My new toy?

Just got a Dell 27 inch flat panel Ultrasharp screen to hook up with my Dell Latitude D420 notebook to ease some of my many windows opening at the same time. Brilliant screen! At the same time, I got me a targus wireless mouse and a 5 channel Dell surround sound speakers with subwoofer.



Gadgets in the picture:

- Dell 2707WFP 27 inch Wide Ultrasharp Flat panel screen, 5 inputs- DVI, Analog, S-Video, Composite and RCA connectivity
- Targus Wireless mouse (in picture, charging the battery)

- X-Craft External Hard Drive -500GB SATA HDD

- Dell Latitude D420: 12.1" TFT SXGA+ Wide screen, 2.5GB 667MHz SDRAM Memory, 80GB 5400rpm HDD, 256MB Graphic Accelerator, 1.2GHz Core2 Duo processor, Security finger scan, dual mouse (touchpad & stick), Memory Card Reader built in, Gigabit Network, 3 years warranty.
sitting on a:

- Dell Media Slice (Docking station) holding onto the Scanner, Network printer, Servers, 80GB Apple Ipod, LCD Screen, mouse and keyboard, speakers, etc

- Dell Multi programmable multimedia keyboard to get me up to speed with my typing and shortcuts. (This is new too)

- The Dell 5 channel speakers, in picture only show the center speakers hanging underneath the LCD monitor.

Yup, all these gadgets to get me through the day of work and make me mooo mulah!! :)

Things I want....... 29th July 2007

Cars: Porsche 911 Turbo, Mercedes ML63 AMG, Lexus 460

House: 5 bedroom (1 master bedroom, 1 bedroom for me daughter, 1 bedroom for me son?, 1 spare guest room for my mom and dad to rest when they visit all on the 2nd storey, 1 driver/gardener's room and 1 maid's room attached to the house outside on the ground floor) 5,000sq foot house overlooking a scenic view, swimming pool, jacuzzi, sauna, exercise room, games room with ping pong table & pool table, a library/study room, Audio/video room with Sound proofing, commercial size kitchen, Dry kitchen with an attached small cove like dining area, laundry room, 2 dining rooms (1 for the guests and 1 smaller dining room for the family), 6 car parks equipped with tools for gardening, lawn mowing, car tools, air pressure gauge and other miscellaneous tools, 1 koi pond and 1 tree house.

Computer PC: Dell XPS 720 H2C, Intel Core2 Extreme QX6700 3.46GHz, 8MB Cache, 1066MHz, Vista Ultimate, 4GB Corsair Dominator DDR2 SDRAM 1066MHz -4 DIMMS, 2TB Performace RAID 0, (2X1 TB Hitachi SATA 3Gb/s 7200 RPM HDDs, 1TB Hitachi 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 32MB Cache, Double Drive Blu-ray Disc Drive (BD/DVD/CD burner w/double layer BD write), 4X27inch Ultrasharp 2704WFP Wide Screen Digital Flat Panel Monitors, Dual Nvidia 768MB GeForce 8800Ultra, Logitech MX-5000 Laser Cordless Keyboard & Mouse COmbo, Dell WL6000 5.8GHz Wireless Rear 5.1 speaker System with subwoofer, 13-1 media card reader & 3.5inch floppy diskette drive, APC Back UPS 1500Va with Phone, Coax & network Protection, Buffalo 500GB Linkstation Pro shared Network Storage 7200rpm LAN/USB 2.o/Firewire 800/1600, Microsoft Office Professional 2007, Visio and Project 2007, Norton Internet Security 2006, Norton Internet Security Suite, Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional, 5 years warranty

Computer Notebook: Not at the moment.

Camera: Would love to have the Nikon D2XS Camera, but would rather settle for the D200 or maybe even the D80. Lens to get: Nikkor 17-35mm, 28-70mm, 70-200mm f.2.8, 50mm f.1.4. Others: SB800 Zoom Flash, Dual battery Nikon Grip, Manfrotto monopod & tripod, A good camera backpack, rechargeable batteries AA 2800Mah.

Mobile phone: Not for a long time. Currently using the Nokia E90 Communicator and the E61s for backup. Additional spare phones for travel : Samsung SGH-Z500 for my singapore line and the much older Nokia 7250i for my Malaysian/Saudi lines.

Watches: Love watches!!! Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Series (Titanium or the Stainless steel), Rolex Datejust with Whitegold bezel (Stainless steel) dress watch, Omega Seamaster Ocean Chrono with Orange Bezel (stainless steel or leather straps)

Video Camera: Still looking......

Car Modifications: Mugen Back underspoiler to hide my Honda Accord 3.0 V6 250bhp Twin VTEC Twin exhaust pipes, 17-18inch Mugen Aluminium NR Wheels, Mugen Suspensions, Mugen Hi Performance Braking system ( Brake rotor, micro mesh brake line & Tour sport Brake pads).

Blurrr in the morning.....

Have you ever sat down on your comfortable executive leather chair in front of your huge desk piled with papers awaiting your signature and quotations and claims to be done, your computer switched on with windows on your email outlook and another window opened up to your blog site, another onto your football site, another window on your MSN Messenger, Yahoo messenger, and your skype, and yet....you don't know where to begin this morning?

There must be a jump start or a launch button somewhere nearby to get me into action. Where is this mood coming from? The long holidays starting since Saturday 14th July 2007 till Monday was not alot of help...as I laze about in my office thinking what to do next. I dread the phone calls on my mobile this morning, and yet I'm also worried that my phone call has not rang even once as yet. Its already 9:15am. Wonder if there is nothing wrong with my mobile...yep its still working, I just called my office to test it, and the battery is still 3 bars.

Could something have happened during last weekend that I didnt know about? Or some deals were struck when I refused to answer any calls during my much needed rest? And yet, I'm still not bothered. Okay, maybe a little.... I refuse to be slaved by a phone call during my much needed weekend as I believe that no matter how much you work, you still need your rest... Its not like I'm growing any much younger and and healthier. I leave all those dynamism, charismatic, work hard watchamacallit to the younger generation staff of mine to impress me. Closing up to 40, I have managed to inherit high blood pressure, alot of stress and unnecessary weight. Although they are under control, I still have to coax my friends to play tennis every now and again to get some sweat and stress relieve out during the week. I was a very fit man during my younger years swimming 30-50 laps of the 50meter pool without stopping, playing tennis three times a week, an odd game or two of ping pong, a team game of softball every weekend....those were the days. Alas, I can't even get 1 lap of the 50 meter pool without panting hard, or playing tennis doubles without a 15 minute break in between. Pathetic! Tried jogging, but I'm not very fond of it as I feel its not competitive sports enough to enjoy it. I like the taste of victory or the victim of defeat in the end. But swimming is close enough to jogging though in terms of self achievement, plus it saves yer knees...especially when overweight is an issue.

......Shucks my mobile phone rings and its a wrong number. Who the heck is this Poo Ling bloke people keep calling for? It has come to the point where I ask them if they have checked the number they dialled was correct or not, coz its annoying when someone starts with a rude "Hello!! Poo Ling!!" in a commanding tone of voice. Whats even more annoying is this malay character trying to sound in a chinese accent "why you no answer my phone ahh? Many tymes I call ah..you dont pick up oh". Hiya.... it has come to a point where I just answer with a broken chinese accent "Hiya ini sala nomor ah...sayaa bukan Poo Ling oh..", or I just reply in clear and concise respectful malay lingo and the other end hangs up the phone without even courteously saying sorry. Gosh the nerve of some fellow, so rude!!!

Its 9:30am, crap...either the clients don't need my help or have a solution for it. Hmm...this blogging sure does help to get you started for the day.... Gotto stop for now, already in the mood to start the day, got something to do..until next time, please do tune in at bobawang@blogspot.com, your other favourite channel. Hehehe

The Much Awaited Nokia E90 Communicator

At Last....!!! I have finally got my hands on a Nokia E90 Communicator to replace my older broken down "Personal Assistant" Nokia 9500 Communicator. Many commendable reviews on the internet had not helped one bit to salivate my desire to get one promptly as soon as it came out, but I was not desperate enough to purchase one just as soon as it was posted on a popular online store priced at a jaw dropping $1,798!?!? Ridiculously priced, but then again such price might have enticed others to purchase it, drawing the thought of one being the first to get it, awe-ing others to shredded jealousy.

Less than a week, and the much more reliable company announced their stock on Thursday, 5th July of the Nokia E90 Communicator, priced at $1,414, with a discount card. Thank God, I was not tempted by the former, otherwise I would have regretted paying the additional $384! Do you know how much Gambas Promodoro I could eat with that kind of dough???

I have been all smiles from ear to ear for a few days of getting it, synch-ing it flawlessly with my intermediary Nokia E61i 3 weeks old phone and using the basic stuff of phone calls and messages leaving the weekend to indulge myself on the new "expensive" gadget.

I have been a keen follower of the Nokia Communicator series, having used previously the 9500 model, the 9210i, the 9210 and the 9110i. Probably the full qwerty keyboard attracted me to it as well as its PDA capabilities to enhance your personal management whilst on the road. My very first personal digital assistant (PDA) was a Casio 64KB way back in the early eighties which had a name and address feature, alarm clock, calculator, calender, time zones, and a 2X3 inch module where you can stick in games or an additional memory of 64KB and it was a really cool gadget then. Yeap, dad finally gave it to me after years of persistence and arguments that its not cool to leave it stuck in the box inside a drawer after many years.

Coming back to when I had my Nokia Communicators, there were other gadgets that came out which had touch pad screens and had rave reviews, the Palm V was one of them, then the HP came out with a PDA phone, the Dopods, the treos, and yet somehow or rather I still preferred the keyboard PDAs; talk about being stubborn and old fashioned even with friends and brands around flaunting and pimping their hardware, I still wouldn't budge with my own preference. I'm glad I did. However, I do annoy my friends every now and again just to play the games on their touch paddy phones. Hehehe

Anyway, here are my findings on the new communicator, although this does not reflect the thought of others:

Physically, the phone was solidly built, from the metallic bronze hinges to the layout of the keypads both in front and the qwerty keyboard inside. The sound produced from ring tones to voice was clear and dynamic both on handset or on speaker phone. The camera, although pretty awkward at first due to its automatic focus at first press of the button then full push down for the actual picture taking was pretty sharp at 3.2megapixel. However, using the zoom more than half way produced a grainy picture, same result when using it in darker background, even with a built in flash. But it was still acceptable in normal circumstances. The screen, ah yeah the screens both inside and outside produced a brilliant display, sharp ,vivid and crisp, I believe this is due to its 16 million true colour technology.

The built in wireless LAN was superb, detecting nearby wireless access points quickly, even browsing the internet with it's internet browsing software was awesomely fast! A flick of a button and using the Service Provider's GPRS allowed surprisingly fast log ons. I didn't have long to wait and I was happily browsing the internet at a comfortable pace, switching tabs and looking at my favourite websites. Even logging to my mobile messenger and Agile Messenger was impressively fiaaaast (American accent with an attitude). I believe its the combination of processor speed, the newly incorporated Symbian S60 Operating system compared to the older archaic Symbian S80 in older communicators and the more than ample memory that has made the latest communicator a pretty wicked portable internet speed demon.

The Qwerty keyboard is sturdy but abit stiff; you need to really push it to make it go. But in due time, its easy to get used to the stiff keys, and maybe after a while it should be okay. I can't help repeating how solid the phone feels, study in every sense, and what makes it even more impressive is how the heck did Nokia fit everything in to one gadget the size of the older small-"ER" Nokia 9300i, slimmer than than the 9500 which some call it as a brick, and yet slot in camera both in front and inside, put in a wireless with 54kbps (802.11g) and get the full qwerty keyboard on?

On a darker side though, and I believe a few communicator ardent fans may notice, especially when browsing the contacts that the search function is limited to name searching only, and not like the previous Nokia 9500 communicator whereby if you search under company or phone numbers or even nicknames, a list of names will appear. This feature although lacking in this new communicator, maybe a small drawback or not really important to some, but I believe that it is quite essentially an important part of the communicator's appeal; albeit your very own Personal Assistant (PA). However, the E90 provides a name grouping which might help, but it isn't the same innit? For me, I feel that it is a loss of function that needs to be rectified, a view that might be shrugged aside by others. Some say just appeal to Nokia to get that functionality in, its just a matter of making a complaint to their website and they will revise the OS.

The calendar is not as friendly as previous communicators, especially when you have a reminder that that you can set every day, or for every month. With the previous 9500 communicator, when you set a task, it prompts you the day and date as well as time and the alarm for reminder and there is a tab for occurences where you can pick either everyday or monthly or weekly and then you're set. I usually use this function for my prayer times, my mobile phone month cycles, my credit card cycles etc. Yes, the E90 can do that, but it needs more tinkering rather than within the wizard setup of the task.

Another function missing is the fax capability, although not as important as before, because we can always use email function, the messenger functions, the phone and the sms function, but hey the E90 is supposed to be the most complete Personal Digital Assistant there is to date and some businesses, corporate even govt entities require hard copy proof of things!?!

On the brighter side though, the E90 comes with a much welcomed GPS capability especially when you want to travel overseas and use the maps, it has alot of additional features which was not available or had to be installed using third party software on the older generation communicators. Push to talk function (when is the service providers gonna give us that functionality huh?), bigger memory upgrades capability, etc. Touche for that!

All in all, I would say the the E90 is a nice phone, well built, alot of niceties despite a few much amissed older functionality. If you're really comfortable with a full size qwerty keyboard sort of guy, then this is is the PDA phone to get no doubt about it. But you are otherwise, then I would certainly recommend the Nokia E61i with exactly the same functionality but in a small form factor. To sum it up, the new Nokia E90 Communicator IS a Nokia E61i with a keyboard on steroids.

MY PERSONAL RATING:
1) New Nokia E90 Communicator * * * * 1/4

2) Nokia E61i * * * * *

Written Under Duress!

Just created my first blog-gie. And it had to have a car just to test if the picture appeared or not. Some say blogging is therapeutic, whilst others say that its a waste of time. Hmm...I guess it all depends on the mood of the moment though.

Anyway, this is a picture of the concept honda not too far away in the future. I do love hondas', kewl, reliable, nice design and low maintenance. Yes I do have a few honda models in my stable, but my particular pony is a gas guzzler. Wouldnt you just want to know? Huh Punk? Make my day .....punk. Hehehe reliving Clint Eastwood and his Kaywbuuooooy Movie. Crap Actor...

Anyway, I think I 'm gonna hit the sack.... Maybe just maybe, I might continue blogging, otherwise it just might be an attraction for cobwebs and collect dust. Oh by the way....YAHOOOOOOOOO!!!! My first blog! Okay thats all folks, adios Muchachos!