We gave Rudy a farewell lunch the other day ... his internship with us was up. Here's a clip of the lunch and parting words from Rudy!

This is Rudy Gunawan who is with an Indonesian human rights NGO interning with Malaysiakini for a couple of weeks.

We took him for a taste of Malaysian politics and here's his reaction.

Ijok is gone. And with it Malaysiakini.tv's viewership numbers. It was a real turn-on to see the numbers during the campaigning period shooting up as high as 50,000!

Now, it'll drop to 'normal' levels ... 1,500...2,500...3,000 a day and although already quite good, I will feel a shallowness after the 'berpuloh ribu' numbers. It'll be like the morning after the party ... massive hangover with pot and booze and you're struggling to remember what the fuck happened.

I guess the Ijok folks will feel the same way, though some will be relieved that the circus has gone back to where it came from and leaving newly tarred roads, street lamps, sewing machines and landtitles behind. It was a real boon to the Ijok folks.

BN spent RM36million from the national coffers to ensure that they win and win big. But I wonder if Najib doesn't feel hollow in this massive win, knowing full well that it was achieved on a very non-level playing field.

On hindsight, I now see the logic in PAS boycott by-election strategy. It's almost impossible to win by-elections because of the entire BN government machinery.

Generally the rakyat are slaves and BN the master -- give the rakyat a morsel and they'd do anything for BN.

Well midnight on April 28th was a wrap-up for the Malaysiakini team which covered the by-election better than any local media.

We now wait for the general election ...

The views on our videos created quite a strain on bandwidth and server performance...lucky the tech team was on hand to handle the problem.

Come end of the day, our guys can't keep talking shop ...

This is Danny, Aizu & Z Kiat.

Raziq was immensely active yesterday (Sunday April 22) at Jaya Jusco. He'd been wanting to go, but I was late in fetching him from Mum & Dad's, so when he got there he was almost running amok. :-)

Shot with the Nokia 6288 and encoded to wmv. Conversion from 3gp to avi was done with Xilisoft video converter. Pretty good software and a 'steal' at US$35.00. Haven't bought it yet though, but surely will if I can borrow a credit card.

The Barisan National is undaunted by criticism of its blatant unfair practises in using public funds to upgrade and build facilities to cajole voters to vote for them.

The much touted 3G highspeed mobile service isn't getting the reception telcos hoped it would. Certainly it doesn't seem so from the percentage of 3G subscribers in the office -- out of 38 people only 3 are 3G users.

Notwithstanding, the next step in our evolution will be for the .tv system to accept videos from 3G devices and for users (subscribers) to upload them directly. This is the challenge for the tech boys ... :-)

The idea is to have a blogging system for mobile users -- cameraphones...PDAs etc...

Why?

1. Enable keen mobile video bloggers to share their videos
2. Generate content
3. Establish a revenue model
4. Establish a homegrown mobile blogging service

We've progressed in leaps and bounds in terms of putting the system together -- certainly a long way from the wordpress days. Now our views are averaging about 2,500 a day. On the first day of the Machap by-election, we hit 9,750 views -- just 200 short of an Uncle Chilli's lunch with Prem. There's a deal...hit 10,000 and Prem will buy lunch. :-)

We're still struggling with live field coverage though, and even putting up the videos from near the action. I expect we'll get there soon...especially with the general election looming.

On another effort, we'll be trying mobile videos, specifically those shot with a cameraphone. We need to explore ways on how contributors can upload videos direct from their cameraphone. Also we might want to host video blogs too.

I shot this video with a Nokia 6288 and it looks OK. One thing about these devices, camera or subject movement is a problem. One thing though about cameraphones...there's only one mic and it faces the guy taking the shot. So if you are doing an interview, the audio on the interviewees side isn't all that good. I wonder if there's a phone with two mics?

The other problem is encoding...we're on a Windows media platform and the camera video files are either on 3gp or mpeg4 (for the higher end phones like the Nokia N93i). So far I've found a workable solution to encode 3gp files to .avi or something that Premier can import. The Mac's Quicktime Pro though has no problems in recognising and then converting 3gp files.

The following video was shot with a Nokia 6288.




The video is a complaint against DBKL's daft plan of preventing cars coming from the Jalan Pahang from joining Jalan Tun Razak / Jalan Mahameru. Traffic from Jalan Pahang have to cross over Jalan Ipoh to get to the PWTC and Jalan Mahameru and the escape road to Jalan Kucing. It's absolutely ridiculous.

We can now share videos through sites or blogs by copying and pasting the codes. Malaysiakini.tv has gone through a 'revolutionary' transformation!

In terms of video production though we still need to improve especially with audio. Audio is such a challenge!

This video is the fourth in a series of four interviews we did with Anwar's daughter Nurul Izzah.

It's been several days since my last post. Life's been busy at Malaysiakini with some ups and downs. The ups have been providing news coverage, the downs have been 'human relations' -- and here, I don't think I shall need go further.

Covering the Kampung Berembang demolishing was quite exciting perhaps because of a number of anxious moments when things were quite unruly and getting out of hand. At the height of tensions and skirmishes one can easily be a victim of police brutality and for the first time, I have seen with my own eyes the eagerness with which the enforcement unit of the municipal councils, the police and the Federal Reserve Unit use force to subdue demonstrators and people who feel they were protecting their homes and belongings.



What bothered me with this incident was the exposure people were willing to put their children to to violence.

They left their children in the surau and to me this was like a human shield. I had gone into the surau where children as young as three or four years old were left. They felt the tensions outside, they say the fights from the first floor of the surau and they were scared. Children were crying.

I think it was immoral of the villagers to have done that to their kids. They should have been moved out as soon as the FRU arrived. And I had asked Ghani, a villager I had known during my time at Asia PR Publishing, to tell the parents to move their children out.

Continuing with the coverage of the Kampung Berembang demolition, I've put up another video on You Tube...



The poor always get downtrodden...regardless of who is in power.

Penang Chief Minister and Gerakan Deputy President Koo Tsu Koon caught by reporters at the opening of UMNO general assembly...

Traders lend a carnival-like atmosphere to the serious business of politics at the 57th UMNO General Assembly...

Kak Rafidah has the last say at the end of the 57th UMNO General Assembly...

This one is Hishammuddin Tun Hussein talking about Putra UMNO. He was also asked about the fiery speeches by the UMNO Youth delegates attacking some leaders of the Barisan component parties...

Since Tuesday, I've been at the UMNO General Assembly -- their 57th -- covering it for my new employers, Malaysiakini. I joined them on November to handle the video unit.

I'm going to put up the videos of the general assembly here.

A couple of years ago I attended a documentary production workshop at FINAS. This is a project that we completed during the 6-day course...

Raziq took part in his first St. Ronan concert today, Nov 5. This is the first part...



And Adik is back from NZ for a couple of months also...

Hari Raya has so far been normal. And I am absolutely bersyukur Alhamdulillah for still having my parents, children, wife, sisters, nieces and brother in law and immediate uncles and aunties around...

As we get older, sense of 'mortality' is rather strong...

This year, we are in KL since there is no more 'kampong' to go back to.