Tech N Tools

Microsoft China rips off Asia’s No. 1 Microblogging Service

2009-12-16T05:37:00.001+08:00

Microsoft pretend that they care about piracy while they are ripping off other smaller companies.

If Microsoft themselves are stealing other's intellectual property, who are they to tell people to honour their own intellectual property?

Click title link for source article.

FPS in a new dimension

2009-12-16T05:19:00.003+08:00

The ability to navigate freely in all three dimensions within a 3D space is still rare considering the amount of 3D games in the market.
Descent and Shattered Horizon aren't among them.

Favorite Movie for June and July 2009 (Testing Google Doc's form)

2009-07-23T15:35:00.000+08:00

Online multiplayer FPS gaming in Malaysia

2009-05-09T23:51:00.005+08:00

Disclaimer: The following are view based on my personal observation only. Was going to cite some sources for guidance but laziness took me over. Might reedit a bit some time later to fix the sloppiness of this random rant. Here goes:

First person shooters or FPS are a popular genre of action oriented games. FPS when played online multiplayer co-op or PvP with other humans are a lot of fun because of the teamwork and challenge that another human provides. Such games could see a bigger online community in Malaysia but there a factors contributing to the lowered acceptance of FPS gaming online. I'll describe a few features that I've noticed among the local gaming scene that affects this.

While the FPS crowd is not exactly small, RTS and MMORPG are more popular than FPSs. Counter-strike was once very popular here earlier this decade but is now in decline. Most CS player eventually moved to newer games such as the Battlefield and CoD series.

Many buyer of original game did not see a sizable online gaming community in Malaysia. The rampant piracy of computer software in Malaysia made online gaming under appreciated. Many gamers would just get pirated copy of the game and finish the single player mission and probably acquire and play the next hit game if online multiplayer doesn't work due to invalid CD-Key being blocked.

FPS games requires low network latency of below 50ms to be playable. Further reducing interest in online multiplayer FPS gaming, TM, the local ISP that monopolize the local fixed line broadband is worsening it's internet service every coming day. Users speculate it's due to TM over subscribing customers. Recently since 31st March '09 TM's ADSL users has seen the worst degrading in internet service since the 2007 Taiwan undersea cable breakage. TM claimed to have fixed the issue during mid April but a visit to a local forum thread proves otherwise.

Pinging IPs in peninsular Malaysia currently gets a latency result of around 50-70ms. Pinging across the South China Sea to East Malaysia will see ping response time of 70-100ms. Even the latency within the country is not optimal for smooth FPS gaming.

Finally most FPS requires dedicated hosting with adequate bandwidth. Unfortunately dedicated FPS server hosting is not exactly cheap here. Game server hosting is yet to become a competitive business here. Price for low resource game servers like HL or Source engine can be reasonable at RM8 per slot because it's low resource requirements allow shared hosting where multiple instance of the game server can be run on a single physical server.

For games like battlefield2 and cod4 when serving up to 32 clients system resource consumption will quite be heavy. Only 1 or 2 instance of the game server can be run on one physical server unless the hardware is powerful. But then hosting in data centres mostly allow rack mounted servers only and such servers are very expensive especially in powerful configurations.

So I like to conclude that online multiplayer FPS gaming in Malaysia still have a few obstacles to overcome before we'll see game servers of our favorite FPS popping up. With players and free slots of course. Piracy is the major influence to the online gaming community. Piracy reduces the number of original games bought therefor the publishers and local distributor doesn't see the then need to spend on game server hosting for the community. Furthermore as pirated games are usually blocked from joining legitimated servers, a game server will not see much players.

The 2 other influential factors are lower cost of game server hosting and better network latency. But because of the piracy factor, why host a game server when they are no one joining?

All You Need to Know About Broadband in Malaysia

2009-04-29T07:06:00.002+08:00

An interesting listen to an industry insider on Malaysia's current state of broadband internet. Yeah, I said "listen". That means you'll need speakers. The interviewee points out how the government's senseless spending of tax payers money - that's RM14 billion mind you - can be put to better use.

http://www.bfm.my/All-You-Need-to-Know-About-Broadband-in-Malaysia-Wong-Kian-Lon-Founder-of-Biz-Surf-Wimax-Techtalk.html

Online multiplayer gaming in Malaysia

2009-03-04T03:01:00.005+08:00

Was looking around for Google "app engine" created web apps and found a survey creator on the app gallery - http://www.cafesurvey.com/.

So I've created a simple survey seeking to understand numbers in online multiplayer gamers in Malaysia particularly. The survey is over here at - http://www.cafesurvey.com/?fuw15vem.

Please take some time for a go on the survey. The results can be found here - http://www.cafesurvey.com/viewResults?fuw15vem

the night was happy

2008-12-02T00:36:00.005+08:00

Damn, still too small to see. The brighter one should be Venus and the dimmer one should Jupiter and the crescent smile surely is the moon.

delicious and cheap

2008-12-01T22:30:00.001+08:00

Found some old pics lying on me hdd

Sarawak statewide blackout

2008-08-09T19:54:00.003+08:00

A friend from Sarawak informed to me that his contacts throughout major towns Sarawak are experiencing blackout just 20 minutes earlier. My contact at Kota Kinabalu reports normal electric supply over there.

Telephone and mobile telco networks are still operating at this moment. Probably running off diesel generators.

450D in Malaysia

2008-04-09T19:32:00.003+08:00

An investigation to Canon's new Canon EOS Pro Centre at 9th floor, Berjaya Time Square reveals that they've gotten the much anticipated EOS 450D DSLR for sell. Announced earlier this year, the EOS 450D is the successor to Canon's previous entry level DSLR - the EOS 400D.

Amount the numerous improvement most notable are live view, a larger 3" LCD sreen and improved autofocus. The EOS 450D is the 1st among the Canon DSLR family to adopt the more economic SD standard of flash base storage.Preliminary reports from various websites testing the production model found the 450D producing slightly better noise level than the 400D is succeeds.

As the world awaits the EOS 450D's release on March 2008 as stated by Canon, Canon quietly delayed it's release into April and until now Canon has yet to make an official announcement of the EOS's 450D. The official at Canon EOS Pro Centre mentioned that Canon has started shipping EOS 450Ds out to dealers. A demo unit however is unavailable at this moment.

The official I spoke with mentioned that there will be an official launching event at the EOS Pro Centre soon and attendee are invited by invitation through Canon Malaysia's official website. Be on the lookout at http://www.canon.com.my/ for the invitation form which is going to be updated soon according Canon. When asked whether there will be demo units of 450D available to be tested by attendees at this weekend's Pikom PC Fair at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, the official was not informed.

The Canon EOS 450D kit is selling at RM2999 with the EF-S 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 IS kit lens and the EOS 450D body is selling at RM2699. Canon will be offering EOS 450D with attactive packages during the launch event.

Zergling are cute

2007-05-20T05:06:00.000+08:00

Zerglings and Xenomorphs. Both are very cute and adorable creatures. Blizzard Entertainment will bring us another opportunity to care after the Zergs in Starcraft 2.

Announced yesterday at Blizzard's Worldwide Invitational in Seoul, South Korea, Startcraft 2 will feature the return on the 3 original races - Terrans, Protoss and Zergs will be rendered in full 3D on a custom 3D engine.

It seems the player will be able to dynamically change camera perceptive during gameplay as seen from the gameplay footages from Gametrailers.com.

Links:
http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=4868
http://pc.ign.com/articles/790/790128p1.html

jamaycka strikes back

2007-05-16T10:53:00.000+08:00

According to Zone-H's attacks archive more than 10,000 web pages were attacked by jamaycka since the beginning of May. Zone-H's archive limits listing of attacks to up to 50 pages so I can only see as far back to the 8th of May for listing of all OSs attacked by jamaycka.

Majority of the pages were running Linux while 104 of the attacks were on FreeBSD systems. All attacks on FreeBSD systems occurred only on the 7th of May 2007 as recorded by Zone-H.

According to a victim's blog, a lot of Malaysian webpages hosted by a local webhost - hive.com.my - were affected.

Targeted websites are still being defaced by jamaycka as listed by Digital Attacks Archive: today's verified attacks.

Following the attacks since earlier this year, jamaycka is still actively defacing thousands of websites a day. Do we now know the methods used by jamaycka to gain root access on these compromised systems? How do we secure our systems from attacks of this manner?

Links:
www.zhongg.com/guides/how-to-restore-a-website-hacked-by-jamaycka/

www.zone-h.org/component/option,com_attacks/Itemid,43/filter_defacer,JaMaYcKa/

Fighter punches a cleric

2007-03-23T19:31:00.000+08:00

Made a animated Gif of me punching Xyntium using multiple screen shots at the town centre of Horizon using the free mmorpg - Rappelz. Xyntium was AFKing and didn't know I did this to his character XD.

Trip to Rondo (Rappelz on Lydian)

2007-03-23T11:07:00.000+08:00

I had nothing to do so I ran around naked in Horizen and reconz invited me on a trip to Rondo. We got into trouble with some pesky fairies on the way there. While returning from Rondo my ornitho got a bug from a hit from the mobs. We later had a DP. After reconz left I had a 2nd DP with UrikoDark, reconz's friend.

Google version (Sharper)

Youtube version (Load faster)

Rappelz Rank 3 Pilgrimage

2007-03-16T09:18:00.000+08:00

I just reach level 50 yesterday so I decided to graduated by making the Rank 3 pilgrimage to the Crystal Vally by foot from Horizen. Died once during the journey, saw many crazy mobs. Impossible to kill but possible to outrun. After escaping the deadly tentacles of Cyclops, we finally reached the entrance at Crystal Mountains with a fellow guildy and a friend.

The three took a screenshot and read out aloud from the Scroll of Return, completing the pilgrimage.

Using proxies to overcome the international internet link outage

2006-12-28T18:20:00.000+08:00

Most of you guys are experiencing poor or even no connectivity to international internet sites and the MSN messenger network.
Here is a guide on using proxy servers in Internet Explorer and Firefox to improve the current outage crisis.

Here is a short list of http proxy addresses that you can try using, the guide follows.

[Australia]

* 165.228.128.10 port 3128
* 165.228.133.10 port 3128
* 165.228.130.10 port 3128
* 165.228.132.10 port 3128
* 165.228.132.11 port 80
* bfc9000.internode.on.net:553
* bfc9000.internode.on.net:554
* hfc9000.internode.on.net:553
* hfc9000.internode.on.net:554
* mfc9000.internode.on.net:553
* mfc9000.internode.on.net:554

[Saudi Arabia]

* 212.138.64.146 port 80
* 212.138.64.150 port 80
* 212.138.64.144 port 80
* 212.138.64.143 port 80
* 212.138.64.148 port 80

[United Arab Emirates]

* 80.227.0.153 port 80

Firefox:
Click the "Tools" menu -> select "Options".
Then select the "Advanced" tab, -> Now click on "Network" tab.
Click "Settings" button for Connection, Select "Manual Proxy Configuration"
Enter the IP and port. Tick "use this proxy server for all protocols", click OK...and Ok, done "

IE:
Click on the "Tools" menu -> Select "Internet options".
Click the "Connections" tab -> Select "Lan Settings".
On the "Proxy Server" section, tick "Use a proxy server for your LAN" Enter the IP and port.
Tick "bypass proxy server for local address", click OK..OK and done.

Note: The MSN Messenger proxy settings is linked with IE's proxy settings so you just need to add the new proxy server in IE and MSN Messenger will follow IE's settings.

Please give feedback regarding which proxies work for you and which doesn't.

Malaysia Internet Disruption

2006-12-27T22:07:00.000+08:00

The quake yesterday evening damaged the APCN2 cables and Sea-Me-We3 cables. The APCN2, 17,000 km in length, links China, Japan, Malaysia, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, and other countries and regions. Malaysia relies on this route to access severs in the western part of the world.

The repairs to the cables can take 2 weeks to as long as 2 months depending on the complications. However we will see gradual improvement day by day as traffics are rerouted to other alternative lines as well as backup lines.

International Link Down

2006-12-27T12:52:00.000+08:00

An undersea earthquake stuck off Taiwan around 8:30P.M. (GMT+8) on Tuesday. The quake comes 2 years after the great Asian tsunami, reminding us of the 250000 lives lost.

Most of you might experience slow of unavailable browsing of international websites. Jaring posted an announcement this morning confirming a disrupt on it's international data link.

Some forum users at lowyat.net are linking the quake with the slow internet speeds which become apparent around last midnight.

P990 Coming Sooner than you think!

2006-08-01T12:34:00.000+08:00

Finally after 9 months since Sony Ericsson's P990 announcement made last October, we have an official release date from Sony Ericsson. Surfacing from the pits of delay - hindered by OS development issues – Sony Ericsson engineers struggle to solve difficulties involving the stability of the P990 on it's new Symbian OS 9.1 and touchscreen GUI interface UIQ 3.0. Since the announcement, fans gathered to speculated the coming of this promising phone through the months on mobile phone web discussion forums. Initially scheduled to release on 1Q 2006, then 2Q 2006, fans of the P990 who waited patiently can now rejoice for the king of smartphones has arrived.

Sony Ericsson has added a new line to the P990 list of key features “High quality 30fps (frames per second) video recording” . Hopefully they meant 30fps at CIF (352X288) resolutions which is very possible as the P990 uses the Philips Nexperia PNX4008 Mobile Multimedia Processor with a built-in video accelerator supporting the encoding and decoding of MPEG-4/H.263 video streams up to CIF resolution at 30fps.

Many webstores has release dates across the month (August) for the P990. On Sony Ericsson's UK store, the “Coming Soon” tag has been replaced with Aug 06. Forumers from different regions such as Singapore, India and the UAE are getting positive indication that the P990 will reach their shores this month.

Mobilephone news and reviews site are beginning reviewing the retail P990 unit and reviews will becoming out shortly. Some European site had already posted reviews since last week. Release dates for Malaysia is still uncertain though. I called Sony Ericsson Malaysia and they gave me a fuzzy promise, by end of September. I try calling T-Choice (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd and Midland Network Sdn. Bhd but didn't get an answer. Malaysians however can to get their AP (Approval Products) P990s earlier and much cheaper but be warned that AP units aren't supported by Sony Ericsson Malaysia.

Sony Ericsson Links:
www.se-store.co.uk
www.sonyericsson.com
Sony Ericsson P990 Flash (English version unavailable at the moment)

Reviews: (none in English yet)
mobil.idnes.cz
www.mobilmania.cz (large image and video gallery)

Forums to check out:
mobile-review.com
my-symbian.com
planete-nokia.com (French)

Sony Ericsson authorized distributors:
T-Choice (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd. Tel: 03-78809889, Fax: 03-78800266, email: tcm@mytelechoice.com
Midland Network Sdn. Bhd.(605195-A) Tel: 03-92819899, Fax: 03-92839899, email: midland@streamyx.com
Sony Erricson Malaysia general inquiries: 03-78809800

Happy One Year Old, Tech N Tools!

2006-08-01T12:01:00.000+08:00

Oh my, I've forgotten Tech N Tools turned one year old 2 days ago. We started Tech N Tools on the 30th of July last year. As of now we have had 10,177 pageloads and 6,345 unique visitors with an average of 27 pageloads and 17 unique visitors per day. Thanks to everyone who visited and supported our blog.

Our weblog still lack content and constant updates as members lack time to contribute articles. One of the causes could be the addiction to the popular Warcraft 3 custom map “DotA Allstars” shortly after the creation of this blog. We are still have an on going game on Neverwinter Nights, Diablo “The Lord of Terror” remake module.

Can't find the time or convenience to compile multiple articles per day like the other more dedicated blogs do. Hopefully after acquiring a Sony Ericsson P990 after it's release will change all that. My fellow blogger rezgouki has an Eten M500 with a Wifi SDIO card but the poor battery life when using Wifi and troublesome text input methods on that Windows Mobile device could be a limiting factor to its usefulness in blogging.

Nikon D70 successor?

2006-07-21T06:04:00.000+08:00

News sites around the web has cited a new flash on Nikon's Imaging website. The Flash hinting the release of a new DSLR to Nikon's lineup in 19 days. (2006/08/09)

In the Flash teaser, Nikon hinted that it's a 10.2 megapixel camera and it will be "Integrating quality and affordability to meet the demands of passionate photo enthusiasts". Along those lines, I'm pretty sure this new camera will be a targeting the amateur photographer market priced somewhere between the D200 and D70. Perhaps this new camera will compete with Canon's EOS 30D.

19 days to go.

Mobile Phone Telescope

2006-07-06T06:10:00.000+08:00

Brando online shop is offering a 「Mobile Phone Telescope」 that when attached to a standard camera phone, adds 6X optical zoom. The telescope includes a back shell enclosure which attach to the telescope and replaces the original back enclosure on the phone.

The 「Mobile Phone Telescope」　in on sale for USD19 and currently is only compatible with the following phones:

Nokia 6230/6230i
Nokia 6680
Nokia 6600
Nokia 6630
Nokia 7610
Nokia 6681

New Malaysians girls bully assault on a defenceless boy video on youtube!

2006-07-05T07:42:00.000+08:00

After the losing of Germany to Italy and the firing of missiles by North Korea into the Sea of Japan, I couldn't feel more upset when I saw this video at kennysia.com After the bullying case in Kota Tinggi and Miri student assault, a new breed of bullies are copying the style of the Mirian bullies and taking it to new heights.

An innocent boy as seen in the video was assaulted with an arsernal of brutal weapons. Taking numerous lethal blows, the boy finally pass out while we are presented once again with that "cute acting" peace from one of the cuter girls.

I'm personally shock and disbelieved at where the country's future is heading.

Miri Girl Bullies : The suspense

2006-07-04T23:25:00.000+08:00

Yesterday The Star published an article with comments from the Sarawak Teachers Union. The Malay Mail on the other hand released an article which focus on comments from various blogs which reflects the views of disgusted net citizens. Link are provided below.

Today's Star on page 3 annouced the suspension of the girls from school. They would suspended until further notice of the punishment to be carried out which is being decided by the education ministry officials. The heaviest punishment to be handed down is expulsion.

I support the Sarawak teacher union's president appeal to the education ministry to give the offending students a second chance. Expelling the students is a common practice in Malaysia for the education system to exclude problematic youngsters from under their name. In the end - however bad they may be for their unforgivable actions - these people will end up on the streets. As the government and general public has rejected them, where else would they go besides joining up with evil forces. Instead of helping them understand their wrongs and giving another chance back into society we would drive them deeper to the wrong path. In the future they will still be a social problem but I don't think education ministry would care about things not under their supervision.

Having said above, I however disagree about the Sarawak teacher union's president thought about the incident happening because of emotional outburst and his denial of gangsterism in Sarawak schools. He probably never seen the video. About gangsterism amongst students, only students with such friends would know. Any adult who sees the streets from the frontpage news and gossips know only too little of the underground community that lives and breath with ours.

Links:
Schoolgirl violence video sparks online debate - Malay Mail
Assault shows worrying trend - The Star
School suspends girls in assault video - The Star

Elsewhere around the net, some people are finding this girl in the video cute.
(ﾟ∀ﾟ)

Miri Girl Bullies : Unfolds...but doesn't add up..

2006-07-01T10:52:00.000+08:00

I really have to praise the peninsular press for the continuous update on the situation in Miri, Sarawak, across the South China Sea while the Miri papers write reports on roofs being blow of by strong wind.

Now more insight into the issue with an article from The Star:

Boyfriend talk sparked off attack

I'm not sure if the reports are accurate in that article because early in the video, the bullies asked the victim "Did you tell other people that I beat you?". But in The Star, the report says that the victim made negative comments about the boyfriend about one of the bullies that resulted to the assault.

For a school principal to deny relations to the incident by saying the students might not be his student (St Joseph students are the only school that wears blue ties and in the video you can see clearly, some are wearing the ties) and they might be just playing around (when interviewed by reporters), I don't think we can fully trust their findings. This might not yet be the full story.

Miri Girl Bullies : Triad town

2006-06-30T15:15:00.000+08:00

Local chinese daily - Sin Chew - has been following the progress of the "Girl Bullies" issue in Miri. On the daily's website are 3 fresh articles posted today following up the initial report.

From the articles we are now sure that the victim is from another Miri secondary school - St. Columba - and the true date of the incident was on the 16th of June 2006, two weeks ago.

On Youtube.com numerous clips of the same video has been removed and reposted back on so some of you might not be able to load the video clip if the has been removed. I will try my best to keep all links updated.

On the previous post I meantioned a comment by ****** (censored nick to protect privacy) posted on the video clip comments on Youtube.com Here is the a longer version of it:

It happen coz of the gangster gal didnt pay for her food and the victim reported. Then victim was beaten up for the first time for that. But victim told others she was beaten up. Therefore she got beaten up for the second time (the video) for ALLEGEDly telling ppl she got beaten up the first time. Victim is not from Stjoe but Stco. Gangster Gals are from STjoe. Location at Taman Selera Miri.

*One of Gals' dad is a gangster. Therefore, there is a GAG on all EAST MALAYSIAN NEWSPAPERS NOT TO REPORT THE NEWS. Therefore, Only West Malaysian Papers dare to report the news. *Principal of Stjoe TRIES to cover up alleging it was staged. *Principal of Stjoe TRIES to say it is other schools' students, BUT he fail to notice that only STJOEs used BLUE ties in Miri !!

Victim cant RUN coz she would be severely injured if she run. Good that victim didnt fight back coz it would be called fighting if she did. AS she didnt response, it is called Bullying. With guys support, fighting back would also caused more injuries. She may be arrested also if she did hit back. Hope these clear matters

Here is a current discussion on this issue at miricommunity.net :

>> the local newspaper did not report this issue because for the safety of their staff, especially their reporters. If the published it, the "gangster family" might make life difficult for the staff. I remember once a reporter for a local newspaper got beaten up by friends and familys of the victim of a minor car accident for covering the accident at the scene. it happen a few months back. By the way, the reporter is a female.

>> Yes, but that was dumb. It was a simple accident, the pajero flipped. All the reporter did was take a pic to report on the accident and she was beaten up.

Miri kind of sound those triad runned towns to me. Seems like the government, police, newspapers and even schools over there are controled by triads. If that is true, I fear many crimes and violence happening on the east coast are covered up and never making it to Peninsular Malaysia. What we hear or see from Miri could just only be the tip of an iceberg.

Updates from Sin Chew Daily - The links below are in Mandarin:
Victim makes police report accompanied by girl's mother.
St.Columba Principle: Victim feared increasing problems if inform the school authorities.
Girls bully girl case will be investigated by Sarawak police force.

Updates on the Miri Girl Bullies

2006-06-30T09:51:00.000+08:00

The Star newspaper has a follow-up report in todays issue:

Girls in assault video identified

The Star's website is a bit busy today so you might need to refresh the page a couple of times to load the given link.

Base on the report the girl is currently 14 and her bruises were still visible when lodging a police report with her mother yesterday. The video was posted 1st on youtube.com on the 23th of June so I guess it's safe to assume the assault occured last week. The Education Ministry and state Education Department together with St. Joseph shcool authorities has launched an internal investigation to disect the matter. At this time no details from the investigation has been revealed.

Else where on the comment page of "St joe galz fighting (student girls fight)" on youtube.com, ****** (censored nick to protect privacy) wrote:

It happen coz of the gangster gal didnt pay for her food and the victim reported. Then victim was beaten up for the first time for that. But victim told others she was beaten up. Therefore she got beaten up for the second time (the video) for ALLEGEDly telling ppl she got beaten up the first time. Victim is not from Stjoe but Stco. Gangster Gals are from STjoe. Location at Taman Selera Miri.

A bit of insight into the situation but for now we'll need to wait for some official annoucement from the school's on going investigation before making any conclusions base on the comment above.

Miri Girl Bullies Updated News and Video links

2006-06-29T08:45:00.000+08:00

Saveral major chinese evening daily carried the incident on their front page yeasterday. Today, the news can be found in The Star. It seems that the west Malaysian press has published the news after tip-offs from readers while the east Malaysian press still hesitate to do so.

A post on miricommunity.net by ****** (censored nick to protect privacy) goes:

my friend's dad work in a local newspaper company. He told me that one of the girl's dad (heard is a local ganster) call them and threaten them not to publish the news. I don't know will they publish it or no. I think if they did not published it will mean that is for the safety of their staff lo.

Looks like parents with great social power in Miri can support and protect their children even if they did serious crimes. It's a pity that the local authorities cannot do anything about people with gangster support as it threatens the safety of themselfs and their family.

The link to the video source posted on the earlier article is outdated. Here are updated link to the video clip and news sites regarding this incident.

Video Source:
Miri Girl Bullies 3GP version(download in .3gp format from savefile.com) New!
Comment page of taken down video still up.

Miri Girl Bullies (view on youtube.com)
Miri Girl Bullies (download in .mov format from savefile.com)
Flash video file ripped from youtube.com (.flv file requires flash video player)

English News:
The Star
The Star (Follow up report) 6/30
The Star (Follow up report) 7/1

Mandarin News:
China Press
Sin Chew Daily
Guang Ming Daily

Teenage Bullying Caught In The Act

2006-06-28T10:41:00.000+08:00

This video clip posted on 23th of June 2006 at YouTube.com which shows a gang of girls beating up a girl while some boys stand watch with one filming the 6 minute plus footage on the cellphone. Base on the title of the video, these students are from St. Joseph's secondary school in Miri, Sarawak.

In the video, the girls questioned the victim in mandarin if she told someone about them beating her previously. The victim remain silent while the girls began slapping, beating and pulling her hair. One of the girls even strike the victim with a belt somewhere in the middle of the clip.

With the “Caught in the act” article on the front page of yesterday's “The Star” which relates to a similar incident involving students from Kota Tinggi, Johor. With handphone usage getting prominent among shcool childrens, searching for the right words on the internet might find you some familiar faces in trouble.

Please give your view on the video and suggestion to tackle this social problem.

Merry Christmas or Xmas?

2005-12-24T16:50:00.000+08:00

Tech N Tools and I wish everyone, the whole world, the whole universe, dead or alive, a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Here are some random Xmas pictures I’ve gotten via Google Images taken from some of the beautiful places around the planet.

Pikom PC Fair at KLCC (1st day photo shots) 2nd-4th Dec 2005

2005-12-03T06:23:00.000+08:00

The 3rd Pikom PC fair started yesterday at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre and will end tomorrow on Sunday. Since the huge success of last PC Fair at KLCC after more than half a decade of PC Fair at Putra World Trade Centre, this is the 2nd time PC Fair is organized at KLCC. The well located and accessible KLCC will make it the optimal venue for future PC Fairs to come.

I’m not in Kuala Lumpur this few months so I asked Xnster to help me shot some 1st day photos for your viewing. On the side-bar are the latest 2nd December Pikom PC Fair at KLCC photos. Click on the any of the photos will link you to our Flickr Album.

Nothing much I can comment on this PC Fair as I’m unable to attend. Few things I notice is that this time, the first day had more patrons then August’s PC Fair on the 1st day. So be prepared for massive jams on the LRT and surrounding roads if you are going Saturday or Sunday as last time KLCC was overwhelmed with visitors.

Microsoft Obviously Knew Of Xbox 360 Glitches Before Launch

2005-11-30T19:39:00.000+08:00

Copyright 2005 SmashMyXbox.com

The guys SmashMyXbox.com who’ve waited 3 nights before the launch in front of a Best Buy store to purchase an Xbox 360 to be destroyed released the video footage of the whole event on their site.

In a part of the video hours before the launch, a Best Buy employee asks the peoples who’ve spend the effort and determine to buy the Xbox 360 to reconsider their decision because of glitches known to Best Buy employees on display units well before the launch. It seems the 2 display units that Best Buy got both have different glitches. One unit totally scratched a Madden DVD while the other unit froze frequently.

Microsoft apparently chooses to sell known defective units to curb shortage. Users who’ve gotten defective units might have gotten one from the same early batch of Xbox 360s sent to major stores as display unit. If defective units continue to appear on the market, it could be that one of the contracted factories fabricating Xbox 360s having some serious QC problems.

Patience 360: Reasons to Wait

2005-11-24T18:01:00.000+08:00

Imagine you being a diehard gaming fan, waiting in line in freezing temperatures outside your local store for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 since 8 p.m. It’s almost 12:00 a.m. where most stores carrying the initial launch batch open to sell the new machine. Most gamers like you sacrifice all their time and resource to get a premium package with a hard disk drive but at the counter you are enraged by the fact that you’ll have to settle for a lesser version without the hard disk drive. Due to shortages which Microsoft was reported to be aware of the shortage, members in the queue began losing their cool and rowdy crowds started shoving and shouting.

Ok, although it is a cheaper version you got, you can still use the extra money for more games to play with. Having that on your mind, you return home happily while a bit unsatisfied with your first next generation gaming system. Upon arriving home at 2 a.m. you nervously plug your new Xbox 360 to your projected TV and pop in “Project Gotham Racing 3”. After playing a few tracks the screen suddenly “froze” with lines of pixels on screen resembling those you see in the days when you pull out the cartridge on a Nintendo Entertainment System while running a game. You figured it could have been some random error so you reset the machine and start playing again.

Its 4.30 a.m. you’re furious in disbelieve, none of the games you bought played more than half an hour without crashing. By now you’re seen numerous variation of frozen and crash screens, including the infamous BSOD (Black Screen of Death). Having no one to contact at such hours, you try surfing online to verify if the problem if widespread. Expectedly numerous users have been posting similar and even more devastating stories. There were overheating problems, some machine scratches the disk, some refuses to read disks while some "froze" while logging in the Live service. You join the batch of unfortunate Xbox 360 owners expressing your dismay and grief on community forums into the morning.

Its 10 a.m., after a night without sleep, you called Xbox support. For almost an hour the support officer goes through with you the many ways you could have misconnected something on the Xbox. Finally he I gave up at convincing you that it was your fault and asks you to send in the machine for a replacement in 6-8 weeks. At that moment, all you’ve been through, the anger, the uncertainty, the restlessness, you felt the slightest hint of fainting. Hanging up the phone, you fell on the nearest couch, starting up the ceiling. Remembering how another guy on the internet smashed his Xbox 360 after buying in at the store, you had the urge to do the same. After a deep breath, you realize the only thing you can do now, is ask for a replacement for the defected unit for the store you brought from as you’ve heard that store will get weekly supplies of Xbox 360s and sell the replaced Xbox 360 at Ebay at a higher price due to the shortage. You think about what other things you can buy for this Christmas with the money after the horror with your first Xbox 360. Slowly, you doze of on the couch. Unfortunately you’re awaken in 45 minutes from a bad nightmare.

Links -
Crash Video
Crash Photos

News -
Users report Xbox 360 “crashing like mad”
Xbox 360 Very Unstable
Some Xbox 360 buyers reporting problems
Xbox 360 Crashing Like Mad?
Xbox 360 'Overheating' Problems Emerge

A bumpy start for the Xbox 360
Shortages spoil Xbox 360 launch

Forums with crash cases -
POLL: Xbox 360 - is yours defected or just fine?
Xbox 360 Crash =(, Crashes on every game
The Xbox 360 defect thread
My Xbox 360 wont work! Help!

P970, Rumored Light Version of P990

2005-11-13T07:11:00.000+08:00

Unofficial Club Sony Ericsson has identified another rumored Sony Ericsson cellphone. Discovered at NetEase, a Chinese webpage with an image of what could be the stripe down version the P990. Believed to be P970, the website mentioned the phone will have a 1.3 mega pixel camera while lacking Wifi, WCDMA 3G support and no QWERTY keyboard. Screen size, Symbian 9.0 and UIQ 3.0 support will remain.

The webpage however did mention skepticism of the source image, suspicious of the image as being “civilian self designed” This report fits well with earlier rumors that Sony Ericsson will be releasing 2 other lighter featured versions in the P series after the P990. This lighter featured P970 could be a great seller as it would cost a lot less than the P990. Assuming the P970 debuting around RM1999, its capabilities will still surpass other smartphones in the market up to late next year. Let’s see what other news might be coming out tomorrow at Hong Kong where Sony Ericsson is expected announce new low end phones, Z300, J220 and J230.

Xbox 360 fulfilling the Dreamcast prophecy

2005-11-11T18:05:00.000+08:00

1up.com came up with a list of eerie parallels between Xbox 360 and the Sega Dreamcast. It’s a funny list where you find the same guy marketing both products and over shadowed by Metal Gear Solid before launch. Enjoy.

"Black Screen Of Death" Only on Xbox 360

2005-11-11T16:59:00.000+08:00

A perfect definition of the picture above from a comment by Pete at Engadget's "This season black is the new blue (screen of death)":

You're watching BSOD in high definition

Only on Xbox 360

Microsoft has been familiarizing Windows users every day with the Blue SOD for years now. Most people in this IT age can get accustom to this new Black SOD without hiccups. Potential buyers should wait for Xbox 360 SP1 from Windows Update.

A Logo for Tech N Tools

2005-11-10T22:04:00.001+08:00

I just spent an hour designing this simple logo for Tech N Tools. Please drop me some comments please. Would like to hear from you.

Update: Internet Explorer can't render the transparent part of the png image file properly causing users of Internet Explorer seeing a brown box on the TNT logo. This "box" effect however in non existent on FireFox. The Tech N Tools logo looks great on FireFox.

Sony Ericsson Mulan leaked?

2005-10-31T18:21:00.000+08:00

The Unofficial Club Sony Ericsson yesterday got news of new leaks to an unconfirmed Sony Ericsson Walkman phone. Leaked pictures was posted first on 911 Communications Forums (911通讯网论坛) which is a Chinese forum dedicated to handphones. The Sony Ericsson channel there is the most active compared with other manufacturer channels.

This Walkman Phone is rumored to be code named “Mulan”. It kind of explains how it appeared in China first. From the leaked pictures, the phone looks like a genuine Sony Ericsson Prototype. Mulan appears much smaller then previous Sony Ericsson clamshells. On the side is what seems to be a slot supporting Memory Stick Duo. Here is a preliminary list of features that Mobile-Review released:

Internal TFT screen of resolution 176x220 points, 262K colors
External STN screen of 65K colors
MS Duo slot (the model lacks M2; it is the first application in a top product in the second six months)
Stereo loudspeakers and stereowidening
FM-radio, RDS, alarm signal
Full HTML browser
1.3 megapixel camera (To Be Decided)
Control board
Bluetooth

With such a complete list of features and a planned debut price of around RM1300 in Mid 2006 "Mulan" will prove to be very popular among the full featured mid range handphones. Looks like a great phone for girls or those who prefer a balanced featured clamshell phone in a tiny package. This phone could be a hit in Asia.

Links:

911 Forum Sony Erricson "Mulan" post
Unofficial Club Sony Ericsson
Mobile-Review
Engadget

Pictures:

Smartphones Taking Over PDAs

2005-10-31T16:18:00.000+08:00

According to an IDC report worldwide market for handheld devices continues to decline, even though manufacturers keep introducing new products. Up to 3Q 2005, the handheld device market has seen its 7th consecutive quarter of year to year decline. PDAs are loosing share to smartphones which features telephony functions.

Most people who require information and data manipulation on the move is more often looking to replace his/her old handphone with something that offers such capabilities as oppose to only a PDA. Such business oriented users would opt for a converged device such as a smartphone which has an always connected telephony capability to exchange the data or information on. Sony Ericsson’s forthcoming P990 smartphone is one of such example which is highly popular with business peoples.

Best Smartphones from Sony Ericsson

2005-10-27T03:09:00.000+08:00

"Sony Ericsson wins SmartPhone Manufacturer of the Year Award for 2005"
Announced during the annual PC Magazine Middle and Near East Awards Ceremony, Sony Ericsson's one year old P910i was also awarded with the Best Performer and Editor's Choice Awards.

"The P910i surpassed all competition based on the criteria we set. Because of its excellent features and functionality, it surpassed all 10 SmartPhones from 7 brands that we reviewed," said Shravan Manral, Technical Editor, PC Magazine Middle East.

Looks like Sony Ericsson's one model simply rule them all.

Shortwave Anyone?

2005-10-15T22:08:00.000+08:00

I’ve been a fan of SWL (shortwave listening) to cross continent broadcast since my early secondary school years. I listen to the BBC world service, Voice of America, Radio Japan and other international broadcasts from my dad’s old Philips cassette recorder which has 2 shortwave bands.

Back then without the internet, shortwave was a cost and time effective way to get updates on the latest happenings and discovery on the planet around the clock. Even today with advanced communications technology like Wifi, cellphones and PDAs, many still rely on shortwave for their information and communications need especially in 3rd world counties where many still don’t have access to even a phone line.

Even for us blessed with cellphones and internet access, shortwave might be the only means for situation updates and communications with other part of the world if our land is struck in war or natural disasters. Events like the 2004 Dec 26th tsunami, last month’s hurricane disaster over New Orleans to the recent earthquake in Pakistan, people can depend on shortwave during such emergencies when power line, phone lines and communications network are cut off to contact and receive information from the outside world.

Shortwave isn’t very popular in Malaysia. I tried looking for clubs and communities for shortwave listeners and even amateur radio hobbyist without success. These are links to some ham radio (amateur radio) clubs in Penang, Sabah and Sarawak but the links are outdated. However I found Asiawaves.net. Asiawaves.net is rich with a list of available FM, MW, & SW Radio and TV Broadcasting in South and South-East Asia.

Asiawaves.net is relatively new it seems. There’s a forum there but it’s in trial and there aren’t many members. If you are interested, why not go to the Asiawaves.net forums and sign-up? I believe we can build a community of Malaysian or even Asean SWL and DX enthusiast there.

L'Arc~en~Ciel

2005-10-13T00:31:00.000+08:00

L'Arc~en~Ciel
AWAKE

source by http://www.larcom.net/

I have been bought the L'Arc~en~Ciel latest album last weekend. Truely, this album really worth to buy for enjoy. Their new album's song is a bit different compare to the album before. L'Arc~en~Ciel gruop form by Testsu in February 1991 at Osaka. The band Have four members, they are Hyde(vocal), Tetsu(Bass), Ken(guitar), Yukihiro(Drum). The drumer before Yukihiro was Sakura. Sakura left the band in April 1997. Then, I heard the rumour said that L'Arc~en~Ciel disband in the year of 2002. I'm not sure, but i found that they have no data in this year at L'Arc~en~Ciel official website. Anyway, they release two album already after year 2002 'SMILE' and 'AWAKE'.

L'Arc~en~Ciel new album got new songs. All of the song is nice to listen and enjoy. True, especially 'new world'. The other songs like 'LOST HEAVEN', 'Killing Me', '叙情詩', '自由への招待' also very nice. For 'Ophelia'..... I feel this songs is very classical style. All of you can visit http://www.larcom.net/ if interest. you can listen and watch L'Arc~en~Ciel demo promotional video. After that, http://www.larc-en-ciel.com/ is L'Arc~en~Ciel official website. you can look for more information about L'Arc~en~Ciel.

I like Hyde !!! he is very handsome and cool !!! i like him very much, i like him like a crazy... his voice can make me feel the fantasy. HYDE.... I LOVE YOU !!!

Sony's Xplode

2005-10-10T23:41:00.000+08:00

This is the Sony's Xplode amplifier which was intalled in the Subaru Impreza !!! Amazing design !!!

AZ Series

2005-10-10T23:02:00.000+08:00

I went to the sony fair last Sunday. I would like to introducing the AZ Sries network audio HiFi systems by Sony. A brand new audio lifestyle, AZ Series seamless intergration to all of the multimedia application via USB connection. We can enjoy quick and convenient access to audio, video and gaming source from our PC with the USB Audio Streaming feature. Alternatively, with USB memory Playback*, we can just need to plug in a USB flash memory device like the Sony Micro Vault to playback our favourite MP3 files anytimes. The AZ Series HiFi system are also compatible with multiple media formats such as DVD, VCD, CD, CD-R, DVD-R, +R, -RW(VR), +R DL, Tape cassette and DivX Video formats for maximum playability.

the AZ series is the vertical slot-in mechanism by featuring an innovative changer mechanism that slots our DVDs or VCDs or CDs vertically. Then, the futuristic design by featuring a unique canon-shaped subwoofer made of aluminium. A brilliant combination of aesthetics and functionality. The most interest part is the latest in Sony's high-tech touch sensor technology that provides comfort and ease of convinient operation. Az Series designed with futuristic simplicity and sleek elegance, the Touch Panel is ultra-efficient and intuitive to your needs, responding to the lightest of its surface display.

AZ Series got diveded by four model
*DHC-AZ7DM
*DHC-AZ3DM
*DHC-AZ5D
*DHC-AZ2D

Below that is the :

S-Master Technology

-An all-digital signal processing technology that uses a simplified signal path to increase efficiency.
-Reduce heat generation while minimizing distortion of sound.
-S-Master Digital Amplifiers eliminate analogue conversion components that deteriorate signal coherence.
-Provide every nuance of truer- to-life sound.

For futher information please visit http://www.sony.com.my/sonyaz/az_zone.asp

Sony Ericsson P990 Pictures

2005-10-10T19:04:00.000+08:00

Sony Ericsson Announces P990 3G Smartphone

2005-10-10T18:21:00.000+08:00

After months of assumptions and anticipation, Sony Ericsson announced this morning the newest member of the highly successful P series. With the codename Hermione, all assumed name P915, P950, P1000 is now confirm as P990.

P990 is packed with the most advanced feature a smartphone can get today. P990 is now confirm with 3G, GSM Tri band, Wifi (208.11b), Dual cameras with the main camera at 2MP, Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, Infrared, Memory Stick PRO Duo support for up to 4GB, 320X240 touch screen and much more. Please go to Sony Ericsson's Press Release and Product Page for specifications and information.

Symbianone is doing a full coverage on The Smartphone Show from London and they have a dedicated show page. P990 will be available on 1Q, 2006. Sony Ericsson has yet to announce a price for the P990 so I still have something to consider about this phone.

FireFox takes the lead!

2005-10-09T04:27:00.000+08:00

A recent statistic from Statcounter.com shows FireFox leading the browser pack. With over 70% for visitors using FireFox, Opera who just started giving away it's flagship browser for free will have some catching up to do.

However the data is only relevant for Tech N Tools. Out in the wild, it looks like Opera and FireFox are not only fighting Internet Explorer's dominance as both parties will struggle to maintain a good second place first.

Smarter phones

2005-10-08T03:09:00.000+08:00

Tech N Tools hasn't been regularly updated as expected. I can feel the laziness in me when opening up a text editor. I can't understand why some people can spill out so much on their blogs everyday.

I always find a lot to tell while chilling in a pub or strolling down the neighborhood but looses the enthusiasm as soon as I sat in front of the computer. I believe having a smartphone could allow me to store ideas as soon as I come up with it. I can even incorporate pictures, sound recordings or even a video further describing an idea where live media are available for capture.

Sony Ericsson's P910i smartphone running on Symbian’s OS caught my attention recently. I went to Unofficial Club Sony Ericsson to amaze myself with links to news and reviews about the P910i. After getting really soaked in the Sony Ericsson community, I found out about the coming of 3 new Sony Ericsson smartphones trough rumors and internet leaks. Codenamed Hermione with rumored names like P915, P950 and P1000, assumptions are that Sony Ericsson will announce the successor to the largely successful P series next week at The Smartphone Show at Excel Centre, London 11th to 12th October 2005.

If there was to be 3 models announce by Sony Ericsson either together or separately, the most advance model should sport Wifi, 3G, a 2MP camera and a Philips Nexperia PNX4008 Mobile Multimedia Processor according to internet leaks. Some sources even claim that the phone will be bundled with memory in the gigabytes. Less advance models would either lack 3G or Wifi while bundled with less powerful hardware. Sony Ericsson would then have 3 models to suit every need from a sub RM2000 entry smartphone to a RM3000 communication powerhouse.

Regarding the design of the new smartphones, some find the design from the leaked images ugly. If you pay attention to Sony Ericsson’s other phone model designs you'll notice that most of the final designs are very well polished. Therefore I suspect the design from the leaked images could just be a prototype design conforms only to the dimension and a rough figure of the final design. The final design should look a lot better or even different from the leak.

Sources:
Sony Ericsson P950 Fan site
Unofficial Club Sony Ericsson
engadget
Kataweb

Smartphone adoption

2005-10-08T00:34:00.000+08:00

Great Eastern Life Assurance (M) Bhd announced that it will be equipping its 10000+ agents around the country with smartphones beginning this month according to a report in Tuesday issue of StarBiz.

The company will provide incentive to purchases of smartphones by its agents to ease the adoption of smartphones. Smartphones allows the agents to access and process clients' data instantly on the streets.

Smartphone dealers selling models such as Sony Ericsson's P910 smartphone can expect an increase in smartphone sales these coming months.

Tech N Tools's FEAR demo server in MY

2005-09-30T20:44:00.000+08:00

I just started a F.E.A.R. MP Demo Dedicated Server due to the lack of local demo servers to play on here at Malaysia. You can find it named TechNTools@MY on the server list. Unfortunately, the server is running with 256 available upstream and on a Pentium 1Ghz CPU so maximum players is limited to 12. And due to the server located at a remote location, I don’t have the convenience to change server side settings often. This server is only meant for personal entertainment only so expect it to go down unexpectedly.

Don’t feel discouraged though. It’s the few local F.E.A.R. MP Demo Dedicated Servers around where you can test out F.E.A.R.’s multiplayer experience.

Skype 1.4.0.71

2005-09-30T03:44:00.000+08:00

After getting my demo’s I got a new Skype. Version 1.4.0.71, released just yesterday. New version after merging with Ebay though there aren’t any Ebay integrated features. This version adds call forwarding to a standard telephone or cellphone and it will deduct the call charges to your Skype-out account.

Another notable feature is a ringtone manager where you add new wav files for ringtones. You can also browse for ringtones at Skype’s personalization page where avatar pictures are available too. Be aware that even though there are some free ringtones and pictures for download, many are for sell at 1 Euro an item.

The only feature that’s totally free in this release is animated emoticons. Cheers!

Demo's week

2005-09-30T03:07:00.000+08:00

After playing a few rounds on Serious Sam 2 and Call of Duty 2’s demos I’m now downloading F.E.A.R.’s multiplayer demo. The download is going past 8% now. This week is certainly demo’s week. There are many other cool demos of big name games like Age of Empire 3 (actually AOE3’s demo released before the week) and Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood demo which I haven’t got the time to try.

Can’t say much about the demo’s I’ve just tried. With my old P3 800mhz and 9600 system, I can’t really comment on the graphics. My way under spec CPU might even cause glitches in the enemy AI. One thing I can really say is that Call of Duty 2’s enemy and teammate AI seem a lot smarter and responded very life-like compared with the original Call of Duty.

Get your demo's at 3DGamers.com, they are very updated with game related patches, updates, demos, video and more.

Call of Duty 2 and F.E.A.R. multiplayer demo

2005-09-27T13:16:00.000+08:00

Two cool FPSs will be releasing demos this week. Activision released the demo to The Call of Duty 2 for the PC today. You can grab it at callofduty.com. The demo is a huge 656mb file which I’ve just downloaded 9% of it.

There will be a multiplayer demo of F.E.A.R. this Thursday. Be sure to check out whatisfear.com this Thursday. Friday if you live in the Asia Pacific. I wonder if Monolith made the multiplayer aspect of F.E.A.R. to be as terrifying as the single player mode. Now how do you mix the excitement of multiplayer action with fear?

Man, all these new 3d engines driving all these new games are forcing us to upgrade our aging systems.

Air Filter (again!!)

2005-09-02T15:05:00.000+08:00

After 3 weeks i installed my DIY air filter on my casing, today i would like to show a picture of the entire air filter. Basically there is not much effect to my system hahahahah !!!!!just wanna tell that this filter is really can filter out some thing before the outside air can enter my casing. Once again convinced that DIY really mean a lot to us. Ok thats all dont want to mention so much
look at my picture, the truth is what see with your eye.

Side Bar for Internet Explorer

2005-08-26T23:38:00.000+08:00

Regarding on the missing of sidebar, we have try our best to adjust it and make it viewable by using Internet Explorer. As the bottom bar problem has been fix, we come accross another new problem. When users use the Internet Explorer, the list of Contributors and list of Member's Web Log may be invinsible. But when users scroll down the page or hover the mouse accross it it will sometimes appear or dissappear.

Our TechNTools supports will take more effort in making it viewable by most of the internet browsers available. As what we have mentioned before, visitors are adviced to use FireFox browsers to get the best result from the site. After all the site is best viewed by FireFox!

Google Talks

2005-08-25T03:10:00.000+08:00

Google is reported that it will released an Instant Messaging/VOIP client this Wednesday but currently, only the 900kb beta version of Google Talk can be found on Google Talk’s main page. Finally the leader in internet searches has it’s own Instant Messaging client.

Currently only Gmail account holders can sign in to the Google Talk service. Gmail is Google’s own free email service and to date, it is only available to people who were referred to by friends. Google might open up the service to everyone soon to extend the adoption of Google Talk. The Google Talk interface it as clean as Google’s main page. No advertisements cluttering the GUI. I have yet the voice feature since all of my friends are asleep to try the feature. The beta version of Google Talk takes up a very small memory footprint compare with other major IMs.

To expand it user base, Google’s Talk service allow users to communicate with other open networks such as Trillian, Apple's iChat and an EarthLink trial system. However closed networks like ICQ, Yahoo, MSN and Skype are still out for reach for Google Talk users. If Google Talk can gain a huge user base in a short time such as Skype did and become the largest IM network ever, I wish to dump all other IMs as they are filling up my taskbar and my RAM.

One Click Flag

2005-08-25T00:39:00.000+08:00

Blogger.com added a “FLAG?” button to the upper right corner of their Blogger topbar which I only noticed recently. It’s suppose to let visitors to a particular Blogger.com hosted weblog flag it if it contains objectionable content. When a weblog gets too many flags from visitors it will eventually be unlisted on Blogger.com but will be still available on the internet.

My only complaint is that a single one click is all it takes for a visitor to flag a weblog as objectionable. Blogger.com should make the Flag button ask the clicking visitor for confirmation to prevent curious clicks or accidental clicks.

Posting from MS Word

2005-08-23T19:51:00.000+08:00

Blogger.com released last week a 2MB Blogger add-on for MS Word in a form of a toolbar in Word which allows you to write, save draft, edit and publish articles to your Blogger weblog from MS Word. I’ve just installed the toolbar and writing this 1st post that I’m going to publish directly from MS Word.

The installed toolbar comes in 4 buttons. A Blogger Settings to configure your login to Blogger. Save as Draft lets you save your article to your weblog unpublished. The Open Post button is suppose to let me open and edit previous post from my weblogs on Blogger but the function doesn’t seem to work. I can select from my two weblogs but the table list of my older post isn’t being listed. Finally the publish button lets you publish your article and if you select the preview button in Blogger Settings, you’ll get an HTML preview of your work before publishing.

The Blogger add-on supports only publishing of simple text and HTML. I’ve tried posting with pictures and tables and the Blogger toolbar report that it will ignore such unsupported content. If you are going to add pictures and table alignments to your posts, you’ll still have to open up your web browser and login to Blogger.com to edit your articles that you’ve save as draft from MS word before posting. Another problem is that MS Word publishes all post in formatted HTML with the font settings that you use in MS Word which might be different from your weblog template fonts causing posts from MS Word using different font setting as posts from Blogger.com. To work around this, you can turn on HTML preview and edit the your post in HTML by deleting the "span" tags or all the HTML tags before publishing.

Despite some little hitches this little toolbar certainly makes writing and posting articles to your Blogger.com weblog easier without having to open a web browser and signing in to Blogger.com. You can do everything from MS Word if you are not adding images to your articles. You can download the 2MB add-on for MS Words here.

The Death Song

2005-08-19T21:35:00.000+08:00

Yo!!! buddy.... if your origin is chinese, then you should know what is the season of this month~~ July~~ (*x*) have you see any big brother following you?

That's why i dedicated 'The Death Song' music to all of you~~ I hope you enjoying July 'big Brother' festival...

This music was made by myself in 13 May 2005. Actually i wish to create the chinese traditional funeral. But the song make me feel boring, too simple. So i just simply remix, combine echo effect,choir, and scrashing. 鬼徒二等兵 was the first person who listen to this song. Truely, i modified it under his advice. He said that the instrument not really perfect. Then we choose the most scary feel instrument and apply in to my music.

Okay, How do you feel friends? We're waiting for your comment. ^ ^/")

Please, never walking alone in the middle of the night. Some body is watching you. i'm not gonna tell who is it.... Good luck my friends... (*x*)

##WARNING##

<---- Never do the stupid act like him.... Please......Please don't try this in JULY

Hacked OSX running on PCs

2005-08-15T15:52:00.000+08:00

German developer Michael "mist" Steil who maintains the Xbox Linux and GameCube Linux Projects with other hackers on the OSx86 Project, found a way to hack Apple’s Mac OSX to run on Intel or AMD CPU based systems. OSx86 is the nickname for the new hacked version of OSX and it is said to be based on a pirated version which was meant for participants in the Apple Developer Connection, according to Wired News.
The hackers on the OSx86 Project removed a kernel extension called TPM, or Trusted Platform Module, that was used to prevent the OS from running on other PC systems. More on that here.

Anticipated FEAR

2005-08-15T03:47:00.000+08:00

Sierra Entertainment released on the 5th of this month the public demo of F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault and Recon) developed by Monolith Productions the studio brought us No One Live Forever and Alien Versus Predator 2. The Demo can be found at whatisfear.com. The demo is a 645MB file and it’ll take over 1GB of hard disk space after installation. Please note that you need to type in your birthday during installation and upon entering their official site. This is their way of verifying your age because the game is rated “Matured”.

FEAR at first impression is like a cross between a special tactic force and a Japanese ghost movie. From opening cut scenes to the end of the demo is beautifully rendered by Monolith’s new 3d engine powered by Havok 2 physics engine which is used by many high end FPS such as Half Life 2, Halo 2 and Ghost Recon 2. I’m not familiar with this new 3D engine so I’ll describe it as having Doom 3’s lighting and shadows and slightly better texture and object shading than Half Life 2. The environment setting of the demo was at dull and dark. Only the red of blood appear to stand out of the gray background. Overall, this is a really good looking game with amazing real time lightings and stunning environment effects. You’ll find yourself clouding your own view with your gunfire’s fumes. I had a good light show in “slo-mo” mode when smoke, dust, muzzle flashes and sparks coming into play.

Your main character in the F.E.A.R. demo is a new recruit who possesses very rapid reflexes which is expressed in the game as a “slo-mo” mode. When activated, everything around you slows down so you have advantage to dodge hostile bullets while attacking the sluggish enemies. The demo came with some standard weapons such as machineguns and rifles. Other than that there are some interesting fantasy weapons like a nail gun and a plasma rifle. Besides weapon you can also attack enemies using melee moves with your hands and feet.

In F.E.A.R. you’ll need to concentrate on the game and immerse into the character to fully appreciate it. If you are dashing through the game, shooting every object and finishing the demo in 20 minutes then I think you’re better off playing Counter-Strike. Really. The are a few scenes where the game will really freak you out but won’t affect the mindless first person shooter. The game really manages to send chills down your spine when you are standing down a hall way where abnormal light flicking occurs around you. The experience is really like watching a horror movie and is very different from the scares you get from Alien VS Predator 2 or Clive Baker’s Undying.

The short 30 minute demo gave me a very good sense of a good frightening experience coming our way this 4th quarter. I hope the final game will come with many fresh and creative fear factors to experience. It’s been over one week but if you haven’t tried the demo yet, go grab it and freak out. Be warn though even lower mid range machine will struggle to run the game at low quality. By lower mid range I meant less than 2 GHz CPU with at least 512MB RAM and a Radeon 9600 class GPU.

Here are two screenshots from the official site:

Bottom Bar for Internet Explorer

2005-08-11T21:43:00.000+08:00

Due to limitations on Internet Explorer, Tech N Tools from now on will not support Internet Explorer. Visitors using Internet Explorer will not be able to find the Side Bar. The Side Bar on Internet Explorer has become to Bottom Bar.

All visitors to who wants the pages rendered correctly will be required to use the FireFox browser. Or else, you’re still free to use IE and get the Bottom Bar.
I only optimize my html codes for FireFox from now on. IE tends to distort the text and graphic alignment. If I would tune our HTML for both IE and FireFox it would make the sidebar space too big and main page too small. Therefore I’ve decided to give-up on one browser.

You might like to know that more than 80% of our visitors are from LowYat.net and almost 60% of visitors from LowYat.net use Mozilla FireFox. Because of the higher number of FireFox visitors and better precision of alignment, Get FireFox.

Air Filter

2005-08-11T01:03:00.000+08:00

At some point, air filter plays a very important role in keeping our internal casing dirt-free and hence extending the life span of the hardware. I’ve noticed that most of the cheaper casing does not come with an air filter in their intake vent. I am here to share my air filter and hope the economic class casing can enjoy fresh clean air too!!

These are the materials and tools needed, we have a car sun shade, super glue and scissors.

This is the fabric that is extracted from sun shade.

Next we apply super glue following the red dotted line

This is the picture of the front panel with my DIY air filter.

The Friendly Malaysian Doesn't Exist

2005-08-08T03:10:00.000+08:00

The best booth in my book should have the best customer service to begin with. Even with the most interesting products or wildest discounts, failure to win your customer's heart will set them off for alternatives.

The usual attitude I have seen among Malaysian sales or promoting person display is choosing who to serve or ignore from given appearance. If you are just asking for information without interest to buy, they'll give you an unwelcoming and unpleasant treatment to force you away.

Even big companies like Samsung and Sony in Malaysia are prone to hiring such poor customer serving employees. I wish companies would train their employees to provide better services to customers and hand pick employees with better personalities.

Best Booth At PC Fair

2005-08-07T21:26:00.000+08:00

I cast my best booth vote to OKI by OKI distributor Intranet Sendirian Berhad where I got the best hospitality from their friendly staffs. Even though I dressed casually, they took their time to describe to me how their highlighted Single Pass Color Technology works in detail and showed me slides regarding the technology. They have a nice Japanese guy from OKI and a local manager who opened an OKI colour printer to show me how the technology works inside.

OKI uses LED technology instead of conventional laser technology to magnetize the printing drum to generate a print. The LED technology used by OKI benefits from the direct writing to the drums as oppose to multiple steps of refracting, reflecting and focusing used in laser printing. Such complicated procedures in laser printing are less reliable and expansive to repair.

Because of the small size and low cost of the LED technology used by OKI, OKI is able to install 4 individual LED head for each toner which is unpractical on laser technology based printers. OKI printers with Single Pass Color Technology can print a colour output in a single pass at very high speeds. From 12ppm to over 30ppm A4 colour output across their range of individual and workgroup printers. The LED technology also let OKI printers print over 100 gsm of thick paper and up to 1.2 meters in paper length in a single print. OKI printers are so reliable a durable due to their LED technology that they are giving 5 years warranty for their print heads.

OKI have a fine example of good hospitality that is rare among Malaysian companies. OKI is also well prepared to answer some of the more technical questions that visitors asked.

You can check out these remarkable technologies at Single Pass Color Technology, LED vs. Laser and LED vs. Laser Technology.

So which booths do you like best this PC fair? Please share it with us.

Satisfying PC Fair And Amusing Peoples

2005-08-07T20:07:00.000+08:00

This PC Fair from 5th to 7th August ended 9pm today at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center. I bet the dealers and exhibitors are rejoicing after the 3 days of stress and exhaustion from the enormous number of visiting crowds with promising returns.

This PC Fair was divided to 5 halls, with one main hall at the 3rd floor and 2 adjacent halls of halls 2 and 3 with halls 4 and 5 at the ground floor. The main hall was mainly occupied by the larger companies like Sony, Lg and Samsung and the booths by these companies were very large and inspiring. The rest of the 4 hall at the ground floor are a mix of dealer stalls and exhibitions by companies who could miss their chance at the 1st hall.

I really have a good impression towards this PC Fair by the commitment of the exhibiting companies which equip themselves with many promoters to serve visitors. Sadly not all are capable and some comes with a sour face. Yet they are much better than previous fair. Many products were also out on display where a lot are free for visitors to try-out.

All the booths and stalls were arranged orderly and squarely with wide spacing in between. However the sheer unanticipated number of visitors filled every corner of the hall with body odor and moans of displeasure on Saturday and Sunday.

There were a numbers of promotions given during the fair. Buying a Sony 3CCD Projector will give you a free voice controller Sony DVD player or wireless presentation kit. Sony’s digital cameras and camcorder were given with free storage, batteries, carrying bags and other accessories. Sony Laptops comes with free memory upgrade, extended warranty and limited DVD of Spiderman 2. There are too many promotions to list. Most other purchase from other companies is also packed with free gifts or discounts.

Since I wrote this report too late, I’ll only list some of the more notable promotions that took my attention. Most Creative ZEN mp3 players were given a discount up to a few hundred MYR and they sold a limited 3 ZEN Neeon 5GB for MYR699 only per day. Computer Associates sold their eTrust Antivirus for MYR39 and eTrust PestPatrol anti-spyware software for MYR49. Both product bundled together are sold for MYR70 only. Novell SuSE Linux Professional was sold at a promotional price of MYR99. Nikon’s F50 digital SLR camera was sold at MYR3188 with free 512MB SD card and a deluxe bag during the fair.

I didn’t buy anything during this fair. Instead I just went for sight seeing as always. Having asking and irritating all the promoters with my inquisitive questions I’m quite satisfied with this fair. Although there are some who gave really irrelevant answers to my inquiries. The one I like to share was from a Computer Associates sales person whom I asked why I should trust your antivirus software over Symantec’s and trend Micro’s solution. She tried to convince me that every antivirus software is the same and said even Microsoft is using their software for virus protection. She couldn’t even tell people the features of the software that she was selling and instead gave false information that she thought would convince me.

P.S. I’ve seen many visits to this weblog but none have seem to left any comments.
Please don’t be shy and share with me your experiences of silly promoters with an attitude.

Crowded Fever With RM4++ Drinks To Go With

2005-08-07T17:08:00.000+08:00

I went to Pikom’s PC fair at KLCC (Kuala Lumpur Convention Center) for 2 days. Friday and Saturday. I have to say that KLCC is certainly a better accessible than PWTC (Putra World Trade Center). I always go to fairs during Friday afternoons because I know that less people will be able to make it there during working or schooling hours. I was really surprised by the huge crowd upon entering hall 1 of the 5 exhibiting halls. It’s the kind of crowd you only get to see on Saturdays or Sundays. Most Friday’s fairs I went to have the number of exhibiting staffs outnumbering the visitors (before 12 noon).

Many visitors were frustrated with the huge traffic they get during most part of their journey to and during the fair. The Putra LRT was very so packed during Saturday evening that the Putra officers need to temporary block commuters from filling up the KLCC station and control the numbers that enter the station. Felt like New Year’s Eve already. The traffic up the surface was slightly better but the high cost of parking at KLCC destined many people to park their car at nearby parking.

Inside the fair, people pushed people all around moving at 2 meters per minute. Most people didn’t have the mood the care what was going on around them. People were tired hot and dehydrated. To add more anger to visitors, the food and drinks sold there are ridiculously inflated which gave visitors more unenthusiastic feelings towards PC Fair.

To Mew and I, that didn’t really bother us. We were there to see and feel the many exhibited items to fill our day with knowledge and satisfy our curiosity. We took 5 hours to go trough every booth by zigzagging trough the halls. I saw others like us enthusiastically moving about the hall unbothered by the crowd and pressure.

To Pikom, it is certain that this is the best PC Fair ever. Such overwhelming response is going to give Pikom good publicity even though they were caught unprepared. I know a few dealers who reported sales by Saturday afternoon already surpassed previous 3 days altogether. The success of this PC Fair is going to be bad news for the ICTS Computer fair. I hope Pikom comes up with a solution to control the overwhelming crowd next time PC fair is hosted at Kuala Lumpur Convention Center.

Photos From The 1st Day of PC Fair 5th August 2005

2005-08-06T04:55:00.000+08:00

Sorry that I couldn’t update you on the PC Fair today. I’m way too tired to type more after resizing, adjusting brightness, renaming all the photos and uploading to Flickr. There’s supposed to be over 150 taken shots but I filtered some of the boring and poorer ones and leave you with 101 pieces.

You can view the random pictures on the right SideBar. Clicking on the pictures will take you to my Flickr album to see the rest of the shots. I’ll deliver the PC fair updates tomorrow hopefully.

Beer Expensive? Why not brew some at home?

2005-08-05T01:35:00.000+08:00

The open sourced Vores Øl version 1.0 is helping computer students with their programming project over at Denmark. But Vores Øl version 1.0 isn’t a software plug-in or module for their project. It’s beer! Open sourced beer.

An idea by a group of students at the IT-University in Copenhagen has created the world’s first open sourced beer. Vores Øl meaning “Our Beer”, at version 1.0 is a medium strong beer at 6% vol with a deep golden red color. The taste is being described as an original but familiar taste in Vores Øl’s English webpage.

The recipe here, is said to be based on the classic ale brewing tradition with a little bit of South American Guarana beans which have caffeine for an energy boosting effect. I admire the students and beer tasters who made it through the beta and pre 1.0 stages. Because of their sacrifices, the people of the world can now have a go at creating their own versions of Vores Øl. Being open sourced, people who use the make variations of the recipe should publish the recipe under the same license and credit the student’s work.

I’ve never thought about brewing beer at home but for the love and the rising tax of beers in Malaysia. It’s worth to give it a shot. Who knows, local brewers might even add a little bit of “Tongkat Ali” to the original 1.0 recipe to create Vores Øl 1.0 Ultra for added love energy while getting drunk.

Check out their site, it’s mostly in Danish and the funky music over there is excellent.

Apple deals

2005-08-04T23:45:00.000+08:00

Just after Apple Computer announced its new line of iBook G4s 2 weeks ago. Apple placed an advertisement in today’s The Star’s In.tech, regarding their PC Fair deal. The older version of Apple's 14” iBook G4 with a 1.33GHz Power PC CPU which retails for RM5399 with a Combo drive and RM6099 with a SuperDrive are now given a RM1121 and RM1333 cash rebate respectively this KL PC Fair.

At such low price for an Apple iBook G4, it’s worth a good consideration before you buy a Windows based laptop with integrated graphics chip that share your main memory. Both iBook G4s mentioned above comes with ATI Mobility Redeon 9200 with 32MB DDR RAM, 60GB HDD, 56MBps Wifi, 56K modem , Ethernet with Firewire and USB 2.0 ports.

Edifier's Newly Launched M3300 & M2300 2.1 Multimedia Speakers

2005-08-03T23:55:00.000+08:00

Xnster and I had the chance to get a 1^st look at some of Edifier’s newly released desktop speakers and mobile speakers at Edifier’s Kuala Lumpur showroom at the 4^th floor of Low Yat Plaza owned by Inter-Asia.

I’ll dedicate this 1^st part to Edifier’s 2 new models for the desktop range. The M3300 and M2300 are 2.1 speakers system with a wired remote. Both systems share some common features. Incorporated is an MDF enclosed 6.5 inch subwoofer driver with a bass level, shielded satellites and wired remote on both systems. The M3300 comes with a 2 way driven satellites while it’s younger sibling only has one driver per satellite. The subwoofers only differ from design of the power buttons and placement of the ports.

The supplied remote connects to the back panel of the subwoofers using a custom RS-232 connector. The stylish remote is a really a pleasure to hold with. It’s built with tough and shiny polycarbonate with a plastic volume knob and mute button. A bright blue LED lit up when you turn up the volume knob from it’s off position. Besides having a headphone output and auxiliary input on the side of the remote, the auxiliary input add as a bonus microphone amplifier. Which means I can connect a microphone directly to the M3300 or M2300 and amplify my voice without going through a computer.

The M3300 comes with two very elegant slim satellites. The main drivers are protected by a metal grill. We took a while to listen to a couple of jazz tunes then some pop and dance tracks at the Edifier Showroom. The high frequency produced by the M3300 is a bit on the bright side while the midrange driver has enough power to push the strong vocals of the jazz singers. Fine tuning the bass level behind the sub can give you a variety of bass level according to your favor. You can experience tight punchy dance beat to roaring explosions from Battlefield 2.

M3300’s little brother, M2300 which uses an identical subwoofer produces comparable sound quality to its big brother. Without tweeters, the M2300 manage to produce nice and clear sounds but I can feel the absent of some background instruments heard back on the M3300. The satellites here are enclosed in a compact polycarbonate housing.

We had the speakers pushed way over 50% of its volume level in the quiet open spaces of the 4th floor and they were still able to maintain their precision while filling the area with undistorted sound. Both speakers are well suited for serious sound in a medium sized room. Priced at entry level range, Edifier is well in position against its competitors. We believe Edifier is aiming these speakers at music lovers who plays a lot of destructive games and enjoy their DVDs on their PCs.

If you’re looking for a new set of speaker this coming PC Fair, why not drop by Edifier’s show room at Low Yat Plaza before the fair and kindly ask the people there to give you a demo. Don't wait until PC Fair and try out the speakers at the fair. It's way too noisy and the unsuitable environment will ruin your listening experience. From what we’ve experienced, Edifier manage to produce two really reasonable priced speaker with sound that won’t disappoint. The M3300 and M2300 is priced at RM239 and RM209 respectively but you should be able to get a better price from dealers at Low Yat Plaza or PC Fair.

Monster's Wish

2005-08-03T03:42:00.000+08:00

Everyone might be wondering why my title is named Monster's Wish. To me it have two meanings. First the nick that I'm currently using is the edited version of the word MONster. I replaced the initial MON with letter X and it becames my nick XNSTER. The second meaning is about my wish. For me it is an unreacheable wish and too far stretch from me that is why I termed it as Monster's Wish.

What is my wish about? All these days I have been planning to bring in one motherboard from China to be my next experiment apparatus. This board - the ONDATA NF4X motherboard - is very important to me because it is the only nforce 4 based mobo available in the market which allows me to challenge my processor at higher FSB.

Since this is a very good mobo I wish to spread this news to all Malaysians hoping that one day we could have this mobo brand here in Malaysia. To anyone who ever reads my blog please help me to spread this news. Thank you.

This is the link to the mobo i mentioned above http://www.onda.cn/eshop/product/productdetail.jsp?ITEM_ID=7988

Fancy Mouse Pad

2005-08-02T23:40:00.000+08:00

I just got this mouse pad from lowyat plaza this afternoon. This product from Thermaltake is built with an acrylic base and PVC mouse surface. It is a very fancy mouse pad with the option to lit the acrylic base using USB power with 7 different colors to choose from.

MY first impression for this mouse pad is that it is very colorful but not realistic. After I put my mouse on it, I found that it wasn't that bad. It gives a very smooth moving yet enough friction between mouse and surface which allows me to stop at any point.

Overall, this mouse pad provides sufficient space and accurate movement. For those who think that his computer desk is too plain this mouse pad can be a bonus as it is a very good decoration for your desk too.

My PC Fair Wish List

2005-08-02T06:08:00.000+08:00

I had been thinking about new gears to get this PC fair and I have created a Wish List of the things that I would like for this PC Fair. It doesn’t mean I will buy them. I really don’t have any money to buy these things this week so I’ll just wish for them.

And it goes:

The newly released 12” Apple iBook G4 (I hope it'll make it to this PC fair)
Wacom intuos3
MSI NX6600GT-VTD128E
Logitech MX518 Optical Mouse
Sony Ericsson K750i

There was suppose to be a PDA in that list but I never really thought about which PDA to drool about after Sony stopped producing Clié.

Tell me about your wish list too. I would really like to know what you wish for but could buy due to surging oil prices.

Just drop a comment.

For your knowledge, there's no need to sign-up to post a comment. Just select the “Other” or “Anonymous” radio button.

Pikom's 2nd 2005 PC Fair

2005-08-01T22:29:00.000+08:00

This weekend will see a new change for the Malaysian IT industry and consumers. From the 5^th to the 7^th of August, it is yet another Pikom PC Fair at KL and what’s going to be different this weekend is the new venue for the fair. Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre is the new place and goodbye to old Putra World Trade Center. I’ve only been inhabiting KL for around 5 years but I’m sure the Pikom PC Fair is typically held at Putra World Trade Center since it’s 1^st fair on 16^th June, 1995. This is certainly good news for exhibitors and visitors alike since people like a fresh new feel to most things. People living near by to Putra LRT stations will find no trouble getting to Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. For peoples from other part of town can easily take a bus to Kota Raya then get on a LRT at Jamek Mosque and head towards Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.

A new venue but will the fair remain the same old night market styled cash and carry event with that floor full of leaflets? I hope we can see some changes this time since Pikom is hosting the event at a world class exhibition hall. One problem with local IT fairs is that most exhibitors are comprised of computer dealers with their guerilla way of selling stuffs. Actual IT manufacturers who participate are still in the small numbers displaying and demonstrating their new products. Even with large distributors who exhibit at Pikom PC Fair representing their respective manufacturers, they tend to hire part time workers as salesman who doesn’t have a clue about the details of a product that is being displayed.

Try asking a salesman standing in a laptop booth concerning his laptop using a dedicated or shared video memory or ask a network booth salesman if his router supports “Simple Network Management Protocol” or if his wireless access point supports “Wireless Distribution System”. The better salesman will ask his superior for the details. The big ego salesman with say yes to whatever build-in feature you ask him about. That’s the typical Malaysian salesman you’ll find around at PC Fair.

Besides sales, exhibitors should focus more on serving potential customers. That doesn’t mean serving only people who appear to have a fat wallet. Even a 12 year old kid might get his parents to buy him that RM4000 laptop one day.

Weather we see a different PC fair or the same PC fair at a different venue this weekend will have to be waited and seen. I would doubt any drastic changes to be seen because of the Malaysian way to make compromises but I’m still hopeful for a change to be seen.

Xnster's Intro

2005-08-01T01:35:00.000+08:00

I am the last member who joined "Tech N Tools" and I was forced to write articles for "Tech N Tools" ha...... the hardest part in my life (I hate writing essays man !!)
Hmm.... what I can tell about myself probably I am a normal guy just like everyone else. If you really want know more about me, please check back to our blog frequently and I will reveal more about myself in future.

Tech n Tools

2005-08-01T00:02:00.000+08:00

Hi, I'm rez.
Thank you all for visiting the page. In Tech n Tools, we are trying to give our best in reviewing and exposing the latest news regarding the current trend and technology. As mentioned by our "co-founder" 鬼徒二等兵 we are not promising anything but we'll do our best.

Double Layer

2005-07-31T23:10:00.000+08:00

Found this diagram quite interesting; just want to show how the double layer DVD disk structure is. I found this picture while I was helping my colleague to check the LG GSA-4163B DVD Burner features and taken from the article that reviewed the DVD ROM.

If you want to know more detail about the review, please visit the LG GSA-4163B Super Multi DVD Burner review at cdfreaks.com. Thanks.

TNT

2005-07-31T18:29:00.000+08:00

Hi, I'm mew. I am the eldest amongst them but I'm not the leader, hehe. I am very pleased with you all visiting "Tech N Tools". Here you can get some articles about games, hardware and technology. Maybe the articles are simple but hopefully, can give you some help or idea to solve your problem. If you have any queations, please do not hesitate to e-mail us.

Hello Tech N Tools

2005-07-31T05:52:00.000+08:00

I am a newbie of this blog. I have to say thank to 鬼徒二等兵 who give me a chance to join them.
I'm not clear about technology and hardware, but I will try my best to do it. By the way, I hope someone can give me advice if I made a mistake... thanks for those who read this blog. ^ ^/")

once again.... thank you 鬼徒二等兵...

Welcome to Tech N Tools

2005-07-30T23:54:00.000+08:00

Hello, I am 鬼徒二等兵 from タママの嫉妬と怨念log.
I’m pleased to announce Tech N Tools.

This is a collaborated weblog by myself, rez, mew, haku and xnster.
We hope to deliver with our simple knowledge about technology and hardware, articles that differ from hardcore overclocking & technology webpage. We're going to bring games, hardware and technology related articles from the perspectives of normal gamers who are struggling to keep up with the ever evolving and advancing technological world.

I'm not promising anything here. This are just a few little goals I set up for this weblog.
So please don't expect too much for now. I hope my partners and myself can achieve the goals that lies before us.
Who knows? It might even turn into a KL night life weblog........... but i really don't wish for that to happen.

All of us here are first time bloggers with little experience. Please do help us improve and guide us by giving us feedback and suggestions by email. We would appreciate that.

So please. Nice to know you.