Why Would I Write

Category: Technology

  • Parking Ticket Technology

    A week ago, I received a fine for parking my car in a spot without putting a ticket on my dashboard. Why didn’t I pay for the ticket? Well, the parking ticket machine wasn’t working, so I couldn’t get a ticket from it. Since I was going for a quick lunch I decided to chance it. After all, I was only going to be 20 minutes. Turns out, that was enough time for a cop to issue me a fine. I paid off the fine yesterday, so I’m in the clear.

    Today, I parked my car again in a public parking spot. Guess what? Another broken ticket machine. Didn’t feel like picking up another fine so I purchased a set of parking coupons. Paying for parking is not an issue to me. I believe in paying for convenience – like using tolls and not having to park 10 streets away just to hike to your destination. But when the process of paying for parking is such a hassle, that’s when I get annoyed.

    We’ve got Touch and Go. We’ve got credit cards. We’ve got smartphones. Why do we still have to scratch pieces of paper (a few if you plan to park for longer than an hour) just to park our cars? If you want to charge for parking, the least you could do is keep those machines maintained. Or let us leave money under our windshield wipers for the cops to collect. How about billing us directly? After all everybody has an e-wallet tied to their MyKad and all car license plates can be traced to an owner.

    In the UK, they use cameras to capture your car plate number when you drive into the city. When you’ve arrived at your destination, you can just login and pay the charge within two days. No fuss, everybody wins. Also, you don’t have to carry bags of change around with you. Why haven’t we come up with a proper parking system yet?

    And I know, this issue isn’t just in Malaysia alone – a few years ago when I was in Singapore, I had to do the same thing when I left my car parked for a day. And man, it cost a fortune. Also, a lot of time was spent poking holes in the parking tickets and making sure they fit properly on my dashboard.



    We’ve already made advancements in malls, most of them allow you to pay with Touch and Go now. It’s 2017, I think we should have the same for outdoor parking spaces. At the same time, maybe revamp our toll systems. Or make Smart TAG batteries last longer (I’ve seen way too many people getting stuck in Smart TAG lanes on the morning drive to work, I use the Touch and Go lane – no battery problems). The technology is available, we just need to embrace it.

  • The case against third-party antivirus software

    Every time I get a new machine, I like to get rid of preloaded software I don’t use. One of the most common software you’ll find with a new device is antivirus software. I don’t use any third-party antivirus software because I find that it is unnecessary and causes performance issues on your computer. While it is useful, it becomes another app that you have to keep updated in order for it to function properly. Also, a lot of new devices come with trial versions or limited subscriptions, so they become useless very quickly.

    There really isn’t a need for it if you know what you’re doing on your machine and you don’t easily fall for traps. Windows’ built in solutions (Windows Defender or Microsoft Security Essentials) do a good enough job of protecting your machine – best of all, they are free. All you have to do is use your computer wisely.

    (more…)

  • (dis)connected

    Despite us being so connected in today’s world, sometimes it also feels like we’re so disconnected from each other. I recently found myself knowing so much about someone when in reality I knew nothing. I came to this conclusion after hearing some recent news about somebody’s plight. Based on that person’s social media, I didn’t think anything was wrong with that person. In my head, everything was fine and dandy. Sure, I haven’t been the best of friends and never bothered to find out how that person was doing on my own – I made the assumption based on the posts I read on their social media accounts.

    How wrong I was.

    I guess even though it’s so easy for you to update everybody around you about what’s going on with your life, you only share things worth sharing (though there are some people who behave otherwise).

    At least that’s how I use my social media accounts. I share things that I think people will enjoy checking out. I don’t really share negative things, so somebody who isn’t close to me but relies on my social media accounts for updates on how I’m doing might think I’m doing fine, since I’m not complaining online. I mean, I could or could not be fine, nobody really knows. After all, I could be depressed and sharing uplifting stuff at the same time. What you see online isn’t indicative of what’s going on in my life – it’s what I choose to let you see.

    Anyway, this leads people to think that a lot of people are living better lives than they really do. Probably that’s why you see a lot of happy couples and mushy photographs/status updates, and you rarely see posts about the opposite.

    On the flip-side, don’t rely on social media if you need help. Reach out to your close friends or family if you’re feeling down. A status update can be easily missed or ignored by people who have too many things going on in their timelines. Better to get help sooner than later.

    Also, worth a watch: