I must said, I am quite disturbed by this video. Also, it is my part to educate fellow mobileofficers and co-workers on to be more secure.

From the video, what we can see is a robbery cases at  Restoran Subur Seksyen 15 Shah Alam at Date / Time : 28th August 2011 @ 0355hrs to 0405hrs. 28th August, is when most of Malaysian citizens back to their hometown to celebrate Hari Raya Aidilfitri therefore you could explain why the robbery took cases where there’s only few people at Mamak. (Popular mamak always crowded even in early morning). Few people in helmets and raincoats storming the mamak, robbing everything that they can get including two laptops and they get away pretty fast.

While i believe the blame is on those thief, but we, on our part, have to know, understand the risk, and do our part.

This is one of the reason I don’t quite like to work at Mamak. Primary reason would be the chairs and the noise level, their security isn’t that tight. Mamak has a lot of exit due to open air. You can see the thief storming, rushing inside to rob. But it is good that people can escape easily so the trick here is be nimble. To be honest, i’ve never been into that situation so i’m unsure if I can be as nimble as I said, i would be escaping with my laptop only.

The second thing is the time. It is at wee in the morning 0355-0405. People are sleeping during that time so there’s no reason for you to work on that time. (while I know the couple maybe just do some light surfing, can’t they do it at home? )

If you really need to work outside at night, I recommend areas that alive at night and areas that you think have more police, such as Bangsar.

I still remember the day, bunch of people, in suspicious way, staring at me and my MacBook Pro at mamak. Ever since then, I no longer working at Mamak stall unless just for 30 minutes.

The blame is on the thief but let us do our part, know the risk, and stay alert.

We were proud to tell you that last week we were featured in Malaysia’s Innovation Agency (Agensi Inovasi Malaysia) website. It’s a project by Malaysia government to spur the innovation throughout the nation. So we were being picked up by them since we’re promoting the emerging working concept in Malaysia, which is Mobile working. Our stories were featured and believed will innovate the nation. And this honor goes to all of those who involved in project Officekami, by submitting, by participating, and by tweeting our activities.

Now, the next level for government is to acknowledge mobile working / telecommuting by giving tax exemption to the companies who practice it and also, to the business/cafes/ who provide spaces for mobile workers.

Mobile office for the win!

I have a lot of work to do in April so without further ado and flowery words, here I would like to announce an Officekami Mobile Web V2. Prior to this, you might need to surf to m.officekami.com that has been created by @nazroll, use Nokia version from Ovi Store created by @lightyoruichi, or download the iPhone App by @sumardi .

Last friday I was tense with all my work ( i mean really jampacked this April ) and revisit Officekami to hack it (i mean add some enhancement), thus have purchased WP-Touch Pro to further enhance the use of this website.

Now all Officekami Users, enjoice! Visit this blog using your Smartphone, and also by iPad and you’ll be presented with the blog, in an App-View format!! Aren’t that cool??

So what, isn’t it just another app again?

No. With this new feature, you’ll be able to GET A DIRECTION IN GOOGLE MAPS!. With that being CAPS-LOCK-ED, it means if you’re surfing this website using your smartphone, when you choose a particular mobile office, you just need to click ‘ get a direction in google maps’ and it will launch a Google Maps application. For me, it’s nifty.

So among the device supported

Finally, I hope you make use of it. Visit this blog using the device stated above. And if you did, please comment or become an Officekami FB fan

P/S: I would like to thank @eizil for his assistance and deepest gratitude to Nazrul, Harinder Singh & Sumardi. I mean without them I wouldn’t be here

We’re happy to announce that we’ve collaborated with Feedgeorge, a Malaysian-Based Geo-RSS Aggregator. If you’re an avid user of feedgeorge, this means you can check Officekami location in Feedgeorge maps mashup. So while checking for a location-based news, events, or jobs in Feedgeorge, you might as well check for nearest Officekami with your location. This is because their website is geo-aware and able to get your location.

Nifty indeed. Go to their website at http://feedgeorge.com or follow @feedgeorge on twitter.

Often people ask me: How do you handle meetings if you don’t have an office? or, if you kept travelling. A pretty straightforward answer is- do the meetings at mobileoffice.

However, in doing a meeting at mobileoffice, we have to take few concern over about the places itself before our client, or potential client walks in.

So here are few do & dont

Do’s

• Prepare everything of your related material before going to meet (portfolios, file, etc)
• Ask if the meeting need computer, or other stuff (like projectors)
• Make sure the place you’re agreed to meet have a decent internet connection
• Also, meet the client at an are that have an alternative internet connection, or you can tether your internet to laptop via smartphone
• Preferably, meet at place with plenty parking spaces, accessible to both parties (via LRT or so on)
• If you’re a women/girl meeting a man, meet them at a mobileoffice that are not secluded

That’s about Do’s. Now let’s see what the Dont’s

• Do the meeting at Mamak. That will reflect your image (unless your client who ask for it, or both parties agree with it. )
• Do the meeting at noisy place
• Do the meeting during lunch time- because some places will be really jampacked.
• Do anything that you think is wrong. In other words, how do you expect to be treated if you come to other, same you should do to your visiting client.

Once my wife asked me: How could you meet at Burger King, or meet at Burger Cart (like famous Ramly SS19), and call that a meeting?

One reason: client was hungry and wanted to have a meeting over burger :p

End of note, I’m sure few of you have your opinions or tips. Kindly share with us. And yes, lastly, it’s up to mutual agreement on both parties on where to meet. If they wanna have Teh Tarik & Roti Canai, go ahead, choice is yours.

Hi everyone. It’s like I’m on hiatus for not writing anything for 2 months. Actually, it was because Fasting month that I didn’t go to any Mobileoffice and then Eid (raya) month. So here goes the second backpack review. Today what I’m reviewed is Built Bulletproof Backpack thanks to AlimBag. It is called ‘bulletproof’ because the design looks like Kevlar Vest, the bulletproof vest being used by police, swats, and soldiers. [DISCLAIMER] BUT PLEASE DON’T TRY TO ACCEPT BULLETS USING THIS BAG AND I MEAN IT. so yeah continue to the review.

As usual, I’ll be comparing with my current bag, Targus Spruce. You may want to read the review of Targus Spruce EcoSmart Backpack here.

The Type & Size

This Bulletproof Backpack type is superslim type. It is meant for you to appear stylishly, to bring only the laptop with essential tool and doesn’t want to bring other stuff. With this bag, you’d be able to bring a laptop underneath your blazer or for motorcycle riders, underneath your leather jacket or raincoat. It doesn’t have thick padding but the back is a mesh. it will snap to your body and i don’t think it will follow the contour of your spine, in contrast with padded Targus Spruce. However on that point, at least the mesh is much more comfortable than my first Golla. Mesh provide decent airflow. The one I’m testing is Medium sized and I kinda have problem to wear it because I’m fat. The shoulder strap are bit small and kinda limit my shoulder movement. Or maybe I just testing it once without give ample time to adapt with that situation. The front shoulder velcro strap is there to help the grip, but I kinda find it funny. But if combine it with carabiner hook (usually found within Golla range of handphone pouch) it’s pretty useful.

The Compartment

Bulletproof Backpack has ONLY three compartment. There’s shoulder compartment, top-load laptop compartment and side load extras compartment. Shoulder compartment is there for you to put iPods, handphones. Nicely placed at shoulder straps at the left side. The second is the top-load laptop compartment. Pretty roomy even I put my MacBook Pro 15. Adrian, the owner of Alimbag said it might fit 17″ MacBook Pro. The third, side-load compartment is there for you to put plugs & essential tools located at the right side.

To test the compartment, I’ve inserted my Macbook Pro & 3 extremely essential tools. As for laptop, you can see how roomy it is. I even can pull the top-load lid till I can see the apple logo. And from Built Bulletproof Backpack official website, they fit an inch hardcover book, a fastcompany magazine and I didn’t know what size of that macbook. That height should be around 3-4 inch so I guess the topload compartment can held 4-6 inch thickness. However, I don’t think it is heavily padded like Targus Spruce. So I think if you fall with your laptop at your back, it may break. I

As for side-load compartment, I insert plug for laptop, USB cable for handphone (+ it does charging) & Kensington Lock. As usual, do not ever, ever leave your laptop unattended, insecured. So with Macbook pro inserted + those tools being inserted inside side-load compartment, it become a bit bulky, but not too bulky. No I didn’t arrange the tools properly since we mobilewarriors live a life on a run.

The Others

Since there’s no more other component and compartment, there’s no others LOL.

The Price

This slim bag, I forget, SUPER SLIM BAG, is priced at RM359 at AlimBag store. While the price is near with Targus Spruce Backpack, the bag focuses in it’s style, lightness, agility & simplicity. I might bought it because of it slimness as I’m a motorcycle & bicycle user, but yet to know the effects to my back.

The Conclusion

Given the price and few drawbacks, those who want to buy this bag need to consider carefully given the price. It is a good bag but without much use. You can’t put much stuff. Since it’s ‘snap’ on your back, if you put too many it will be too tight. Plus, if you put too many stuff I think the bag may break. But then one thing i like for the slimness is that imagine you’re on ‘standby/on call’ mode, you can bring just the laptop and the plug without worry about anything else. And at one point, I imagine when I have babies and kids, this bag will suit me because I can put baby carrier in front, without losing much agility.

As for motorcyclist, this bag will suit you and will fit into your raincoat. As far as I know, Givi Raincoat have big ‘back opening’ so it can cover your big laptop bag. But if that’s not the case, this bag will solve it.

For analogy, this bag is for Code-Ninja, not for Nerd-Samurai. If you can’t understand the analogy, you’re less geeky :p

Okay sorry for the insult. As you can see, Samurai’s shield are heavily padded, bring many equipments to war, bring long swords with longbow and arrow. Ninjas only bring shuriken-star, knife, and poisoned needles.

Rating – 4 out of 5. Scores same as Golla.

You can get this bag at Pavilion KL, at AlimBag. You may see AlimBag’s online stores here or email him- alimbag82[at]gmail[dot]com or call him at 0123370933

Hello mobilewarriors and visitors. Quite some time I didn’t write any articles. World’s been busy, and same as me.

So here goes article. A quick article I’ve wrote, Tissue Tips.

If you realize, if you come to every cafes or even fast food chains, they will give tissues. Tissues being served for your convenience. Aside from wiping our mouth and hand, tissue can be most useful to one mobile warriors. Usually, the shops will give you at least 2-3 piece of 2 ply (helaian) tissues. From my observation, unused/extra tissues will be left untouched by customer and those unused tissues, usually, following the restaurant code of conduct ( I was a Shakey’s Pizza service crew before so I know ) will be thrown away.

I’m serious. It is same as leftovers. Untouched tissues will be thrown away. ( I didn’t know if there’s restaurant keeping it )

How to fix this?

While it maybe hard for us to change the code of conduct of restaurant, unless we are the one in control, I would suggest we, mobile warriors, do something. That is not to left any tissues behind, even if we don’t need it. This is why you should keep unused tissue in your backpack

• Use it for ideation and sketches (as pictured above). Maybe in dire need you just need to jot down important number so yeah. Tissue ftw.
• Use it to wipe dirty tables at food court, cafes, or when you want to put your laptop to work.
• Use it to wipe anything that in the situation there’s no cleaner can wipe it for you
• Best replacement for whiteboard duster.
• And women best friend too :p
• And if you’re scouts/ first aid expert, tissue is one of important thing, If i’m not mistaken.
• Lastly since I’m motorcyclist, sometimes I wipe my wet

So yeah,let’s reduce unused tissue wastage. Let’s take our part  :)

End of article

Sidenote: I’m quite glad that ever since I talk more about Officekami this year, more and more people coming in to give support. While this is a non-profit movement, support is all I need to elevate it and yeah, you can see a lot of submissions; almost every weekday one place being published. And there be no updates on Saturday and Sunday because it’s weekend. And every Wednesday, I allocate like a special day to wrote articles.

Ahoy fellas. If you’re on twitter and following famous fellas on Social Media or foursquare junkie, best bet is that you heard this a day before KLSpecial

In a nutshell the idea is to get shops signed up as “owners” on foursquare and have them make specials available for the rest of us. We seek support of other 4squarers out there along with some of the bloggerati and twitterati of KL.  If you want to help just drop us your contact details and we will touch base with you on how you can get involved. – taken from their site.

Officekami is a proud supporter of this movement. Every location submitted and shall their owner want to promote it as one of #mobileoffice destination, it will be automatically listed in the Officekami Locations. So it will definitely help mobilewarriors in finding best locations + discounts, if they’re frequent visitors or mayor.

So dear mobilewarriors, if you have extra 10 minutes at your locations, or you’re feeling burnout from working, go to the respective contact person of that shop, and educate them. It is for their benefit afterall The resources to educate them on #KLspecials is here.

And if you’re asking benefit on your part, what you get is special itself. Imagine if you’re frequent visitor to The Bee, check in X5 will reward you a cappucino. Doesn’t that sounds nice? Or maybe some other locations give you X% discount. It is all that we want. And we need more and more shops to join.

Lastly, you can help to promote #KLSpecial by clicking the link below

To Tweet this video, click this:
To share the video, on Facebook:
To Digg the video, click this:
To Posterize this video on Posterous, click this:

Let’s make Malaysia a more happening place to be!

Hi All, I guess by now you may figure out Wednesday is the day I gave review, App Showdown, rants, articles and many more. So for today, an achievement for this project is to get featured in one of mainstream papers in Malaysia

If you click the picture, it will lead you to the news excerpt online, in Malay language. For English readers, it is about

• The evolution of how human works ( E-Mail, file sharing.. )
• The technology nowadays enabling human to work from distance + multiple location
• A lot of people working mobile in public areas
• The Officekami project is about providing crucial info required by mobile workers
• Such as WiFi, plugs, toilets, stationery shops
• Everyone can submit the recommended Mobileoffices. Submitters such as @victorliew, @fiona, @iwani, @shamsuljafni
• There’s also a mobile-app in development, thanks to @nazroll from Redboot Solutions
• Last March there’s Co-Working event celebrating Earth Hour sponsored by San Francisco Coffee
• Social Media Expert @thechannelc also involved in that day
• Mobileoffice is the growing working trend.

I’m quite glad to be featured. After all, featured in mainstream papers mean I can spread the idea of telecommuting and maybe in next 5-10 years, at least you don’t get that weird look when you said you work everywhere, your office is mobileoffice.

And in next 20 years, a bill of Telecommuting enacted in Malaysia.

Boy I’m such a dreamer. Thanks to the submitters of Officekami. And by the way, if you’re new here. Consider share your location with us. There will be others be thankful of it

Back to App Showdown. For this week, another must-have for mobile-warriors: Dropbox.

Dropbox in a nutshell is an online backup + file sharing + file syncing across multiple computers and devices.

Let me break it up for you.

Online Backup

First of all, Dropbox allows you to backup wirelessly of your folder. If you’re using free account, you got 2GB’s and up to 100GB available for paying customers. Every time you create, modify, and delete your files in designated dropbox folder, it will upload the file to the server. You can also restore deleted  and previous file version.

File Sharing

You can share your files with your friends and colleagues with just few clicks (see images below). Means that when you’re doing work for particular projects, once you made changes to a file, we can see the changes instantly (provided you have extremely fast internet connection). Aside from sharing with our colleagues, we can also give ‘public url’ to our clients.

File Syncing across multiple computers & devices

For me this is the WIN features of dropbox. Since every time there’s changes to Dropbox, the file will be uploaded. Imagine this scenario. You need to rush to a presentation and inside the car, you realize you left your specific thumbdrive with specific presentations. You can simply contact your staff at the office to share it inside, say, your company folder. Once you arrive at the client office, all you need to do is connect to internet, wait for few seconds and then you’ll see the presentation available in your laptop. WIN

Another feature is that say you have different PC in office and personal MAC at home. Previously all we did is we save the files and transfer via thumbdrive. Forget thumbdrive. All you need is dropbox. Set the dropbox at your office computer, and personal MAC, and you’ll be able to sync it. Just make sure all files are up to date before you’re going home. Once you arrive at home, if you leave your MAC turned on all the time, the files already there. Every files and folders that has been saved in your dropbox will display little green mark indicating it is available on the ‘cloud’.

And before I forgot, you can sync it to your iPhone, Android phone too. But the method is a bit different because the file are available on-demand. I can presume it is because if all of your files sync non-stop with your mobile phone devices, it will consume a lot of traffic/bandwidth and then it will cost you a lot. So the files only available when requested, but will be stored on your device once you loaded it.

Endnote

With that, i hope you find Dropbox is useful for your mobile working. Another one thing if you’re cheapskate, you can have up to 8GB free by simply referring to others. Every of your friends who install Dropbox via your invitation, you and them will get extra 250MB. Sweet. If you need bigger space, I find it really worth it.

Make use of it yah! ( and if you’re just want to start using it, get extra 250MB by using my dropbox referral invitation