Signts And Sounds: PSLE Preparation

On the bus,
Boy A: you got the science papers from which school?
Boy B: got a lot, got tao nan, blah blah blah
Boy A: you got do the other set of papers anot?
Boy B: which ones? (sounds like there's a lot)
Boy A: the blah blah one
Boy B: orh i got, i start doing liao, finished the cycles and a few already

During PSLE, I was playing street fighter on my computer. The most I did was read through the formula sheet for maths. Thankfully during my days as a primary school student, it was not too hard to get a pretty average score without studying at all. What's there to study for primary school anyway?

Tech Speak: To Girl With Love

I think I've show off here that I own a Zune HD before. I chanced upon this website which took the Zune apart to see what is inside. On the metal plate inside, the words "For our princess" were engraved. I read that this was a tribute to a lady on the Zune Development Team who pass away halfway through the project. I don't think the person who took it apart was from Microsoft. Let's say even if we assume that not every single piece of Zune HD was engraved, wouldn't you still think that it's so nice of them to have engraved one or a few for her memories' keepsake? They even engraved it inside the Zune, as if to show that she was a part of the product, a part of the process of creating this device.

Event: Engin Camp 2010

Last week was Engin Camp 2010. It was a blast to say the least. I was still worried the day before if I could get "high". It's been 4.5 years since I was high. Frankly I wasn't very high when I was in JC orientation, which makes me even more worried. Being a 21 year old old man, I can't really imagine myself getting high. But I was quite wrong. I wouldn't say I was very enthusiastic. In fact my whole group was rather unenthusiastic. We were always sleepy, we rather stone than play games, we choose not to go for supper unlike all other OGs. But I like it. Nobody was fake. Nobody overdrove their enthusiasm to "plastic" levels (which I really really cannot stand). Everyone just had fun when it was fun, everyone just stayed low when we were supposed to feel tired like every human being does. I liked all my seniors as well. Nobody was spastic (like how some other groups were), and no male seniors was over engrossed with disturbing little girls in my group. It's really sick to see how desperate some guys are.

Anyway, here's some concise description of what we did and what embarrassing stuff happened. On the first day, there was ice breaking games as usual. I was particularly fond of the game "la mian ah la mian". At first it seemed like a gay game. But as the game speeds up and everyone warms up to each other, it was really fun. The MRT game which seemed gay at first was quite fun as well. Lol. Then we had dirty games. My group wasn't very spontaneous actually but we were fine. We were a little forthcoming at least. After the dirty games we went to our rooms for the rest of the camp at Raffles Hall which was newly renovated. The meals came from Engin Canteen, which frankly was quite disappointing but better than Mandai Hill food anyday. Every night we had SP (secret pal) night which we are blindfolded and brought to a place to meet our secret pal of the opposite gender for a chatting session. The seniors would crowd around and eavesdrop and make us feed each other pockey sticks. We also had mass dance sessions now and then.

On the second day, there was pool games which I was initially totally not looking forward to. Cause it was raining. And... I'm freaking scared of cold. The game went on anyway with my consistent rambling of being scared of the cold. But to my surprise it turned out that the games were super fun. There was this one game which we had to let the girls sit on our shoulders in the deep pool and they would play captain's ball. Apparently I looked like (and am) the lightest PERSON in the OG and I look like a twig that can snap into 2 anytime. So the girl was worried and everyone else kept showing their concern as well. At the start, she fell forward and her legs was pushing my ear studs against my head and pulling the studs downwards. Ouch, bad choice. After the game my shoulders were really red and everyone just kept teasing me. After the pool games we went for dinner and at night it was SP night and then mystery night which we had to solve a murder case by going to 7 rooms to look for clues. It was kind of like a courage test thing. Okay I must admit, I was scared. My partner (who is female) was more courageous than me. It was so embarrassing. But just imagine walking in a completely dark room, examining scary photos with a UV light stick and then a plastic head suddenly drops from the middle, you'll be scared right? Lol. Nevermind...

The third day we went to Sentosa where we played a lot of exciting games again. One of the games we were supposed to piggy back a girl and run from the beach, into the sea where they erected poles and marshmallows-on-sticks and the girl is supposed to eat the marshmallows without using her hands. Now that's difficult since the waves will cause imbalance. I was embarrassed once again when the lightest girl insisted on piggy backing me. Luckily it was only for one round and I insisted on carrying her for the remaining game. I fell the first time into the sea, though other guys did fall as well. Apparently older guys love to dunk each other in the sea, we had so much fun dunking all the famous people into the sea. I think the director of Engin Camp probably got dunked more than 20 times. That was night was SP revelation night where we had dinner with our SP. My SP was extremely sweet looking though too bad she's attached. Everyone out there told me to snatch. Like, what's wrong with society these days. Geez. That night we went for supper for the first time. There I saw someone who reminded me of my 1SIR days, which isn't really a pleasant thing. 

The camp ended off with a City Food Hunt which we were supposed to look for food in the city while searching for some checkpoints. It was quite lame cause the clues we were given were so retarded. For example the picture clue pointing to The Cathay was a Pokka bottle with Hello Kitty on it (cause Pokka and Hello Kitty = Jap stuff, and Hello Kitty = Cat-thay). We played games on the train with everyone staring at us and we also did a flash mob at The Central dancing "That's Very Hot" shown below. Then lastly there was the finale night.

The camp was really quite good. This is the first time somebody said I do not look very thin. It's also the first time I met civilised people who actually asked me for my reasons to pierce my ear rather than assuming that I am the typical ah beng which many of my close friends do. This is a great start to school though I do feel a little lethargic.  

throw him into the sea!

Royal House OG Kings

Ramblings: I'm Too Old To Yell And Cheer

It's been freaking 4 plus years since I shouted and screamed like some crazy enthusiastic kiddo on drugs. Tomorrow I'm going for Engin Camp which is my first proper "high" camp since JC orientation. I hope I won't have to resort to Ice to be high tomorrow and hope I'll meet lots of nice people.

Tech Speak: Brief Review MSI GE600

I just bought the MSI GE600 from the PC Show 2010. For its specifications, it's quite worth its price at $1599. The specifications are as below.

Processor: Intel Core i5 430M 2.26GHz
RAM: 4GB DDR3
Graphics: Intel HD GMA and ATI Radeon 5730 1GB (switchable graphics)
Screen: 15.4inch 16:9 ratio LED backlit
HDD: 500GB 7200rpm
Wireless LAN: 802.11 b/g/n
Ports: 1 x HDMI, 3 x USB 2.0, 1 x e-SATA/USB combo port, 1 x VGA, 1 x LAN, 1 x modem, 1 x express card slot
Battery: 9 cell
Optical Drive: Super Multi DVD drive
Sound: SRS with sub woofer
Others: Touch based inputs such as mute, volume up/down, switching graphics, CINEMA Pro mode, 1.3MP webcam
Weight: 2.7kg

Exterior
The GE600 is glossy all sides, that includes even the insides of the laptop. This meant that the laptop is a fingerprint magnet. It's not as bad as some other glossy surfaces but I had wished that it was a matt surface. The description says it's black and gold but the dark gold colour is subtle and is not overly striking. The hinges are strong and does not feel like it's falling apart. The keyboard is a full keyboard with keys of ample size. However the keyboard is sunk into the laptop compared to the palm rest and this made typing a little awkward. This is something that one can get used to though. The function key from MSI is finally changed from its original position of bottom left hand corner to beside the CTRL key. There has been complaints about accidentally pressing the function key instead of the CTRL key when people play games. Glad they took the complaints into account. The glossy screen did better than expected. It was not completed washed out in bright light.

The keypad has good tactile feedback and the keys provide strong pressure. One bad thing was that the notification lights were at the bottom right hand corner and they were small. There's only lights for wireless, battery, sleep mode, harddisk in use, scroll, num and caps lock. The touch panel above the keyboard is useful but not very visible. The speakers grill at on both sides of the touch panel which seemed quite solid. There's also a subwoofer output at the bottom. The ports were also well placed with one USB port at the left, back and right side of the laptop each. The e-SATA combo port, HDMI, power, VGA (which annoyingly juts out) and LAN port are on the right as well. The optical disk and audio inputs are on the left. The ventilation fans are on the back.

The 9 cell battery juts out at the back but that's to be expected for a high capacity battery. The weight is not exactly light at 2.7kg so this is a sacrifice to make if you want a gaming laptop.

Performance
The switchable graphics works well. At the touch of the button on the touch panel, the system ask if you're sure and you can either click to confirm or wait 300s for the change to take place. The switch takes about 5 seconds. While using the integrated graphics card, you can really feel that the laptop is cooler and the ventilation fans blow out relatively cool air. Windows 7 Aero interface is not laggy even with integrated graphics but watching HD content wasn't as smooth.

The CINEMA Pro SRS certified speakers was a letdown. I'll say the sound quality was more consistent when the feature was not switched on. With the touch of the Touch Panel, the CINEMA PRO is activated, the screen is slightly more vibrant and the subwoofer is used. Listening to pop songs such as Lady Gaga's Telephone and One Republic's All The Right Moves was disastrous. The volume was loud at first then mid way the volume was fluctuating even though I did nothing to the volume setting. The feature seems more stable at mid volume. The sounds were also hollow with or without the feature. Instrumentals such as the Black Mage's The Extreme (FFVIII) and JENOVA (FFVII) also came up to about the same quality. However Lady Gaga's Alejandro was quite good on the feature. I have not watched movie on it but I would say this is one disappointing feature.

The graphics is pretty good, though ATI 5730 is still not a class 1 card. Not much can be expected from this card except mid end gaming. So far I've only tried Starcraft II Beta and Devil May Cry 4 which both yielded stable frame rates (> 40fps) at high settings. Heat produced was considerably higher but a cooler is still not required, though I don't expect the same thing if I were to play Crysis.

Overall this is a good mid range gaming laptop with sufficient screen size and gaming power. If you can look past the keyboard and the lousy sound quality, this might just be your dream machine at this price.

Pros:
Good graphics
Value for money
Switchable graphics
9 cell battery for longer battery life
Touch Panel for convenience
Decent screen size for gaming
Heat ventilation is above average

Cons:
Quite heavy
Sound quality is very bad
Keyboard feels a bit awkward to type on
Glossy surfaces which are fingerprint magnet

you can't really tell that the surface is gold colour. the screen is glossy but not overly reflective

here's a look at the touch panel and speaker's grill

the keyboard seemed a little on the chiclet side with good tactile response. too bad it is sunk in and that makes it a little awkward to type

the keypad comes with Epad technology which allows you to use multi touch to perform certain functions such as opening My Computer or scrolling horizontally and vertically

Tech Speak: It's A Guy Thing

I believe many of us watched the beer commercial above before on TV. During PC Show, a few of my guy friends brought their girlfriends along to the show and boy, their faces weren't the most pleased at the least. They were frustrated though they don't say it or don't show it that much. They cannot understand why guys like to squeeze in here, and talk so much bullshit about technology and forgot that their girlfriends are next to them and have not eaten lunch/dinner.

While girls are crazy about jewellery and clothes, guys are crazy about technology and soccer. It's the same thing. At least in Singapore IT shows and fairs aren't half as frequent as fashion sales. You can spend big bucks on your clothes, so we can spend big bucks on our gadgets. You don't understand how we can spend so much a piece of junk, neither can we understand.

Deal with it, ladies.

Ramblings: Simpletons Don't Talk To Me

This is an elitist post.

I was eating instant noodles. I love putting eggs in instant noodles to add flavour to it.

Last year while I was still in the army, I was on a driving course with 3 company mates. There was this guy who loved hanging around my platoon mate and me. We were supposed to go to the cookhouse for lunch but he insisted on dragging us to the mess to buy food to eat. He was bragging about how nice the noodles was. Not wanting to be a total unfriendly nasty bastard, I agreed along with my platoon mate. We ordered the noodles, which cost $2.50. Guess what. It was served in a bowl that looked freaky-ly like the styrofoam bowl used for Myojo instant noodles. I tried it and felt that it was nothing special. It was chicken curry instant noodles, with egg. Ridiculous! I confronted him about it and guess what he said "Oh ya, it is, but she is able to make it very nice".

For the first time, I felt laughter and anger building up inside me at the same time. I did tell him that it's due to the egg that it tasted so much nicer. I can't remember his response though, but it was something that cause intense rage which probably in turn caused the memory loss.

I really hate talking to people who are so simple minded that they lack common sense.

Tech Speak: Guide To Laptop For University

This post is dedicated to all my friends who are entering university this year. This post is meant for tech idiots who know nuts about technology. PC Show is coming soon from 10 to 13 June and its a good time to buy your university laptop.

How to buy a laptop:
1) Ask yourself the questions listed below in the "Things to ask yourself before you choose a laptop"
2) Read the list of "Laptop Components and Features to Look Out For" to get a better understanding of what you're buying.
3) Research on laptops by reading reviews and forums. Reading reviews are not enough as they are often biased or they do not reflect usage in reality as reviewers often only use them for a while.
4) Research on the pricing.
5) Do the things listed in "What to do before you actually buy the laptop"

http://forum.notebookreview.com
http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg 

Things to ask yourself before you choose a laptop:

1) Purpose. What are you using the laptop for? Are you into intensive gaming (strong graphics card)? Are you into light gaming (moderate graphics card)? Are you doing lots of graphics/video editing (graphics speciality cards)? Are you using processing intensive programs (strong processor)?

2) Portability. Will you be bringing your laptop to many places (small and light, long battery life)? Are you weak (light weight)?

3) Screen Size. Do you have an external monitor (probably smaller screen size will do)? Do you not want to use an external monitor (bigger screens)?

4) OS. Are you stuck up about Apple and their gorgeous interface (Macs)? Are you a mainstream user who prefers to not deal with compatibility issues (Windows)?

5) Durability. Are you someone who throws his laptop around (try getting military grade Toughbooks)? Are you okay with changing your laptop once a year or two years (get more value for money Acer or nice looking Sony but both spoils easily)?

6) Location. Are you going to work mainly indoors or outdoors (Matt screens vs glossy screens)?


A laptop's components and features to look out for:

1) Processor. The central processing unit CPU is the heart of all computers. The current series for Intel goes by Core i3, i5 and i7. These are mainly dual core processors which should all serve your needs. The higher the number, the more powerful they are but they will also consume more power. Core 2 Duo processors and Core 2 Quad processors are last generation's processors but they should be okay as well if you're not too

Tech Speak: iPhone 4

Apple - iPhone 4 - Design of the display, A4 processor, and more

Listen to their arrogance, as if they invented video calling and unified inbox. But you got to admit that the IPS display and the build quality is just superb.

Tech Speak: There Is A Limit To How Much We Share

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1990582,00.html

Contrary to what Mark Zuckerberg thinks, there is a limit to how much we share on Facebook. His idea of "sharing is default" is flawed. Yet the privacy issue is getting to many of us. The main reason is that many are lazy to find out and change the privacy settings. Admit it, Facebook has gotten too big. It's too integrated into many of our lives for us to quit it. Facebook isn't about to change their direction so it's up to us to do the necessary settings change. Look at the bright side, they did give us a choice. Not that we can be sure that they actually keep to their words (hey, no one can sure with Microsoft and Google etc either).


So for goodness sake, unless you want the whole world to know, do something about your settings.

Music: Lady Gaga's Interview

live.showstudio.com

Lady Gaga offers to answer questions posed by her fans. Get to know more about her in this 2 hour interview. It's pretty awesome.

Tech Speak: Naming Tablets, Pads

http://www.hardwarezone.com.sg/features/view/41546

Well done Apple. You made everyone name their tablets after your stupid iPad. MSI and ASUS are following up in the tablet race, and they also look freakishly like the iPad. Soon we'll see Samsung Pad, Vaio Pad, Fujitsu Pad. Such screwed up naming. But fret not, MSI and ASUS both have tablets that are called Wind Tablet and Eee Tablet. These look way nicer. 

This is the Eee Pad, running on Windows 7. It looks just like iPad, with a semicircle as the menu button instead.

Here's a babe holding the Wind Pad. It also runs on Windows 7. The form factor looks close the iPad but the layout such as indicator lights are different. 

Here's the Eee Tablet. It looks way more stylish and it's targeted at students and professionals. Seems like its doodle-able. 

The Wind Tablet runs on Android. It looks more stylish too.