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I’m feeling a little old already. Usually when I talk about anything to do with gadgets it used to be PDAs, new watches that can do anything, computers, digital this and digital that but my latest gadget is a dryer. Ok this one is a necessity since it rains almost every afternoon here in Kuala Lumpur in the last few weeks and we get all those nasty traffic jams all over the place (takes almost twice the time to get home in the evening), but most of all, the laundry doesn’t seem to dry at all.
So that’s the problem, and to solve it I went out to look for the most advanced dryer this side of the planet. Fisher & Paykel makes some of the most dummy proof white appliances you can find. That’s what I think anyway. The washing machine I have allows you to just dump in the load, and choose how dirty it is and then just start the washing. Everything else is sensor driven. How much water? How much agitation? How long to wash?
Continue reading “Old man’s toys”

Got my new Fisher & Paykel dryer installed today. Its the ED56 which does the sensing for you. According to the manual the dryer is supposed to sense that your laundry is as dry as the setting you selected before it stops. Continue reading “New Laundry Dryer”

Been quite occupied in the office lately. Don’t have too much time to spend updating the website (what I feared initially).
What has been happening lately? Gave away the UMTS phone already to colleagues to play with. First 2 person used it only for 1 week before passing it to the next and the last 2 only used it for 2 days each. There’s just not enough new content on the network, and the screen and typing method makes it quite awkward for browsing the internet.

Still waiting to buy the Nikon D70. Don’t really need it today, willing to wait till the end of the year before buying it. Seen some sample shots using the Nikon D100 and if the CCD system is about the same I’m already impressed. Next thing to think about it the lens system. Nikon DX lens only come in a 17-85mm (roughly) for the time being, and while I dont think I want to get rid of all my Nikon lenses and upgrade to a DX lens, I might have to at least buy one to see if there’s any improvements.

I’ve been using the UMTS phone for the last 1 week. Unfortunately the coverage for the service is quite sparse. Sparse is not even the wod to describe it. There are a few different vendors testing their equipment using the same MNC code here in KL, so in some areas you get a signal but can’t log on since all the networks are not connected together. As for me, my network is just in my office and along a major highway. Continue reading “1 week in the future”

Just received a demo unit of the Motorola A935 UMTS mobile to play with. Its part of a trial network here in Kuala Lumpur. Still charging it and no time to use it yet, but first opinion of the mobile is… its quite flimsy at least physically. With all those new functions in UMTS networks, I expect the menus to be quite complex. Will have to wait till I get a few days with the phone first.

Saw the Nikon D70 in stores already today. Managed to play with it a while in the shop. Although its made of plastic it definitely still feels sturdy. Feels rather light also. In Malaysia they bundle it with a 18-70mm DX lens which I hear is one of the first lens made specifically for Digital SLRs.
Its selling out fast. About 5 of the SLR was delivered to the shop and only 1 was left when I was there. And they expect it to be gone by the time the weekend arrives because typically they get most of their businesses on weekends. The only thing keeping me back from buying it today is that I’ve not planned for this. Although its one of the cheapest Digital SLRs on the market today its still one expensive camera…

As part of a new webpage based on MT, I needed to have the first entry in every category to be displayed, but no built in code in MT could do it. So I posted something on the MovableType forum and the reply came up. It uses a plug-in and apparently plays around with the MySQL database.
I wont know if it works yet, need to work on it tonight and find out.

Caught the advertisement for the new Nikon D70 digital SLR camera in one of Malaysia’s newspaper today. Looks like the retail price is around RM3888 according to this newspaper scan…. its a little small here though… Continue reading “Nikon D70 Price in Malaysia”

Found this link on Popular Science where they teach you how to replace the batteries on the first generation iPod. I dont have problems with dead batteries yet but got to remember this url when it does give way soon.
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/computers/article/0,12543,588084-2,00.html

This link is even better… someone bought the new iPod mini and took it apart…

http://www.ipodlounge.com/articles_more.php?id=3059_0_8_0_C

Got sent to Jakarta for a week, its a little boring here. Staying at the Crowne Plaza and everytime the taxi pulls into the hotel lobby driveway, there will be security guards checking the car boot & underside, presumeably for bombs etc.
THere’s a shopping centre next to the hotel but its also quite empty. Was there last night for a Caramel Frapuccino, and starbucks here is relatively cheap.

Gearing up for work during the weekend.