Johann Low

月曜日, 2月 25, 2008

[2GB]

finally I get to exchanged that hynix lj ram yesterday afternoon. Was told that the shop will be opened from 11am-2pm instead o f 12-3pm, so I went at ard 11 and reached just about b4 12. Ms Kim was nice enough to reserve a pc of samsung ram for me cos she remembered I did not have any problems with the samsung ram I bought from them. Initially, I was told I will be given a pc of no brand OEM ram.

I was also given some nice prices of a lacie 20X external dvd writer and iWorks08. Shld be getting the external dvd writer next month if nothing goes wrong since the iMac's superdrive is known to be sucky. Anyway I had lunch at SLS's basement, not a bad place, the chicken rice looks good.

Installed the ram the moment I got home and everything seems to be working ok. And I ordered 2 games!! ryu ga gotoku (PS3) and metriod prime 3-corruption Jpn version (wii).

Oh on Thurs I also bought a pair of inear phones, Ultimate Ears Super.fi 3 studio. I wanted to upgrade my shure E2C and initially I thought the new model SE210 might be a good choice since it is supposed to be better. When I auditioned it @ Jaben (in Adelphi, which is a nice place with a nice uncle Wilson), it sounded like.....so muffled, infact it sounded worse than my E2C. Even with the earphone amp and other ear tips, it did not sound impressive. I actually left the place cos Uncle Wilson went out for dinner but as I was going down, I saw him going up, so I went up again and explained to him why a supposedly higher end model SE210 does not sound as good, anyway, he suggested me to try out other brands, UM1 I tried b4, not impressed, UM3, hell yes but the price is not impressive.

Then he suggested me to try Super.fi3, wow! the soundstage is amazing! Good midtones, sweet highs and nice toned lows. It almost sounded like a dual driver earphones when it is only a single driver! Anyway, the price is good too and comes with a free amp ($88, out of stock now, have to collect it later) and a ipod dock to connect the amp to the ipod. But the different way of wearing it does need some getting used to.

At Jaben forums, I read a fantastic review about this pair of bookshelf monitoring speakers, ESI, nEar 04. The price is good too and also comes with a DAC at a discounted price, just wondering if i should get this to replace my 4+ yr old altec lansing.

And if i manage to save up enough this yr, I shld be going to Jpn for tour.

--somethings @ work are not worth mentioning zzzz

elow at 12:20 午前 | (0) comments

月曜日, 2月 18, 2008

[imac issues]

My imac was rock stable from day 1 but after abt 1 wk, things began to happen.

First of all, the display refused to wake up after i left it on overnight while downloading stuff and I had to shut it down by force. Then it happened a 2nd time when it refused to wake up again when i put it manually to slp. Then after doing some settings in the Energy Settings, it began to work like normal again. I even did a extended hardware test and everything was cleared. But yesterday, things went bad.

My imac crashed, 1st time, all the prgms froze, I had to force shut down. Then booting it up I had some error beeps (3 times) not sure what they meant then, then I forced it to shut down again. 2nd time, it managed to boot up normally but upon loading the main screen, it froze again, this time round it was a Kernel Panic. After shutting it down, the imac could not boot up seriously this time, there was a grey screen and there were beeps, 1st tone was a 2 tone beep, then subsequently 3 tones. I thought my imac was gone case this time but anyway i did a search with my laptop then I realised the 3 beeps meant a RAM fault.

I thought the additional 1pc Samsung ram was the cause of all this thus I removed it but to no avail. Then I removed the default Hynix ram which came with the imac and used the Samsung ram..MY MAC COULD BOOT UP NORMALLY!!! This meant that Hynix ram is faulty! I had problems with Hynix ram when I bought my 1st mac, it could boot up then but after awhile it will KP again. But back then, the effect was more immediate. After this, I did another self test. I removed the Samsung ram from its slot and place it in the Hynix slot, this was to determine both slots are working fine and my mac booted up normally too.

As of now, I am running on 1pc 1GB only. I could feel there is a slight difference. I hope to get half day leave tmr to exchange this pc of lousy Hynix ram.

Devil May Cry 4.

I first played this cool and stylish action game on my PS2. I rem back then I was so awed by the graphics then. It was a pretty fun game. Later DMC 2 and 3 were released but i did not buy. Now DMC4 is on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Graphics wise it was looking better of course. I was stuck in Mission 3 Torture Chamber where I need to 'swing' across the hall with spiked ceilings. It was pretty easy for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd swing. It was the 4th and later swings which I had problems getting across. I tried like 2 days but failed haha...but I did not give up. I tried again this morning after watching a video of someone who managed to get across the hall like a breeze.

I timed the movement and I roughly used the same timing and it worked!! haha..now I am on Mission 6 already.

-and my colleagues (7 of them including boss and manager) are in Suzhou for exhibition now. I wonder how fucked up the situation is for this year.

elow at 12:26 午前 | (0) comments

日曜日, 2月 10, 2008

[And CNY]

CNY (Wed):
I always love to go home on CNY's eve, it is almost like u are going back to anticipate something. Last Wed was a hot afternoon. Almost all of the canteens, hawkers stalls were closed. The ones remaining were Malay stalls. But seeing the time is getting late, I decided to skip lunch, luckily a colleague who just came back from Japan bought some nice mochi and Jpn cuisines, if not my stomach will be making havoc.

Reunion dinner this year was steamboat, a change from the past years of cooked dishes. We had prawns, squids, sliced fish, chicken breast meat, pig's liver, vegetables, jin zhen gu and of cause home made chilli. The steamboat soup was made from ikan billis, fish bones and chicken bones. Everything tasted good esp with the home made chilli.

The rest was spent between watching TV and online.

1st day of CNY (Thurs):
Early lunch was braised sea cucumbers and a plate of veg. The sea cucumbers were very good this year cos they were smaller and less stinky. Later in the afternoon, mum and I went down to visit my uncle. Taking 980 was not a very wise choice but the weather was hot and the nearest bus-stop only has 980 which goes down to Thomson. The bus was rather packed since it was late (as usual) and subsequently, hordes of Indian workers flooded the entire bus. But we were lucky to get ourselves out.

It was a short afternoon @ Uncle's place, besides the ang paos almost the entire time was spent watching cable tv. Later more cousins came...and shortly after we went home. Mum wanted to watch some movies but I was tired..so never watched anything in the end.

2nd day of CNY (Fri):
Whole day @ home! Mum went out with her sis. Dinner was fried rice which costed $1 more than normal. zz

3rd day of CNY (Sat):
More cousins came in the afternoon and some more in the evening. Mum bought the KFC Golden Fiesta Set for them, wanted to have home delivery initially but that crack on the phone (cant speak properly and sounded young) said we would have to wait for 90 minutes.

4th day of CNY (Sun):
As it is, @ home...awaiting for the start of another looooooooooooooong week ahead.

elow at 11:59 午後 | (0) comments

金曜日, 2月 08, 2008

[IMAC]

So.....I manage to apply for half a day's leave and went down to SGL to get my imac. When I went there, to my dismal the Imac 2.0Ghz model was gone cos the father and son who bought the imac earlier before me on the previous Sat had their Imac exchanged cos the Superdrive was not working..so meaning that the Imac 2.0Ghz which i wanted was exchanged...AND there was no stock available! haaaaa..apparently sales of this model seems to be too good.

So...I guess it was fated, I was meant to purchase the other higher end model, IMac 2.4Ghz with 320GB HDD and a 2600HD Pro gfx card which costed me about $400 more. Anyway I got some more further discount cos I traded in the new keyboard and mouse cos I already have the new keyboard and the might mouse is some lousy shit. SGL also ordered a few sets of the same model on Monday and quite a few sets of ipods and other macs. Anyway it was a very fun time @ SGL cos Miss Kim seemed to be very chirpy that day and I was mistaken to be SGL staff cos I was helping out Ms Kim hahaaaa. Quite a few customers actually came to purchase RAMs. Also a customer bought them some chewy donuts, Ms Kim asked me to take one haha..

Carrying this 13+KG thing back home by bus no easy task, it is heavy! But definitely not as heavy as the 30KG Powermac which I bought 3 years ago. Here is the moment of unpacking, the thrill is still there which is nothing like when u unpack anything else.

The carton which housed the white imac box (with my leg haha to show the size) :

Opening the top : ahhhh~

The white iMac box: ooooh~

Opening the white iMac box:

The iMac covered:

iMac revealed!!!:

iMac up and running (also bought a 500GB external hdd; WD My Book Home Edition with FW, USB and eSATA connections):

Just another pic:

The iMac has a ridiculously bright screen, I has to adjust it to just only 3 levels from the lowest level and this is the level which my eyes are comfortable at. After reading online on how to adjust the colour profiles, the colours look better. Response so far has been speedy enough, have not really tried heavy duty stuff but anyway what I do most are internet, MSN, MP3s, even a mac mini will suffice actually. Things lacking now are a Office suite which I will be borrowing iWorks 08 from a friend and most probably buy Pixelmator for Photoshop stand in, only costs $89.95 and its features, layout are all similar to Photoshop.

Wee, Valentine's coming soon.

elow at 11:48 午後 | (0) comments

日曜日, 2月 03, 2008

[hoot for CNY! and powernac]

My 1st mac, a powermac G5 was just sold away just now for $1300. I hope tmr I will be able to take half a day's leave to get my imac. Until now I have not made up my mind if I should the basic imac model or the mid-range model. The difference is ard $300 but with the mid range model I will have a bigger HDD, a faster processor and a better gfx card, so how?!?! ahaha

Anyway this morning, after going to offer prayers for my late dad and grandparents Mum and I went to AMK for lunch and to do some of my CNY shopping, the delicious fried carrot cake has reopened after that hawker center was done with its renovation. Now it is might brighter, more spacious and airier with huge ventilation fans above. Ok, so i bought myself a nice Nike bag, a pair of nice shoes and a grey shirt haha.

The shoes

some intrigue design at the back.

and the bag

Total damage above is $85. Not bad I think. I like the bag quite alot haha.

The grey shirt was frm Bossini,costed $19+ after a 15% discount with any Citibank, DBS or Popular card.No pics cos mum washed it already, but it is quite nice hehe.

WILL I BE ABLE TO GET MY IMAC TMR?!?!

elow at 11:11 午後 | (0) comments