CNY and New Stuffs!!!

Chinese New Year has just passed and I'm back to work today.

It was a good time for me to have some well deserved rest as work was terribly busy before the CNY and will continue to be in the coming weeks.

BB and me went to the Nando's at the Zon. To think that we had an unpleasant experience at the Nando's at Plaza Pelangi, this should be better. But we were wrong. It seems that Nando's sucks at customer service. I'll spare everyone the details and go to the happy part :P



Hehehehe both BB and me were wearing stripes on that day :) The next day I was at BB's place. Was tired though.... and was playing with her phone..... :P

Went shopping for a laptop backpack.... BB and me were at the Nike shop for quite a while coz we were trying to decide which back was nicer. Any comments? I haven't bought the backpack yet, but I tend to like the one in the 1st photo. Small, and made of thicker material with some leather.

I like this... RM129

This is also RM129. It has a small opening near the top so that earphones can slip out there and into the ears.

This one is the most expensive. RM219!!!! Suppose to be the latest model, with some "AIR" technology on the straps and back pads. :)

BTW my laptop's only 12" so I don't need a big bag to fit. Just to carry an additional A4 file and the usual laptop accessories. Anyone with other suggestions???

Dell Vostro 1200

Finally its here!!!

Imagine the frustration with Dell when I placed the order on the 11 January and a few days later they told me due to multiple part shortage, the shipment date is pushed to 28 January!!!!

Thank goodness it arrived on the 25th instead.

No doubt this is a company laptop and so I'm constrained by a little budget. Otherwise I would have gotten the XPS 1330 with LED screen. But my boss would kill me by then....... :P

All that said, I'm actually very pleased with this baby. The specs which I got was:

• Core 2 Duo 7250
• 2 gb RAM
• 160GB HDD
• 1200x800 Truelife screen
• Intel X3100 Graphics
  
• 2MP camera and fingerprint scanner
• WIFI a/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.0
• 6 cell battery
  
• Vista Business edition
  
• "Small" Dell carrying bag
• 2GB Thumbdrive

The first thing I noticed was that its quite fast. I have a Core 2 Duo 6300 PC at home running Vista Home Premium and the Vostro IS noticeably faster during startup/shutdowns as well as when doing graphical "stuffs".

If you haven't noticed, the battery has a section that "sticks" out from the chassis. Not particularly good looking. :P

The keyboard is acceptable but the ".", "," and "/" keys are half sized. So it takes a while to get used to. Also the function key is on the right side of the right ctrl key so you tend to press the func key when you are trying to press ctrl.

Whats cool and what I liked most was that all the indicator lights and media keys are in blue!!!! :D Even the LED for webcam and the indicator on the adaptor are blue. Hahahahhaha !!! I love it!!!
















Battery life should be ok as I was on WIFI, surfing while doing some Word and Excel files and iTunes playing in the background for slightly over 2 hours and the capacity was 49% remaining.

This is how it looks like in a dark environment. Imagine if all the keys are lighted up in blue too!!!! Hahahahaha that would be TOO much for me!!!!












I've yet to test the WIFI N connection. I'm thinking of getting the Belkin N router. I've seen it at the shops selling for about RM380. I think the price can be bargained a little. :)


Till then I'll be "messing" with this baby for most of my working hours. In short I am happy with this baby.

ABCDEFG Musical Notes

A Boy Can Do Everything For Girl

BUT

Girl Forgets Everything Done, Crushes Boy Again....

LOL!!!!! Don't blame me.... I got this from Friendster........

Also, I got this from BB in my email.....

Update on my new Aztech modem/router....

Its wonderful!!! Very fast... almost twice faster in downloading speeds than my precious modem. Initially I kept on experiencing intermittent disconnection from the web, especially my MSN and Google sidebar. However after fiddling with some settings (both modem and PC side), everything's smooth now. And the download speed is just incredible.

Hmmm.... I also reformatted by c: drive as too many "unforced" errors have begun to crop up from my XP system recently. I guess thats to be expected since I install and uninstall plenty of programs constantly, not to mention tweaking of the UI, settings, etc etc.... I guess there comes a time when everything has its limits! No amount of registry cleaning, optimizing could have saved my system :)

Since almost everything was gonna start from fresh, I thought it will be a good idea to have a new Visual Style to my XP system. I don't use the popular WindowBlinds, as no matter how little resources they claim it uses, I just didn't like the idea of the need to run a background program for cosmetic purposes. I prefer the normal VS edits.

I like BLACK.... so this is another black VS that I found. But I have to say, this is also the BEST VS I've found to date. Kudos to the creator!!!

Check it out!!!

Lightning Fried My Modem This Afternoon!!!! :(

Its the end of the year again when we are greeted by the annual monsoon season.

This afternoon was greeted by the typical thunderstorm - heavy rains with lightning and thunder!! Unfortunately my PC and modem were on and online.... so the unfortunate happened. The lightning fried my modem.....

When I found that I was offline and the modem's DSL light was not on, I knew the lightning had done its job. At first I was worried that my Ethernet port on the PC might be fried as well but thank goodness after checking I found that only the modem has kaput-ed.

RIP my trusty modem.... its has been serving me for about a year, and tirelessly too since my PC is very very seldom offline.

I depend a lot on the internet as it is where I play my games, find my info, do my blogging and most importantly keep in touch with my BB across the causeway. So I had to find a replacement fast.

So after the rain stopped I got to the local PC store and bought a new modem :)

Its a Aztech 2 port router/modem. You may be wondering why not go for the Wifi Router/Modem combo since I'm buying a new modem. First, I only have one PC at home. No laptop... so theoritically a normal modem would suffice. The extra port in the new modem was for BB to be able to connect through USB whenever she brought her laptop to my place. Secondly, with the new Wifi n specification in draft, I was hoping to get a router with the new specs instead of the regular b/g specs.

All in all I'm very pleased with the new modem. It looks nice and setup was also a breeze. Here's how it looks on my PC.

Hehehehe the stand is included so that the modem can be arranged vertically.... AND its WHITE in color!!! Nice....

I guess I'll just have to disconnect the next time there is a thunderstorm, although the one year warranty for the new modem SPECIFICALLY states that it is "inclusive of damage caused by lightning strikes" :D

Productive Arguing in an Relationship

I found these to be very useful points. Apparently I've been adhering to some of the points myself when I'm in an argument!!! :D

1. Stick to the issue in hand - don't bring up previous misdemeanors or other things you've been meaning to say.

2. Don't argue over trivia - for example, arguing whether it was Monday or Tuesday that you forgot the milk. The issue is you forgot, not which day it was.

3. Start sentences with "I" - for example, "I felt annoyed when you..." rather than "You annoyed me when..." And "I would like to go out more often," not "We should go out more often."

4. Don't use absolutes - never say "never", "always", "should" or "shouldn't". They're irritating and often inaccurate. For example, "You never wash up" will almost certainly get a response of "What about when...?"

5. Let your opinions stand on their own merits - don't be tempted to bring in other people's opinions.

6. Try to stay sitting down, relax your muscles and don't forget to breathe - it's much easier to stay calm if you're not pacing around the room.

7. Don't start throwing abuse around - calling your partner lazy, fat or paranoid isn't going to convince them to see your point of view.

8. Be aware of your feelings and tell your partner these as well - saying "I'm scared you don't love me anymore" is likely to get a better response than "You don't act like you love me."

9. Try not to block the conversation - don't interrupt, launch into a monologue or expect them to be a mind-reader.

10. Agree to a code word for time out - if one or both of you feels you're getting overheated it's best to take some time away from each other to calm down before going back to the disagreement.

Remember, who wins the argument is irrelevant if your relationship loses something.

Always try to confront the issue - not each other. (This is so so true.... but I guess most people get TOO involved in the heat of an argument and end up saying things which they don't really mean and hurting the person you love so much)

A Pleasant Surprise!!!

Came back after sending BB to the taxi station today and my mom came into my room to talk to me. She told me,

"It would be a good thing to think more of you uncle and appear in his dreams more often."

I was like, "HUH??? What are you talking about??"

So my mom showed me a present that this uncle gave me.




Apparently, this uncle of mine dreamt that he was looking at this watch and I was beside him, and kept telling him that the watch is "gorgeous". You see, my uncle is a watch collector, and he collects all sorts of watches, not just those expensive one.... whatever watch that he comes across and finds it nice, he will buy it. So anything from tens to thousands of ringgit would be equally appealling to him.

My lousy handphone wouldn't take a clear picture of a close up object, so I had to get the picture from the net.












Its actually a Citizen dual time watch. It actually has 2 clock faces so that you could have 2 different times on the same watch face.

I like the watch!!! Although the watch face is a little big for my small wrist ( I have very small wrists for a guy), I still like it a lot.

So thank you to my beloved uncle, and the "me" in his dream who kept on saying the watch looked gorgeous to have made this happen!!!! LOL!!!!

Day Trip to Air Papan

Since BB has moved back from KL, we decided to go to this Air Papan Beach that I read so much about in other people's blog. The other main reason we decided to go there is because its really not that far from where I'm staying... about 90mins drive.

We arrived at the Fishing Bay Resort first... its about 10mins from the main beach and apparently this is the better resort to stay if you are planning to stay overnight. The resort has its own beach area, but its a small one. We were there on the weekday, so there wasn't anyone else around and not much was going on... but that was why I chose to make the trip on weekdays.. so that there would not be too many "other" people!!! :)

The chalets look nice enough and its air conditioned with ASTRO... if you people are interested you can always google "air papan" and you will be able to find quite a few reviews of the various chalets available there.

It was super sunny and you can see from the photos that we are actually perspiring on our faces!!! :P The jetty was quite run down, and not as "nice" as you may have seen from the other people's review who were there maybe a year or two ago.

We then proceeded to the main Air Papan beach. I liked the beach. Super long stretch of nice clean beach with nice seas and weather!!!


When we arrived at the beach, the only other people there were a Malay family having a swim in the sea. I think they were locals who stayed just further up the beach.

BB and me were just strolling on the beach, enjoying the sea breeze and trying to see if there were any nice sea shells to pick up as souvenirs... :)

It was REALLY sunny!!! So much that I was squinting when taking this picture. I think the stretch of beach was about 500m long... we walked towards the end which was the rocky part, and from there I took a picture to see how far we walked....


The white thing in the inset is my car. Not bad for an afternoon exercise eh??? kekekeke...

Maybe if we had more time we would have tried to walk pass the rocks to see what was beyond, but the weather was turning quickly as we could see some storm clouds over us as we decided to head back to the car.

And boy it was the right decision as it started to rain when we were about a quarter of the way back. It was more of a heavy drizzle but it was steadily getting heavier and heavier. But I guess it was ok for me and BB as we had not been drenched in the rain for a long time!!! :)

We were half soaked when we reached the car, but luckily we had a towel and brought spare clothings. The rain lasted only for a while longer and from my car I could see some people with a bunch of balloons running on the beach.. WTF????


Hahahaha then we realised that it was a bridal photo/video shoot and their vehicle was the one next to my car. :) But I guessed the came a little too late because even though the rain stopped a little, the skies wasn't clear anymore and it was all a little gloomy.

So after drying up a little, BB and me decided to head for home. It rained again along the way, but I did managed to see some signboards that there were in fact more beaches to the north and south of the town of Mersing. Some were quite far... about 70+km from the town. I think we will try to visit some of those places in the near future. :)

Oh... there are more pictures of this trip in the here.