Wassup & happy Halloween!!!

Yes, it's one of those days where the entire team got suited up for the occasion. Nadia got herself a princess Leia costume from Star Wars... Fabes got himself a pirate's suit while I turned myself into a Pharaoh… YES MY SUBJECTS… clean my toes… :)

Unfortunately, I was so caught up with the whole picture taking thing that I forgot to take pictures of myself!!! Urrrgghhh… let's just say I looked like an awesome pharaoh, complete with the white gown, golden necklace and a REALLY HEAVY & TALL hat – it even had a cobra protruding out of the hat from the front – awesome…

For Halloween's sake, we gave ourselves some names…

• Nadia was called Princess Needia…
  
• Fabes was called Captain Fabiano (Italian) – to be honest, I just took him to be an Italian captain in a restaurant – 2 Pizzas and a bowl of spaghetti bolognaise please :P
  
• Since I was in a Pharaoh's costume – I called myself… the one and only – Pharaoh Benditto (though they kept calling me Bendover)

The whole show we were playing clips of monsters, ghosts from movies, gave away – terror-rific tickets to the movies and such… hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Have a HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Wassup! Happy Deepavali!!!

Back from my Deepavali holiday… you must be wondering WHY was I on a holiday since I don't celebrate it – leaving Nadia all by herself? Well, 1 word – KIASU.

Just a quick shoutout to Umitirah's family – THANK YOU for inviting the entire Fly team to your house! The food was awesome… the muruku was great… so were the dishes that were served… thinking about it is getting me hungry again :P

Speaking of food… I was in Pavilion with Stella last weekend and saw this restaurant called Li Jin – Japanese + Chinese Fusion baby… the name might not sound like anything amazing but the place and the food IS! This is when I leave you with the pictures… as the saying goes… a picture says a million words…

Oooh… nothing like FRESH clams boiled to perfection… with ingredients that are difficult to describe…

Snails… - love em' shell OFF

Here's a sushi roll that doesn't require the regular Japanese Soy Sauce or wasabe to compliment it – just tastes great by itself… ABSOLUTELY AWESOME

And to down it all – a massive ice-cream + red bean + ice kacang…

Here's how the place looks like…

I'll be back soon :)

Happy Deepavali!

Brace yourself for a 3-in-1 blog…

Firstly, Phat Fabes – P.H.A.T – in case you don't know by now stands for Pretty Hot And Tempting (which I honestly honestly most definitely doubt) – anyway, that's for you and the rest of the WCC (World-Chick-Coalition) decide.

Honestly, how hot and tempting can it be for someone to place a butterfly on his head – just because it looks cool?

Then there's this Tiger + an Iguana. No, it's not another Godzilla (or as the Japanese would say 'Gozzira') – it's a CAR. Before you start doing double backflips and go WHAAATTTT??? Don't panic, don't scared – the largest automaker in the world Volkswagen AG decided to name their latest vehicle Tiger; because it's fierce and fast plus a hint of Iguana because it's got the ability to climb and tread through the jungles and mountains of the world – and so they call it Tiguan.

Guess what? I was invited to the official launch.

At 250,000 ringgit, what would you get?

• One of the fastest mid-sized SUVs in the world 0-100 in 7.6 seconds! Beats BMW X3!
• Parks itself! Yeah BABY! Hit Park-Assist, the car scans for a parking spot, you set reverse, control the acceleration and brakes and voila! – first to introduce in an SUV!
• Has electronic parking brakes – go to a traffic light, press and let go your brake pedal and voila! Car brakes itself.
• Eyes that move – turn and the light turns with you…
• And more…

Is it worth the money? Well, I don't know but I'll be getting an extended test drive soon – I'll let you know later… :)

Then there's QUATTRO – I believe this came from QUAD – which means a group of 4 – and that's what it is – the latest club in Kuala Lumpur has 4 seasons! You name it – Winter, Autumn, Spring, Summer – they have it all!

Every room / area has its own season

It even rains on the hour in 'Summer'!

And yes, it really does snow – the winter area is separated into 2 zones – one at 10 degrees celsius and another at a nose booger frosting -5!

Okay, that's all I have for this week. Lookout for more updates soon!!! Have a blast of a weekend!

Before you start frowning, no - I'm not going to talk about living green, going green, doing green or even doing it in the green ... in fact, there's nothing green about this. Just pure metal and the core of technologies oozing out of every angle. 

iPod touch... 

In case you don't know what sort of marvel this is - it's only the coolest MP3 player out there and NO Apple isn't paying me a single cent talking about it here. It's just that I honestly do believe is the BEST mp3 player, web browsing gadget, youtube viewer, contacts manager, calendar, picture viewer, movie player, show-off thingi every living being MUST buy. 

Being one of the early adopters of everything (you'd be saying "SUCKERRRR!!!" now), for the first time I early adopters of the world can unite and say "THANK YOU"... especially to Apple. 

The beginning...

Here's why... when the iPod touch first came out, I broke the bank and bought 2 units - one for me and my beloved... of course, it was great then...

About a year down the line...

As with every technological masterpiece that comes out, there's bound to be an upgrade - true enough, it came ... in fact, 2 upgrades have come by... software & hardware wise. 

To cut a long story short, here's what the current iPod touch can do that mine cannot (well at least software wise). Ability to access Google Maps, Mail, add calendar entries... ability to use the iPod touch as the coolest REMOTE CONTROL (more on this in my next blog) ever... 

The stingy me...

Being the stingy me, I wouldn't want to break another bank so I held on... instead, I went online in search for an alternative solution... 

Then VOILA! An UPGRADE via iTunes! To get all the features of the latest and greatest iPod touch, all it required was USD$ 19.95.

Things to note...

• it beats paying many folds more for a brand new iPod touch
• there's only so much software can do - I would be missing out on the new built-in speakers on the newer version
• it's freaking 70 ringgit!
• I've got 2 iPod Touches - that'll be 140 ringgit!

Go ahead or not?

The go ahead...

I went ahead and decided to upgrade "Stella's iPod" first... and believe me - the upgrade is well worth the 70 ringgit paid. Everything is just faster, cooler, works better - mail is amazing - for my consulting job - it works WONDERS - it supports Microsoft Exchange Push-Mail too!

My kiasu self...

Being kiasu, I decided to bite the bullet and pay that extra 70 ringgit for my own unit... 

The miracle...

• Plugged in my iPod touch into the notebook
• Selected "YES - I would like to upgrade and pay that extra 19 USD"
• Then the prompt came - "You've upgraded before, continue upgrade?" - I said YES and it was DONE for FREE! WOOHOO!!!

Pay 1 and get another free. Now that's what I call 'caring'... :)

 

Firstly, what happened over the weekend? Everything... okay fine, not everything... just one of the coolest cars ever made was released to Malaysia. Featuring the latest Double Clutch gearbox, the super engine, awesome looking rims, accelerates from 0 - 100km/hr in under 6 seconds - and of course bears the one logo that signifies speed - Porsche.

YES! Fabes and I were invited to the launch last weekend... It's just soooo cool, so soft to touch... of course at over 700,000 ringgit what wouldn't be nice to touch? :P

So anyway, presenting the latest Porsche Carrera...

Then of course, there was this irritating mosquito that was bugging the life out of me. It just kept biting and biting and biting - and just for you to know, I try not to harm any living thing but this thing just went too far.. I took my latest and greatest and biggest RACUN NYAMUK and away I sprayed...

It fell on the ground, legs still moving... I took a picture of it...

After seeing it suffer for one minute - I felt sorry for it so "SQUISH". I won't describe the details. Just a note to all mosquitos out there - NEVER AGGITATE a human being by BITING them - the result could be disasterous.

Yes, it felt like the whole of Malaysia went balik kampung on Wednesday for the Hari Raya holidays. Of course, being my kiasu self, I decided to latch on to the whole balik kampung feel, so Wednesday (1st day of Raya) I decided to head on to Melaka (which by the way is not my kampung) I just wanted a place to go to for FOOD.

Why Melaka? I have no idea, it just felt near... so off I went with Stella.. headed for Jonker Street where they've got the infamous Baba Style Cendol, Ice Kacang and of course the ultimate - Chicken Ball Rice ( for the uninitiated, it's not chicken's 'hahas' - it's just chicken rice made into tiny balls for easier consumption and in certain ways to make it more aesthetically appealing).

My fast ride from the heart of KL to the Seremban Highway was a breeze but the breeze stopped there...

Cars as far as the eye could see. I was literally crawling at 30km/hr on 110 km/hr speed limit highway.

After a super long ride, we finally arrived in Melaka. First thing that hit my eye was the largest pineapple tart ever made. It's seriously HUGE - so big that it got into Malaysia's book of records.

Then there are people lining up for the Baba Cendol / Ice Kacang at Jonker street

That done, since it was a day trip and I had to work on the following day which was incidentally a PUBLIC HOLIDAY (sorry gotta emphasize that) I had to make the day short and headed for the last food stop in Melaka - the Chicken Rice Ball...

Great food escapade but short lived as I HAD TO WORK ON A PUBLIC HOLIDAY the following day :P Okay, that's enough number of jabs... don't wanna lose my job :P

Got something to say? Drop it by benloh@flyfm.com.my! Selamat Hari Raya!

If you don't know what Digg's about - it's more of a social bookmarking service which allows people from all over the world 'digg' certain sites - may it be specific blog sites, entries, news pieces, articles - just whatever which one thinks is worth spreading to the rest of the community.

So if you see an article you read on my blog that's interesting and you think it's worthy of being shared with the rest of the world, pleaseeee DIGG it :) Contribute the world, make yourself feel good as you've done something good... one of those feelings that money can't buy :P Okay fine, this is sounding like a bribe already...

Just look out for the "Digg" button after every post - it'll look something like this...

Just a quick note of thank you to http://tekartist.blogspot.com/2007/02/integrating-upgraded-digg-tools-in.html for giving a quick insight on the Digg integration.

I love freebies... who doesn't? I've always seen such ads online - "Left some documents in the office? At Home? Urgently need to access that computer from a remote destination?" - I never got to them coz I always thought it'd be too troublesome to setup.

I was SO WRONG. It's one of those days when I decided to checkout this ad which was BLARING before my eyes - LogMeIn.com was the site... they had a FREE edition so I gave it a try...

Painless installation
Installation was painless... a couple of clicks and I was done... even connecting to my computer from a remote computer was a simple click and go affair. Within minutes, I was logged into my computer with LogMeIn installed, happily clicking away as though I was right in front of my desktop. The software just makes remote computing EXTREMELY easy to use.

No firewall configuration
As with most high-tech "gizmos" or software for that matter, I'd expect a teeny weeny bit of firewall configuration just to let the application through either on the operating system end or router / modem end. This is what I absolutely love about LogMeIn - ZERO configuration whatsoever. Everything just configures itself...

Go Free or Pro
There are 2 versions on the site for you to choose from. FREE (version I'm using - I'd go for anything free) and of course, there's the Pro version. Difference in the Pro?

• FREE food (NOT!)
• ability to listen to the audio on the remote PC! Listen to Mp3s on your computer while you're miles away from your PC!
• Remote printing! Need to print to your printer at home? Hit connect and VOILA!
• File transfer - Got a file left at home? This feature will get that sorted. That said however, I'm just too cheap to pay for this so I'd rather open up a browser on the remote computer end, logon to GMail and have it mailed to myself - VOILA! :P
• loads more!

Thing is, if you don't need any of the above mentioned features or found a way to go around it, the FREE version really is enough. It does it's job. It's fast, efficient and most importantly HASSLE FREE installation.

Highly recommended. Go grab a copy of it today @ www.logmein.com! Trust me, you'll need it someday... :)

I'm surprised by the amount of money people buy their domain names for these days. Just the other day I was talking to some domain name owners and I was shocked! People paying through their noses...

Register.com - charges USD 35.00 per domain!
Networksolutions.com - used to charge exorbitant prices but now has gone down to just 9 USD per domain (don't know if this is just a one time offer or because I typed a massively unwanted domain name in their shopping cart to get a price quote)

I've tried the following 2 (found them after a quick google) - highly recommended

Namecheap.com - USD 9.29 (highly recommended)
GoDaddy.com - USD 9.99 (also highly recommended)

In fact, just a quick search on Google even showed some USD 1.99 domains. Don't be conned though, such low prices are mostly for non-popular domains ie. ending with .mobi etc.

A quick note to self - ALWAYS do a bit of 'net' shopping prior to engaging any service on the Internet. Besides, it only takes a few mini-finger muscles :) Have fun shopping!