Introducing Hana Alisha

It seems like only yesterday I introduced my second child, Mia Ariana here on this blog. Well actually it's been 1,134 days since that day. Now, it's time to introduce the newest member of my family born last week, 28th April 2011 to be exact around 3:15 PM at Pantai Hospital Cheras. World, meet Hana Alisha.

When we visited the hospital last Thursday, we actually went there for a routine maternity check-up with Linda's obstetrician. My wife's due date is actually on the 17th of May, about 3 weeks away. However since the doctor found Linda's blood glucose to be a little bit high which could lead to complications during birth, she advised us to have the baby on the same day through induced labor.

So we went home for a while to get ready and came back later in the afternoon. By 1:30 PM, Linda was ready to deliver but somehow the baby's arm got in the way of at her cervix so the doctor had to perform an emergency cesarean operation instead.

With heavy heart, we agreed with the operation. Cesareans is the last thing most normal mother would want. Sure it's quick and painless at first but the surgical wound will take longer to heal, the flab on your tummy will be harder to lose and the mother will take even longer to get back in shape. Thankfully the operation went on smoothly without any incidents. By 3:30 PM, Hana Alisha was delivered safely into this world by her obstetrician Dr Suriati Akmal.

As usual we thought long and hard before naming our baby. I did have a few beautiful names in mind like Nurul Syuhada Nurul Ain, Lisa Surihani, Nur Fazura or Awan Dania but they were all vetoed off by my wife. In the end we decided to name her Hana Alisha. Hana means happiness in Arabic and also a type of flower in Persian, Kurdish and Japanese. Alisha means honest, truthful and protected by God.

Just like Mia, Hana took longer to leave the hospital because she also got jaundice like her big sister. I don't know whether that's hereditary or just coincidence but the important thing is that she has now fully recovered and allowed to go home.

If you compare Hana's picture to Mia's they looked totally alike at her age. Some people tried for years before they were gifted children, let alone baby girls. I guess I am so lucky to be given 3 beautiful children, 2 of them beautiful little girls. I don't mind getting either boy or a girl but girls are always extra special to me. Adam Farihin will hopefully grow to be the leader of the family but Mia and Hana will become my two very solehah, clever and beautiful little princesses. God-willing, amen.

By the way did you know that Hana shares her birthday with Jessica Alba and Penélope Cruz?. Just sayin'. :-)
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Pantai Hospital Cheras

Pantai Hospital Cheras is a private hospital located in Taman Cheras Makmur near Kuala Lumpur. This hospital was commissioned 17 years ago since 1994 and provides various in and outpatient services. With over 41 consultants and 4 full time medical officers, Pantai Hospital Cheras provides 139 beds for any customers who can afford to stay there.

For our 3rd child, we've decided to pick this hospital to deliver our baby. We've been coming here for 2 months now, starting from my wife's third trimester of pregnancy.

There's a couple of obstetrician you can choose from and we picked Dr Suriati as our OB. Her office is on the 4th floor at the Woman & Children Health Centre.

Our last visit to this hospital also happened to be the day my wife delivered the baby. Due to some complications, the doctor advised my wife to have an induced labour on the same day. We agreed and had our baby delivered by cesarean operation on the 28th of April 2011.

The operation went on smoothly and my wife stayed in one of the many rooms in the hospital. You can choose between one, two or four bed per room which comes at varying rates. The one-bedded air-conditioned room has one TV set with satellite TV subscription (with selected channels), a couple of chairs and a bathroom and costs about RM220 per night.

Like most hospitals I've been to, Pantai Hospital Cheras is also not very visitor friendly. If you'd like to accompany the patient for the night, you can choose to sleep either on the chair or on the floor. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep the whole time I was at the hospital. I guess putting a little sofa beside the bed would be too much to ask. Apart from that temperature inside the room and around the hospital could dip tominus 15° at night so be sure to bring some very warm clothing throughtout your stay.

Food wise, the hospital served the usual bland and boring food most suited for nursing mothers. I'm sure they serve delicious and tasty food for other patients. I remember the food at Pantai Hospital Bangsar was simply marvelous.

Visitors can always eat at the hospital cafeteria on the ground floor. Be prepared to pay Pantai Hospital rate-prices though. A simple lunch for two would set you back around RM27.60. That said, finding halal food elsewhere near the hospital is quite difficult if not impossible. The only edible food in the vicinity comes from a stall near Public Bank which is closed on weekends. Bringing your own food would be advisable.

All in all we can say our 3 days stay at Pantai Hospital Cheras was quite enjoyable. The doctors were competent and professional and most of the staff and nurses there were really helpful. For 3 nights stay in a single bed room and one cesarean delivery, we were charged a cool 6K+ including service tax. Unless you are filthy rich or covered by insurance or your employer, don't even think of coming here. Fortunately for us my wife's employer paid for everything via PMCare. Would I recommend this hospital to everyone? Probably not. For one, traffic leading to the hospital especially near the Jalan Cheras roundabout is quite dreadful any time of the day. The 17 years old building also looked worn out including some of the facilities and furniture. Add that to expensive food and lazy-ish nurse, I'd rather go to any KPJ Heatlhcare hospitals next time.
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SyncBack - the best backup software for Windows

SyncBack is a free backup and synchronization software from 2BrightSparks. I have used many different backup software (free or paid) before and SyncBack has been the best backup tool I have found so far. In terms of simplicity, reliability and ease of use, SyncBack fares better even against their paid counterpart like ARCserve, Acronis or HP Data Protector.

There are 3 versions of SyncBack: SyncBack Pro, SyncBackSE which are the paid version and also SyncBack Freeware which I am going to feature here. To get started just download the SyncBack software from their website and install the software on your Windows computer.

SyncBack Freeware allows basic backup and synchronization operation which is more than adequate for the average PC user. Backup as the name implies, lets your backup all your important files on your PC to a backup destination which could be anything from a local drive, and external hard drive or a network location. The synchronize options meanwhile, lets you sync two different location or folders and ensure all the files are identical and up to date.


Syncback lets you customize many different settings for your backup or sync operation or you could also choose the default setting provided.

Once a profile is created, you can schedule when the backup or sync will run, the frequency and also which files or folder to include or filter out. The best part about SyncBack is that it runs on most Windows version from Windows 98, NT, 2000, 2003 & 2008 Server, XP, Vista and also Windows 7. I regularly use SyncBack to backup my office and home PCs including a couple of servers at work. So far the program works beautifully and once I set the schedule, I only have to test the completed backup every once in a while. Get your free copy of SyncBack backup software here. Mac and Linux users can try Synkron, a free & open source backup software which works just as good.
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Share files from the menubar with CloudApp

CloudApp is a simple Mac OS app that lets you share images, links, music, videos and files from the menubar.

Once installed, just drag any file to the menubar and the app will automatically create a short link copied to your clipboard. You can then use this link to share your upload with your colleagues or friends.

Additionally you can view, track and delete the uploaded files right from your menubar.

The free CloudApp account has 25 MB file limit and limits you to 10 uploads per day. The Pro account offers 250 MB file size per upload and custom domain link. Why should you use CloudApp instead of say, Dropbox? Well this app lets you share files with just about anybody through the shared link while Dropbox requires both party to have the app installed. CloudApp is great if you would like to share small files quickly and easily with your buddies.

CloudApp is officially for Mac only but the Windows extension - FluppyApp lets you upload files to CloudApp just as easily. iPhone users can also upload files through Cloud2go app while Android users can use DroidCloud. Sign up for CloudApp here or get FluppyApp for Windows here.

Stream music & video from Amazon Cloud Drive

If you haven't already heard, Amazon.com beat Google and Apple to serve the first web-based cloud media storage of it's kind. Amazon Cloud Drive allows you to store music, videos, photos and documents online and access them from anywhere using a web browser.

Cloud storage is nothing new but what sets Amazon Cloud Drive apart is the ability to stream music and video from your smartphone, tablets or anything that has a browser. Now Dropbox has been able to do that for ages but this new service from Amazon offers 5GB of free space from the onset. Besides you can't really stream media from Dropbox unless you have the Dropbox app installed.

To begin just sign up at Amazon Cloud Drive and start uploading files to your account. Next, logon into Amazon Cloud Drive using your browser and click the media file to start playing. Android users are lucky because there's a dedicated Amazon Cloud Player app to stream and play music straight from your device although this service is only available in the U.S only for now. iOS users can only play each music or video file one by one by clicking the Download button in Amazon Cloud Drive page. Yeah it's a bit crude but at least it works. Anything that can be played on your iOS device (like mp3,aac and mp4) can be streamed from Amazon Cloud Drive. Sign up at Amazon Cloud Drive for your free 5GB cloud storage.