Yours truly, multimedia center.

A gadget we found while scouring an IT Mall in Singapore. Among the few things this blackbox can do:

We can now record Astro programs automatically — yes, it enables scheduled recording. You do not need to buy the costly Astro MAX (RM 900++ if you already have astro. Or new subscribers will have to part with their RM1k ++).
This gadget claims that we can watch two program at the same time!! Well, they mean – I can watch Liverpool playing on ESPN and record Everton on AstroSports, at the same time (but why would I want to record Everton’s games? Huhuhu!). We havent tried this — even though we are sure that what’s needed is to plug in a SATA HDD and record .. [not sure if this has a built-in tuner to enable watching one channel while recording another --- maybe not ?].

Of course, if a bathroom break is needed; we can pause a live show, and rewind to watch late. Cool eh.. Recording hrs? .. that would probably be about 1200 hours (yes, 50 days!) on a 1TB HDD. Otherwise, we can just record a short clip directly to a USB stick and take it anywhere.
This is the even cooler part — since we already have a wireless home network, by simply inserting the USB Wireless dongle, scan for our ssid and WPA password — in short time, we are alreay able to browse our laptops & deskptop! We actually can watch movies or photos (bmp & jpeg) stored in the desktop/laptops, on our TV now… this is quite similar to xbox360 setup (eventhough xbox requires a software to be installed in the computer i.e. we are still using TVersity).

This gadget does not do internet browsing (yet), but it streams internet radion stations! Hahaha.. some Romanian radio stations were really relaxing to the ears. And we can record it!

Company spy?

Internet, cell phone while working
By The Associated Press

A few tips for employees regarding Internet and cell phone use:

• Remember that anything you do on a company-issued computer or cell phone – in or out of the office – could be tracked by a boss, the courts or a regulator.Many employers monitor Web site use, keystrokes, instant messages and e-mail. Some even archive text messages on work cell phones.
• Avoid mentioning your company, boss or co-workers in online postings unless you have permission to do so.
• Avoid using any device to take or transmit any company-related photos, videos or other recordings without permission from management.This includes any images of company buildings or logos and embarrassing or unprofessional photos of co-workers or clients.
• Know your company’s policy on social networking, video Web sites, e-mail and other tech-related activities.
• Regularly delete personal e-mail from your work account.
• Remember when searching for a job that many employers check social networking sites, blogs and other online activity.(Source: The e-Policy Handbook, 2nd Edition) – AP

Our say: You can erase your opinion that you are by yourself alone at work! A sruvey way back in 2005 by AMA said that 76% of companies are monitoring the activities if their employees online. So, dont get too paranoid — ample warnings are typically given by the employers.. right? There is no privacy at workplace — we are all in one big pool of flowing info; in a very small pool.

Nokia N97 5mp camera

Ok — a quick post to share the performance of N97′s camera.
Did we tell you that N97 has a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with Carl Zeiss Tessar optics and sports a double LED flash.. Again, we love the high-end looking plastic cover that slides very pleasantly. It’s catchy for a camera lens cover!

We didnt go into technical details, but do judge for yourself; these photos were taken using N97 sported camera. These images are unedited, and uploaded directly from the camera to flickr; jpeg compressed images are shown below. You may also upload the images directly to Facebook, Ovi, Vox or email them.

This is taken outside, almost noon. Just realised my kirai daun is still lodging in there on the drain cover! I think the quality is good, very minimal overexposure… on the sharpness, I’d blame the unsteady hand — however, for a mobile camera — I do think this is still very good!

This is taken at the shortest possible distance when on potrait mode; under normal lighted room condition, during daytime. There is a macro mode that allows shooting at about 4-inch, but we forgot to snap at that distance (maybe soon).  Btw, this is a a very personal diary of Tapa

This is taken at about 9:30 PM, with no flash.

This is taken at night, normal room lighting condition! Great details.This was taken without flash eventhough there is this module using dual LED — suprisingly, Nokia did not use Xenon falsh which is more powerful (most possibly due to battery life strategy). Because of this, I thought then that indoor shots under low lights would be a bit noisy — but this photo proved me otherwise. Great stuff!

Loving it — Nokia N97 First Impression

So, finally we got a replacement phone today!

Nokia N97

We are still exploring, but here are the first few impressions.

• The built is excellently sturdy, very good materials and not the standard plastic-like body seen in other N-Series
• The sliding QWERTY keyboard to the left and then upward at 45Deg, is simply just stunning — haven’t seen one that slides as elegant as this before!
• N97 is with polished-look and glossy surface; the buttons are minimalistic and therefore very elegant. The 5mp-camera button is carefully designed so that it doesn’t protrude out from the body like in other phones and to snap a photo is very snappy indeed.
• The proximity next to the earpiece makes sure that the touch-screen area is automatically deactivated to prevent accidental touch (of course when you press the phone on your cheek) — great thought!
• The menu is simple — we are still exploring this part but I can see some great stuffs such as good looking bookmarks, ample entries for contacts (i think about 5000 entries, about the same numbers with the active voters in Tambunan hehehe … ), and the contact menu itself has a contextual menu that provides shotcuts to almost everything you wanted to do with the person i.e. send SMS, MMS, profile, call and so on — neat stuff, as expected.
• The main page (home menu) is cool — see for yourself.
  

So, bye-bye HTC, welcome N97! Will share more things soon.

Our WIFI Booster

Ever since we setup a wifi router in the living room, the two rooms at the long corner of the house have been sufferring from not-so-good wifi signal. From our reading (yes, wo do read!) both rooms were having RSSI signal value of below -70 dbm which is considered really poor.

So, finally  today, after looking at an antenna booster template, we tried this out ourselves! Armed with two pieces of hard folder cards, a sharp scissor, some glue and the always-trusted Diamond aluminum foil — we made our own WIFI booster.

Step 1: Cut the folder cards to follow the antenna templates.

Cut the card according to the template.

Step 2: Grab the aluminum foil from the kitchen

Use aluminum foil as the reflector of the antenna

Step 3: The backplates should be fully covered with aluminum foil

The backplate covered with foil. Since you have two antennas, make a pair!

Step 4: Attached the other portion of the antenna as cut from the templates

Looking great, make two of this.

Step 5: Finally, you can then inset the booster into the WIFI antenna.

Both boosters is now attached to the WIFI antennas

You can then twist them around to get the most optimum position.

RESULTS:
Without Antenna Booster

The first two lines are the signal at the back rooms.

After Antenna Boosters Installed

Signal gains after installation of WIFI Booster

*RSSI : received signal strength indicator, more info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_signal_strength_indication

The antennas look really weird and laughable (yes, even Pudding was giving us the-not-so-confident meows while this was being made); but the bottom line is: we get an increase up to 11%. The signal in the living room has also increased from -35dBm to -32 dBm; the best part was we are able to get, at times, above -70dBM in both back room!

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Cheers sanggalas.

Talking with Pudding – Part IV

Pudding is now about 6 months old and she has grown a lot, a big cat for her age! Pudding plays a lot now and sometimes she gets carried away. She does bite anymore and responds well to us calling her. in fact, she has learnt to use the toilet bowl to pee! yeah — will share some videos on this once we are able to get one.

We certainly won to convert her from many months of self-defence character instilled outside the in the wild; into a very chatty, multiple characters and of course, a loving cat. She has also developed a great love to Ping, her new playmate.

[flashvideo filename="video/puddingPing.flv" /]

Our beachfront house is for RENT.

We have decided to open for rent our beachfront home in Melinsung Summerbay Resort, located about 30 minutes south of Kota Kinabalu International Airport. Since we are both away, we only offer a minimum rental period of one month. It just doesn’t make sense to us rent it out for  a few days not mentioning the cost of cleaning and time taken to prepare. Longer period of more than 12 months is  preferred.

Oh, and we do want to sell this apartment too.. let us know if you are interested.

• We have two bedrooms, both with airconds. These bedrooms have queen size beds with cabinets c/w blankets/pillows/towels
• We also have one study room with study desk+ cabinet. It can be used as a sleeping room however, bed is not provided.
• The main bedroom has a tub + water heater for shower; the common bath also has water heater shower.
• The living and dining room is equipped with two fans sets; so aircond for this area is not needed.
• Kitchen is equipped with stove + gas + fridge + knives, cooking pots, frying pan, forks+spoons + utensils, cookware sets + rice cooker
• There is also a washing machine with drying area, vacuum cleaner, broom, bucket etc
• More photos at http://zenoed.com/melinsung
• For location of the property, you may refer to the map here.
• To reserve, you may book online HERE

[ view more photos ]

Video of the beach in Melinsung Summer Bay

Video by: olombon

Talking with Pudding – Part III

Pudding - New Year @ Jan 2nd 2009

After about 13 days, Pudding is now quite tame, trusty and she has taken three baths now; all with diluted antiseptics and warm water! She smells good and the wounds on her face (due to her previous attempts to run away and hit her face on the cage) have completely healed except for some blackish scars underneath her right eyes and sides of her nose. The next stop will be the Pet Hospital for thorough checkups and injections.

Cheers Pudding! Happy new year to you, and a new life!

Talking with Pudding – Part II

[flashvideo filename="video/Pudding_Trapped.flv" /]

We finally managed to catch Pudding after luring her into our kitty trap with kitty foods. Being a feral cat, eventhough she is cute, she defended herself vigorously.

She looks dirty, hungry, and of course continues to be very fearful.

We know that our next step now is to establish trust — this could possibly take weeks or months, a task we will do.

Talking with Pudding — Part 1

[flashvideo filename="video/Pudding_Meal.flv" /]

We have a new visitor. We named her Pudding — a feral cat that has been visiting and coming to our backyard to look for foods since the past one week. She is probably about 4 – 6 weeks old; and was either separated from her mother or lost her mother that could possibly be another victim of the stray dogs bazooking the area from time to time (after the tragic attack of Muffin, we are seeing the security personnel doing something to catch and get rid of these stray dogs; but not all).

Being a feral cat, Pudding will immediately run away the moment she noticed the door is being open, or upon seeing us. This video is taken using our mobile phone, from inside our home; across the one-way glass: Pudding was having her long meal.

We are preparing a kitty trap to catch her, and will start the process to get her trust… to tame her as a pet.

Europe by Train

© Central Railway, UK

This is still being planned.

If everything works out ok, we should be leaving for this on the 4th midnight!
This has to be postponed — it’s recession!

XBOX360 with a new interface!

When we started xbox360 today and signed in to xbox360 live, there was a system message saying that there is a console: so as usual, we just clicked OK to download.

The download takes about 20 minutes on a 1mbps streamyx connection — which was unusually long especially since we did not know that these updates were to replace the familiar xbox interface with a new GUI!

The update process was smooth right from the moment we clicked OK. And it was really worth the wait. We managed to have some snapshots of the new xbox interface — the overall initial experience was SUPER! This is a really improvement over the 3-yr old blade-based GUI. Other than GUI updates, there are a few new features:

• Party Chat, multiple users chat
• You can save the game to HDD and play from there (which means, faster!!)
• Avatar — you can now customize your own avatar; even setting the color of eye shadow, or imagining that your eyebrows were as thich as Saddam’s! It’s up to you to customize to have an adorable, cute, huggable one or to the other edge. This is zeno’s AVATAR!! Compare to the real one.
  
• The avatars are dynamic, they acturally interact with the game controller and will do some cute animated tricks and stuffs hehhe kewl addition.
• Netflix — not sure how this is because we are not gold subscribers – but with this, users can instantly stream movies and tv shows right to their consoles.
• Speedy — animations are smooth when you click through the menus and unnoticeable lags.

I’m sure there are tonnes of other reviews on NXE all over the net, so this will be just a short post — and for us; the NXE is very impressive.

Now.. take that PSP3! Go take a hike Nintendo!