If you're like me who's got a mobile phone that's got either an unlimited data plan from the telco or WiFi built-in, you would have had moments where you crave for YouTube on your mobile.

Go to www.youtube.com on your mobile browser and sure - you'll find EVERYTHING on YouTube. Problem is you won't be able to play any of the videos because either your mobile phone doesn't support Flash (a technology YouTube uses) or the Flash version on your mobile is too 'lite' that it doesn't support advanced video playback.

YouTube saw this problem a couple of months back, which is why they launched YouTube Mobile which can be accessed via http://m.youtube.com. Great IDEA! BUT FLAWED. The mobile version only has limited selection of videos from YouTube as each video needs to be converted to a mobile compatible format.

With all these problems, I was on a hunt and FOUND GOLD! TinyTube! It's BETTER than YouTube mobile through many folds... here's why...

• It converts videos to a mobile compatible version on the spot - allowing you to view literally EVERY YouTube video
• It searches not only YouTube but loads of other online video providers
• It's FREE! (okay, YouTube mobile doesn't charge as well ... but it's worth mentioning :P)

Check-it-out at www.tinytube.net

It doesn't use fire power BUT the power of $$$!

They are generally grouped in various colours - red, purple, yellow...


And now... brace yourselves... a brand spanking new competitor (well kinda)

Happy mobile prepaid!

The colour however is not exactly defined considering the fact that it changes colour all the time! Maybe it's white - to remain neutral and not be in the telco war.

So here's the story, if you've been in Malaysia long enough, you'll know that telcos, Hotlink (Maxis), Fu-Yoh (Digi) and Xpax (Celcom) has been at it for sometime. One started with 1 sen sms (with tonnes of terms and conditions of course), everyone followed. Another started super low call rates (others followed).

I still remember the time when it cost something over RM 120 for 1 Prepaid Pack. Today, it can be bought for as little as RM 8.50 ~ that's a good 93% reduction!

Then there's a 60 cents per minute call charge to the same region (ie. KL to KL) - now some charge as low as 36 cents NATIONWIDE!

So here's a new competitor in town - using the 014 prefix (a prefix that's used by Digi) called Happy! Why the name happy and who in the right mind would choose a name such as "Happy" is just weird. That aside, what does the new Prepaid competitor offer?


1 TRUE LOW RATE - FOREVER (and I mean FOREVER)
Every call is charged at 1 sen per second - which on the surface looks REALLY expensive - if I were to speak for a minute - that's 60 cents! A 10 minute call would cost 6 bucks! BUT wait... here's the BIG FISH (why fish I don't know - just sounds good), it's capped at 99 cents! - ANYWHERE (in Malaysia of course) and ANY OPERATOR.

So what does this mean? 99 cents for as long as you want... talk more and pay a heck of a lot less - talk less and pay perhaps a bit more. So you either keep your calls REALLY short or REALLY long.

Sounds like a good deal to me.

SMS - second most important cost...
Happy makes it plain and simple - 10 cents to ANY network operator nationwide.

Services
Every service you need (well almost is here - with the exception of 3G) and it's all FREE!

• GPRS / MMS
  
• Call Waiting
• Call Conferencing
• Caller ID
• IDD (International Direct Dial)
  
• International Roaming
• and more!

Want more info, checkout - www.happy.com.my

It all sounds really promising. In fact, at the end of the day, the people who are fighting are HUGE corporations - while WE as consumers get to profit from it. Lower cost + greater value sounds like a brilliant idea to me :) I'm not complaining... ;D

What I'm waiting for is that 1 low flat monthly fee for unlimited phone calls + sms. Now that's gonna be hard to beat. It's definitely coming - just give it time :)

Wassup! Been MIA for awhile... yes, I've got absolutely no reason behind and so I'm not going to give any ;) BUT something triggered me to blog about it and the word is SHOZU!

'Sho' WHAT? - Well, if you own a mobile phone that's got a built-in camera - this is a MUST HAVE and the best part is it's FREE!

Before I talk about it, (yes, I've got to give you a little history on my discovery ;P) I've got a brand new phone! It's a Nokia N95 8GB!
It's a baby... takes amazing photos and just works wonders - anyway, enough of plugging the phone. So there I was, sitting down and thinking. I've got tonnes of pretty good pictures taken from a camera phone and I'm just too eager to get online - what to do?

Did a bit of Googling and found ShoZu! It's a combination of both a web application and an application which you get installed into your phone.

ShoZu allows you to upload images and videos taken on your phone to multiple locations on the net EASILY. I'm the KIASU type (btw, kiasu means 'cannot lose') so I've got to have every free online community based thing, from Friendster to Facebook to FREE online sites for photo storage such as PicasaWeb, Flickr - then there are blog sites like Blogger... you get the idea - I've got it. Problem with being so kiasu is that I've got to manage all of them and obviously, it'll be quite troublesome to send the pictures from my phone to my notebook and have them individually uploaded to all the sites.

This is when ShoZu comes in. Just sign up - It's FREE! (even better), select what websites you want ShoZu to integrate with and that's it. Once you've taken a picture, go through the freshly downloaded ShoZu mobile software (which is also free), hit upload to whichever site you want it, and VOILA! It's DONE! Coolest bit of the software is that you can get it to CC (Carbon Copy - same concept as e-mails) all uploaded images / videos to various sites. So, just upload it to one site and it'll be copied to the rest!

It works with most if not all mobile phones - check it out - www.ShoZu.com

It's unbelievable... a friend of mine just sent me a link to this video that showcases the latest Series 60 operating system - 'touch'. If it sounds familiar, YES touch is a word used in Apple's latest phone, the iPhone... 'touch' is also the word used in Apple's flagship iPod mp3 player - the iPod Touch...

Series 60 is by far one of the most popular choice of operating systems around - used by many manufacturers such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson (if I'm not mistaken) and many others...

So how touch is touch? Is it similar to Apple's iPod Touch or iPhone interface? I cannot nod enough... check this video out...



All I can say is bring on the devices! We're gonna see manufacturers such as Nokia with beautiful touch interfaces that are VERY VERY VERY similar to Apple's - and finally, Apple will have a rival... but could it really be a strong competitor? Only time will tell...

Estimated release of products with Series 60 touch interface? - From my sources from a far far away land - early to mid 2008. In the mean time, Apple reigns...

Paul Potts... never before heard - at least in Malaysia. He's big in the UK though. Well, then again, it would only make perfect sense as he shot to stardom through Simon Cowell's very own show Britain's Got Talent.

When you look at him, he is as promising as the next William Hung of the UK...

I'm not saying anymore... just watch and tell me what you think...



Miracles do happen... more on Potts

He's my partner... every weekday from 6-10am - well not in an intimate kind of way. He's the dude who goes on air with me LIVE.

So every year, there's a special day for each and every one of us. His day came... it was Thursday, October 11th 2007. See, it was really difficult to forget as he was literally telling the world about his birthday complete with a countdown on the show daily! At times, he even sang a birthday song for HIMSELF! Perasan...

Anyway, it's been a good 6-7 years since we got to know each other and lately, there's always been one thing he's been talking about... PhatFabes.com.

To those who are still in the blur when understanding his name, PHAT stands for P (pretty) H (hot) A (and) T (tempting) <- not to me; really. He's always wanted to buy the domain for himself to ensure it doesn't get purchased by someone else and end up selling it back to him at an exorbitant price - in one word - KIASU. Just 24 hours before his birthday, I decided that it would be his perfect gift. So I went online, made a purchase, got the web hosting package, grabbed some his pictures from my picture archive, did a little bit of Photoshop and got him PhatFabes.com! It officially went live at approx. 6am on his birthday... At 9am, we caught him by surprise - announced the gift on-air and YES! I almost made him CRY! Hahahahahaa.... HEHEHEHEHHEhehehehe.... hohoooooohhoooo... KAKAKKAkakakaka.... :)



Check it out... here

Ok, not that cheap really... but being the person who is constantly looking for discounts, bargains and deals EVERYWHERE... I discovered this...

The key word is "Hi-Tea". That's right! Imagine this, you're hungry, you're looking for pretty good quality food YET you don't feel like spending too much...

Here's what you do...

Before you begin...
Save some money... approx. 50 bucks a person (maybe even cheaper)

Step 1
Starve for breakfast

Step 2
Starve for lunch

Step 3
Drive to a nearby reputable hotel (5 stars preferably)

Step 4
Go to the coffee house and see if they have "Hi-Tea Buffet"... if they do, move to Step 5 if not, go back to step 3...

Step 5
Join in the buffet and enjoy variety of food that's laid before you... all at a price that's MUCH lesser than paying for a buffet breakfast or lunch or dinner!

Step 6
Congratulate yourself for getting a great DEAL!

If you're thinking, "come on lar... no BIG DEAL wat..." - it is coz I've done a lot of research on this and pretty much EVERYTIME I do the maths, it's WAAAAAAYYYYY cheaper to eat High Tea than anything else and when it comes to variety, it's not that bad either :)

Using my six precious steps above, I went through this lately... :)


Just that you know, that bag is not mine :) It's Stella's


Custom chocolate pancakes... chocolate drinks... chocolate murtabak... OOOH!


Half the spread...

Not bad eh? All that for less than 50! Of course, this is not something you'll indulge in daily... but hey, life is about food... it's ok to spoil yourself once in a while... ;) Plus... you get to save on 2 meals! If you eat enough, you might even be able to save on dinner!

I don't usually bother about chain, forwarded e-mails but this is one I couldn't resist spreading it to the rest of the world. I got it from a friend of mine... In the asian community more specifically Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese community, we have this thing called the Ah Lian (for girls) and Ah Beng (for guys) phenomenon...

Here's an e-mail sent from an Ah Beng to an Ah Lian... Enjoy! :) (if possible, try to read it with a typical chinese accent)

Dear Ah Lian

Thanks you for your letter. Wrong time no see you. How everything? For me, I am quiet find.

You say in your letter your taukeh soh want you to chain your look? Somemore you must wear kick kok soo, hope you can wok properly.

You know, Ah Kau Kia working in a soft where company now. Last week, he take I, Muthu & few of his friend to May Nonut to eat barger. After that he take we all go to kalah ok.
Muthu sing and sing no stop until the sky bright.

Next week, my father mother going to sellerbread 20 years annie wear sari. My father mother going to give a fist to all the kampong people. So you must come with your hole family.

I only hope one day we no need to write and send letter to you and to me. Better I e-meow you, you e-meow me. I will ketchup with you soon. And when you got time, please few free to call me. Goo bye.....

Worm regard,
Ah Beng


Whoever wrote this... you are by far a Picasso of the Ah Lian and Ah Beng community... it's so abstract yet so meaningful... :)

Just as the title describes... it was Uuurrrggghh.... it seems to happen whenever I drive to work in the wee hours of the morning. Happens only at one particular stretch of the KLIA expressway.

Right after the KLIA toll... a couple of minutes in and SPLAT... one bug... two dead bugs... three wingless bugs... and so on...

In the past, it was like 20 or 30 bugs splat all over my windscreen and car's front... that's alright... it was almost like a hobby for the bugs... either that or it was too early in the morning and it was dark... so they saw a BLACK wall with lights and decided Hey! What's that? - SPLAT!

So it's one of those routines... 2nd day back at work right after the break... was driving... weather seemed perfectly fine... and all of a sudden, it looked as though it was raining... but it was WHITE in colour... SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT... SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT... SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT... I can't type that enough... why? I'll let the pictures explain it all...


Car front (look closely... there are BUGS all over!)


A close-up shot (and that's just one SMALL TINY section of my car)

What were the bugs thinking? I don't know... maybe they were migrating...

Fabes & Roshan went on and on about me baking cupcakes during my recent 'break'. You see, in radio, once in a while, you've got to break away from the craziness on air and do something that's more calm... something that not everyone does or at least something that you wouldn't do on a daily basis...

The opportunity came when Stella went on a sudden cupcake craze and decide to bake some cupcakes. Let me repeat... it was Stella who got REALLY excited... and got me into the excitement as well :)

So off we went to this bakery place in Puchong where you can find literally ANYTHING & EVERYTHING when it comes to baking. You want flour, they have flour, you want cups, they have cups, you want sugar, they have sugar, you want caster sugar, they have caster sugar... okay, you get the idea...

Problem was this, we had NO recipe. What to do? Logged on to the net, did a couple of searches and VOILA! Cupcakes were born!


And it bloomed...


Cooling it down before decorating it



The finished product :)

Ahh... wasn't that bad and it didn't taste bad... in fact it tasted REALLY GOOD Ole' Chap... put in some tea and it's a PERFECT AFTERNOON, LUNCH, DINNER, SUPPER, BREAKFAST companion :)

Want the recipe? Can...

Taken from CooksRecipes.com

Cake Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk

Frosting Ingredients

3/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
6 cups powdered sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup fat-free half-and-half
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons light corn syrup

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Line cupcake pans with paper liners. Set aside.
2. Stir together flour, baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt in large bowl. Set aside.
3. Beat sugar and 3/4 cup butter in large bowl at medium speed, scraping bowl occasionally, until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add 1 tablespoon vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture alternately with milk, beating well after each addition, just until mixed.
4. Divide batter evenly among cupcake cups.
5. Bake for 23 to 28 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool on wire racks 10 minutes; remove cupcakes from pans. Cool completely.
6. Beat 3/4 cup butter in large bowl at medium speed until creamy. Gradually add powdered sugar and 1/8 teaspoon salt alternately with half & half and 1 teaspoon vanilla, scraping bowl often, until well mixed. Stir in corn syrup. Frost cupcakes.

Makes 24 cupcakes.

Enjoy.... Muahahhahaha... muahahahahha...

You want a wallpaper for your beloved mobile phone... (I mean my beloved mobile phone - the Nokia N95 :) ) you click a couple of buttons, upload a couple of pictures into your phone, hit the "set as wallpaper" button and voila - SPLAT!

The ugliest, stretched out, out of proportion wallpaper in the world!

Why? It all boils down to one thing... size...

That's exactly what I was faced with and here's how it was 'fixed'.

All you really need is to create a picture that's got the dimensions 240px wide x 235px height and that's literally all you need. It's no big secret really.

1. So crank up your favourite picture editing software such as:
   
   Adobe Photoshop (if you're feeling rich)
   Picasa by Google (if you're a newbie and you don't feel like spending $$$)
   If you'd like something more challenging try Paint.NET (the free advanced Photo Editing application for Windows)
   
   
2. Load up your image
   
   
3. Click a couple of buttons and resize the image accordingly
   
   
4. Upload to your N95 and voila!
   
   
5. It's DONE!

Cyclops, are they real? Well, as real as you can imagine :) Honestly, I don't know but when you've got some pretty amazing software, you can create many things... like Cyclops Ben for instance... :)

For your information, the Cyclops is smiling. For some strange reason, all we see is a little pout.

What is life without a little fun huh? :P

More later... chao!

Fabes hasn't been around this past week. Why? He's on an escapade and last I heard, he was extremely engrossed in the world of rambutans...

Rambutan, a hairy fruit. Might look obscene but is possibly one of the tastiest fruits around... (minus the hair - I've never tried the hair...)

For the sake of those who didn't exactly follow the show the past couple of days, here's what I've compiled... after numerous talks with Fabes.

1. Day One (Monday)
   Fabes officially took leave to attend to his rambutan cravings... the only thing I heard from him was "sucking on young rambutans"
   
   
2. Day Two (Tuesday)
   Fabes has gone through stage one of the rambutan experience, he's managed to shave rambutans bald. Why? I don't know. Maybe he's trying to create an image similar to his. You'll have to ask him. I suggested that he tries "green" rambutans as they might at a hint of spice to his trip (they are apparently very sour)
   
   
3. Day Three (Wednesday)
   Spoke to the man and now, he's gone into something that has never been heard before! Shaving the rambutans to a semi-bald state followed by re-shaping the hair to that of a heart. Why? Apparently, it's easier to peel open. What they hope to do with it later on is to create a brand new sub-species of the rambutan genome.
   
   
4. Day Four (Thursday)
   That's today. Fabes is almost completing his rambutan escapade. From shaving rambutans bald to creating heart shapes out of rambutans, he now focuses on the art of cooking rambutans. Apparently, "rambutan" hair can be used as a special ingredient in certain dishes.
   
   

And that's pretty much it. Friday (tomorrow), he'll graduate and voila! He'll be then known as Professor Rambutan - now that's a name you don't hear everyday!

:) ... I love spreading rumours ...

Possibly the most high-tech, strange toilet in the world... I'll let the video speak for itself...

Over the weekend, our motherland celebrated her 50th birthday. This time, Fabes & I celebrated in STYLE... (yes, all the CaPs were needed)... it was THAT good.

Since it was our country's 50th Birthday, the Fly FM Big Bang Breakfast Show decided to celebrate it in a more special way... with the LISTENERS and to top that off, with huge doses of LUXURY and gallons of hotel food :P

So here's how we picked the listeners - all they had to do was to tell us their lamest, saddest most uneventful way of celebrating Merdeka and that's it. From a huge number of calls, we picked 3. Each would get to bring their partner for the unforgettable Merdeka celebration.

We checked into the Hilton Kuala Lumpur on Thursday afternoon (eve of Merdeka), had a sumptuous buffet lunch compete with oysters from the land of Japan and Australia plus unlimited servings of caviar... OOOoooh... and it's not ONLY caviar... it's caviar that's in multiple colours, orange, black and greenish. How erm... colourful. :)

Then it was time to check-out the rooms... each of us had our individual rooms... Fabes and I checked into the second largest room in the entire hotel (a duplex!) and it was SIMPLY indescribable. The toilets were so high-tech it kinda needed a manual to operate (I'm not kidding!); checkout my next couple of video blogs, I'll feature the toilet in one of them :P

7pm, it was dinner on one of the floors of Hilton Kuala Lumpur (forgot the floor number), right next to the pool, overlooking the city skyline. FOOD! Yeah baby, more food! This time, it was barbecue where a 2 person meal could feed 5.

9pm, we were supposed to drop by Merdeka Square to watch the countdown but everyone voted to stay in the hotel, hang out in the HUGE room - and do the countdown from there; oh yes now I remember the name - it's called 'Living Quarters'... a duplex on the 31st floor, overlooking the city skyline including Merdeka Square where the celebration and countdown was held.

When it struck 12, you wouldn't believe the number of firework displays we saw, from Genting Highlands all the way to Bandar Sunway (I think it was Bandar Sunway) to a place somewhere in the city (hidden behind some buildings) and of course, the grand of the grand - Merdeka Square.

Fabes was at Merdeka Square doing a broadcast for 8tv quickie while I was with the rest of the gang in the comfort of de' Living Quarters :). He came back at 2:00am, we started chatting till about 3am, went to bed and woke up at 5 plus for a LIVE broadcast right from within the 'Living Quarters'... check out some of the pics!


The room


The toilet


Broadcasting LIVE from the 31st Floor 'Living Quarters' of Hilton Kuala Lumpur!


The broadcast


Simon (read it as 'seee'-'mooooon') our homie who made the 'magic' happen


Just a section of the spread...


Just the pastries corner of the in-room buffet spread :)


The gang...

The broadcast itself was amazing. For the first time, we were in our pajamas - hanging loose (ok, I'll try not to be too graphic here) with our extra soft feather filled comforters, pick breakfast from our in-room buffet spread and broadcast from A HUGE SOFT sofa. Ahhh... joy... all that while watching a 46 inch plasma screen and seeing the helicopters, jet fighters fly by our 31st floor windows.

Like I said earlier, it's possibly the BEST Merdeka celebration ever! Can't wait for the next! Will you be joining us on our next outing? :P

I don't often come across sites that blow my mind. This is going to be the next best thing if not it IS already the BEST thing.

If you've been looking for the one place to listen to free streaming music, FineTune is the place. You can create your own playlist from the gazillions of albums available (they've got the most current of everything!) or you can simply search for an artists ie. Gwen Stefani, and next thing you know, you'll be listening to Gwen's station! You'll hear every Gwen Stefani song plus all other artists that are similar to Gwen.

The one thing I REALLY like about FineTune is that it learns and figures out the kind of music you like listening to. They've got this thing called FingerPrint which kinda checks the kind of music you've listened to in the past and automatically recommends you similar artists or related artists giving you a FRESH list of songs that is sure to get you 'head-banging' all the time! :)

Say for example you're listening to a My Chemical Romance playlist. From time to time, they'll slot in songs that are similar to My Chemical Romance's genre. It surprises me everytime - and because it kinda learns your personality, every song they play suits your taste!

In short, FineTune is by far the most advanced & intelligent audio streaming site I've used, it's fast and BEST of all, it's FREE!

If it's FREE, I don't see any harm trying it :) So check it out...!

It was a Friday when Ne Ne, the Show's Producer asked me to fetch her home. Was pretty alright as :

1. I've never been to Ne Ne's place
2. It'd be the best opportunity to know where she lives so that crashing whatever party she plans to have in the future would be an easy task

So we left KLIA and headed towards an inner part of Sepang (very close the LCCT airport). Did a couple of turns and there I was at Ne Ne's place. Dropped her off and left for home.

That was when it all began...

I switched on my trustee lil' GPS navigator - Garmin, pointed to home and ahead I went...

After a good 15 minutes of 'out-of-bearing' driving not knowing exactly where my Garmin was taking me to, I arrived at a strange looking town...



Out of no where came this town which had mountains surrounding it and shop lots that were extremely old yet very well maintained. It felt like I was in a forgotten part of the city... some place that was very near Cameron Highlands or some town that's just hundreds of KM away from KL... (yet it was just 15 minutes away from KLIA!). The longer I stayed in the area, the stranger it became, phone numbers in the area started with "06"!

Since it was Friday, I told myself, I'm going to enjoy this. I've always enjoyed road trips; especially ones that lead me through small kampungs (villages) or towns. I slowed the car down and absorbed it all... I felt like I was on a holiday...



Since I haven't had lunch, I decided to just pop by one of the shops along the way...



Parked the car right in front of this really really really old chinese shop. Got in and the first thing that caught my attention was the smell - the old woody shop smell that you'd only get in old shop houses / lots in places like Melaka. Sat down, asked for the house specialty and ate...



It was not exactly the most tasty meal BUT just watching the day go by, old grandpas occupying some of the tables and watching the scenery certainly said something to me...

In Malaysia, WE CAN have a holiday anywhere. The price? A bit of petrol and a 5 ringgit meal. Ahh... I love this country :)

Wassup! Okay, it's been a turbulent ride for the past week or so - which pretty much explains why I haven't been posting. It's all down to one thing... I had an itchy butt - decided to checkout the .mac service which was recently 'renewed' and is now packed with with tonnes of new features such as the Gallery which allows you to view photos in a never before seen way on the web plus a couple of other stuff. The one thing that really caught my eye was the upgraded 10 GB space compared to the 1 GB capacity Apple's .mac had before.

.mac, not exactly my thing
Let's just say, I got myself an account and decided it didn't exactly suit my needs. Capacity was great but when it came to blogging and stuff, I just couldn't use .mac - I missed blogger.com - so here I am... back :)

I've also been experimenting with Video Blogging - something fresh to play with. So here you go, one of my very first video blogs :

A 'Fishy' Meal Experience

Sometimes, you'll come across technology that simply works. I was going through some of the apps in my Mac today and found this application called iSync - which btw comes with the Mac and is absolutely truly FREE!

What it basically does is it connects to a compatible mobile device and backs up your important contacts and calendar entries onto applications such as Contacts and iCal. Why do you need to do that? Imagine losing your phone and losing EVERYTHING!

On PCs... the task can be a little bit more daunting where you've got to install with massive application provided by Nokia and then get the cable hooked up or if you are more adventurous then go into the daunting task of getting your mobile phone connected via Bluetooth - which will end up with tonnes of additional configuration.

So how simple is it really to do it on a mac?

1. Go to this website -> Nokia's Apple Site. Here is where you pick your mobile phone from a list and download a small software which you'll install
   
   
2. Once downloaded, get it installed
   
   
3. Switch on the Bluetooth on your mobile phone (make sure it's in discoverable mode), click on the Bluetooth logo at the top right corner of your mac and click "Set-up bluetooth device"
   
   
4. Once step 3 is done, start iSync, click Sync Devices followed by "Add a Device" and the rest is self explanatory... a guide is given on screen.
   
   
5. Hit Sync and voila! - depending on your phone book, mine had over 300 individual contact names with multiple numbers and took under 30 seconds!
   

These 5 steps are only required the first time. Once your phone is recognized by your Mac, the next time you want to do a Sync (Backup), just start iSync and hit Sync!

Here's how mine looked like once it was set-up :)



Trust me, it might seem like a lot of work but it's really quite simple.

Do it once a month and you'll have that nice tingling feeling telling you that if anything happens to your phone, there's always plan B :)

I've always wanted a personal notebook... actually, to be more precise, I've always wanted a Mac notebook. Only problem? Too darn expensive! The only notebook I have is for work and doesn't even belong to me.

You know, the whole 'wanting it all' syndrome - is difficult to defeat. If you don't own it, you don't have it - PERIOD.

So there, I've explained myself :) Sometimes I need a tad bit of convincing to get me to get myself something. Anyway, like I said, I've always wanted a personal mac notebook and so the time came when I dropped by this Apple Store called SMACKED at Bangsar Village II.

To me, customer service comes above all else and trust me, this is one place that holds true to that. The moment I got in, without even thinking if I would buy anything, a dude name "Benny" came and started a nice, calm, water threading approach - no hard sell whatsoever, he just came, asked what I was looking at and offered some suggestions.

After looking at the Macbook and my budget, I thanked him and left (Macbook-less). Everytime I returned to SMACKED, I'll take another look at the same Macbook met by "Benny" whom I believe would have gotten the idea that I wouldn't be buying one anytime soon.

It lasted for a good 3 months - savings, thinking, thought. Then FINALLY...

Just a couple of days back, I decided - if I don't get it now, I'll never get it. I wanted it badly... really really really badly... So my mind was SET - BUT what colour? The MacBook comes in both white and black! Another dilemma unfolds...

So I started scouring the web for answers, some said white for a classic look, some said black for a more sleek look... I was confused. The final solution? Since I had a Yahoo! Answers account, I logged right in - posted my question and within minutes I had 8 answers! - The answer - WHITE

Gave a call to Benny and told him to prepare a white macbook... so the moment I arrived, there it was, waiting for me to caress it... to feel it... to unfold it...

I'll let the rest of the pictures speak for itself...








<- and here's a picture taken using the built-in iSight & Apple's Photo Booth software...

Oh by the way, this entry was written using the white-e and no... I'm not being racist... :)

Sometimes, a dog needs airing...
Not exactly the kind of thing you'd like to see while you're dining... looked to my right and there he was... Puffy... the father of the 6 pups airing himself in the 'nether region'...

Can't blame him... it was a REALLY REALLY warm day... and it certainly doesn't help with that much hair / fur... :)

It's literally destroying, expunging, obliterating, eliminating (you get the idea) EVERY trace of its owner's presence.

It removes all phone book entries, all calendar entries, all call logs - literally making the phone seem brand spanking new... Traces of the phone being used will be gone (with the exception of the memory card - which you'll have to format manually)

And why would I want to do that?
It's like reformatting your PC / MAC. Sometimes you feel like it needs a bit of spring cleaning but you're just too darn lazy to clean it - so why not WIPE it completely clean? Here's how you do that on a Nokia N95.

Not sure if it works for other Nokia N-Series mobile phones but it's worth a try :)

Behold - the self-destruct code - *#7370# (don't panic the phone will still
work fine after this - it's just that user data will be wiped-off)

Enjoy! :)

The iPhone!!! It's NUTS! It's true... it wasn't a dream... and no, it's not mine coz it'll be kinda silly since the phone doesn't exactly work in Malaysia (unless you've got a sim-less mobile line based in the US and roam in Malaysia - which can cost something 5 ringgit per minute for local calls :))... the problem is that the iPhone doesn't support sim cards...

Anyway, back to the phone. Fabes and I were heading home after work so we boarded the aerotrain (yes the station is located all the way in the International Departure Hall - Satellite building) and there we met a couple of guys who just came back from Los Angeles. One of them was a Malaysian who works in the US. First thing that came out of my mouth was... "So, did anyone get an iPhone?"...

True enough, one dude said "I didn't but HE did..." I GLARED at him. He took out the phone from his backpack and behold... the iPhone just centimeters away from me. I grabbed it, apologized for being such a sakai and started caressing, poking and meddling.

First few impressions, it was SOLID. Very very solid but slim. All these while, I've been seeing this phone on the computer screen. All the pictures, all the reviews, the hype and finally... I had it - in metal and diodes... right before me.


I got it switched on and started playing with a couple of things, starting apps such as the built-in supposedly best mobile browser in the world "safari"... it loaded up as soon as I touched the screen then I tried the 2-point touch feature where you "pinch" the screen to zoom out and "expand with your fingers" to zoom in. Everything was extremely responsive. There was no delay whatsoever. I've been using mobile phones for a while now (in fact, I've tried over 50 phones) and this is the fastest, most responsive phone I've ever touched.

The interface was simple - just simple. There were no cluttered confusing buttons. Just simple... navigation. With the "safari" browser opened, I took a closer look at the product's case - admiring it's shining beauty when suddenly, the screen turned and switched to landscape mode when I turned the product to a particular angle - it was magical.

The screen was simply gorgeous... it was BIG... the "home" button had a very nice tactile feel... I didn't get to play with the on-screen predictive keyboard though... :( wanted to try more features such as the camera, go through the contact list, checkout the widescreen iPod but I only had a 3-minute ride on the aerotrain and that's all the time I had...

BUT... from the brief moment I had with the phone - I must say, Apple's done it again - another revolutionary product. I'm amazed... shocked to the highest level - so when is it arriving in Malaysia?

MEX-BT2500 is Sony's latest offering when it comes to head-units with built-in bluetooth. Yup, you heard it right! Even car stereo head-units now come with bluetooth built-in!

What for you ask?

• The obvious one is connection to your bluetooth enabled mobile phone. Answer and redial numbers all from the buttons of the head-unit itself.
  
  
• If you've got an Mp3 player or bluetooth enabled audio device (such as a PDA or mobile phone or iPod with a bluetooth adaptor (purchaed from 3rd party vendors), you'll be able to stream music directly to the player with absolutely no hassle of dangling wires.
  

Features
At a pretty affordable price tag of RM 850, this gadget is souped up with pretty much anything you need in a car head-unit.

• Superb quality radio (I know coz I tried other brands such as Pioneer and it's nothing close to Sony's FM Tuner)
• CD Player
• MP3 CD Playback with Title, Artist & Album Info
• Bluetooth - enables audio streaming and handsfree calling from your mobile phone
• Removable face plate (pretty standard on most players nowadays)
• Remote control
• Equalizer (both custom and preset)
• 52W x 4 power output
• Subwoofer output
• and tonnes more features...

Since the main highlight of this product is it's bluetooth feature, I'll focus on how it fares...

Bluetooth review
Bluetooth is not exactly new in Car head-units. Some manufacturers already offer this feature - not so much as a built-in feature but an add-on. It'll cost somewhere between RM 600-700 for the bluetooth adaptor - HEFTY! As it's not a built-in component, you'll have wires dangling all over the car to fit the "mic" unit that comes with the bluetooth add-on.

The Sony MEX-BT2500 on hand has everything integrated. No wires as the mic is built-in.

Picking up calls, ending calls and rejecting calls comes from a push of a single button (the shiny silver button which also controls the volume)

Getting the phone to talk to the unit
It took me nothing more than 2 minutes to pair the phone to the head-unit. Hold one of the designated bluetooth buttons, search for a bluetooth device through your phone, select "Sony Explode", key in the password and VOILA! You're done!

Using bluetooth
With the phone and the head-unit talking to each other, an incoming call will pause the current CD you're playing or mute the radio and switch to bluetooth mode allowing you to either answer or reject the call by pushing the volume control knob. That's it! Pretty simple eh? Once you're done with the call, the unit resumes whatever it was playing before the call.

How is the call quality?
According to the people who spoke to me through my MEX-2500, most mentioned that it was clear and had no problems hearing me with the exception of the background noise that can be a little annoying - which I trust has something to do with my smart car's cabin. Engine noise is audible as it's right behind the driver's seat. Then again, Sony claims that unlike other manufacturers out there, Sony uses an omni-directional mic which is sensitive and it picks up sound from all angles - which is great during a call conference with everyone else in the car.

How about Audio Streaming?
As long as you've got an audio device that's bluetooth capable, the Sony MEX-2500 will recognize it. I tested this feature using my Nokia N95. After the initial pairing, all I had to do was to switch to "Bluetooth Audio" mode in the head-unit, hit the play music / video button on my Nokia and voila - music started streaming from my car speakers!

With so many good things I'm sure there are a couple of bads... RIGHT?
Okay, there are pros and cons to every product out there. There simply isn't a COMPLETE product. At least I haven't encountered one. The problem lies with making calls. From the Sony MEX-2500, all you can do is answer, reject calls or redial a number. To dial a number, you'll have to use your phone - but the moment you start dialing, the head-unit will automatically switch to bluetooth mode to handle your outgoing call.

The other thing that's missing on the unit is RDS (Radio Data Service). For example, if you're listening to your favourite radio station Fly FM :) - 95.8 in the Klang Valley, it wouldn't show the station name nor would it automatically tune to the next Fly FM frequency should you travel from one part of the country to the other.

So all in all, how do I rate this product?
For the price you pay, it's a FANTASIC product! The bluetooth feature is a BIG plus as now I can do away with my bluetooth handsfree. Just activate the bluetooth feature on the phone, enter the car, start the engine and voila! I'm all hooked up!

Picture of the day!
Originally uploaded by ben.jern {- blogged via mobile -}

Stella gets her weekly dose of gossip! It's gossip... Hardly ever true - as long as it keeps us happy :)

I'm at the PJ police station headquarters now. It's finally sunk in. Anyway, just to digress a lil'...

We've got LCD displays all over the place! Pretty high tech...

Anyway, back to the issue at hand. After returning home for a brief moment, i found out that not only did my car get broken into but also 3-4 other homes in my area had their cars broken into as well! This is becoming to sound like Oceans 11 - very well planned execution...

An a-hole broke into my car minutes ago...
Originally uploaded by ben.jern {- blogged via mobile -}

The loss, a Sony car head unit, my smart tag, an enclosure for my head unit and a damaged head unit area... What else? Not sure... Just work now.

Will keep you posted.

Now THAT was a holiday! My apologies for not being able to upload some shots while I was gallivanting around the country. It's all due to 1 thing - TECHNOLOGY. Sure its amazing when it works... but when it doesn't, it can be NASTY. I posted at least 3 times and it didn't work out... BUT no worries; I've gotten it all settled and the next time I need to do some mobile blogging, you'll see it here...

So what exactly happened? Where did I go? How was it? 1 word - SPECTACULAR.

It was a really well thought of holiday; executed down to the T will little surprises here and there. No, it's not like I recently struck a lottery or something, it's mostly thanks to contribution of certain individuals, a little bit of savings and some of the points I collected when using some cards - I managed to redeem quite a number of stays in a couple of hotels and made this trip a reality...

So here's how it went...

To kick it off like dessert in a 5 course meal, it was a night's stay at the Ritz Carlton Kuala Lumpur. Its like a jewel hidden in some corner in Kuala Lumpur which is kinda there but not kinda there. Service, as mentioned in tonnes of their advertisements - is impeccable. What they said about their butler service was true. Imagine this... at any point during our stay (our - meaning Stella & I), all we needed to do was point and push with one teeny weeny finger at that "magic" butler button and voila! out comes a butler (not in a genie style - just at the phone) awaiting to attend to your every need. Fruit juices? Coffee? Tea? There's no such thing as tea or coffee making facilities in the room - all you need is to push the "magic" button. So that was nice... and "Wake Up Calls" came with Tea + Coffee + Juice as an option... it was all complimentary :P



So after the check-in, it was my dinner, planned by Stella... at the Westin Kuala Lumpur... managed to get a free cake and a 50% discount for the entire meal (again using one of my many discount cards :)); but that's not the main thing - it was the food... oh GLORIOUS food... where? At the Latin restaurant called QBA - you read it as Que Bar. Very VERY VERY good food... dinner lasted a good 3 hours. No idea how but it just did. Most of the time was spent on chewing, swallowing, taking pictures and trying to blog using my mobile phone. Dinner ended with a tiramisu cake - compliments of the hotel and a dude who sang like how Pavarotti would sing Happy Birthday...



Next morning, it was a trip STRAIGHT to the land of Pangkor Laut - a privately owned resort by the YTL group. Located right next to the island of Pangkor and is home to one of the best Spa centres in the region! Of course, we had to drive to the jetty which was at Lumut and from there, a 50-minute boat ride to the 'island of paradise'.

Getting to the Lumut Jetty was quite an experience as :

1. We decided to stinge on CA$H
2. We wanted to try something new, instead of taking the highway...

So the "old road" we went. To be really honest, it wasn't that bad at all! We had almost ZERO toll to pay and sure we had a couple of HUMONGOUS trailers to overtake at certain points but overall, the view was great, the kampungs were a refreshing sight and seeing chickens, big lizards and cows crossing the road was exciting :) How? I don't know. Really I don't because I trusted my Garmin (the GPS I own) 100% of the time but it knew the routes and 3 1/2 hours later, we arrived at the Lumut Jetty.



First came the welcome drink then the escort to the jetty and ferried over to the beautiful resort island of Pangkor Laut...



What happens in Pangkor Laut... STAYS in Pangkor Laut so I'm not going to blog too much about it here :) Just that I was bitten by gazillions of sand flies leaving me with nasty polka dots all over - one at a very intimate area called the 'belly button'. :)



A couple of days into our stay (just a couple of days before our stay ended in Pangkor Laut) we decided to hook up another stop-over... food came to mind and Penang... HERE WE COME!



So after Pangkor Laut, we returned to the jetty, picked up my ride and drove once again via the "old roads" (to save $$$) towards the Penang bridge. It took a good 2 1/2 hours through the little towns and kampungs... and then HELLO the land of food, char kuey teow with huge mutated prawns...



Where did I stay? The latest hotel in Penang called the "G Hotel" which is located right next to Gurney Plaza. Only sad thing, I couldn't get tad bit of discount... everything was full-fare... but the hotel was so new and 'artsy' that we had to try it... @ 240++ we thought since we saved so much during the trip using all the points redemption and discount cards; why not?

... a day later ...

Returned to KL and went feasting again! Compliments of my parents, we went to this Korean BBQ restaurant for dinner - it was a lil' pricey but GOOD and a tad bit smoky...



If I were to document everything I went through during this unforgettable one week, it'll probably take a whole month to finish typing it all... so I'm gonna leave with you with some pics taken during the trip...