PIKOM Digital Lifestyle & Laser Warzone Lasertag

annyeong-haseyo...probably it's too late since it's already the 21st day of Ramadhan but still would like to wish happy berpuasa to all muslims out there...been a bit busy & lazy lately :P....puasa this year felt time flew very fast...in about a week, it's gonna be raya already...

recently the weekend before puasa starts, went to KLCC with one of my ex-housemate, Jaar to visit the PIKOM Digital Lifestyle Expo 2011...haven't went for this so this was the first time...the expo wasn't that hype and big as PIKOM PC Fair but was quite okay...one of the fun things over there was they have a Treasure Hunt game where visitors or participants need to get the stamp cop from the selected participating booths...and after 10 stamp cop has been collected, one will need to submit the collected stamps to the submission counter to participate in the lucky draw...and guess what, i won myself a logitech mouse in the lucky draw :P...on top of that, got myself a Zyxel Media Streamer for RM99 only (been looking for a media streamer for quite a while and this was the cheapest found so far) and also a Zyxel thumb drive that has an application in it to watch tv channels & listen to radio stations around the globe...can't really remember what it is called but got it for RM30++ becoz i bought the media streamer...original price was RM79...while my friend Jaar got himself a Zyxel Media Streamer too and a Zyxel NAS enclosure...becoz he bought two items, he got the Zyxel thumb drive for free :P ...

next, off to Shah Alam to have a taste of a Lasertag game...out of 10 person that should participate, only 3 (including me & Jaar) turned up for the game...luckily we got 1 substitute for that, so that makes the 4 of us...since we were only 4, we joined with another group for the lasertag game...basically Lasertag game is similar to a Paintball game...instead of  the physical ammunition paintball, laser is the medium of ammunition...the voucher that we bought consists of 3 games or 3 battles...1st battle was individual battle where your enemy is everyone...u shoot to gain points...2nd game is a team battle...u need to shoot down the opponent teams to gain points individually and for your team...3rd battle is also a team battle but with an additional objective...u need to shoot the opponent's base sensor in order to gain points for your team...

it was really an interesting and fun game...was amazed by myself that i came 1st place for the 1st & 3rd battle although this was my first taste of lasertag (sorry for the bragging :P )...would recommend anyone to try it be it guys or ladies, or even children as it is not a game of physical contact and there is no pain involved....the only thing that u will probably feel is muscle strain after the game due to stand, crawl & squat pose during the game...all in all, it is a suitable event for team building, company event, or even just a weekend leisure activity....a must try game...for more info, here's their website...http://www.laserwarzone.com/

 

PC Fair April 2011

hola...i'm back...went to the PC Fair April 2011 last weekend to grab some gadgets...pushed off from home at about 8.30 am and went to have breakfast first together with my parents as they were around...we pushed out early coz expecting it will be a massive crowd there at the PC Fair based on previous track records...even though we arrived there before 11 am, the crowd was already quite packed...our objective there was to get a NAS (Network Attached Storage), RAM for my laptop, an SDC and a micro SDC card and a wireless optical mouse...can't remember how many halls were taken up by the PC Fair...i think there was about 5 or 6 halls...all major brand products and big names in the industry were there...from HP, Dell, HTC, Western Digital, Seagate, Buffalo, Kingston, to name a few and many, many other brands...

we first went to the Western Digital & Seagate booth as were looking for a NAS...the one that we targetted was Buffalo as Buffalo has much more features compared to Western Digital & Seagate for the same capacity size and for the price...for 2TB, u can get a Buffalo NAS at RM499 and the same as well as Seagate at the same price...however, for Western Digital, for 2TB, it was a little bit higher...around RM500 plus...we then proceeded to the 2nd hall as the brand Buffalo was not exhibited there....the next hall was for audio & speaker gadgets...not interested, so skipped that...then went to the hall where smart phones & laptops were exhibited....not in the target list, skipped as well...then we headed down to the lower floor and came to the hall where things there are much more interesting...we then found the Buffalo booth...after doing some thinking whether to pick up the 1TB or 2TB, we decided to straight away get the 2TB as we do not have to worry much about storage as 2TB of size was more than enough for the both of us...the price of the 2TB Buffalo NAS was RM499...quite a good bargain given the capacity and the features that it has....

for those who do not know what a NAS (Network Attached Storage) is, it's a hard drive that u plug to your home router instead of your PC...the advantage of having a NAS instead of having a normal portable hard drive that plugs to your PC, u do not have to plug it to your PC each time u want to transfer or access files from your hard drive...then u have the privillege to share to anyone who was access to your network...for example me & my wife can access files in the NAS at the same time without us needing to individually plug the hard drive to our PC...what's more, if u know how to tweak the NAS, u can even access your files even though u are not at home via internet connection...even though u are thousand miles away from home, u can access your files at home given that your home has internet connection (and u don't it off ofcourse :P)...some of the other features that the Buffalo NAS has are, built in torrent client, DLNA support, Web Access (which i've explained about accessing files when u are not at home) to name a few...for more info, u can go to their website at http://www.buffalotech.com/products/network-storage/home-and-small-office/linkstation-live-ls-chl/ ....

after purchasing the NAS, me & my wife then went to get our other targetted items, a 2GB RAM for my laptop, an SD and a micro SD card and a wireless optical mouse which we got it for only RM30...the name of the brand was A4 tech...a brand starting to establish itself to be at par with the likes of Logitech & Microsoft...although cheap, the mouse was not bad...SD card was RM25 for 4GB and micro SD card was RM88 for 16GB...after we got we wanted, we then made a move to the klcc food court to have some dessert and get some food to bring back...after that, it was time to hit back home to explore the gadgets that we bought...hehehe~...

stay tuned guys for my next post~...cheers~....

Malaysia IT Fair 2011, Midvalley

hola2...it's already the last day of the 1st month of the year 2011...and tomorrow will be february already...1st week of february will be heading to penang for chinese new year while the 2nd week will be going for the much anticipated trip to hong kong....really can't wait... :P

the recent weekend, on saturday, me & my wife went to Midvalley to visit the Malaysia IT Fair 2011...the crowd was big as expected of midvalley's crowd plus the chinese new year sale...Midvalley was really packed with the crowd...back to the Malaysia IT Fair, the reason why we went there was to survey for a Network Attached Storage with the capacity of at least 2Tb....so far the best bargain was Seagate at the price of RM539 but due to budget constraint for the HK trip, the purchase of the NAS will need to be delayed....the 2nd thought that crossed our mind was to get the Buffalo NAS enclosure at RM309 and hard disk will need to be purchased separately...the good thing about it is that we can insert any amount of hard disk capacity...the enclosure bay has 2 bays so i can easily insert 2X2Tb of hard disk making it a total of 4Tb of hard disk space....but, those are just in proposal phase...will consider it later after coming back from HK when budget is available... :P

basically there were 3 halls used for the IT Fair...the 1st hall was allocated for notebooks, laptops & netbooks...almost all major brands were exhibited there...the 2nd hall was the place for all the other gadgets such as hard disk, portable hard disk, thumb drives, and other stuffs...the 3rd hall was the smallest dedicated solely for speakers....

before we went to the Malaysia IT Fair, we went to watch a movie, The Green Hornet in 3D...that was the 1st time the both of us watched a movie in 3D...the movie wasn't bad...was quite interesting....the car in the movie was really cool....would give the movie 6.5 out of 10....

after completing the Malaysia IT Fair tour, we went to have lunch at the food court...both of us had pepper lunch...really loved it...must try it....after that we went around midvalley to window shopping...went into mph and got myself a book...Top Money Tips for Malaysians By KC Lau was the book i bought at RM39.90...seems to be quite an interesting & useful book...i'm now at chapter 3....will probabably post a review of it once i've done reading it....

after mph, went to swensens to have some ice cream and later went to carls junior to grab a burger each for me & my wife for our diner....then, it's time to call off for the day and head back to home sweet home~....

next post will be my trip back to penang for chinese new year celebration...stay tuned....

Megatex electronic, IT & furniture expo

we've now entered the 3rd week of 2011...nothing much happened during this 2 weeks...last week me & my wife went to kl sentral to buy train tickets to penang for chinese new year...as usual every year i'll be going to penang to join my family for chinese new year celebration....but this year would not be the same as this will be the 1st year my wife will be joining us for chinese new year celebration and as my wife...after we bought the tickets, went to times square to walk around and survey a few things...also went to lowyat plaza to survey some IT gadgets...

today, me & my wife headed to sunway pyramid as there was an Electronic, IT & Furniture Expo held that was organized by Megatex...reached sunway pyramid at around 10.45 and went to station kopitiam first to have breakfast...after that, went to the sunway convention center as the expo was held there....outside the expo hall was the furniture expo while inside the main hall was the electronic & IT expo...the expo this time was much, much, much more better than the one at mines that we went about 3 weeks ago...several major brands were there such as sony, panasonic, LG, samsung, sharp, toshiba, phillips, htc, HP and many more....the prices of the products over there were quite tempting...good thing that we didn't had the budget to get those :P ....the expo was not bad...there was even an auction bid for gadgets...a sony camera at the price of RM900++ was auctioned starting at RM400 and was sold at not even RM550...apart from the camera, a sony ericsson & nokia phone was also auctioned...there was quite a huge crowd at the expo and there were quite many people that shopped electrical goods and IT products over there...we could see people carrying out their brandly new LCD tv...how envying it felt....huhuhu....

since we were not buying anything, we then headed back to the sunway pyramid shopping center to have lunch, bought some books, household appliances, went for window shopping, bought some J. co doughnuts and then went back home at about 5.45 pm....was quite a tiring day though....

My New Gadget ; The Garmin-Asus Nuvifone A50

hola2...it's been a while since i haven't updated this blog (well, not really)....the recent saturday, me & my wife went to the mines shopping fair to have a look at the much anticipated Electronic Expo 2010 held at the Mines International Exhibition Center, MIEC....we went out at about 10 in the morning...reached there and had our breakfast first b4 going to the electronic expo...had breakfast at one of the kopitiam...ordered mee goreng mamak, bread toast & half boiled egg....after breakfast, off to the expo....before entering the expo hall, we filled up a lucky draw form....upon entering the expo hall, there was an expo, yeahh....but the booth & participants of the expo were a bit dissapointing....i would say that PC fair was 10 times better and merrier than it....nevertheless, we walked around and found several interesting products over there.....the one that i was targeting was the android tablet PC.....found 2 choices that i was interested and within my budget ofcourse....couldn't remember what was the price but both tablet PC was in the range of RM600~RM800....buy or don't buy...buy or don't buy....buy or don't buy....lastly, i decided not to buy it due to financial constraint for the current & next month....also, we stumbled onto the coway water dispenser that we were dreaming to have....well, that too will be next time i guess....since there were nothing that we wanted to buy over there, no point of staying there anymore....so off to mines shopping fair back....

went for a walk at the top floor at the IT store and went around to the booth selling handphones....so far i can say that mines shopping fair had one of the largest area of booths selling handphones in selangor & kl apart from sg. wang plaza & lowyat....went to survey htc aria & htc wildfire juz to have a picture what the price was since it was under my wish list....then came to this one shop booth and the sales person showed me both htc aria & htc wildfire price....then i asked how about garmin asus.....was it okay....he then straight recommended it and even showed the quality of video of garmin asus A50 compared to both htc aria & wildfire....and the garmin asus A50 loaded faster than both the htc's.....feeling not enough of comparison, the sales person even compared the video quality of the A50 to htc desire which was more superior than both htc aria & wildfire....and guess what, angry birds can be played in the garmin asus but not in the htc wildfire due to the higher processor power of garmin asus A50....hmmmm....hmmmmm....hmmmmmmm.....this made me thought of making the payment into credit card installments....hahahhahaa....told the salesperson that we wanted to go for a walk first to do some thinking and considerations....

since it will take some time to think whether to pick up the garmin asus A50, me & my wife went for our lunch first....so, during lunch, the consideration was made....one thing that garmin asus is superior towards all the phones out there is it's state of the art GPS navigator....i've used the garmin software in my nokia E66 and i know how good it was....and since GPS is a must in any phone that i'm going to buy, the garmin asus A50 really had the huge advantage where the GPS navigator is built in....hassle free of needing to install third party GPS software into any phone such as nokia or htc....even so, the GPS in the garmin asus A50 isn't the normal one installed in other phones as third party software.....the A50 GPS even has lane guidance which comes in handy when arriving at several lanes....and also it has the 3D view of the map which was really cool....since my budget was quite tight, i compared the garmin asus A50 with the htc wildfire which was cheaper than htc aria....then, in terms of processor power, the A50 was better with Qualcomm MSM 7227 600 MHz processor compared to the wildfire which was Qualcomm MSM 7225 528 MHz processor which is why according to the salesperson, angry birds couldn't run on the wildfire....it's 2-0 now....in terms of the exterior design, i loved the A50 better than the wildfire which was much more sleeker and stylish....3-0 now....both are HSDPA capable, wifi built in and runs on android 2.1 eclair....in terms of features, the wildfire had more than the A50 with the likes of HTC sense, turn-to-mute and lift-to-dim-out a call, accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, proximity sensor for auto turn-off, optical trackpad and a few other things....but i dun really mind about the extra features which gives extra credit to the wildfire....but the wildfire scored in this, so it's 3-1 now....in terms of internal phone storage, not sure how much storage the wildfire has but it's stated 384 MB RAM; 512 MB ROM but both numbers are far lower than the internal storage of the A50 which was 4 GB....wow!....if i add in my 2GB of microSD card i'll be getting 6GB of storage....that's more than enough for me as an average user....so the A50 scored in this section.....4-1 now....as for the camera, wildfire's was better with a 5 MP while the A50 has 3.15 MP....but camera isn't really important to me too....as long as i can snap a pic, it's good enough....if i want to capture pics that are better in quality, might as well get a DSLR....but for camera, the wildfire wins...so 4-2 now....and so, the verdict will be the Garmin-Asus Nuvifone A50.....and as expected, i bought the gadget after trading in my Nokia E66 for RM300 which then came to the price of RM1000....but to think of it, i think the price was way higher than it should be....but, what to do, i've bought it, enough said.....below are the detailed specs of the Garmin-Asus Nuvifone A50....

owh yea...remember about the lucky draw at the Electronic Expo?....did i mention that i hit the lucky draw....well, yesterday got a call from the Golden Palace Marketing that i did not get the Grand prize which was a night stay at the Palace of The Golden Horses (well, dun really mind though as i've stayed there 1 night before and will be staying there again for another couple of times :P ) but they have selected 20 other draws for their appreciation gift which was either voucher to stay at one of the resort at kajang, port dickson or langkawi....the selections of preferred choice was quite obvious as me & my wife will want to get the voucher for langkawi resort stay....so, tomorrow will be heading to the Palace of The Golden Horses to collect the voucher....yippieee!!!....