Bandwidth limit exceeded.. [updated]

Posted by rizal on Apr 29, 2008 in ittutor.net | 9 comments

Unfortunately ITTutor.net is down [dah up dah! ..tapi offline!]this time round due to bandwidth issue. Somehow after ~ 2 years , I was wrong again thinking that the 50GB bandwidth would meet the demand of the website for at least few years to come . Can’t access the site? I think you just have to wait until May 1st .

[Updated]

Upon checking the bandwidth utilisation I discovered that we had reached the 40GB mark since Jan 2008, March was 45GB and you know lah obviously the pattern would go up for the coming months. What’s next? New hosting ? I had a plan in mind but for now I have to make ITTutor.net OFFLINE for few days.. jangan marah aaa…

At Home!

Posted by rizal on Apr 26, 2008 in being a father | 2 comments

Heading to KL

Posted by rizal on Apr 22, 2008 in Current Affairs, Life in Arabia | 3 comments

I am on my way back to Kuala Lumpur — will be in MY from 21st to 30th April 2008 .
Currently on a five hours transit in Doha, Qatar before leaving to KL at 1am tonight.The kids was having fun on the playhouse, I just hope that they don’t get exhausted/sleepy before boarding!

Instructions of the Student

Posted by rizal on Apr 13, 2008 in Books | 2 comments

Abu Bakrah reported , I heard Prophet (pbuh) saying:

“You should be a scholar, or a student , or a listener, or a lover of ’ilm and you should not be the fifth which makes you perish.

’Ata said Mis’ar said to me:You added a fifth point which we do not have.

The fifth point is: To hate ’Ilm and its people” -(at Tabarani;Al-Bazzar)

Just completed reading this book Instruction of the Student:The Method of Learning which has been in my watch list for some time, but due to the unavailability at Amazon, I placed an order from another online bookstore and received it last week .The book where the original Arabic version known as Ta’lim al-Muta’allim-Tariq at-Ta’allum was written by Imam Zarnuji and translated to English by G.E Von Grunebaum .

The book was divided into 13 chapters started with a foreword from the famous American Islamic scholar Hamza Yusuf .Full of beautiful poetry (OK I am NO expert in poetry but I imagined it would be beautiful IF I can read the original Arabic transcript + I understood Arabic!) about knowledge , Imam Zarnuji compiled the wisdom of Muslim scholars during his travel in many Islamic countries during the glorious day.Though the length of 64 pages can considered as a short book, the contents covered is enormous touched a wide subjects of seeking ilm — from adab, perserverance , the “real purpose” , relying to God, finding best time , improving memory and others.

Looking back, now I understand why at times I failed in striving to attain knowledge – a mental block? maybe barred in my understanding subjects learnt due to missing the [proper] methods of learning.

An article in SeekingIlm had a brief review about this book in a subject of improving brain function in seeking knowledge.Interesting!

Power of Positive Parenting — Free Online Course Materials — USU OpenCourseWare

Posted by rizal on Mar 30, 2008 in being a father, Web/Tech | 0 comments

Just found an interesting online parenting course, the good news is ..its FREE.

Power of Positive Parenting – Free Online Course Materials – USU OpenCourseWare

Course Description

This course has been developed using portions from several of the books, videos, and audio products produced by Glenn Latham. These materials will give parents the skills necessary to raise children well. Glenn Latham said of his book, The Power of Positive Parenting, which is his definitive book, upon which this course is built, that it has been “subjected to more independent, scientific scrutiny than any parenting book in print today. In every instance, it has been shown to be an effective parenting tool. For that reason, it has been adopted by parent training programs, schools, university professors, early childhood and head start programs, and governmental programs as the basic text for teaching parenting skills.”

Utah State University OpenCourseWare would like to thank Dr. Latham and his family for providing us with the materials and permissions to make this course available. Please note: This course is licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Creative Commons license. This means that derivative works may not be made from this content without first obtaining permission.

International Day 2008

Posted by rizal on Mar 14, 2008 in Life in Arabia | 0 comments

The International Day for Ammar and Imran is here again. Imran was the main feature for his class this time round – I was surprised!

About being ignorant

Posted by rizal on Mar 14, 2008 in Books | 0 comments

Upon reading a book on a flight back to Riyadh recently, I stopped to ponder the following quote from a Neil Postman book Technopoly.

Based on old adage (some attributed this to Mark Twain)

To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail

And Neil Postman in his book extended it to :-

To a man with a pencil, everything looks like a list .
To a man with a camera everything looks like an image.
To a man with a computer everything looks like data and to a man with a grade sheet, everything looks like a number.

A good friend of mine used to say .. to his manager he was just a name in Excel sheet!