PAP

We had fun meeting the MP last night. MP stands for Member of Parliament. People in Singapore are taken care by different MP assigned based on location/region. The MP is similar to the magistrate of the olden China where people beat the drum to complain about injustice. This is the first time for us to do so. I have outlined the procedure below:

1. Register with your I/C. They will assign a number to you. They will also ask you whether this is your first time here. Find a place to wait.

2. Report your problem to the screener(s). One of the helpers will call your number. Make your way to the screening table. The person(s) sitting there will help to record your problem and provide some feedback. Then wait.

—If the MP arrives—-

You will see him/her shaking hand with the helpers.

—While you are waiting—

The helper will pass your recording document to the “backend” (another room) to start typing out the letter and get it ready to be signed by the MP.

—While you are waiting further—

There will be helper who spot check on you whether you are still around to see the MP. He/she will tell you to standby.

3. Meet the MP finally. Very chop chop! Remember to thanks the MP when you leave.

Tips:

Remember to go there at least an hour early. If the session starts on 8pm, go at 7pm and queue up. YES! Queue starts forming an hour before! We counted 10 people in front of us but we had a bigger queue number!

Remember to shake hand with the MP. It is suppose to bring good luck. They won the recent election. I forgot!

Do not be upset if someone jumped the queue to meet the MP. Meeting the MP is just like meeting the doctor at the A&E. There can be life and death situation at meeting the MP. We heard one couple jumped queue saying someone has only 3 months left to live!

Meeting the MP is not just for local citizen. Foreigners like to meet the MP too. We saw Ang Moh and China woman queue up as well. Not sure their problems.

Please be patient when you are told to standby. We had uncles who have standby for more than 30 mins. We also standby for more than an hour.

The helpers are very friendly people. Do approach them for any assistance.

Side joke:

Me: Uncle, what is your number? (Hokkien)

Uncle: 12.

Me: Er.. we are number 16. (saw another old auntie laughing at us) They told us to standby. Have you seen the MP?

Uncle: Not yet. Someone jumped the queue.

Me: ???

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iPad 2

After reading so many of such reports, i found that they are starting to repeat. Most people do not have anything new to add to it. People are guessing. It will have better resolution, it will have front and back camera, it will have USB port etc. Does anyone know how difficult it will be to take a picture with a iPad 2 using its back camera? You can imagine yourself with a A4 sheet of paper. Does that feel good? Does it feel fantastic? I think the answer is No and No. Unless Apple iPad 2 designer is trying to get creative.

Here is why you should not wait:

1. iPad 2 is likely to arrive in your country late. Even though the news report said it will launch in Feb 2011, it is unlikely to happen. If you follow Apple’s sales motion, different country got their iPad with a later date. They just launched in South Korea. It was launched in the States on April 2010. If there is an iPad 2, you will probably need to wait till Apr or Jun or Aug or Oct 2011 for it to reach your country through the legal channels.

2. iPad is selling like hot cakes, it is insane to launch a new model to kill the current iPad’s sales. A new model to compliment the current iPad is possible, such as the 7″ version?. A 7″ iPad 2 is of no use to me. I wonder why somebody will come out with a 7″ model in the first place.

3. iPad 2 is likely to be more expensive. Doesn’t all new product sells at a premium?

4. If the current iPad meets your need, then you may be better off to get it. iPad is a very odd ball toy. You either love it or hate it. Identify your needs and how to make the iPad works for you and not the other way around.

5. the iPad accessories should be compatible to the iPad 2. This is my guess.

6. You can also hold your purchase for Apple to drop price on the iPad when the iPad 2 is out.

Buy – buy – buy!

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1. Expensive and Very Good

2. Expensive and No Good

3. Cheap and Good

4. Very Cheap and Never Good

I decided on the ASUS Xonar DX after reading some reviews online. This sound card is not a latest technology product. In fact it was selling since 2008. I did not do much homework on this. You can google/yahoo it to find them.

It belongs to the Cat 3 above. I bought it with some interesting encounter. ..

I went to the shop to check out. The shop was selling it at a much higher price. So i confronted the seller

“Hey, your website priced it at $$$”

Seller: “The best price is >$$$” (112% of website price)

“Then i don’t want it”

Seller: “Please wait for a while” Made a phone call. “It’s a deal if you can pay by cash”

“Deal”

ASUS Xonar DX

It is cheap but the build quality is there. Just look like all the solid state capacitors. No wonder ASUS can provide 3 years warranty!I wonder why Creative is not using them? Food for their thought.

So i hooked it up to my Roland MA-12C monitor speakers i got more than 10 years ago. They are still working and they are Made in Japan.

I tried playing different style of music with it and they are really clean (the front channel is 116db SNR). When i played my dance songs (all the 10 standard dances , the beats are so clean, i wonder whether my ears have improved. I realised i have been using inferior product for the past 3 years! *HORROR*

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Singapore Formula 1 pass

I also managed to secure another pass so that i can bring my gf to experience the Singapore Formula 1. After we passed the security check point and crossed the bridge, the whole thing turned ugly. I felt the organizer could have done better.

1. It was s nice idea for them to cover the Padang field with some foam material. However, when we stepped on them, muddy water quickly filled in from underneath. It has been raining heavily before. So imagine the women who wore slippers and jeans? Don’t even think about heels. The view is not going to be very “graceful”. I saw some women decided to walk around bare feet. Eeek!

2. The place is also heavily barricaded internally. We had to walk a big U turn to reach our assigned grandstand.

Singapore Formula 1

3. To the photographers, the fence sucks big time! Cant we have some bigger holes to allow us to shoot the cars?

4. I was fishy when i saw a long lines of taxis waiting for passengers. There were also 2 ushers to help you to direct the cabs. But the taxi surcharge was terrible! $5 for the F1 and $3 for CBD!

5. Where were the race queens???

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Mountain Tiger

There is a Chinese saying, if you climb the mountain frequently, you bound to meet the tiger!

In the same way, PayPal has been so easy to use to make online payment, i have been using it more often than before until i met the “tiger”! I used to receive very good service from PayPal to safe guard my interest for buying things and service online. It was so easy and they offer consumer protection. I have always given them high rating and try to recommend others to do so. This is what i always believe until i met my problem.

I signed up for Merchant H’s service in August to try out their service for a period of one month. The service was unsatisfactory and i have no intention to renew the subscription. One month after, i was expecting it to be discontinue but i received an email from PayPal saying that a deduction has been made to Merchant H and the amount has been deducted from my credit card! Furthermore, it was a recurring payment! Since when PayPal starts offering GIRO type service? (GIRO is a form of scheduled recurring payment very popular here). So i quickly went to the Merchant H’s website to seek for a refund but found the below message:

“When you cancel, your account will continue to be H premium until the end of the term that you have already paid for. Customers using PayPal should note that subscriptions are maintained and controlled by PayPal and not by H, but you can cancel your subscription with them at any time.”

I also email Merchant H for my refund request. Next i opened a dispute in PayPal. Below was their reply:

“If you need a refund from your subscription, please contact the seller of the Subscription. You can also file a buyer complaint if needed.”

Not very friendly reply isn’t it? Now the best part, the PayPal system blocked me from filing another complaint! You advised me to file a buyer complaint but do not allowed me to do so?! I removed all my credit cards linked to my PayPal without hesitation. Better to remove them before it starts to deduct more money!

Then the next best part, I received a PayPal feedback request. Just the thing i need! It scored Very Dissatisfied naturally but i wonder who will be reading it???

So my next action is to call PayPal Hotline. The number was routed to China’s Shanghai. I spoke to two Chinese women. Their English level were adequate, not fantastic. One of them tried to guide me to create another dispute case but it was blocked with the same message. I can’t file another complaint. Then she suggested to provide a summary of my problem so that i can forward to Merchant H. Sounds like a very good idea? I told them that Merchant H has not reply by refund email for the past 1 week. They could not help me. In a way, i got a feeling that Merchant H is some kind of major account for PayPal and PayPal was afraid to offend them. PayPal dare not to do the reversal even if they are capable to. If you can deduct the amount, you should be able to reverse it, right?

I found another email to Merchant H and wrote to them again.

“Customers using PayPal should note that subscriptions are maintained and controlled by PayPal and not by H, but you can cancel your subscription with them at any time.

To cancel your subscription paid with Paypal click here.”

Wow! Another auto-reply with the same message. I had a feeling i was caught in a loop, Merchant H said “Look for PayPal”, PayPal said look for Merchant H.

Now i have still one more option left. I called the bank. They have helped me once many years before. I spoke to the bank agent and the lady told me she will return my call after some discussion with her supervisor. Shorter after, she returned my call and told me they can help.

Now i am preparing all the information to be sent to the bank. I am not sure what will be outcome. I just want to exercise my Consumer right. My advice for other PayPal users? Let the PayPal user beware!

- To be updated -

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Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ100

I decided to pick up the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ100 to many people’s surprise. Below are my initial impression of this product:

1. Physical

Very light – It weighs just 540 grams (with battery). The bulk of the construction is plastic which means “not so good” to some people. BUT it depends on how you see this area. Do you want to bring a much heavier camera such as the commonly used magnesium alloy that weighs around 1 kg? I have used a setup that consisted of a DSLR + 70 – 200mm lens that weighs 2.5 kg. It became 15 kg when fatigue came in. The good news is this is Made in Japan. So we can rest assure of the quality.

2. Bundled gift

For my package, it came with a Kingston 8GB SD card and a simple case. This Kingston SD card is also Made in Japan. Isn’t this rare?

Kingston SD card

I bought an expensive B+W UV filter to protect the lens. This is my first experience with Panasonic. Below is my initial usage impression:

What is good about it?

1. 25mm wide angle – please do not buy those with 35mm wide.

2. Flip out 3.0″ LCD – Useful for low or high shooting. Also can be use for self shoot.

3. Leica lens

4. 24x Optical Zoom

5. Full Manual Control

6. Full HD Movie – Simply superb quality.

7. 11 fps Burst Shooting – Others paid $6000 for 10 fps.

9. 1 cm Marco shoot

10. Built in EVF view finder – This is cool but i wonder how many people will use it.

What is not so good?

1. Very noisy after ISO 400 – It support ISO 6400 but i have not tried yet.

2. Irritating focus assist light

I am still trying to figure out the sweet spots of this camera. Hopefully i can bring it out for field shooting tomorrow.

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D-link DNS-323

I picked up my new toys on thursday night. That was the first day of the Comex 2010. I only managed to get the D-link DNS-323 and a portable 1TB hard drive (Made in Japan).My initial impression of the device is it is very well built. It did not feel cheapskate like most of the things “Made in China”.

D-link DNS-323

After some lengthy backup of my Tera-Byte data, i moved the 1.5TB hard drives into the DNS-323. The installation guide was simple to follow. Now i am restoring my data back for the RAID1 protection. My router is transferring data at 30GB in 30 mins. Another 64mins to finish the transfer, maybe i should get a Gigabyte switch or router next.

So far i have encountered a problem. Problem 1.

When i shutdown my PC and the DNS-323, i will not be able to connect to the mapped drive. I can ping the IP of the DNS-323 but i just could not connect to the previously mapped drive letter. I noticed the DNS-323 is missing from my network neighborhood. I did some check and suspect it was the hostname to IP resolution. I saw it has appeared in the network neighborhood. I will reboot my PC after the current data restore. Yes! It fixed the problem.

I encountered the next problem when i tried to restore my data back to the DNS-323. Problem 2.

The transfer is super slow. I got close to a Tera Byte to transfer! Another idea appeared in my mind. Why not i upgrade my LAN to gigabit network? I checked the cheapest D-Link gigabit switch and found a 5 port D-link DGS-1005D at $65 to build my data super highway. Hey! I am becoming a D-Link supporter. Off i go to Comex 2010 again. Hit and run and also picked up 2 CAT5e cables. The crowd was terrible.

D-Link DGS-1005D

Just for laugh:

While squeezing in the crowd, you get to hear and see strange things.

1. “Did you smell something? I think someone just fart.” “A lot of green vegetable smell…”"

D-Link DGS-1005D

So i got home and plug in my new Gigabit switch and try again. No improvement. I did some calculation, the uploading speed really sucks! I am uploading at 6.67 Mbps only! I start to do more research online. See my other article on “Going from Fast Ethernet to Gigabit Ethernet”.

Just i thought i have wasted my $65 on something that can’t improve my situation, i managed to track the problem down to the firewall. The Zone Alarm firewall was causing all this upload slowdown. There were many articles online by other users. After i disabled it, my upload speed jumped more than 10 times. YEAH!

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Mac is Unix based and we know many good things about Unix. It boot up fast and rarely give blue screen. Mac on the other hand is well known for its nice user interface.

So for the past few weeks i tried to download some images to test. The images are not small but range from 1.4GB to 7.3GB. This is the first time i deal with those .dmg (or compressed Apple format) and many more times with the ISO format. First is trying to convert the DMG to ISO and then comparing the MD5 checksum to verify the images have not been tampered with. All the images did not match their MD5. I also had a few coaster of DVD+DL discs. They failed to work.

I was about to give up when i found an image for my trusty old netbook. It was Asus’s first netbook, an Eee PC 701 with the 4GB SSD. The image was an outdated Mac OS X and some of the hardware such as ethernet and wifi were not working. Please tell me what is the image good for if the particular two devices are not working???

I decided to proceed and try to load it into the netbook. Goodbye Ubuntu 10.04. I was testing Ubuntu a few weeks before. This is really unsuitable for the normal IT folks or my skill must have degraded. I managed to load ity after some struggle with the boot image program. Then with some good luck, i plug in the extra wifi dongle i had. The Dlink DWL-G122 works! I need not need to do anything extra. Yes! I have a working hackintosh! A second life for my netbook.

Unless you have amber of free time or serious to learn some advance installation, then taking on this project may be suitable for you. If not, you are better off to buy a real Mac.

Hackintosh netbook

—

This article was written with the hackintosh netbook.

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Apple iPad

The Apple iPad is a impressive product and it came in different prices due to Wifi 3G features and amount of memory onboard.

1. Determine why you need an iPad?

What is the primary reason of usage? Is it for reading ebooks? Is it for games? Is it for internet? Is it for photos?

2. Determine how long you intend to use it? 

We call this “rate of deppreciation” in accounting. It also start you thinking how much data storage you need. What you are putting in could double or triple in the 2nd or 3rd year. In addition, if you need to use it for more than a year, you may want to consider to extend the warranty if possible to safe guard your purchase. I almost want to use the word “investment” but iPad is NOT an investment. All digital products have no investment value.

3. If you need it for photo sharing

Check to see whether it can support your camera’s format. Most cameras support JPEG format, no issue for that. But I like to shoot Canon RAW format, so some homework to do.  Also you need to check out the accessories to allow you to transfer the photos into the iPad.

4. If you need it for reading ebook

Check whether your ebook format is supported. If not, how to get it to support? The current most popular format is PDF.

Ask around, ask the Apple staffs, as the Apple representatives before you make your purchase.

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1. Panasonic Lumix LX5 (YES! I am going travel soon!)

Panasonic Lumix LX5

A new compact camera to replace my 3 years old Fujifilm F31fd. Why i chose Panasonic Lumix LX5 is because of the below strong reasons:

i. 1:1 format. I like to experience with square pictures without post processing.

ii. Long battery life just like my trusty Fujifilm F31fd.

iii. Movie recording on AVCHD.

iv. Leica len! What else?!

v. I did not own a Panasonic Lumix LX3. Wahaha…

2. Dlink DNS-323 2-Bay Network Storage Enclosure

Dlink DNS-323

I have been toying with the idea of moving my mirrored hard drives from my PC to external for very long time. Recently due to some issues, i caused the mirrored to be broken. This is a good opportunity to redo my data protection with a central storage concept.  Why i chose Dlink DNS-323 is because of the below strong reasons:

i. CHEAP! It is the cheapest in the market right now. I am holding my purchase till the coming COMEX 2010.

ii. No hard drives purchase needed. My current 1.5TB hard drives are certified.

iii. Colleague’s strong recommendation. He used one himself and is a very satisfied user.

3. Lite-On LabelTag writer drive

Lite-On LabelTag

I have tried those CD label stickers and those LightScribe burning. They are still not good in my opinion. Why i need to buy a new drive is because of the below strong reasons:

i. The old Lite-On is dying! Yes, i am very certain and it support LightScribe.

ii. Time to move onto SATA bus.

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