Transfer or add money to AliPay (支付宝) outside China

Below my 2 cents on adding or transfer money to www.alipay.com 支付宝 for those live out side China (aka overseas 海外 ). I am from Malaysia so this guide was mainly targeted Malaysian, but it should work for other country.
Internet in China are difference, example: Google are not the top search engine, they used www.baidu.com, www.sohu.com and etc. eBay / Yahoo are not popular, they used www.taobao.com. For online payment instead of PayPal they used 支付宝 www.alipay.com. For Instant Messaging they used QQ not YM, MSN nor GTalk.
Except seller who sell via eBay, most China shopping web site don’t accept PayPal. The main reason was the high withdraw rate impose by PayPal for transfer money to China bank.
If you want to buy items from China, TaoBao http://www.taobao.com 淘宝网 are great resources (off cause you must know how to read Chinese) :-)
After some research and finding, below are how you can add money to 支付宝.

1. 海外充 www.cnalipay.com + PayPal www.paypal.com
2. Liberty Reserve + Gold2Ex 黄金网币兑换中心
3. You have relative or friends in China who can open a China Bank Account for you. But the TT rate was expensive.

I had try both method 1 and 2 and found using the second method give better exchange rate. In this blog I will not explain the 1st method in details because not recommended unless you are lazy and want to save some steps. Basically you paid 海外充 using PayPal and they give you a set of code to reload your 支付宝 www.alipay.com.
Below are simple steps and my experience using Liberty Reserve + Gold2Ex to reload 支付宝.

1. Open an account at Liberty Reserve. Kindly use this link and you will be given US$0.05. Creating LR account is simple and no Credit Card verification needed. LR give lowest rate as compare to AlertPay, E-Gold, PerfectMoney, PayPal and etc.
2. Add money to your Liberty Reserve. They are various methods you can add money - Credit Card, Bank Transfer and etc. For Malaysian I recommend Entelnova Global service because they provide good rate and looks trustworthy, payment can be done using Maybank / CIMB or RHB. For other options to transfer money to Liberty Reserve check out this link.
3. Lastly to transfer your Liberty Reserve money to 支付宝 I recommend Gold2Ex 黄金网币兑换中心. Good rate and fast service and trusted.

Lastly do take note that transfer / receive money to LR and alipay all involved fees. IMHO the above recommended are the lowest compare to others. Example LR charged 1% (max 2.99USD per transaction) and alipay charged 1.5%. It’s still cheaper compare to using cnalipay, PayPal and Bank TT.
Above just my experience and recommendation, I hold no responsibilities for any bad experience, unsatisfaction to your for using the above services.

MMS Finally Working on my HTC Touch

Being using custom ROM ONYX Jr 4.5 on my HTC Touch (aka P3450, elf) for weeks, having problem with the Arcsoft MMS application. The message download always stuck at 99% SIGH…

Decided to try difference version of Arcsoft MMS, finally version 5.0.31.7 work. Had try following version which does not work on my phone;

v5.0.71.33
v5.0.3.1.63
v4.2.1.8

Applications Not Working in Windows 7

Being test drive Windows 7 for my office desktop, finally decided to stick with my XP. Below are list of application not working;

1. Visual Basic 6 – This is the main reason I stick to XP. Yes it work in XP Mode but not the way I like it. Until I don’t have to work with VB6 looks like I will still stick to XP.

2. FinePrint – Using version 5.85, too bad not working. Don’t know version 6 work thought.

My Windows 7 Issues

Today solved 3 issues for my Windows 7 Installation.

1. Not able to ActiveSync with HTC-Touch – Solved by manually download and the Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1 from Microsoft web site. link

2. PCI Simple Communications Controller on HP dc7700 – Solved by download the Intel Host Embedded Controller Interface (HECI) Driver from HP support site and update the driver manually. link

3. PCI Serial Port on HP dc7700 - Solved by download the Intel Local Management Service (LMS) and Serial-over-LAN (SOL) Support from HP support site and update the driver manually. link

Twikini

Being using twitter recently and did not post any blogs, sorry. If you want to follow me below is my twitter account http://twitter.com/kvseng

Trinket Software is giving out free twitter client for Windows Mobile 5 and 6, details on how you can get yourself a free copy, check out this link. http://www.trinketsoftware.com/Twikini. Prior to using Twikini I am using Tiny Tweeter, which does the job well but apparently having problem when I exit the application.

Below is what I link about Twikini;

• I can use the cursor key to ReTweet or Reply.
• Provide Public Timeline
• Support Theme

One issue I had was it's a bit slow to refresh.