My new kuda kerja (that's work horse to BM illiterate)!!

Been 2 weeks since my last post and it has been busy every weekend. My cousin and aunt from down under is back in KL for a month and staying at the Mandarin Oriental KLCC so weekends have been spent over there. Its good to take advantage of free hotel parking to go shopping and sightseeing in KLCC area although it is packed with tourists. I've been there so often now, I can probably drive there and back blindfolded through all the back roads and guest entrances ... hee hee. I still prefer shopping in 1U and Sunway in comparison though.

This pic was taken - believe it or not - whilst I was in the car (not driving ler ... waiting for the traffic lights). Its a nice shot considering the fact that it was taken using a compact digicam sans pro settings. Note to those interested : best place to take the profile of the Petronas Twin Towers is across the road at the British Council building. Anywhere else and you'd get a lot of obstructions in your pic or the incomplete building. Too bad it was a cloudy day though ... I have other pics at different angles but I kinda liked this one with the tree in the pic.


This is my cousin Chloe. She's three years old, full of energy and also nonsense. Her likes are Disney channel, Pocoyo, Angelina Ballerina, chocolate ice cream and balloons for now.



Last week was spent at the PC Fair 2008. I finally gave in an bought a new Acer Aspire desktop computer to replace my old faithful (which I've been using for the past 10 years). The offer was too good to resist as it had everything I wanted/needed for a price that was bearable. Throw in freebies and I was sold with total wallet damages for CPU and monitor at RM3697.

Meet my new "Alan Wake"-ready baby ...


My new workstation specs:

• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.40GHz CPU (four cores!!)
  
• 2GB DDR2 800MHz memory (satisfies Vista happily)
  
• 500GB SATA NCQ harddrive (roomy yet silent ... thankfully)
  
• nVidia GeForce 8600GS graphics with 512MB dedicated memory (hmm ... thats the same amount of OS memory in my old PC)
  
• 20× DVD writer (so tempted to get a bluray drive but a RM1900 price tag is really prohibitive)
  
• 7.1 HD Audio
  
• Hauppauge HVR1200 hybrid analogue/digital TV/radio tuner with hardware MPEG1/2 capture (I loved their PVR-350 series but this is even better!!)
  
• Wireless RF keyboard/mouse and MCE remote control
  
• 9 USB ports and 2 IEEE1394/firewire ports
  
• 10/100/1000Mb Ethernet
  
• 5 monitor/TV outputs (yeah ... overkill I know)
  
• Built-in 15-in-one card reader
  
• Dell 19" wide flat panel LCD monitor with independent switchable analog/DVI inputs (and extended 5 years 1-to-1 warranty)
  
• Edifier 2.1 speakers (to be replaced with a 6.1 set coming soon!)
  
• Microsoft Vista premium (also have my own valid license for Vista Business!!)
  
• Dlink 802.11N wireless router + 802.11N USB adapter (freebies worth RM500++!!)
  

What I like about this workstation is the inclusion of a hardware based capture card cum TV tuner. It is also digital TV ready so its relatively future proof in terms of TV reception. Additionally it also has a card reader for camera transfers. Bad points : wireless mice and keyboards. Although handy and reduces cable mess, it requires batteries to run and there's a small lag between action and response. I also have to get to grips with the changes in Vista.

The old PC is now delegated to the living room as a secondary PC and connects to the Internet wirelessly (the free bundled 802.11N hardware really came in handy here ... lucky huh?!). It still has plenty of kick and I did nearly all of my media work on it - every single Feseni video disc to date was authored/burned using that PC. All past UMSO/choir scores were also arranged/transcribed using that PC. My old PC specs for comparison:

• Intel PIII 600E CPU overclocked to 720MHz (ahh ... the good old megahertz days)
  
• 512MB PC100/133 SDRAM (mostly taken from older thrown away PCs ... I still have 5 sticks to spare)
  
• Asus nVidia TNT2 graphics with 32MB SGRAM (no one uses SGRAM anymore do they?)
  
• Dual Soundblaster Live! value soundcards (first and second generation ... also have another as spare from a discarded spoilt Dell PC)
  
• 120GB ATA harddisk
  
• 17" CRT monitor
  
• 18× DVD writer and 16×DVD-ROM (both region free!!)
  
• Internal hardware modem (extremely rare version)
  
• Cambridge Soundworks 2.1 speakers (these are amazing and sound much better than any Altec Lansing set I've heard before)
  
• Dlink 10/100Mb Ethernet

It still holds up pretty well and runs comfortably with XP SP3 and will even manage Max Payne at 1024×768 resolution (which reminds me I still have to finish that game)

What remains now is to manage the cable hell on two PCs and also the transfer to 100GBs of data from one PC to the other ... that's another 2 weeks of work *sheesh*. For now its back to another session with Grim Fandango Year 2!!

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