From the day that I realized Uneng is quite photogenic, Uneng kept giving me more opportunity for me to photograph him.

Was cleaning my room tonight, where Uneng is with me in the room. As I vacuumed my floor, frightened with the screaming sound of the vacuum cleaner, Uneng ran away to the toilet. After I’ve done, I went to check him in the toilet, and I found Uneng is at a very unusual place. So I quickly grab my camera, and took a photo of him.

With camera in my hand, I snap a few more photographs of him.

I guess he must be terrified with the sound of vacuum cleaner, and got no where to go. Do you know that cats like to get to the higher place when he is anxious or afraid, where a high perch may get him farther away from the cause of his anxiety. And that sink is the highest point in my toilet.

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Well, not literally. I just stick the photo of my 4 cats at my cubicle, and feel like showing it on my blog.

I wonder what are they doing at the moment?

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Gosh. So many events that happened to me at the start of this year. It’s quite hectic I have to say. But what happened today is really a pleasing one. My boss called me to her room and asked about my HK trip. Finally she passed me this letter.

Alhamdulillah. There’s no other suitable word for moments like this. Not much, but at least I have a few hundreds extra each month ;)

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I’ve been taking hundred of photos for the past 2 days with my new camera, just to get familiar with the new toy. And one of the subject of my experimentation is my cat.

Turned out that I just happened to realize that my dear Uneng is quite photogenic. Below are a few photo shots of Uneng that I like.

Shot 1
Uneng having his afternoon nap at the opening between the television and the subwoofer for my home theater.

Shot 2
Another shot from the same place as above, but with different pose from Uneng.

Shot 3
Playing on the cat furniture. I tried to take photo of him, but he hide away after a few flash firing at him.

Will be photographing the rest of my cats too – Oyen, Ebot and Uteh – once I got any nice photo shots of them.

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Went to Digital Mall today, to survey for a new printer also helping friend to buy USB drive. It happened that there is Maxis Broadband roadshow here.

You know what? There’s a crazy thing happened. I sign up for this. They really promoting this thing by knocking out the payment that we have to pay for a few things during sign up. For this promotion, all the we need to pay is one time activation fee of RM100 during sign up.

This is what contained in the Maxis Broadband kit that is supplied right after the registration.

Despite of so many bad things that I heard about Maxis Broadband in terms of service quality, why on earth I sign up for this? I have Streamyx at home, and it is not my intention at all to use this as the replacement for my Streamyx.

I guess the selling point for me about this kind of broadband is high mobility. Meaning no matter where I am, as long there is coverage, I can online from anywhere, even in a moving car. Wifi for example, even though there are free one out there (Timezone provided by Starbucks for example) or the paid one (TM Hotspot or Airzed), you need to be within the hotspot area. Also, I will be involving with something that require me to have internet connection most of the time soon.

My first impression of Maxis Broadband: Yes, it sucks. But come to think of it, it’s not that really bad actually when you internet connection fast, anytime, anywhere. There’s no much waiting time before you can get online. Just sign up for it, and you will be given the modem right away. Wait approx 2 hours for activation, then that’s it, you can get online already. But be wary as you just tied yourself to an 18-month contract.

Been doing a little bit of speed test as well. Below is the speed that I get when download a 10MB file from the internet.

And my test of upload speed, uploading 4MB file for my FTP site.

And I’m located within the 3G area. I guess it will be a bit more faster if I’m in the area that offers High Speed 3G access.

As I said earlier, the reason I’m getting this is because of it’s mobility feature. Also, as long as I have GRPS, EDGE or 3G access, I’m all set.

This is particularly useful if I’m back to my hometown, or I’m travelling somewhere. When back to my mum’s house, most of the time, I just hooked up to internet on dialup using home phone, which my sister always shout at me since she needs to use the phone, and I’m engaged on the internet LOL.

Well, my hometown only can receive GRPS access, which I will get the speed that pretty much the same as when using dialup. But the important thing is that it’s unmeterred, and my mum’s home phone is free for to receive call/make call.

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Didn’t I tell you that my 13th month pay (bonuslah tu) is out already? I’m so in the mood for shopping. I guess the shopping devil still haunting me despite of my lengthy blog entry about this new year’s resolution of being in more control over my financial. I guess I should make exception this time. In the past, my bonus money went away just like that. This year, I better tied it on something that I can see, feel and use.

So the stop of today is Canon Concept Store, Mid Valley Megamall. Oh well. I hope you can guess by now what I’m trying to get today.

I hope you guessed it right ladies and gentlemen. This is the day that I just got myself a brand new Canon EOS 40D DSLR camera. I’m getting the EF-S 18-55 IS Kit. I was planning on getting just the body, and shop around for a more decent lens, but the knowledge of EOS product lines of the staff that handles me is so frustrating. I was thinking of consulting him on which lens to get. My first few questions like, does the kit comes with USM lens, is it IS lens, is this the only kit that you have, do you have other kit that comes with lens with longer focal length, just stunned the person. Oh yeah. I really do my homework for the past week before I decided to get this.

I guess panic with all those techy questions that I bombarded, the person just suddenly say “this camera comes with free 2GB lens”. I was like having a mental block for several seconds. 2GB lens? Oh. I guess what the person mean is 2GB memory card.

I actually did went to other camera shop in Mid Valley, and other offering the camera at lower price. But lower price must have the catch right. It turned out that it’s just for the camera and the kit lens. I went back to that Canon Concept Store and ask what free items that I will get. I even tell that the other camera shop just opposite this shop offered me lowered price. Bingo. After checking with his supervisor, the price is lower by RM299 from the original price that he quoted me.

Anyway, below are other free stuffs that I get – camera bag, tripod, 2GB CF card, screen protector (not shown). As the blower (to blow away dust), I insisted the person to give it for free, but the person just say he can’t since he lowered the price earlier already. I said, OKlah. Sell to me cheaper lar. Not quite sure where I got my bargaining skills today. The person agreed to knock down RM20 from the price of the blower.

As always, for every new thing that I buy, the most exiting thing is to do the unboxing. Oh my. How excited I am. Below is the content of the Canon EOS 40D EF-S 18-55 IS Kit.

• Camera: EOS 40D
• Lens: EF-S15-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
• Power source: Battery Pack BP-511A
• Charger: Battery Charger CB-5L
• Power cord
• Interface Cable IFC-200U
• Video Cable VC-100
• Strap: EW-100DGR
• 2 CD-ROMs: EOS DIGITAL Solution Disk & Software Instruction Manual
• Pocket Guide
• EOS 40D Instruction Manual
• Camera Warranty Card (not shown above)
• Lens Warranty Card (not shown above)

This is how my new camera looks like after I attached the lens to the body.

I actually was overwhelmed with the list of lenses and accessories that are available for EOS camera. Will be slowly adding more accessories to my camera as time goes, and as when I can afford it.

Down deep inside, I do have a subtle passion for photography. And it’s just time for me to get just a bit more serious about it. And photography is just totally a whole new world for me to discover as hobby.

Started with keeping aquarium fish, when I start jumping into that field, I came across terms like cycling, nitrogen cycle, nitrite, nitrate, PH level, water hardness, acclimate etc.

Then, keeping cats as pet has the world of its’ own too. Litter tray, clumping litter, feral kitten, neutering, deworming, vaccination, toilet train are a few things that I newly caught when I started this hobby.

And now, it’s photography time. Been reading about USM IS lenses, speedlite, UV filter, shutter speed, ISO speed, aperture – there are so much exciting new things await me.

I started to experience and started to like the power of DSLR camera right from my first use, even I just simply point and shoot the photo without tampering with the setting at all yet.

Producing clear image in the low light condition, without the need of use of flash, and almost noise free and blur free image at high ISO speed – thanks to the IS lens and Digic III image processor. AC Mizal?? More about this in separate blog entry ;)

The beauty of depth of field. Even though is not set to extreme on this photo shoot, but this is something that is quite hard to achieve from my previous point and shoot camera.

New to DSLR world like me? I found this Enjoy! Digital SLR camera guide is very informative.

p/s: Not trying to be obvious, the topic of this blog is It’s Playtime, one of the tagline for Canon Digital EOS.

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My major new year resolutions for this year mostly related to manage my financial better. I guess I shouldn’t be shy to confess that I’m a very bad credit card user. I spend really a lot, where most of my cards are ‘max’ out. I still remember first very first attempt to clear my debts 2 years ago – well, it not going well at all.

But it’s pretty clear to me that credit card is the major element that makes my not having a full control of my finance, so the only thing to combat this is get rid of it totally.

Have you heard of the terms “debt consolidating”? Well, this is really famous long time ago in UK (when I was still studying). On a surface, debt consolidating means that combining all of your debts (loans, mortgage, credit card, etc) in one account, and you only have to make 1 payment. When this terms tick in my mind recently, after the search around, I just find the right product for this – Quick Cash Edge from Standard Chartered.

I gave them a call, and stating what is my intention. The agent ask me – do you want to take the money, or do you want us to clear your credit card? The later sounds better. Let them deal with everything. I started to have devil’s tail when having a huge amount of money in my hand.

But I really suprise with the simplicity of the process. After the call, the agent fax me the application form. I fax back the signed application form, together with the latest statement of my credit card that I want to settle, as well as other documents (photocopy of IC, 3 months pay slip and EA form). The agent called me back after receiving the form and documents, and agree on the amount that I want to loan.

The approval supposed to be 24 hours, but the agent apologize that I might take a week since they received quite a lot of application forms, and many public holiday are around (New Year, Awal Muharram).

A week later, the agent called me and say that my loan has been approved, and the cheque has been sent out to my credit card banks, and the letter about this also arrived the day after. Also I can come to the bank anytime to withdraw the balance of the money from my loan. Wow. That’s good. No going to lawyer firm to sign agreement beforehand.

So went to Standard Chartered Bank today. When agreeing the amount that I want to loan the other day, I actually ask for some cash as well. Hehe. Well, it’t the agent’s fault since he said “Sir. Take some money lar. If you borrow RMXX,XXX and above, you’ll get the lowest interest rate)”. Hhhmm. Why not.

But one’s will say, what’s the point of making a new debt, just to cover the existing debt? But I don’t see it this way here. I’m pretty sure most of the people will face what I’m facing – no matter how many times we pay our credit card, but we are still far off from paying the whole thing. That’s the problem with credit card. After you pay, you will keep using it + interest = it’s a never ending story.

So, this “debt consolidation” helps you in a way that, it will accumulate all of your debts into one account (in my case credit card), and pay everything in one lump sum. Now, I can close my credit card. Since this is a loan, what you pay back monthly is something that you can’t use anymore. Eventually as time goes, you will settle with the loan payment.

Also, since we are consolidating everything in one account, there is only 1 monthly payment that you will need to do, and it’s cheaper from the my previous monthly credit card payment combined. Believe me, there is RM1000 different compared to my monthly credit card payment previously. And I found this help me, financially, a lot.

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This entry I guess will be the final entry in my blog about the new year 2008. I blog on the eve of 2008, I blog about new toys that I bought for 2008, I blog about my wish list for 2008, and finally – my new year resolutions for 2008.

So, here are my new year resolutions for 2008:

• Have more control on my financial. In the past, so much money wasted on unnecessary credit card usage
• Starts monthly saving, at least RM1000 / month. But by right should be RM1500 / month (InsyaAllah)
• Buy my own house. Money wasted for renting a house so far
• Blog more ;)
• Get started on my big scale planted aquarium project
• Really got to learn how to play chess.
• Learn how to solve Rubix Cube
• Improve my management skills at office
• Motivate myself, and others in my team

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I’d like to talk about my wish list for 2008. Some of the products on my wish list here have quite a high price tag. Well, that’s what wish list is all about right, just wish for it first. Whether you can afford it or not, that’s another story.

Sony Bravia KLV-40X200A 40 inch FULL HD LCD TV

I’m so eager to get started with High Definition world. The very first thing that I need to invest is the television itself. There are many out there nowadays, and some are really cheap. But most of them are just HD Ready, where the maximum display resolution is 1080i. i here stands for interlaced, there the image is “painted” on the screen sequentially, first odd-numbered lines, followed by even-numbered lines. This takes place really fast, and not noticable by naked eyes.

The one that I’m showing above is Full HD, with 1080p display resolution. What this means is, the full frame of picture is painted on the screen, resulting clearer image. Some says that the difference of picture quality between 1080i and 1080p is hardly noticable, but too bad that I’m able to notice it after closer look. Well one of the tip of buying HDTV that I read from the internet is to look at the image produced as close as possible. You’ll notice the image in Full HD TV is clearer than the one on HD ready one.

Sony BDP-S1E Blu-ray Disc Player

The current DVD media is not considered as HD at all, nor the TV broadcast in Malaysia (might it be free national TV or Astro paid TV). So, if you have Full HD TV, but not getting the Full HD materials to view, there’s no point of getting Full HD right. For this, my next wish list is this Sony Blu-ray Disc player. With Blu-ray media, this thing can provide a HD input to you HDTV.

Sony Playstation 3

What other thing more enjoyable than playing games that output HD display, on a big screen HDTV. Yes. That’s the Playstation 3, that has HDMI output. I’ve been seeing console games shop having a showcase of PS3. Oh my. The graphic is so gorgeous.

Microsoft Xbox 360

Xbox 360 has its own world for home console gaming. There are games that only available exclusively for Xbox 360. Capable of outputing HD content, I guess this is worth a buy too, and should be in my wish list.

Apple TV

Being a constant movie/TV show downloader from torrent, I really need a faster whay that I can enjoy those downloaded movies on my TV. Once I have HDTV, I should also have something that can output HD signal. Apple TV is with HDMI output – straight away this is on my wish list.

Canon EOS 40D DSLR Camera

Photography – yes, I started to like it more and more. But how many times when using point and shoot camera, you just don’t get what you want when the picture is taken. The preset mode doesn’t really give a good picture, and sometimes, the response from the camera is quite long. Take a while for the picture got focused, take a while for the flash to fire up when the shutter is pressed and so many other things.

Let’s meet DSLR camera – which is not just any ol’ digicam, but it’s a serious photo-taking tool that is so different from point and shoot camera. The camera is ready to be used as soon as the power button is pressed, and the focusing happened so fast, then when the shutter is pressed, the photo is taken immediately.

The one that I’m wishing for is the new Canon EOS 40D. Well, EOS 400D is way cheaper than 40D, which is about 1/2 the price of 40D. But why getting 40D where that one is meant more for semi-professional photographer? I guess it’s just me. When I get to know 40D is better than 400D, why getting 400D then ;)

Apple iPhone

Even though its lack of the essential features for my dream phone (3G support, GPS, high megapixel camera), iPhone is still my dream phone. I just don’t know why. There is something about this phone that I really wish to get one. Perhap the touch screen, which no other phone has been implemented that way yet.

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This new year, I feel like doing something new. I don’t know where I get this idea and why I suddenly think of this. I’m thinking of changing my mobile prepaid plan (Hotlink) to postpaid.

Without me noticing, it’s been 7 years already my Hotlink account. This is my very first mobile service that I have and I never change telco and/or phone number since then.

This is how Hotlink Starter Kit looks like 7 years ago. Well, don’t be suprised. I still keep the box. I have a very high sentimental value you know (LOL). If you look at my store room, you can find a lot of boxes of things that I bought. I keep them all.

Back to the starter kit. Pay a close attention to the Recommended Retail Price. Well. I have to pay bloody RM238 to get this long time ago. It really costly to start on prepaid plan back then. But thanks to the competition in mobile service provider. As for today (just checked from Hotlink website), below is the price of the 2 prepaid plan that Maxis offered

• Total Plan Starter Pack costs RM8.80
• Easy Plan Starter Pack costs RM6.00

And compare that with the price that I mentioned earlier. That gives me goosebumps.

I got my Hotlink starter kit last time on my second week that I started my job. I still remember that time. Just coming back from overseas, I don’t really know much about what available in Malaysia. My colleague recommended me to get Maxis prepaid (Hotlink) – as of that time, Maxis network has the widest coverage in Malaysia – that fact that I will be going back to Kelantan during holiday, I do want my mobile phone accessible, don’t I?

The idea to get prepaid is based on “no commitment”. After the credit is out, and you have no money to top up, you don’t have to do so. Really suit me that time. How much you earned from your first job anyway, trying to establish my career in KL.

But as time goes by, and as I started to earn more, commiting to phone top up is no longer an issue. My phone got top up right after the credit runs out. And like I keep saying in this email, I have been doing this for 7 years. It doesn’t look like that I change my phone number/service provider at all, and I don’t think of doing so. I guess these maybe the reasons my I considering switching to postpaid plan.

Went to Maxis Centre at Mid Valley this afternoon, and enquire on how to subscribe to postpaid account.

The process is quite simple. You just fill in the form, they will photocopy your IC, pass the old SIM card to the staff for them to take the serial numner, and pay the deposit. I opt for Value50 Rate Plan.

After all of that done, the person told me to use my current SIM card until it can no longer being used. That time, the new SIM card has been activated. She told me that this will happened during the next 24 hours. Actually, I don’t have to wait that long. Just after 2 hours I left the counter, my old SIM card can no longer being used and my new SIM card has been activated.

So, I’m on postpaid now. As a matter of fact, I am quite a heavy user for 3G and GPRS too. Perhaps I’ll opt for unlimited usage of GPRS/EDGE/3G value added service in future too? I think that most likely I will ;)

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