Yeah ... I'm a sucker for novelty items

Can't really help it but freebies and novelty items always seem to catch my attention ... for one thing, they're free and the other is that there is no other way of obtaining them except at promos/roadshows/events. Here's the latest at the CI booth running at 1Utama this weekend.

Answer questions, take part in the quiz and you end up with these. Love those syringe pens ... and the fact that their caps are little IU bottles and they have real fluid inside them. What I don't understand are the leaves, debris and sand with the jigsaw puzzle. The bottom show little note pads with the probably the tiniest pen attached; also come with a torch and retractable measuring tape on the other end. Thermal mugs are the normal fare at the as are the t-shirts and car sunscreens (both not shown here).

Yeah ... simple things like this keep me happy ... I'm kinda sad like that (but cheap to shop for too!)

Is this the future of Streamyx?

Seems that installation works for Zaaba, Datuk Sulaiman and Burhanuddin have completed and it won't be long until TM HSBB (High Speed Broadband) will be available. Everyone else on Streamyx is on what they call BBGP which maxes out at 4Mbps. This is what the installation looks like so far.


Each existing junction box now has an additional tower with a warning sign "LASER DANGER" ... technicians were seem wearing goggles when configuring the big mess of fiber optics cables inside. What does this mean when HSBB is finally available? From TM news announcements, the minimum speed package will be a whopping minimum 24Mbps upto 100Mbps for download streams but bill payment rumours at local forums put it anywhere from RM600/month upwards with a download cap (in other words *YIKES*). A cap of 10GB downloads means I'll reach that limit in 2 days (hee hee - go blame those humungous MSDN AA ISO downloads and bittorrents)

TM intranet posts have said that prior to launch, Streamyx subscribers from TM staff in Bangsar, TTDI and Subang will be invited to guinea-pig test the scheme first (so when - pray tell - will they call me :D ). Oh well .. here's to hoping.

P/S : As I was taking the pics, TM technicians were actually down the road installing at another junction box. I'm guessing next area to complete is Rahim Kajai.

No ... I'm not dead

Left this blog in silence for sometime as other matters popped up - mostly work related ... been spending a lot too on necessities and NON-necessities. My PC decided to die on me with a blown motherboard and graphic card ... 8 days and RM500 less, its now back in (hopefully) working condition. Also finally formatted it to run Windows 7 Professional (was running as upgrade previously and it brought all the crap it collected in Vista). Am currently downloading Win7 x64 ISO and might do another reformat to try that version out later if time permits.

What else ... finally bought another camera to replace the one that was stolen ... not going the SLR route yet (for now) 'cos my parents sometimes borrow the camera and they already have a hard enough time figuring out these point and shoot consumer cams. Searching around, finally settled on another Kodak model - this time the Z1085 IS.
Why this particular model? Mostly because of size and convenience's sake. Plus it takes HD quality 1280×720 video at 30fps and the output isn't half bad although its autofocus does tend to suffer in low-light situations. Another gimmicky feature which works quite well is the built-in panoramic shot. My parents took the camera on a 9 day test run on a tour to China and this was one of the panoramic shots taken (resized to 22% of the original). Look closely enough and you'll notice two spots the camera 'stitched' wrongly :P

Too bad Blogger video resizes the video and recompresses it so badly ... here's the same clip with YouTube HD.

Bad points, the camera is a battery hog and goes through normal NiMH/CD rechargeables and Alkalines like crazy (fresh batts only give around 10 shots). Had to foot out an additional RM70 to get rechargeable lithium-ion batteries and RM45 for a 4GB SDHC card. Total cost equals to RM520 (the camera was RM310) for them to use on the trip and I haven't even had a chance to play around with it yet, waiting for the battery to recharge ...... *sigh*

Will update more later 'bout what I've been spending on :D

The KLIA Chime

OK ... useless post ahead ... I'm kinda weird like that.

Few weeks back I was stuck at KLIA airport for nearly two hours waiting for pickup. End result? The KLIA chime got stuck in my head ... which led me to wonder about annoucement chimes. Searching around, it seems most locations (i.e. airports, train stations, shopping malls) use a basic root chord like C-E-G-C or portions of it as shown in this Youtube video below.

So the KLIA chime certainly stands out amongst the rest with a chord progression ... I kinda liked it after a while and figured it would be a great alert tone. Searching Google only came up with audio recordings which wouldn't work on my current lau-yar Nokia plus the quality was so-so. Next best thing was to figure out the note progression and make a MIDI tone of it. The chime moves from a base chord of Bmin to Cmaj as shown below - split into two staves for the chord and moving arpeggio. These notes are played by a vibraphone at a 120bpm tempo, doubled up with a glock to highlight the downbeat notes ... with the following result below(not taking into account the acoustical delay and reverb of the paneled KLIA ceilings)

Download MP4 clip here || Download MIDI file here

P/S: Doesn't the Aena Spanish Airport 2 chime at 1:14 in the Youtube video sound like the one on the Putra LRT?

He said it best

Of all the people, of all the celebs, he said it best. Who? Zac Efron ... weird huh?

"I don’t have a Twitter, a MySpace or a Facebook or anything like that.
I kind of value in people not knowing where I am or what I’m doing”

My sentiments exactly. Facebook is bad enough ... but then again, I'm the kind of person that can survive without a handphone or Internet connection. Its just a convenience not a necessity in my life.

R.I.P Yasmin Ahmad - Our Nation's Storyteller

Haven't been on blogger for quite sometime ... not because I have nothing to say but because I don't have the time to do so. Anyways, news hit me hard about how Yasmin Ahmad passed away due to a brain haemorrhage. Personally, I have never met her but from interviews (both on TV and online) she seems like a person anyone could be friends with. We were truly and absolutely blessed with her talents and her chutzpah when defending her rights and beliefs.

Her true nature can really be seen whenever she is left to ramble ... as seen in this recently released (30 July) clip from TheBackpackr for TEDxKL.

This retrospective YouTube video sums it up nicely (by NSTPonline ... kudos to the author and apologies for embedding)

R.I.P. Michael Joseph Jackson

Just concluded watching the tribute broadcast of MJ's Dangerous Concert in Bucharest on local terrestial 8TV and boy did it bring back the memories. Every song, every moment, every effect was like hidden somewhere in my brain but watching that concert on TV brought everything flooding back.

I remembered a rocket, the dissapearing acts, the angel, the lasers, the fibre optics and of course, the screaming. I remembered anticipating the concert and loved every minute of it right till the end. Of course, I didn't go to that Dangerous Concert but instead went to the History World Tour Concert which was held in Stadium Merdeka, 29th October 1996. I still hold on to the fading ticket from the show which I will most certainly treasure more than ever now (RM160.00 you know!! NOT cheap for a 16 year old but hey, it was a once in a lifetime event which is even more true now)

Wierd enough, the night before his passing I was playing his albums - which I had not done for years now. I went through his Dangerous and History Book 1 CDs before falling asleep and was awoken to the sad news. Kinda wonder now if it was a sign or just pure coincidence.

Rest in peace Michael, and trust that I am and will always be a fan.

Hooked on iTunes 2 !!

Follow up from an earlier post here, four months on and my iTunes folder has exploded to a massive 53.6GBs ... and this does NOT include the 80 items queued up for downloading.

Wonder why I find it so amazing? All this content downloaded was 100 % FREE and legal. There are several gems amongst all the bits and bytes

Free full episode of Mythbusters - Alaska special 2!

Premiere episodes of Aaron Stone (now showing on Disney Channel Asia but I finished watching in April) and the upcoming Zeke and Luther (probably premiering on Disney Asia in December?) in 720p HD and 5.1 surround!

Premiere episode of Parks and Recreation

Mother's Day giveaway with episodes of Jon & Kate +8, Little people bit world, The Duggars ....

Pilot episode of Glee! in HD

6 Spring break freebies featuring full episodes from Discovery Travel and Living

Those terabyte harddisks are looking pretty tempting right about now....

Anyone still using Finale Notepad?

Makemusic earlier this year decided that Finale 2009 Notepad will no longer be free to use and requires a minimum US$9.95 payment instead of free as once was done with older versions. This cost is justified by Makemusic with the new features added onto F2009NP including support for import and export of MusicXML files, guitar tabs, MIDI import/export, better expression entry and so on (as listed on the press release here)

I'm all for them charging for the software but what really bums me out is that they removed all trace of older versions of the software eventhough there's a sizeable group of users still using them. You can no longer obtain free license keys for the software nor can you download them from their website ... or can you? Turns out I still have the links to the individual downloads listed under the history panel of the download manager I'm using.

So ... if you have an existing license key and are just looking for the downloads because you lost yours, here's the full list for Windows and Mac PCs.

Finale 2001 Notepad Windows Mac	Finale 2002 Notepad Windows Mac
Finale 2003 Notepad Windows Mac	Finale 2004 Notepad Windows Mac
Finale 2005 Notepad Windows Mac	Finale 2006 Notepad Windows Mac
Finale 2007 Notepad Windows Mac	Finale 2008 Notepad Windows Mac

All links have been tested to work as of 9th June 2009 but could be taken offline anytime soon. This post is NOT validated or supported by Makemusic and can be removed at anytime by request. I am NOT hosting the files, nor will I send you the files and/or license keys by email/sharing sites.

Whats wrong with Google Followers?

Just a quickie ... something's wrong with the followers gadget in blogger. When its loaded, this blog doesn't load and instead aborts with an error "Operation aborted" or the error number 800a03e8. Removing the gadget seems to have fixed it for now.