Mt Ruapehu huhuuuuu!!!

It was great to see snow in this Summer season :-) I was lucky enough to have a chance to join a free trip to Mt Ruapehu. Yes it was a free holiday trip because everything was sponsored by a friend of my Vietnamese friend. Hihii :-D. Lucky me! We actually went to many places on the way to Ruapehu: Hamilton, Huka falls, and Lake Taupo, before finally reached our destination.

Waiheke Island

On the day before Christmas, I had another beautiful moment with my supervisor. It was a great excursion and that was the second time in this year I have been to the Waiheke. Waiheke is really a stunning island located approximately 30 minutes away by ferry from the downtown Auckland. I've been told that the size of the island was about 30km times 50km. The best part of the island was its breathtaking views of the beaches surrounding the island, and the scenic coastal walks. Amazingly beautiful! SubhanaAllaah! It was raining in the morning so we had to cancel out our plan for a long walk. Nevertheless, I was lucky, that my my sup and her hubby drove me across the island, passing through the beautiful hillside vineyards, and the forest area, until we finally reached Orapiu, and stopped by at the wharf. Here are some photos:







Another interesting moment was meeting Harry, my sup's lovely cat. Harry was a fat tabby cat, so lovely, and also very reserved. It takes a while for him to get near to stranger like us. Besides Harry, my sup also own a big brown dog, name Sally. I've met Sally before, and as usual she was a clever dog, extremely friendly and highly extrovert! I felt so excited meeting these lovely pets. Harry exactly reminds me of Labun, my long-lost cat :-(

Girls' Day Out :-)

Shopping, bowling, lunch, shopping, shopping. Hihii.:-D It was extremely exhausted day on last Sunday. The location of the event was at the New Market. We arrived as early as half past ten in the morning and to my surprised, all the girls coincidentally met at the Warehouse - the organizer (Akma) had fixed the schedule for bowling at 11am., still we had about half an hour for shopping! oh women love shopping :-P and guess what, even on our way to the bowl center, we can't helped ourselves to stop by at another interesting place. It was Parallel Imported shop at the Broadway, NM, selling various range of perfume and cosmetic products. Oh we were so tempted with the great sales offered by the shop. Me myself - never thought that I would buy a perfume that day, but that was really a not-to-miss item! Elizabeth Arden EDP for instance was just $18 for 50ml. I guess it was really a great deal. Ah..I should have snap some photos of those excited faces! hihii..

Next, we headed to the bowling center which is just cross the road. It's bowling time! Yeay! I knew I am not good at bowling. Not at all. But I just love to play, and had some fun. Akma was really good, she's truly the "ratu bowling", and I am truly the "ratu longkang".. huhuu what an extreme opposite scores! Rozie, being the newcomer to bowling performed really really well. Excellent! Not to mention her coach (Ros) ahak.. she has all the tactics & strategy...wallaaa. Here are some pics.
Above: From left: Ros, me, Rozie & our pom-pom girl, Dowa
Below: Akma, Adelia, Ros, and Rozie
Above pic: Adelia aka. Dora, great supporter to her mom. Go mummy go!!

Enough with the two games. We're so starving!! It was lunch time. After having lunch at Nandos, Akma & Adelia went back home. But the rest of the girls continued their shopping at the Farmers, and finally Foodtown. So that's the end of the story of the "Girls' Day Out" :-D

I am still alive!

Salam and good day everyone,

I knew it. Yes, the owner of this blog has never updated her blog for quite a long time. Many things happened in the previous two months. As a quick recap, I was engaged with my so-called pilot experiments in the last October, and struggle to finish up the TSE paper. And then, in November, I rushed back home to Malaysia for holidays. Yes, holidays, I wasn't back for data collection or whatsoever. I really need that break. I have missed my nephews and nieces and many that I left. I really missed them and I've got to see them. Apologize me that I have not had the chance to meet all my good friends during my stay in Malaya. I came back to Auckland after a month and had ISITA08 early December. Now, December has come to its end, and we will also entering the new year of 1430 Hijrah very soon. So, I wish everyone a blessed Awal Muharram and happy new year.
##----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Source: http://www.islam.gov.my/program/doamaalhijrah.html

"My Love"

My Love Lyrics

Eidul Fitri at Albany

These are a few more selected photos while we're having gathering at Br Suhaimi's house at Albany during the first Syawal, 1429H.

p/s: not yet ready maaa...


hensem boy, Danish Iman :-)

'Eid 2008 (MAPSA gathering)

Dora...!! ahahaa

:: A blessed 'Eid ul Fitr to all ::

Its really sad that Ramadhan has come to its end, we never know whether or not we will meet the next year's Ramadhan, let us pray that this is not our last Ramadhan, insyaAllaah, ameen.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish every muslim and especially to all reader of this blog, may you had a blessed Eid ul Fitr this year, may Allah accept all our good deeds, insyaAllaah. Most importantly, I would like to seek forgiveness from all of you if I have done anything wrong, that might hurt you, by words, or actions, please forgive me, please forgive me.. thank you.

Raya wish from Jajai

Family Jajai, my anak sedara :-) Thank you jai, selamat hari raya to you too...

Wishing you a blessed Ramadhon

Alhamdulillah, Ramadhon here you come again. From the City of Sails, I wish every Muslim a happy and blessed Ramadhon, may Allah accept our effort and good deeds, insya'Allaah. Let us strive to seek for HIS pleasure in this holy month, a month wherein lies a night better than a thousands months.

Big Bear Award from Jajai

Better late than never.. hehehe sorri yer jajai achik ker orang terakhir amik award nih.. ekekek belum expired kan

Puisi untuk tanahair ku tercinta

Di Bumi Malaysia aku dilahirkan
Dibesarkan hingga aku dewasa
Hingga aku kenal erti hidup
Hingga aku ditinggalkan
bersama makna hidup yg sementara

Aku merantau jauh menggarap sebuah harapan
Menggalas si sang tanggungjawab
Tanpa lelah
Tanpa lesu
Tanpa jemu dan putus asa

Aku teruskan langkah hidup
Demi langkah
Kadang-kadang teratur
Kadang-kadang tidak
Itulah ketetapan Ilahi
Kerana aku bukan lama di sini

Aku akan pulang ke sisimu tanahairku tercinta
Rindu pada semua yg kutinggalkan
Aku perlukan doa
Jangan aku dilupakan dalam doa-doa mu
Tuhan kan sentiasa mendengar
permintaan hamba-hambaNya
Maka berdoalah
Berdoalah siang dan malam
Pagi dan petang
Hingga ke hembusan hayat terakhir

Tuhan,
Berikanlah kami kejayaan
Dalam perjuangan ini
Janganlah jauhkan kami dari sisi rahmatMU
Yang tak bertepi
Jangan jua jauhkan kami dari kasih sayangMU
Kerana itulah kekuatan yg kami miliki
Buat bekal hingga kami kembali kepadaMU
Amen.

10.16am, 30 Sha’ban 1429H

Meta-Analysis :: Aktiviti Perkongsian Ilmu ;-)

I did mentioned about meta-analysis once in my blog entry last year. While it is still fresh in my mind, I would like to share about this. I have recently completed two meta-analysis of pair programming (PP) effectiveness for the PP studies conducted in higher education settings. First of all, you need to know what is meta-analysis, what is it for, and whether you need to do it or not. Once you understand the major purpose of doing a meta-analysis, you should then identify how to carry it out. Well, here is a brief explanation about meta-analysis (refer to references for further info):

• What is a meta-analysis

In the simplest way, meta-analysis can be defined as a method or approach to combine findings from several independent (but homogeneous) studies for the purpose to estimate which intervention is more effective. Meta-analysis has been used extensively for research in medicine to confirm about the effectiveness of certain healthcare intervention normally thru several randomised controlled trials. As for my case, I am studying about how effective has PP been within a higher education setting. In particular, how effective has PP been in helping students achieving better scores in their assignments and final exams, compared with solo programming.

Meta-analysis (MA) involves 3 major steps:

1. Decides which studies to be included in the MA.
2. Estimate an effect size for each an individual study.
3. Combine the effect size from the individual studies

So, another terminology that you must understand: effect size. Here is the definition from the Wikepedia: In statistics, effect size is a measure of the strength of the relationship between two variables. In scientific experiments, it is often useful to know not only whether an experiment has a statistically significant effect, but also the size of any observed effects. In practical situations, effect sizes are helpful for making decisions. Effect size measures are the common currency of meta-analysis studies that summarize the findings from a specific area of research.
The effect size can be measured in two ways:

1. by a standardized difference (if the study has comparison) OR
   
2. by a measure of association (i.e. correlation coefficient)

The choice of an indicator of effect size depends on the type of studies included in your MA. For my case, I am using the standardized difference of means to calculate the effect size because I'm having two different group of studies: experimental group (PP) Vs Controlled group (solo).

Using the Cohen's formula, effect size can be calculated as:
d = M₁ - M₂ / s

where s = Ö[å(X - M)² / N]

where X is the raw score, M is the mean, and N is the number of cases.

While using Hedges formula, Hedges g = M₁ - M₂ / S_pooled

where S = Ö[å(X - M)² / N-1]

and, S_pooled = ÖMSwithin

No worries about this, as long as you know which calculation of effect size is relevant to your case. Usually MA software have the abilities to generate the effect size and what more important is you must be able to interpret the overall effect size produced by the software :-)

• So, what software can I use?

From my little knowledge and observation, there are several MA software available out there, some of which are publicly accessible :-D and surely some are commercial ($$$ maah)

The one that I'm using now is MIX version 1.7, a MA software developed by Lion Bax and his fellows at Kitasato Clinical Research Center, Kitasato University, Japan. I highly recommend the use of MIX, not only because it is FREE :-), I found that it was easier to be used when compared with other software. Other available MA software (commercial use) : Comprehensive Meta Analysis 2.0, MetAnalysis, MetaWin, WEasyMA. Others open source MA sofware: EpiMeta, Meta-Stat, RevMan etc.

• Results of our MA

The following forest plot was generated using MIX1.7. The interpretation of the graph is available in my paper, which is still in the writing stage. I will share the write up of the results when I finish with the paper. insya'Allaah.



References:
[1] http://www.cemcentre.org/renderpage.asp?linkID=30325015
[2] L.M. Pickard et al. "Combining Empirical Results in Software Engineering", Information & Software Technology, vol. 40, pp. 811-821, 1998.
[3] http://wilderdom.com/research/effectsizes.html
[4] http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2048970
[5] http://www.mix-for-meta-analysis.info/index.html

Headache me?

I am having a strange headache today, actually since Yesterday. I am sure that I had enough sleep, or sometimes even terlebih sleep.. ahaha.. I don't need to be pathetic about this. I know exactly what was the reason. I am overwork?? ahah.. Yes, yes, you got it rite! Recent meeting with my sup. gave me another pile of work to do. I've to complete the SR cycle for the period between August and December 2007..Oh letihnya.......................! Courage...I need it, I need it very much! If not because of the TSE, I'll never bother to do it.

Reader pls, if you don't understand what the blogger is mumbling, that's orait.. pray for me, pls. that's more than enuf..

Chea...We pray for your success!

My very close friend, Chea, is having a hijrah to Christchuch today. Chea……I think the best thing I could do for you is to send my prayers that Allah will always made your affair easy for you, may you have the strength to bear any obstacles or difficulties coming all the way to you. ameen.. Just remember that HE never burdens us with something that we could not even bear to face it.

The Prophet (pbuh) said: “And know that victory comes with patience, and with hardship there is a way out, and with difficulty comes ease.”

Semoga selamat..

p/s: Jam tuh nnt aku bawak masa gi lawat ko kat Chch. No worries!

~~ Bon Voyage, Syita ~~

We missed you already. Syita is leaving us today and going home for good after finishing her PhD study duration here. We wish you a success in your future undertakings, and never forget our most memorable friendship. Insya’Allah will see you again in Malaysia :-). Sending her to the airport were Sharon, Tunnur, Syahira, Shikin, Auntie Fatimah, Uncle Aziz, Shane and me.

~ "Selimut Putih" ~

I am pretty sure many of you have heard about this classic nasyid, "Selimut Putih" by orkes El-Suraya. Just a reminder to myself and to those visiting this very-rare-get-updated-blog. Heh.. here is the lyric.

Bila Izrail datang memanggil
Jasad terbujur di pembaringan( 2X )

Seluruh tubuh akan menggigil
Terbujur badan dan kedinginan( 2X )

Tak ada lagi gunanya harta
Kawan karib sanak saudara ( 2X )

Jikalau ada amal dan taqwa
Itulah hanya pembela kita ( 2X )

Janganlah mahu disanjung-sanjung
Engkau digelar manusia agung( 2X )

Sedarlah diri tahu diuntung
Sebelum masa keranda diusung ( 2X )

Datang masanya insaflah diri
Selimut putih pembalut badan ( 2X )

Tinggal semua yang dikasihi
Berjuanglah hidup sepanjang zaman ( 2X )

Thank you to Harisbee aka Dollah Kassim for the mp3 of this song. Jazakumullah..

Lovely Sunrise

"(HE is) the Lord of the two easts (places of sunrise during early summer and early winter) and the Lord of of the two wests (places of sunset during early summer and early winter)

Surah Ar-Rahman (verses 17)

This is the sunrise during this winter, masyaAllaah..


and this is the sunrise in the last summer (January 2008)
"Then which of the blessings of your Lord will you both (jinns and men) deny?"
Surah Ar-Rahman (verses 18)