isn’t this unpaid child labour?

Talking about movies, just a few days ago the Information, Communications and Culture Ministry announced a new ruling banning local filmmakers from showing Mat Rempit and men in women’s clothes in their productions:

The directive follows a letter from Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan to the Home Ministry to ban the term “Mat Rempit” in film and TV productions, and to ban scenes showing illegal racing and activities involving Mat Rempit.

Films featuring illegal racing do well at the box office. KL Menjerit and its sequel, KL Menjerit Episod 1, Remp-It and Bohsia are three movies that focus on the life of Mat Rempit and did well at the box office.

Many Malaysian films have at least one scene on Mat Rempit and a man dressed in women’s clothes (not necessarily a transvestite). Hit films that featured a scene or two of Mat Rempit and men in drag are Sifu & Tongga, Jangan Pandang Belakang Congkak and Senario The Movie Episod 1. How will this new rule affect the booming local movie industry? Only the filmmakers have the answer.

Just a day after that, JAKIM announced that they’re clamping down on films that focus on horror, myth, superstition and false traditional elements which go against religious teachings:

Such films, dramas and publications have been deemed to be against the aqidah (faith) of the Muslims and violate clear guidelines issued by the religious authority.

Jakim research division director Razali Shahabudin said it would summon all producers and publishers to attend a seminar and present the guidelines as a reminder before the end of the year.

As you can see, this situation has put me in a deep dilemma of moral and principles.

First of all, I detest the current trend of glorifying Mat Rempits all in the name of quick cash (I’m looking at you bastards, Ahmad Idham and Syamsul Yusof) and the gratuitous appearances of mak nyahs in Malay films are certainly disturbing. I also think that the current market for local horror films has been oversaturated, and save for a few excellent movies, most of them are awfully crap (again, quick cash).

However, I am also a staunch opponent of censorship and bans, especially when they come from such moral polices.

My conviction wins this time.

I believe that filmmakers should have the liberty of making films, no matter which subject they choose. It is only with liberty can creativity flourish.

Day by day, Rais Yatim and his ministry are fast annoying the hell out of me with their “old men” attitude and almost totalitarian rulings. Information is about freedom, not restrictions, and definitely NOT about “requests” from the Police and Home Ministry.

Don’t get me started with JAKIM. What rights do they have summoning producers and publishers to attend their seminars? If things don’t go their iron-fisted way, you can count on a fatwa soon:

Jakim also encourages the parties involved to refer matters to them or respective religious authorities including the ulama and mufti before broadcasting or publishing such themes.

Razali said if the problem became serious and a fatwa (decree) had to be issued, Jakim would refer the matter to the National Fatwa Council muzakarah (meeting).

Just stop it with these restrictions and bans and rulings and referring to ulama, mufti and all these bureaucratic bullshit!

Why ban films about Mat Rempit, when police crackdowns on them are so pathetic? Why ban horror films when rip-off, girls-raping bomohs, pawangs and fucking djinn-exorcists get the light of the day?

Dear people in authority, you’re not doing enough and you’re shifting the blame on the filmmakers? Screw you.

* * * * *

Syed Abu Bakar wrote a piece on the matter of this ruling in hocus pocus a few days, ago, but he had mysteriously pulled it down. You can read the cached version here.

He wrote of these people who thrive on hocus pocus:

There is one great conman who practices black magic crap in the name of Islam at his “clinic” in Bangi. The cone head is also a high ranking member of PAS – no. 2 or 3 in PAS. There is also another dumbkoff up north who once said that it was ok to write Arabic writing in a bowl, dissolve the writing in water and then drink the water to improve one’s memory to pass school exams. If I mention his name I can get prosecuted because this dumbkoff occupies an official position whose official pronouncements are protected by law!

Anyone knows of this “clinic”? I’d like to take a look at it. Also, if you practice the reading of writings in the bowl, leave a comment and tell me how it has helped with your SPM or other exams.

It all started with an earnest Facebook status by the brilliant Zuhairy, my good twin: That status spawned a long discussion in the comments, with a number of people echoing his sentiments, including yours truly.

In the past decade, Malays have been notorious, insisting on using loan words when there exist more beautiful words already in the Malay vocabulary. The government, for instance, has bafflingly adopted the use of word “bajet” for “budget” in place of the previous “belanjawan”.

I think that TV3 is the worst offender of all. One can just listen to Buletin Utama and try to catch them inventing new loan words with no justification every so often. The worst thing is that no one is calling them out, and soon enough, the words get accepted into normal usage.

It was then that I remembered about the Facebook translation project. I used to join the Bahasa Melayu translation project, up until the point I quit because the glossary that has been agreed upon and voted for by the project members is just simply ridiculous.

Want proof?

(click for high res full list)

If you are too lazy to read, here’s a selection of translated words:

• “bid” – “bida”
• “click” – “klik”
• “it’s…complicated” -  “ianya agak komplikasi”
• “privacy” – “privasi”
• “photo” – “foto”
• “record” – “rekod”
• “profile” – “profil”

Whatever happened to “tawaran”, “tekan”, “peribadi”, “gambar” and “rakam”? Most importantly, what the fuck is “ianya agak komplikasi”?! What’s wrong with “rumit”?!

A bit later on, Zuhairy asked me if there is a Malay word for “profile”. I have been wondering the same thing too, so I decided to check on an online Indonesian-English dictionary (simply because I couldn’t find a Malay one, let me know in the comments if you know of any).

“Profile” was translated as…

“Riwayat”.

Hell yeah, pretty bad ass, huh? Much better sounding than wussy “profil”.

* * * * *

Which led me to the next day, with the announcement of PPSMI (or ETeMS: English Teaching in Maths and Science) abolition effective 2012.

Some people might point out that because of the new teaching in English, the people who voted for the translations in Facebook have a horrendous grasp of Malay.

WRONG. The people who voted for the glossary are mostly from the age before that, when teaching was in Malay. So why the crappy Malay?

It’s mindboggling really, but do go take a look in an official Kamus Dewan Inggeris-Melayu (Dwibahasa) by Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. It’s horribly useless. I was required to have one during high school (boarding school regulations), but frankly I’ve never used it. Instead, I look for the meanings of English words in an English dictionary.

You know why I did that? Because in Kamus Dwibahasa, words like “oxygen” do not translate into “gas yang dibebaskan oleh tumbuhan ketika proses fotosintesis, dan diperlukan oleh haiwan untuk pernafasan” (that’s from the Malay Wikipedia by the way) or something like that.

You look up “oxygen” in Kamus Dwibahasa, you will get “oksigen”:

*FACEPALM*

Updated: 09/07/2009: Zuhairy had so kindly clarified to me that:

…the whole point of bilingual dictionaries is not so much to define a word, but to search for the exact term in the output language.

Trouble is, we’ve borrowed so many loanwords/calques from the english language that most entries in the standard kamus dwibahasa become completely redundant. Especially the technical terms.

Thanks, dude!

If you missed the Michael Jackson memorial service yesterday, here’s my favourite guitarist playing my favourite song from my favourite performer:

It’s amazing how he can emote as well with just his guitar. Jaw-dropping.

Seriously The Star, shouldn’t this piece be reserved for Harian Metro, Kosmo and the other hack papers…or at least Utusan Malaysia?:

‘Floating mat’ a sign to people

By SHAHRIL CHE WAN

KUALA TERENGGANU: The Terengganu chief imam has attributed the unusual occurrences at the Crystal Mosque here as a sign of the people distancing themselves from the religion.

Ustaz Azizi Saidi Abdul Aziz described claims that a visitor had seen and photographed prayer mats floating in the mosque as “hardly phenomenal” and people should stop thinking that it was due to genies or ghosts.

Mystifying: This ‘floating mat’ phenomenon occurred at the Crystal Mosque in Kuala Terengganu.

The imam says such occurrences have been reported in Saudi Arabia.

“Such mystifying occurrences have been reported in Saudi Arabia,” he said yesterday.

A woman from Negri Sembilan who visited the mosque had photographed the phenomenon with a mobile phone camera early this month, triggering fear among locals.

Azizi Saidi said the phenomenon could be linked to the lackadaisical attitude of Muslims in the state in performing congregational prayers.

“There is nothing to panic. This is a call to Muslims not to overlook their obligation towards performing prayers together.

“There are umpteen mosques in Terengganu but there is a lack of mosque-goers.

“Some of our mosques lack people even during Friday prayers,” he added.

He said the occurrence was not “bizarre” but should be seen as a miracle that could be considered a sign from the Al-Mighty.

Shame on you Shahril Che Wan for this sensational reporting and UTTER BULLSHIT.

And Azizi Saidi Abdul Aziz, stop making up stories and looking for “signs” that are not there in the first place.

Here are some other reactions to this piece of “news”:

• Hocus Pocus at Crystal Mosque by OutSyed The Box
• You know when… by RantingsbyMM

* * * * *

In other news:

Report on Astley’s ‘death’ is just a prank

KUALA LUMPUR: It would have been considered breaking news if it was true but a local English daily here fell for a prank which reported 1980s pop sensation Rick Astley as being “found dead in a Berlin hotel room”.

The newspaper had sent an SMS alert to its subscribers of the Never Gonna Give You Up singer’s “death”. It also posted the article online. The article had since been removed.

Astley’s “death” was first reported on CNN’s user-generated site, iReport.com, which carried the byline of Liz Sodoti of the Associated Press. The stories submitted by users to the website were not edited, fact-checked or screened before they were posted. Only stories marked “On CNN” were vetted before use in CNN’s coverage.
A check at Astley’s website also came up naught on news of his death. In fact, the 43-year-old is currently on a European concert tour that will end in November.

Oh, guess which local English daily was it?

Yes, it was The Star.

They have since deleted their shame, but here’s an image of my RSS feed:

And you wonder why I don’t read mainstream news anymore.