Great food, great outing

Yesterday was an eventful one. The initial plan to go to 1U was canceled during the last minute (and I MEAN last minute as in decision-made-on-the-way-in-the-car :-p ). So went to Berjaya Times Square instead. Did some CNY shoppings over there. Oh and by the way, I was there from 12pm to 6pm...hehe

Right after that, Dad asked for opinions on where to have dinner and stuff and I gave my usual "Anything-lah" reply :-p

So off we went to Sri Petaling woooohooo We had dinner at this nice place called 'Green Valle', where it serves some very nice authentic Chinese food. Let the photos do the talking

Do you know who they are? :-p

Some of the antique stuff on display and more of those old recordings

The environment of the restaurant was set up to give that real oldies Chinese authentic historical feeling, with antiques such as clocks, some black discs of some very old Chinese singers (and I do know some of them hehehe)

The food was very nice too and the price was not expensive at all, yeah you heard it from the miser's mouth :-p For example, sharks fin soup for 8 pax costs only RM45 and man it looked delicious, from what I saw on the table next to mine. We ordered a herbal duck (RM25 for half a duck). It was good. And it came with some "tong gui" sauce to go with it. Nice....

The herbal duck

Next up were the tauhu and the vege. The tauhu was cooked with minced pork...not bad at all...only RM10 or so if I recall correctly. Didn't take the photo of the vege simply because I was too hungry during that time :-p What to do? Been windows shopping for 6+ hours hehe

Tauhu with minced pork

And most importantly, being a Chinese tea person (that doesn't mean that I'm old :-p remember that), I simply love drinking the Chinese tea here. The taste was a bit different from the usual ones that I drink in any restaurant but it was very nice.

AND and and.....while you are dining, the PA system will be playing some old songs to enrich your dining experience there. It was very soothing and it did go well with the food... an absolutely great place to go dating, or even to have a gathering with your family and loved ones :-)

Free dessert at the end of the meal, on the house

The restaurant is located on the same row as Wing Heong (branch of Jalan Imbi) and here's the link on Wikimapia.


After a hearty meal, we went to a nearby pasar malam...not realizing that there's an even bigger pasar malam than the one in Connaught, Cheras. Took us 2-3 hours to cover the entire thing and by the time we reached home, it was already 12am.

Tiring but fun :-)



So Happy New Year to you and your family and may all of you be well and happy...always :-)


Mark

永远怀念...

十二月初一又到了
不知不觉你已经离开了十五年

但是我时时刻刻都回想起你
我某时某刻都回想着
如果你还在
你会那么开心，那么幸福
看到你的孙仔孙女们已经长大
看到我们的成就

我们会更加努力
不会让你失望 ;-)

我们会永远怀念你
亲爱的婆婆

耀仔 Ah Lut :-)

Joyeux Noël To You All!!

Date: 24-12-2008

Time: 6+pm till 2.15am
Venue: CS' Place


For the last 2 years, most of the gatherings with my buddies (X'mas Eve, NY Eve, Mid Autumn Festival etc.) had been held at my place and I got kinda bored although they are keen to come again this time. So for once, this year, we had it at CS' place.

Reached his place at round 6pm, had a little chit-chat and then dinner...nice meal there. Thanks to CS' mom for the dinner :-)

After that, while waiting for good ol' Yuan Wu to arrive (as usual), we had some fun with the guitar and some other syok sendiri stuff :-p

This fella was playing a CNY song!! On X'mas Eve!!!

And so at last came YW and we started our party. Firstly, a X'mas party won't be a X'mas party without some X'mas hats :-)

Punished, ears pulled for being late :-p

CS' mom at the back: Looks like Mark is not a good boy after all...

Hmmmm....it smells like....hmmmmm

The late-comer turned crooner

...and he got a call from the talent scouter...how he wishes :-p

...and for the first time, I participated in some liquor drinking activities :-p Away from my home, I'm a devil, unleashed, wild, naughty, mischiveous and noisy hahahaha Good boy no more wooohoo

Wooo...first time seeing anyone using a kettle instead of a bottle for the water to go with the whisky :-p Missing in the pic were the many bottles of Kampai hehehe

Some whiskeys anyone?? :-p

Before we get too high, let's take a group photo first... as can be seen, what happened after that was quite disasterous :-p

It would be a complete whole group gathering if Henry was there too

CS and his Santarina

YW started turning gay :-p Me wearing red, I think he thought I was a Santarina :-p

My new wife Macbook Pomme was playing some songs there and it got our feet moving hehe

...left...

...and then my leg went missing :-p

...and now right...

After some Domino's Pizzas, we started with the Cluedo game. But, having liquor in our blood systems coupled with the gathering itself had us being so 'high' and blur that even the Cluedo King (that's me :-p) had got everything so wrong that we switched to some card games since their main motive is to get more alcohol into my system hahaha

Cluedo...not good...we're all blur...very blur...and CS cheated!!

Card game round 1, looks normal

Card game round 2 with McD's, still normal

What happened after that was deemed to be 'out of control' :-p And on a few occasions, I got some 'Truth or Dare' challenges of which I chose 'Truth' and man some secrets were spilled haha

CS had gone nuts!

Bugger CS with his stupid rules!

I refuse to elaborate on this...

We and our dog act, thanks to CS...again

errr...no comment :-p

Anyhow, it was a great gathering. But having my sis there meant that I need to drink on her behalf most of the time hahaha But once in a blue moon....ok la :-p

The gathering ended at 2.15am...wahsai...more like super sleepy rather than drunk or high haha


Merry X'mas to you and your family :-) Best in health and be happy :-)




Joyeux Noël

Cool Mac vs PC Transformers Video

Yo, found this on a forum. Thought of sharing it with you guys :-) Enjoy...

Cheers

1983 - That's When It All Started

The year was 1983, the very year little Mark was born and it was also the very year that sparked the introduction of a revolutionary product that would change the whole world..till this day. And it was also the year that everyone got to know this 'fruity' company which brought upon this change on us, as well as the man (or men) behind this, the Fathers of all Personal Computers, the Fathers of the very machine that you are now using to read this post as well as the very machine that I wrote it on. It was the year of the Personal Computer!! And the video below shows the very first time the machine, the Macintosh was introduced live in front of live audience by the very man that is still shaking the world today, Steve Jobs, whether you like it or not :-p

And in the 90s, who could ever forget the iMac, the very computer that glows from inside its translucent body and also the very computer of which its 'behind' was more beautiful than the 'fronts' of most PCs then, and coupled with the lack of an external CPU box and the great keyboard-mouse combination, who can deny the beauty of the Apple?

And of course from then since, came 3 more (if I'm not mistaken) revolutionary products under the iMac name

It seems that John Ive designed this from a Sunflower




Remember seeing this in The Devil Wears Prada? :-)

And subsequently, the era of the aluminium and the flat keyboard...

Cheers

Do your bit to save lives...

Nothing religious here... am just helping a friend to promote this blood donation drive held at a Buddhist Temple at Jalan Loke Yew. If you are free on a Sunday 28th December 2008 and if you think that you have loads of blood to spare (or you've been eating lots of iron lately :-p), do drop by and do your bit for charity and also to save lives :-) People from all walks of life are invited to participate :-)

Head on to HERE for the website and also the map to the place.

For those without an Facebook account, here are the details:

Date: Sunday, December 28, 2008
Time: 9:00am - 3:00pm
Location: Karma Kagyu Dharma Society
Street: No 2, Lorong Jubilee, off Jalan Loke Yew, 55200
City/Town: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Contact Info Phone: 60392221540



Sadhu Sadhu Sadhu

The X'mas Mood IS HERE!

Went for jalan-jalan at Mid Valley sometime last week with family. Basically we were quite disappointed with the setup at the shopping complexes in KL with very subtle decorations that really don't give you the X'mas mood. Even MetroJaya at BB is in a sad state this year. Couldn't really feel the 'emo and yet peaceful'-ness (weird? I know :-p ) while shopping there.

So off to Mid Valley we went and I was surprised..very surprised indeed.. the whole complex was beautifully decorated and speakers put up at almost every corner, playing very nice and soothing carols.. Could just stay at the concourse area and enjoy the music/songs and the decos... couples should go there, quite romantic IMHO, provided that it's not that crowded... but who cares :-p Well, at least they are doing something to live up the atmosphere amidst the economic slowdown :-)








Cheers

Stop Using IE for The Time Being!

Again, I was just reading some tech news on the net when I stumbled on this news here. It seems that some hackers had found a serious security flaw on MS Internet Explorer that enables outsiders/criminals/hackers to take control of the users' computers and steal their passwords. Basically, this is not good as MS has still yet to find a solution to this problem.

So, for the time being until the flaw has been patched and resolved, please use other browsers such as Safari, Firefox or Chrome. Those are safe from such malicious flaw.


Should you choose to read more about it, go here.



Cheers

The Most Wonderful Time of The Year

3 weeks more and it'll be X'mas! :-) Although I'm not a Christian, but X'mas is still my favourite festival besides CNY :-p Always loved the mood and the whole lot of peaceful feelings that come with it. Always enjoyed walking in shopping malls during this period while listening to carols being played over the PA. But too bad, for this year I'll stay at home for most of the time to 'kautim' my thesis hahaha

Yesterday was quite eventful for me, started off going to Damansara in the morning to send in Noir for repair albeit with warranty = free la :-p Then off to Bandar Utama to help mom get her stuff, got a call from IKEA that the stock for her wall-mounted table has arrived and she wanna get it before it runs out of stock again. Next, to Monash to settle some paperwork stuff and also to switch the Feng Shui of my workstation = change to another cubicle hehe

But anyhow, while at IKEA I came across something interesting there. They were actually selling REAL LIVE X'mas trees besides the fake ones. And at the price of RM119, I think it's OK la. The larger one cost RM149. But nope, I didn't get one myself, since adding one more tree to the garden = more work to do/1 more thing to care for :-p Nevertheless, captured the moment on camera and here it is. Enjoy :-)




Cheers

iPhone 2.2: A Personal Review

Yo, upgraded Belle from Firmware 2.1 to 2.2 the other day. Nothing changed much aesthetically, except for Safari whereby now the Google search bar is on the same line as the address bar, to its right to be more precise, as shown here




And of course the Street View in Google Map and the rest of it, all related to Map. As for the rest of the enhancements or changes made to the OS, kindly refer to here for the full list :-)

So what do I feel after the upgrade? Well, I can see that the number of dropped calls on Hotlink network in Malaysia have decreased. The whole interface is much more polished now, much smoother and faster to me compared to 2.1. It's like it's giving me the feeling of owning the good ol' 1.1.4 again...if you know what I mean :-) Most notable enhancement in speed can be seen when opening SMS (oh yeah!!), Contacts, Notes and also Settings.

How to upgrade you might ask? If you are on 2.x, just grabbed the latest version of iTunes (that's v8.02), the firmware file and also Quickpwn 2.2 and follow this Guide here (that's for Windows, the site also has a Guide for Mac OS) to do there rest. Of course, do not forget to backup your stuff, either via a sync with iTunes or by using Chronus for the manual backup. If you are still running on the dinosaur 1.1.x on your iPhone, just do the same thing...the only difference is that you'll need to backup using TimeCapsule instead of Chronus (they're from the same developer by the way).

In the end, should you ask me if the upgrade to 2.2 is worth it? I would definitely give you a 'YES'.


My final personal verdict:


Pros
Decrease in dropped calls
Interface much smoother and faster than 2.1 or 2.0.x
Street View and the whole lots of other enhancements in Map
And the rest of the list here


Cons
What the other peeps are complaining till now...no cut and paste, no MMS and the others...
As for me...nothing much....fairly satisfied :-)



Cheer

Hi There, I'm a Mac, No longer a PC

Yup, the news had broken for those who are really close to me. As for those who are not so close, well... all I can say is that I got myself a new wife!!! Yippee!! I have found a perfect replacement for Noir (my Compaq V3125) in the form of a MacBook!!! kekeke Got the MacBook Aluminium Unibody 2.4GHz last week after hesitating for quite some time and also due to the encouragement and support from Dad who had been going "When are you getting your MacBook?" practically every single day. And since I gave French names to all my gadgets, therefore I shall name my new wife Pomme, which literally means 'apple' :-p So if I combine the name of my iPhone, Belle with Pomme now, it says 'Beautiful Apple'!!! Woohoo...sweet :-p

To cut the story short, my good ol' Noir had been sent for motherboard replacement TWICE in each year since I got it and I had a feeling that it's gonna fail soon... As usual, my instinct/6th sense/prediction (whatever you wanna call it la) is very accurate most of the time and so true it seems, Noir failed to start up the same day I got Pomme, right after I've migrated my PhD and other important files over... what luck??!! Now I have to send Noir to HP again for another possibe mobo replacement and it shall be handed safely to sis. Her PC is giving her problems too...well...it's Windows!! What do you expect? :-p Luckily I extended the warranty to another year..phew...

Got my Pomme together with iWork at Machines Lot 10 and from the rebate of the 2 products, the Mighty Mouse only cost me RM45...cool!! Leopard hasn't hang on me since, the system is speedy, the multi-touch trackpad is so good that I only use the mouse whenever I need to, LaTeX works superbly well, Matlab works flawlessly too, the aluminium unibody feels extremely solid and robust, the backlit keyboard is SEXY!!! and the list goes on... And ironically, Pomme happens to be my first Intel-based system. Been using AMD processors for my previous 2-3 computers.

As for Linux, I'll still be supporting them and will continue to get the latest versions of certain distros, especially Ubuntu and gOS whenever I can and will try to write some personal reviews on them.

From now on, I don't need to reboot my system from Linux into Windows to sync Belle ^-^ Well...Everything Just Works! :-)

To Noir, I will always love you :-)

Cheers

Bling-ed Up K810i

Yo guys, been half a month since I last blogged hahaha Been very busy with my PhD stuff nowadays especially with the deadline drawing near. Not to mention also the practice for the performance for the 9th International Heat Pipe Symposium organized by Monash. That's like my first performance on stage since MUFY TalentTime in 2001 and definitely my first solo performance ever hehehehe it went well I guess :-p and nope, I'm not gonna show you the photos :-p

________________________________________________________

Well, regarding the topic for this post, I was doing my work peacefully in the study room when I saw my sis doing something to her phone, rather tentatively I might add. And to my horror, she was mutilating her phone!!!! YEAH!!! Her SE K810i which is barely 1 year old!!! Being a geek, I always like to leave gadgets to their original 'naked' selves... that's why sometimes I use my iPhone without its case, unless I'm out and I suddenly have this phobia that I might dropped it. Anyhow, here's what she did to her phone






Do you feel what I'm feeling now??? What a total insult to technology!!! To adorn a pretty gadget like that with cheap stuff like those is like to ask a pretty and sexy lady in bikini to cover herself with a towel!!! Errr OK....sorry for being over-exaggerating :-p But still...ahhhh....really "No Eye See".




Cheers

MySMS -> SMS Character Counter, Forwarding and more on iPhone 2.1

Ever wonder why your iPhone doesn't have a character counter while SMS-ing and you always end up exceeding the max 160 characters and sending more than 1 message? Wanna delete individual messages instead of the whole conversation? Message forwarding? MySMS has the answer for you! Available on Cydia and I've just installed it the other day and have tested well on it to write my own Personal Review.

It comes in 2 versions: Free/Demo and Paid version. What's the difference? Well, first of all the paid version cost you USD4.95. Besides that, the Demo version has the full functionality as the paid version except

1) you'll get a reminder you're using a demo version
2) 20% of the messages that you text will have a delay of 30 seconds

On the Springboard, your icon will look like the screenshot below. Paid version will have a blue tint on the icon instead of orange...or is it yellow? Arghh...I'm colourblind...sorry :-p

App icon on Springboard

The launch splashscreen

Before going into the detail of the SMS functionality of the app, let's look at the customizations offered in the Settings. From sorting of contacts to the skin of the texting UI, basically you can configure most of the stuff here. One thing to note is the option for the "Phone number length". This is useful if you've saved all your contact numbers in the format of "0123456789" (Malaysian mobile phone number btw) instead of "+60123456789". By decreasing the "Phone number length" to 10, MySMS will ignore the preceding "+6" of the contact numbers and therefore, the app will recognize your contacts based on the format that they're saved. Nice touch there...and you don't have to edit all your contacts, adding "+6" in front of every number in your Contact list.



If you have trouble understanding the info of each toggle available, just tap on "Help" and all the explanations are there :-)



And if you like the app so much, you can even set it as the default SMS client on your iPhone.



The main SMS UI of MySMS is almost identical to the stock SMS client available



By tapping on each individual SMS, you can choose to Delete it, Forward it to other contacts or to Call/Save any numbers in the message.



And voila!! First time on your iPhone....SMS in landscape mode!!! Should you find the keyboard in the default portrait mode is too small for your big thumbs, you can tilt it sideway and now you'll have everything in landscape mode :-)

SMS in landscape mode :-)

And from the screenshot below, you get character/sms counters in text edit mode. I'm sure this answers the prayers of many iPhone users :-p

Character/SMS counter -> Nice touch :-)

All in all, MySMS looks promising as a standalone SMS client, fit enough to replace your stock one.

My final personal verdict:


Pros
Lots of customizations available
Landscape mode
Message forwarding!!
Character/SMS counter in edit mode!!!
Demo version has full functionality


Cons
Full version not free
Irritating reminders asking you to register
30secs delay on about 20% of the messages you send
Scrolling of conversation history still not as smooth as stock SMS client



Cheers