happy new year - welcome 2011

wishing all arkrab.blogspot.com viewers a "happy new year", prospering and beautiful life a head, insyaAllah.

today is THE DAY:

lately i may seriously have less TIME to write in this blog, BUT today seriously i have to make TIME to remember my IMPORTANT DAY i.e OUR 25TH. ANNIVERSARY. thank you to my WIFE for the beautiful life we have been together. May Allah blessed US always!

happy new year to all friends and arkrab.blogspot.com readers

while celebrating the new year, the 2010, i think it wise for us NOT to forget the past. without the PAST there would be no PRESENT and the FUTURE. learn something from the past and be prepared to improve our future. hope there would be MORE activities and ideas for this 2010. HAPPY NEW YEAR.

SELAMAT HARI RAYA AIDILFITRI 1430 HIJRAH KEPADA SEMUA RAKAN DAN TAULAN ARKRAB.BLOGSPOT.COM, MAAF ZAHIR BATIN.

New Technology - It's Significant Benefits

NEW TECHNOLOGY

Oh aaaaaah i had to wake up early today. MY TRUSTY OLD & RELIABLE NOKIA N73 phone shook me up to remind me of the important date today! How come my wife and I NEVER remembered anything after SAHUR [the month of RAMADHAN's night time supper or LAST MEAL before the next day fasting time starts] this morning and recklessly gave the trust to my loyal phone to remind us instead! No choice, we always and forever will owe significant benefit to the NEW TECHNOLOGY whenever our DEFECTED MEMORIES seriously getting more & more into trouble.

THE DISAPPEARING HERITAGE - RUMAH HELANG TANGKAK [2]

the actual photo of rumah helang tangkak

ooah! what a surprise!. how to express my excitement, when i was so busy searching for old photos of old close friends to be scanned and loaded to my new new cyber club corner i.e FACEBOOK, this important photo of RUMAH HELANG TANGKAK that i had taken on the STUDY TRIP as mentioned in my earlier post on this building [14 Dis 2008] suddenly showed itself up as though trying to tell me "PLEASE TAKE ME OUT AND SHOW ME TO THE WORLD, as a proof that i was at one time existed".

i know my "defected memory card' seriously destroying my memories of the trip. i still can not remember the actual date of the trip. but the other three photos do give strong evidences of the trip. we were travelling on En. Ahmad's Talib's bike from Labis Segamat [my home town] through Tangkak [some other northern parts of Johor] around some parts of Negeri Sembilan [Gemas, Kuala Pilah, and Seremban] and ended up in Melaka.

as i said earlier , my sketch of the building was not that something to be proud of, but at least my old trusty NIKON FM2 manual SLR camera, had done a GOOD JOB for me to capture this ONLY ONE image of the disappearing heritage building. HAS CAMERA WILL TRAVEL and as what one of the famous old sayings said 'a photograph will tells 1001 stories or a photo worth 1001 words' : This photo [unfortunately i didn't care to take a closer detail shot of it - this would be my biggest mistakes i admit! or i had no choice then not to waste too many films because they were so expensive for a poor student like me to spare at that time] will be able to tell us how unique the building was and here what we sadly have to say "what a great LOST to our GREAT ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE".

MY BELOVED SLRs: NIKKORMAT EL, NIKON FM2 AND NIKON EM

KAMERA MATI MENINGGALKAN . . . . . . . . . ?

unless you were born with great [could be abnormally gifted] brain processing power in storing information [in an abnormal manner as probably the case would be] which commonly considered as having unbelievable “photographic memories” which allows you to remember every minute of your past life scenes, than only you would not necessary need to own [well not everyone could effort them sadly said] these wonderful equipments i.e. cameras. cameras may not have the brain as what we human beings have, but they photographically, do own a special way to store memories in the form of ‘photographic memories’.

anyway!, i am here not to talk about the different between humans’ photographic memories and camera photographic memories because i was not born to be specializing in both of the cases. i am now just want to express my gratitude and salute to my already deceased beloved photographic toys which i once owned – NIKON SINGLE-LENS REFLEXES: NIKKORMAT EL, NIKON FM2 AND NIKON EM. they may have GONE FOREVER [ i would be forever sinful for not bordering to bury their death bodies until now], but their “photographic memories” have left me with beautiful treasure of past recorded sweet living memories.

as everyone of you out there surely agree with me for the fact that “photography” is a form of memory. a century ago, EMILE ZOLA [a french novelist] wrote, "you cannot claim to have really seen anything until you have photographed it." in a way what he tried to tell us was that: we can never able to really remember anything until we've seen a photograph.

despite being photographic documenter, cameras normally treasuring images, which photographically creating work of art as a record of a moment in time. at the same time, they let us remember our world in the form of photographic images i.e pictures. and what we see in a picture is always a mix of why we photographed them. one of them is for sure for what we wanted it to be i.e to document our invaluable SWEET MEMORIES of what our past was!

and NOW even though i have lost my beloved SLRs, but with full respect and salute to them [ NIKON SINGLE-LENS REFLEXES: NIKKORMAT EL, NIKON FM2 AND NIKON EM ], they had left me with the pictures above [part of the collections of sweet memories which would forever and ever be with me]:

what's next . . . . .?

WHAT TO CONSIDER TO SUIT THE TROPICS [when designing a building in Malaysia in particular]

just to remind my own self, of what to consider when designing a building to suit the tropics [a response to the climate]:

first and for all, some of the factual points for us to remember is that after completing the BASIC building requirements such as the necessity of constructing the floor, columns and the roof of the building, effective sun control to prevent undue heat load on the building and occupants is the next step to consider.

it is very important to reduce solar heat gain on the building envelope to maintain the building internal comfortable environment. the following are some strategies to be adopted to construct buildings in the tropics or to be specific in the Equatorial Malaysian environment, to ensure they are comfortable for the occupants:

• appropriate orientation of the building at site to gain and catch prevailing breezes,
• constructing steep pitched roof with large roof overhangs, wide verandahs and generous landscaping schemes to ensure the buildings are effectively shaded,
• provision of extensive operable louvre windows, screens, timber slats, large sliding doors, screen walls and part height internal walls to maximise cross-ventilation through the buildings,
• rotary and gable vents are also good ventilation system to be considered to exhaust hot air,
• roof lighting system is good alternative to provide natural lighting to deep rooms. however, excessive glare and sun penetration through windows should be controlled by adopting appropriate screening system, vegetation and effective building orientation; and last but NOT least
• other active system normally used to modify the internal building climate is the practical installation of ceiling fans in all habitable rooms to complement natural ventilation and provide a low-cost means of increasing internal air-movement within the buildings.