Jomout

Crazy T on one of the Friday in January, I remembered Bel mistakenly wore one of her crazy T a week earlier, haha, cute Bel.

Bunch of crazy people, I just love them all! Oh man my new digital team they were there earlier to be prep for food.

It just not going to help when we stood together..

The saddest thing to know is that the digital team is scheduled to move to another building, I guess it would take time to adjust and adapt. Life goes on, what’s more I can meet Jenny, Ignite’s boss  everyday & learn a lot from her about her coolness.

Christmas Eve was wonderful to have Min Yin back in KL from London, and thank Mei Ching and Min Yin again for organizing such a lovely event for us, great food and drinks!

Five days away from New Year was absolute excitement. But more than that, this bond of friendship would make us mentally stronger going into 2010.

I knew I shouldn’t be frowning..

I did struggle in the beginning of 2009 due to some personal issues and not until recently that I got it all sorted out, though I am still who I am today but with a spiritually reborn character after going on a long soul searching expedition.

Christmas eve party was always about the exciting gift exchange moment.

I had to say this probably might not be right to conclude and end the blog but before I knew it, I passed out.

There were a lot of drinks and games, I woke up the second day spent 10 minutes wondering where was I and how the heck I ended up sleeping on the couch..

They said I started singing patriotic song then passed out, I literally couldn’t recall anything I’ve done after 12am from last night, that was bad..

After months of speculation and rumors, the long anticipated Apple tablet, iPad was finally unveiled by Steve Jobs.

It’s a half inch thick and weight just 1.5 pounds, 9.7 inch touchscreen IPS LCD display, 10-hour battery life iPad comes in 16Gb, 32Gb, and 64 Gb sizes with built-in Wi-Fi and optional 3G.

iPad is capable of running all iPhone apps from the App Store, iTune sync and reading eBooks from iBook Store that was introduced together with the new device.

On top of that, video playback and photo viewing experience are totally awesome!

The device is sold from $499 to $829 in varied sizes and optional 3G.

Here are links to complete guide to iPad, mashable and engadget.

Also see The Anti-Hype: Why Apple’s iPad Disappoints.

I think I’d get one when it is made available in 3 months time, it’s amazing!

I was left stunned in silence with the latest development of  a series of dramatic and ill feeling friends episodes going on, nevertheless, I hoped everyone would leave this behind and carry on a good life without fatality. Good luck!

Back on track, it was, to me, the most fascinating New Year gift I bought for the most unlikely individual in my family from the souvenir shop at Aquaria KLCC.

Not to mention I suck with selecting gift for peers/colleague and especially with kids, none the less, I will try and learn.

Mr. Shark’s new owner loved him at first sight, Mr. Shark was by now acquainted the moment I introduced him to his owner.

I was sure I got him the most lovely present to begin with 2010, next, what to get for myself.. But I’ve got everything I wanted..

2010 had somehow slumped into bad start with the arson of many churches in Malaysia due the fight over rights to use the word ‘Allah’ by the Christians and the Muslims.

The 1Malaysia concept initiated by our dear Prime Minister had so far been overshadowed by the damaging move from the minority extremists that existed in the humble community, none the less, we learnt the most important lesson in our life that shall hold ourselves together and fight, never bow to the pressingly wrongful act.

I was invited to P1Wrap Party 4 weeks ago, there I met my beloved ruumz and Packet One ex-colleagues.

Then this little girl from UTAR whom I recommended her to be an intern with the team, I supposed she would have enjoyed her time working along with the ruumz team.

And Jenny, and Shirley.

Namewee is one of the brightest and most controversial Malaysian artiste featuring in his infamous ‘Negarakuku’ song, he was a very friendly and down to earth man, was lucky to meet him in person.

Then these 5″8′ UK models… They rock!

I did not get a hand on them, I did not… They were nice for display, after all, you need to think about the high maintenance that comes with it.

Then came the highlight of the night, I was just reaching for my bag and ready to get off but stopped and took photos for this group of lovely ladies, I suddenly became the her surprise..

I wasn’t allowed to leave, and paid to do dirty dance (first level only) for her..

Was hoping that no one saw me ‘performing’ the art, what was that, a party boy?

Shit! But hell ya, I earned RM60 in just 5 minutes haha! What a night to end in this style!

Happy New Year 2010!

As soon as you step into Hanoi Old Quarter, you would notice that everything is centered around the old town.

The buildings were greatly preserved, some were face lifted.

The people are nice, those who are not English literate might be shy away, they are generally willing to help if you ask.

The total Hanoi population is around 6 million according to the tour guide on the bus to Halong Bay, and Wikipedia says so too.

It is also believed that the total motor bikes hitting nearly 4 million units in Hanoi alone, air pollution is at its highest rate.

One of the commonly seen activities was the local sellers walked or cycled around the town carrying goods with them to sell to the local & travelers, fruits, shirts, pants, sandals & etc.

I would recommend any traveler to take your time to walk the town, explore the beauty of the busy streets yourself at your own pace. Plus, a little research of the historical background on the streets and houses would absolutely help experiencing to the fullest in the Old Quarter.

If you are a lazy ass, or with limited time, the cyclo/trishaw is the alternative to mobilize easily in the town, $1 per ride for 15-30min.

I found it interesting as I walked the street, there were shops at front facing the street and the houses were behind it where people lived, these set ups were commonly seen and very typical.

I need to introduce Tien, my personal driver, recommended by Tuyet, he had become my closest friend in Hanoi after that.

He was my second Vietnamese friend after Tuyet, most trusted and reliable guy with straight forward thinking. Why do I say so? Because he always helped me to negotiate prices on goods, rejected my tipping at least 3 times.

He’s so cute, we had good good time hanging together, trying to guess what the other said  because he spoke limited English, so we occasionally ought to draw on paper just to to be sure we were on the same page.

I promised him more businesses for him, if you are going to Hanoi & need a ride, please call him +84 0978221346, he should be able to help you ordering food (cheaper than you order yourself), teach you some useful common local words, most importantly roam around the town with his motorbike for only $10-12, 5-8 hours.

We hanged out at Puku earlier on my first day, a Cafe Pub with WiFi, here I finally felt I was connecting back to the world with my friends & family in Malaysia, posted a few tweets & photos on Facebook then chilled with Tien, Heinneken 30,000 VND or RM7!

You should tell him when to come back to pick you up if you wish to stay on long visiting at more than one places, he could be a very good assistant for instance, to help purchasing your train tickets to Sapa while you don’t need him around.

I woke up in the morning on my second day and Tien was there to take me to the travel agency to catch the bus with other travelers to Halong for the famous Halong Bay excursion,. It was less than 4 hours from Hanoi, and they stopped once at the souvenir center so we could use a break.

A few day of cruising around Halong Bay, one of the most magnificent natural splendours of Asia. The best way to appreciate Halong Bay is by boat.

Few could fail to be impressed with Halong Bay, with over 3,000 limestone islands jutting out of the green waters.

It was easy to book Halong Bay package, the agencies were everywhere. The fee was $40/pax for one night, $60 for two nights, shared room with or without air conditioning, inclusive of 2 lunches, dinner, breakfast and logistics.

Soon after boarded the junk, lunch was served, they could even cater for vegetarian and non-seafood lover (you need to inform them earlier on the bus so they could do arrangement for you).

Beverages on the junk were chargeable, wasn’t sure how much was a can of Coke or Pepsi, but a can of Tiger beer was fairly cheap at 30,000 VND, less than RM7.

I felt imbalance to try to save some $20 giving up the air-cond room but relented on spending it on the beers… Sometime we just couldn’t think straight enough for what we love for.. Like girls could skip food everyday to save money for LV & Prada bags, that’s ironic, but heck, who cares?! Beers are simply irressitable!

The view from the upper deck on the junk was absolutely phenomenon, weather was nice to us, we had the Sun sticking out and was around 23 degrees.

I had no idea where these sellers came from, they probably had a dock and lived nearby. They appeared even at night startling me when I was entering my cabin.

The day is getting darker around 4.30-5pm, and by 6.30pm it should be completely dark.

The soft smoothing wind, the sound of the waters flapping over the boat, the junk’s engine stopped by now, having my own sweetest moment at the top of the deck all by myself before dinner, the mind was exceptionally calm…

As the day entered night, it was quite and I was able to listen to the music being played from the junk rested about 100meters away. Then dinner was served…

I met some of the most fascinating individuals from all around the world with rather decorated traveling experiences during my entire trip in Hanoi, mostly Europeans, they were unbelievable!

Every Israeli has to take part in servicing the military, no exception. The men would serve up to minimum 3 years after high school, and the women 2 years.

Above, I’m meeting the Russian ladies in January next year, Amelie & Lene they were just 19 & 20 years old age, traveling for 6-8 weeks from Laos to Vietnam & down the south to Thailand and into Malaysia.

The night usually ended with laughter and beers for me, every individual you came across they would have shared some exciting stories about their trip, homeland, people they had met & etc.

The clear night sky was the greatest thing we had on that night, relaxing under the shining stars.

The next day I exchanged contacts with some of my new friends, said good bye to the group after breakfast and went on to another junk with a Switzerland uncle as the rest would spend another night at Cat Ba Island which I didn’t sign up for.

We spent an hour kayaking around the limestone islands, watch out for the big boats around you, make sure you don’t get in their ways and run down by them.

We returned to the jetty at noon and headed for a fine lunch before the bus took us on 3 hours drive back to Hanoi.

With little help from a very lovely old couple from Perth, Australia, this picture of myself should wrap up my Halong Bay excursion.

Next on my blog, 8 hours night train to Sapa visiting the local tribes villages, 20-30km trekking, and unbelievable home stay experience.

The flight ticket was booked some 10 months ago through AirAsia free seat promo, one of the most anticipating year end short get away trip that I look forward to.

This was also my first solo backpacking trip, decision making was always easy though not all were perfect like deciding to walk 30 minutes to Hanoi Old Town from the train station 5am in the morning and the weather was well below 20 degrees was really unpleasant.

I traveled from Nov 10 – 18, 9 days 8 nights, everything including renting at budget hotels and packages to Halong Bay and Sapa trekking were all done locally after I touched down.

It was a little bit nervous at first, what if I couldn’t get a hotel and packages in Hanoi, you know. You probably should know from friends who had been to Hanoi that it’s always easy to get a budgeted hotel as you walk the famous Old Town near Hoan Kiem Lake.

The budget hotel rates range between $8-15, the nicer appearance from the outside the more expensive it is. Be sure to request for a check at the room condition before you commit anything at the counter.

I had to stay at Dr. Tuyet’s, the arrangement with Dr. Tuyet was quite impromptu as my other Couch Surfer, Fred said she couldn’t host me on the first night at the very last 12 hours before I leave on the plane. Things happened, no complain.

My dearest Dr. Tuyet is a psychologist, a Vietnamese who was married to David, an ex-US diplomat, having two children who now live in the States.

The weather was just nice, I felt it was not warmer than Malaysia, it was probably around 23 Degrees with the Sun poking in and out from the cloudy sky.

I had to pay $15 for the taxi from Hanoi International Airport to her apartment at Kim Ma Street, the streets were getting busier as we passed the Old Town. It was an overwhelming experience to walk the busy streets, no wonder my travel book recommended readers to sit down at the restaurant, get a beer and watch the world goes by.. Which I did.. Awesome!

Tien, my motorbike driver took us off to one of the famous local food in Hanoi, Bun Cha. The experience on the bike roaming in the busy Old Town streets wasn’t particularly comfortable with the excessive motorbikes and the confusing traffic system.

I was quite uneasy at first, but had quickly adjusted to it when given no choice. It was quite amazing to see how the locals mobilized around the town at such rate, I guess they somehow developed their own traffic system and I thought was quite safe when I noticed the plentiful of bikes would go around mewhen I tried to cross the busy streets.

But don’t get fooled, watch where you are heading and always pay 110% attention to the road condition, especially when you travel a lot on foot.

The delicious Bun Cha came in a set, the BBQ pork and beef were dipped in the soup, the thick noodle, spring rolls (you might or might not find this in other places), and vegetables. 正!

And it was about 50,000d, RM12.

Yeah, mixed it and the soup was room temperature, I was so loving it I had it couple of times another days later.

Next post, pit stop at authentic Puku bar/cafe and a walk near the Hoan Kiem Lake.

1. Is there Warranty of  iPhone from Maxis?

Maxis does provide Warranty of one year support to iPhone (clarified on website & by 123 operator), should you have any problem with your machine, send them to Maxis center & they will check and repair for you.

2. Re-install app = Re-purchase app?

Once you purchased an app from Appstore, re-installing the app using your iTunes Store account is absolutely free!

3. Can I share Apps with my friends?

You may share the apps purchased from Appstore with up to 5 different iPhone/iPod Touch users, just authorize them using iTunes & start transferring apps. Or unlimited to your own machines (if you own more than one) using your own iTunes account .

4. What is unlocked/lock version of an iPhone?

For unlocking iPhone, it refers to the process to open up your iPhone to accept all carriers. Unlocked iPhone allows you to use Sim card from all telcos. An unlocked version means, you no longer need to bind to the official carriers e.g. Maxis approved by Apple after you purchase the machine.

You are free to choose the network on your iPhone, don’t confuse with the contract with Maxis, you may have bought the machine from Maxis and use it with any network irregardless of the contract. Locked version forces you to only use phone with a specific telco, many iPhone users bought the locked version and unlock it using specific tool.

5. What is Jailbreak? Why?

In brief, Jailbreak or JB, simply means you are allowed to install 3rd party applications on iPhone that are not approved by Apple on Appstore. You need to Jailbreak your iPhone in order to download these apps via Cydia or other installer app.

The reasons are clear, there are so much more you can do with iPhone but these apps violate some of the Apple policies and are banned, but are proven logically useful to some advanced users.

In nutshell, you may install 3rd party apps (e.g. MxTube to save Youtube videos on iPhone, Cycorder to capture video on iPhone3G) customize iPhone look & feel, unlock iPhone, take full control of your iPhone (for tech geeks).

6. Is Jailbroken iPhone save? Stable?

Jailbreaking iPhone is not one way path, however, you can restore iPhone to pre-jailbroken state at any time by restoring it with standard firmware.

iPhone is known to be quite stable in terms of its performance, jailbreaking it has a price to pay. The process is however de-stabilising at the very tolerance rate. It won’t crash 5 times a day, don’t worry! If you feel like reversing to the previous state, feel free to do it, so easy.

7. Can iPhone  view Flash content on Safari?

No, Safari on your iPhone restricts you from viewing flash content, there’s nothing you can do about it except jailbreaking your machine & with the help of some apps.

8. How do I connect to Internet on PC/Laptop using iPhone?

Connect your iPhone to your machine using the USB cable, go to Setting -> General -> Network -> On Internet Tethering & chose either connect through cable or bluetooth. That’s it!

9. Is 500Mb monthly data consumption enough?

I’ve tested my monthly data consumption on iPhone a couple of times, they were all well under 500Mb:

My Status: heavy Internet user.

Activities: Frequently reads news/articles from Safari, Emailing, Facebooking, Twittering, Watch some fun Youtube clips, Navigating, Instant Messenging, downloading some light apps from the Appstore (anything that goes beyond 10Mb Appstore recommends & forces you to be on Wifi connection).

My advise is, whenever you are within a stable Wifi connection, use them for whatever activities that require Internet on your phone, that should keep you well below 500Mb data usage a month.

10. How to Jailbreak?

I leave this to last, because it’s so easy now to jailbreaking your iPhone, download blackra1n -> connects your iPhone to your PC/Laptop/Mac, check & update your iPhone version, make sure it is the compatible version as suggested by blackra1n.

Run blackra1n to jailbreak your iPhone, it will be completed within minutes, the icon will appear in your iPhone the next minutes when it’s done. Click on it to download Cydia the installer for 3rd party apps, that’s it! During the process you may encounter a few reboots, which is normal.

Looking around for a good All-in-one Instant Messenger application for your iPhone?

IM+ is probably your best solution as it supports a range of products & multiple accounts including:

• AIM
• Yahoo!
• MSN
• Jabber
• Google Talk
• MySpace
• Facebook
• Skype
• Twitter

The all-in-one instant messenger on-the-go is not the key proposition that we are focusing today, instead we’d look at some of the notable value added services:

1. Push notifications for Email & IM

The main problem before OS 3.0 was the limitation of ‘One application at a time’ idea and the experience with most of the IM was sucky and frowns were ubiquitous because you wouldn’t possibly stay on the app the entire day without exiting it to work on other app.

But knowing the nature of having IM is to stay connected all day long so that your friends can reach you.

It led to the introduction of Push feature where the late OS 3.0 enables the application developer to turn the table around and provide push option for some of the applications.

And IM+ Push allows you to stay connected for up to 72 hours and push messages pop up with sound alerts.

2. Send files (photo, voice, video)

Sending files have never made so easy in the previous version, but now you’d probably find it amazed by how conveniently to send a photo, voice or video on IM+.

3. Built in browser

Due of the limitation of iPhone, the infamous ‘One application at a time’, the built in browser comes handy otherwise IM+ or app with similar feature would have nothing to shout about.

Essentially, the built in browser is there to ensure you would not need to quit the app and start browsing with Safari after clicking a link which kind of upsetting me previously.

4. Customizing your wallpaper, status & geo-location

IM+ comes with a few standard background picture but if you want something more, it gives you the option to take a photo or look up for a good picture from your library.

6. Multilingual, Animated emoticons, Speech recognition

Multilingual is a nice thing to me as I can write & read Chinese, nothing much to say about them as they are the forms of basic.

Speaking about speech recognition, I have not used it personally and don’t need it, subscription is at $0.99/month, English only.

What I dislike

• IM+ lets you edit name & delete of a contact but it doesn’t allow you to add any contact.
• You are not able to organize contact groups with IM+, do it manually on each service platform.

Verdict

There are a lot of good stuffs in IM+, It was $4.99 when I bought it and I still think it worth much more at the current price of $9.99. The latest version is extremely stable, it works well with Edge connection, 3G can be off and save some power with the battery.

My rating: 4.5/5

最近和几个超过15年没见的小学朋友约了出来聚会，感觉非常的兴奋和出奇的开心。

(photo taken taken from foodpromotions)

小学朋友嘛，毕竟已认识了十几年，倒不如说是老朋友。

可是，反正就是太久没见面的老朋友，兴奋至极反而有点紧张。

心里某处隐隐约约地再担心着待会儿见到了这些老朋友后会不会找不到话题，会不会冷场，凳子还没坐热就拍拍屁股走人的。

哈，不会吧，我才没那么没品！一定要第一个到，最后一个走，Kiasu！不是啦！

“嗨，好久不见！你们好吗？”，一个非常简单带有少许尴尬的开端。

大家都笑了。。。

不可思议的，在那一张张即陌生，又熟悉的面孔上，我们仿佛都可以感受到彼此之间不知不觉散发出来的的热情。

再来一谈到往日小学时的趣事，整个气氛就不同了。

不会像办公室里的勾心斗角和打仗的气氛，不需要摆起平时为了两口饭讨好老板那一副欠扁的德性，不像戏里边儿的奸人角色，我就是我啊，你就是你。

我们都收起了尴尬，隔膜，虚荣，偏见，自大，自私，自利，哀伤和感叹， 释放出热情，天真，真诚，可爱的一面。

大家都大谈小学时的一些事故，突然变得比平常多话，特别的友善，少了些拘束，烦恼突然消失了，笑容也比平常开心的多了。

毕竟是太久没见面的关系，而且都是在还没懂事前就认识的朋友，难免有种故友重新相识的感觉，挺不错的。

故友重新相识 - 我指的是重新和以往不是那么熟悉的朋友来个比较深入的互动，既然大家有机会出来喝喝茶嘛，就别再失去可以重新再认识一次的朋友了。

超正日本猪软骨面 ，Delicious Japanese Stew Pork Rob Wonton Noodle at Canton-i Mid Valley!

QQ的云吞面加上肥瘦参半的猪软骨，正！