Razer Lycosa
Li Xiang and I was doing our Mystery Shopper job at Lot 1 Shopping Center and I come across 1 PC shop and 1 Game shop. I got myself an old Xbox game, Capcom Fighting Evolution from the game shop thinking that it should be backward compatible with my Xbox 360. When I reached home and to my horror it is not compatible with my Xbox 360. Just wasted $19.90! I think I shall pass the game to my uncle because he is holding on to my brother Xbox.

I saw a few Razer mouses and I was looking around for Razer keyboards. I saw the Razer Lycosa and when I looked at the price, I got a shocked. They are selling for $119 which is the cheapest according to Hardware Zone forums. Even at the PC Show 2008, they are selling it for $120 with no free gifts.

The Box

The Box When Opened

The Razer Lycosa

Razer Lycosa, Razer DeathAdder, Razer Mantis Control

Kung Fu Panda
It was a last minute decision to watch Kung Fu Panda and apparently the decision is a good one. The show is funny and I love the jokes they crack inside. However, Li Xiang fell asleep 1/2 way through the show, I guess she is tired.

Caught the trailer for Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa before the show and I am so going to watch Madagascar 2. The penguins are back and this time they are driving the plane. I just love this part of the conversation, the penguin said “I have got good news and bad news. The good news is that we are landing now, the bad news is that we are crash landing.” LOL

Here is the trailer for those who did not catch it:

Dad’s Off To Vietnam4
My dad’s flight is 10am on Singapore Airlines to Vietnam. He will be there for 6 months and coming back on the 17th December 2008 I think. He told me that if everything is good, he may get to come back 3 months later for a short period.

Reached the airport at 8am and saw my dad check in. After a while, his colleagues came along and we parted. My mom, brother, Huimin and I then went to Swensens for breakfast. The breakfast is good and value for money. Should have that more often.

Now whenever I am at home when it comes to 6.30pm (my dad used to come home at this time), it feels a little different, much quieter. The feeling is also weird as for 24 years, my dad is mostly with us. Even though I am a guy, I am proud to say, I miss you dad! I know he will be reading my blog at some LAN cafe in Hanoi, Vietnam.

PC Show 2008
Left the airport at 8.45am and the 3 of us excluding my mom dropped by Li Xiang office to pass her, her handphone as she left it at my house. After that we proceed on to Suntec City to wait for the PC Show 2008 to open as we are too lazy to come home and then leave the house again. We waited for about 2 hours as it opens at 12pm and we are there slightly before 10am.

Meet up with the guys at Frro, David and Michael too.

Before the door opens, you can see tons of people outside gathering. Once the door opened, everyone rushed in like they are going into a gold mine. As usual, you can see parents pushing prams which personally I HATE THE MOST. Seriously they think this is some sort of family outing but they didn’t realize that their selfish act always caused inconvenience for serious buyers and buys who bought big bulky object. Bringing kids is still quite understandable as sometimes no one is there to look after them at home, but for fuck you push prams along?

I seriously think that the organizer should do something about it, like set the minimum age limit to 12 or even charging a $2 entrance fee. A simple $2 entrance fee will not deter serious buyers. Hardware Zone Forums always suggest the organizer something about it.

I always try to boost the economy by helping others to buy when it comes to such exhibitions.

• Helped my uncle wife to get a 250GB Western Digital Portal HDD (Passport Essentials) for $129.90, a 4-ports USB hub for $9.90.
• Helped my mom to get Canon ink for her office Canon printer MX700 for $52.90.
• Helped Li Xiang to get Sepom photo A4 paper, 5 packets for $28

My brother and I wanted to get the Razer Lycosa Keyboard. But as predicted by some fellow HWZers, there is no promotion to it and on top of that there are selling it more expensive. They are selling it for $129 whereas you can get at some places for just $119.

My mom bought for me a Samsung 2043BWX Monitor for $315 and asked me to give my old Sony 17 (SDM-HS73) to her to replace my brother old Philips 17″ CRT. At first I was asking her to buy a LCD monitor but end up she ask me to buy and give her the old one. Thank you mom!

The Box

2043BWX Monitor

The Monitor On My Study Table

David to himself a Samsung Monochrome Laser printer for $98 and an internal 3.5″ 320GB HDD (not sure about the price), whereas Michael did not get anything. lol.

We have just injected more than $733.7 into the Singapore Economy!

We ended our day at about 2.30pm and headed home. The usual impatient me, the moment I went home, fixed up my new monitor, swapped my old monitor with the old CRT monitor and everything works per normal. Luckily there is no dead or stuck pixel on my new monitor. Phew

Nokia @ Molly Malone
Left home at about 5.30pm and reached Molly Malone’s Irish Pub which is located at 56 Circular Road, Singapore 049411 for an informal Nokia meetup with Nokia Staffs (Angela, Annette, Cherie, Desmond, Luanne, Loretta and Wen Dee), Text100 people (Carolyn, Liyi and Supriya) and several bloggers (Mr Brown, Coleman, Sheylara, Preetam, Ben and his wife). Do forgive me if I miss out any names or the name typed is incorrect!

Cherie who is a product manager demonstrated many of the Nokia prototype phones like the N78, N96, 6220 Classic, 6210 Navigator, XpressMusic 5320 and there is one more XpressMusic phone which I can’t remember the model name, but I think that will be the first XpressMusic phone to run S60 OS, currently all XpressMusic phones are running on S40 OS.

Desmond who is also a product manager demonstrated to me the N96 and the N78 prototypes. All Nseries devices after N78 will have the NaviWheel feature, just imagine the click wheel scrolling of the iPod. There will be light emitting from the NaviWheel every now and then to show that the phone is “alive”, they called it the breathing light. It is much better than the old school blinking LED lights at the top of the phones.

I played with the N96 and I think it is quite sluggish as it is still a prototype. With all the NDAs flying around Nokia, they can’t say anything at all with regards to unannounced phones like the XpressMusic 5800 “Tube”, N79 and the N85.

There will be an upcoming event on Monday and Tuesday which I will be attending called the Nokia Connection 2008. I can’t seem to find a link to that. Nokia Connections is held every year and is a hands-on showcase of the latest Nokia devices and services including: Nokia Maps, Nokia Music Store, N-Gage and Share on Ovi.

I got a feeling they will officially announced the Nokia E71 and E66 there as definitely there will be new phones announced.

By the way, the food at Molly Malone is good especially the Fish and Chips which cost $16 and the portion is big. The spicy chicken balls and the button mushrooms are good too.

Zhang Dong Liang (Nicholas Teo) Concert
Li Xiang bought the SGD$98 ticket to the Zhang Dong Liang Concert as there is a 10% discount from SISTIC. Apart from there, I think that SISTIC ticketing is a rip off. They increase their surcharge from $2 to $3 and apart from that, I have to pay handling charges. This is so ridiculous. This is what happen in Singapore when there is a monopoly. Just look at the fares for public transport, they keep increasing and increasing and we cannot do anything about it but to suck our own thumb.

Putting the price aside, the concert was fantastic, I think it is the best concert I have been to so far (I have been to only 3). The location is good, it is at Suntec Convention Center. The lighting is good. There is 2 screen projection on the left and right side with transition when switching to in-between cameras. There is even lyrics on the screen when he sang the song. I like concert when there is some talking and interaction rather than just pure singing. Zhang Dong Liang did just that by sharing us his life story including pictures of him when he is young projected on the screen.

Thumbs up for him!

Sex And The City
I have no idea why some people do not like the movie version. I have watched all the 6 seasons of Sex and the City and personally I find the movie is as great as well. Louis Vuitton, Prada and Versace are some of the labels you can see throughout the show. New York FTW!

The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Li Xiang didn’t like this movie, but personally I find it not bad, I think it is even better than the first installment, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The fight scenes were better than the first but come no where close to the ones found in Lord of The Rings. This movie is about 2 hours and 30 minutes, it is good to go to the loo before the show. The 3rd installment, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and the 4th installment, The Silver Chair, will be filmed by another director according to Wikipedia.

I am going to catch Kung Fu Panda next, hear it is quite good.

Mystery Shopper
Li Xiang and I applied for the Mystery Shopper job through her ex-colleague for fun. The pay is really very little, SGD$8 for every feedback we submit. Our weekends for June and July will be burned by this job, but nevertheless it is just for the experience (just to make myself happier).

2007/2008 Sem 2 Examination for COMPUTING 3

» CS2106 Operating Systems B+
» CS2301 Business And Technical Communication B
» CS3216 Software Development on Evolving Platforms B+
» CS3254 Information Security Management B
» MA1312 Calculus with Applications C+
» CAP: 3.61

Going to S/U my MA1312, my CAP drop by 0.04. Argh! This is my worst semester!

I was invited to the event, Nokia Sharing Experience held yesterday at MILK Studio located at 11C Mount Sophia, #02-16. In the RSVP image that was sent to my email, it only states that Nokia is introducing their latest devices as well as Share on Ovi. The first thing that came to my mind when I saw the words “latest devices” is N78 and N96.

The place was a little difficult to find if you have not been to Mount Sophia before (like me). I need to climb up a long flight of stairs before reaching Mount Sophia. Being the usual me, I was there early. My name was always in the early bird draw for almost every Nokia event, but unfortunately I always didn’t win!

Caught up with a couple of Text100 personnel like Felicia, Liyi and Carolyn, finally I can put the face to the name whom I contact with via email. I realized most PR personnel are all girls (except for Dinesh from Nokia and Aaron from Text100). I also talked to several people from Nokia like Angela, Annette (who used to stay 2 levels above me), Keith, Sueanne and a few others whom I did not get their name cards. I am bad with remembering names, better not type it here if I am unsure of it.

The event started off with the press release of Nokia N78, Nokia 6220 Classic and Share on Ovi by the GM of Nokia Singapore, Grant McBeath. Tips on how to use your mobile phone camera to take great pictures by Olivier Henry who is a French Photographer was up next and lastly Keith who is the head of games in Nokia talked about Ovi and Nokia latest devices.

After the talk, there was a mini competition where each and everyone of the invited guests can get to choose either a N78 or 6220 Classic to capture 2 creative images using the device and submit it to Share on Ovi. Being the Nseries fan myself, of course I choose the N78. I took a picture of an Exit sign for the object/people category and a Road Arrow for the landscape category. The winner of each category will get either a N78 or a 6220 Classic, and again unfortunately, I didn’t win.

I must say that whenever there is food in a Nokia event, the food is always good or rather personally I like it! This one is no exception.

I left there at about 7pm as I need to rush off to my Dad’s birthday dinner at Outback Steak House.

Nokia N78
The Nokia N78 will be available in Singapore next week and the RRP for the phone is SGD$808 without any operator plan. I just love the geo tagging feature for this phone. As you all may know this phone came equipped with a GPS so that the location of your photo shot can get tag by the GPS coordinates. In the event of the lost or no GPS signal, the mobile phone cellular signal will kick in and your photo will still get tagged. I was really amazed by this feature. In Singapore where it is a small country, there is base stations almost everywhere and hence the cellular signal tagging can be as accurate as the GPS tagging.

I did asked whether the cellular signal tagging will come to existing Nseries devices in future firmware upgrades and unfortunately the answer is no as the support for the cellular signal tagging is more of a hardware issue rather than a software issue.

I played around with this phone and somehow all the animations in FP2 looks nice but there is a 1 to 2 seconds delay because of the animation. Of course the animation can be turned off easily.

The keypad of the Nokia N78 needs a little getting used to as the Menu button and the Clear button is on the side rather than at the top.

Nokia 6220 Classic
Didn’t get a chance to play with the Nokia 6220 Classic. But it will be available in Singapore in June 2008 with a RRP of SGD$728 without any operator plan. According to Keith, it will be the cheapest 5 megapixel camera phone with Xenon flash and Carl Zeiss optics out there in the market. Imagine this phone as a N82 but running FP2.

Share on Ovi
With unlimited number of media in any channel, Share on Ovi beats Flickr hands down. Flickr only allows 200 photos for the “free” membership. Share on Ovi also beats Facebook as Facebook only allows 60 photos in an album.

You can upload photos, videos and even powerpoint slides to Share on Ovi and share it with your friends. It supports up to 100+ file extensions.

In order to seamlessly upload photos or videos from your Nokia mobile phones to Share on Ovi , you need to download Share Online 3 which is under your Download Folder in your menu.

And best of all, it is free! I almost wanted to pay for the “pro” membership in Flickr but now I think I shall stick to Share on Ovi.

Here is the widget that I embedded from Share on Ovi:

You can check out my Share on Ovi Profile too.

Been at least a week since I last updated this blog. I have been so busy with my other work even during my school holidays.

Here is what I have been up to:

James Blunt’s All The Lost Souls Tour
Caught James Blunt’s All The Lost Souls Tour at the Indoor stadium on the 13th May 2008. It is a one night only concert. Being a poor student, we got the cheapest seat which is SGD$68. I must say that the concert is not that bad although I do not know most of this songs. I have been waiting for the hit song 1973, and he sang it as the last song during the encore which really makes the audience really high. The British girls in front of us was dancing themselves away while we just sit down on our chairs singing to the song.

FRRO
Been trying to promote FRRO together with my partners, David and Michael but somehow we are too technical and we suck in marketing. Going to try Facebook Ads, Google AdSense and perhaps Adverlets or BLOG2u. FRRO office has been bootstrapped to my mom’s office since she got 2 unused units. We are going to do up some signage on the door as well as in our office. We have finally changed the layout of FRRO and integrated our FRRO blog with the main site and of course it is powered by WordPress.

Wave 2 Of My Plugins
Been coding really hard to finalize the second and final wave of my remaining 4 plugins updates. Namely WP-Ban, WP-DBManager, WP-DownloadManager and WP-PostViews. Just to let you all know that the plugins are more or less done unless some last minute bug came out.

lesterchan.net Version 3
Version 3 of this site is definitely going to come on 9th June 2008 which marks the 4 years and 6 months of the current layout. Version 3 is 99.9% done, I have just completed coding the Gallery function and modified the Since Last Visit plugin by Alex King to work with WordPress 2.5. I have also added all the 301 redirects from the current url to the new url into the .htaccess.

Samsung VP-MX10
I feel so bad to keep delaying the review of the Samsung VP-MX10. I even dreamt of Kelvin (the guy in-charge) asking me where is the review. It was freaky. I finally found some time, played around with the MX10, took a few sample videos and wrote the review. The review is 75% done!

Singapore Food Expo 2008
My mom has 2 booths this year at the Singapore Food Expo 2008 which is located in Hall 5 at the Singapore Expo. The Singapore Food Expo 2008 has been on since Friday (23rd May 2008) and it will be on till this coming Tuesday (27th May 2008). The opening hours is from 11am to 10pm. My mom booth is SA07 and SB15. As she did not employ any promoters this year, I will be there to help for the 3 days out of the 5 days. I helped out on Friday and I will be there on Monday as well as Tuesday.

Dad Going To Vietnam
My dad will be flying off to Vietnam to work on the 12th June 2008 for 6 months and he will be back only after Christmas 2008. Been teaching him how to use the computer, how to surf the Internet, how to create, send and read emails and lastly I need to teach him how to use MSN. I think by using the Internet, it would be the most cost effective way of contacting or reaching us. I wanted to give a presentation on WordPress 2.5 during the June 2008 Singapore PHP User Group meetup, but unfortunately, it falls on the 11th June 2008 which is the day before my dad departure to Vietnam.

Computer Games
Started to play all my computer games lately like Team Fortress 2, Command & Conquer 3, Crysis and DotA as now my computer can support all these games!

It did not rain for many days, and it finally rain so heavily for a short while yesterday. After sending Li Xiang home, I went back home. As usual, I traveled from PIE (towards Changi), then exit to Clementi Ave 6 and followed by going straight to AYE (towards Keppel). I have been going by that route for 3 years plus and nothing happen.

I was at PIE (towards Changi) on the extreme left lane, some distance just before the slip road to Clementi Ave 6, the car in white (which you can see the photos below) was following me very closely behind me. The lane on my right was a slow moving car, so I decided to speed up a little so that he got enough space to cut to the lane on my right. But I didn’t expect him to exit from the same slip road as me (he is still following closely behind me), as all the way from the slip road to the bend, there is only 1 lane, so I maintain my speed. Once I reached the bend, the road is split into 2 lanes.

I was on the inner lane and he overtook to the outer lane. So I reduced my speed as there is not need for me to hurry anymore, but who knows. The moment I stepped my brake when negotiating the bend, the whole car skidded and hit onto his car which is on the outer lane.

Luckily no one was hurt.

I called home straight to ask my parents to come down as the car requires towing and I have no experience on that. The 4 tires was badly damage and hence the car can’t be drove. On a side note, always remember to get a good tire!

Shortly after that, we exchange contact details, took pictures of the damage. A passing by neighborhood police car stopped to ask if anyone is injured and ask ask to remove the car as soon as possible as the accident site is a bend and it is dangerous for other people.

Next, a passing by ambulance from Civil Defence also came to see if we are alright. They just took down our particulars and then they left.

Next, traffic police and Expressway Monitoring Advisory Systems (EMAS) towing truck came. The traffic police also did ask if anyone is alright and took down our particulars. They also check if the accident did damage any government property.

I am very surprise by the friendliness of these people, the policeman, the traffic police, the civil defence guys and even the EMAS guys. They were all extremely friendly and always smiling. I have no idea whether this is call a service, but they indeed provide one hell of a good service! Thumbs up.

The other car got towed away first and after waiting for some time, the tow truck that suppose to tow my car finally came. When the tow truck uncle came down on the truck, he was also smiling and friendly talking to my mom about the procedures and stuff.

Later my mom is going to bring me to report the accident. I think should be reporting to Independent Damage Assessment Centres (IDAC).

Here are 2 photos that I have taken:

Front Wheels Badly Damaged

The Other Car Only Has A Damage Front

When the car skidded, everything happen so fast, it is like within 5 seconds everything came to a stop. I am still a little shock from the accident yesterday.

Last but not least, my parents always say that accident is part and partial of driving.

After waiting for 5 years, I longed for yesterday to come. It is the time to buy a new computer. As usual, I always buy my computer from Fuwell. I think together with Li Xiang, my family and my mom’s office, we bought at least a total of 5 computers from them.

Enough of story, lets bring on the specifications:

» Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66GHz 12MB Cache 1333MHz - SGD$467
» Asus X48 Rampage Formula Mainboard - SGD$539
» 2x Crucial Ballistix PC6400/800 4GB Kit (2GB x 2) - SGD$458
» 2x Western Digital Caviar 500GB SATA II 3.5″ HDD (16MB) - SGD$254
» Leadtek PX9800GX2 1GB DDR3 PCI-E - SGD$878
» Samsung SH-S203 20X SATA DVD Writer - SGD$41
» Cooler Master CM690 Black ATX W/Side Window - SGD$125
» Cooler Master M700 Modular 700W Real Power PSU - SGD$229
» 2x Cooler Master 12CM LED Fan - SGD$24
» Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate OEM (64 bit) - SGD$285
» Hardware Installation - SGD$10

Total Cost of CPU: SGD$3,310

Total Cost Of My Computer:

» CPU - SGD$3,310
» Dell 2408WFP UltraSharp 24″ Widescreen Monitor - SGD$921.67
» Bose Companion 2 Speakers - SGD$199

Total Cost: SGD$4,430.67

*UPDATE* My 3DMark06 score is 14,154.

Front View - Cooler Master CM690

Side View - Cooler Master CM690

Computer Specifications In Vista

My Harddrive Is The Weakest Link

Caught Ironman last weekend at Orchard Cineleisure. It was good, one of the best Marvel superheros films around. For the guys, I am guess how you all love those high tech stuffs that Tony Stark used when he used to built his armour. I am hoping I can see that type of technology soon man! Who needs a monitor when you got an interactive holographic projection!

On a slight note, my exams are OVER. Took 4 paper in total. The last paper (Maths) which is yesterday is a total killer! I really hope I can pass it.

For my 3 months summer holidays, I am going to try to launch the version 3 of my website which is basically done except for the gallery part. I am thinking whether should I code myself or use the plugin NextGEN Gallery. The built-in gallery in WordPress 2.5 is lousy. I am hoping to launch the new website together with the release for all my plugins updates for WordPress 2.5 which is estimated to be 1st June 2008.

Ever wondered who is behind the voice of our MRT announcements? She is Juanita Melson. Check out this Youtube video! She is so much better than the current Ah Tiong voice. I wonder why SMRT change that. Sight, yet another part of our nation heritage being take over by Ah Tiongs.