Mandarin, SuperBowl, Go-Kart, Tennis, and Phone Call

30 04 2005

Yesterday was a half-day for our team, and so we went to Orchard Mandarin Triple 3 for $45+++ lunch. It was sumptuous, better than Amara’s or Fullerton’s buffet lunch, though the selection there was not as many as those in Amara. see this photo, and this one. Another round of lunch, this time in form of sashimi, oysters, scallops, prawns, salads, lobster, chicken, black forest, chocolates, etc. Hahaha… do you feel hungry now? After lunch, we headed straight to SuperBowl at Jurong for two rounds of bowling. My first round was so bad, I only managed to score, don’t laugh, 49 . Second round was better at 89 after that first round warm up.

Chocolates Mandarin Hotel Triple 3 Buffet Restaurant Mandarin Hotel Triple 3 Buffet Restaurant SuperBowl Go-Kart

Next up was Go-Kart at KartWorld Jurong. It was my second time go-karting, but it was the first time I played such a speedy go-karting. The first time in Genting last year was a joke. This is a high-speed, potentially dangerous, 50 kph at its top-speed with numbers of turns go-kart. 50 kph doesn’t sound that fast until you sit on an open piece of metal with two engine down your back. It was fun, tiring, and adrenaline-stimulating. However, it was very costly, S$1,980 for about 15 of us for close to two hours. More details here.

Reaching home, I still managed to hit one hour tennis session with my flatmate, although last night, I couldn’t really play well due to my right hand a bit crammed, numbed, whatever, from that bowling session.

And my night was summed up close to midnight, when I called my friend just to say Happy Birthday. It ended a 4.5-hours phone call. Yeah, and I down to my bed 4 AM in the morning. And no, she’s only a friend, really.





Nokia N91

28 04 2005

Imagine a 3G phone with 2 Megapixel camera, and video recorder, and GSM/GPRS/EDGE 900/1800/1900 MHz, and Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi 802.11b, and Wi-Fi 802.11 g, and built-in stereo FM, and Opera browser, and USB port that can play MP3, WMA, AAC, M4A from its built in 4 GB hard drive via a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack. Nah … Sounds like a dream phone? Introducing to-be-released Nokia N91. Looks like a worthy successor to my Sony Ericsson K700i Sounds like your dream phone too?
Nokia N91
Read on from InfoSyncWorld.





Windows Longhorn Seminar

27 04 2005

Last night, I went to Microsoft for a seminar on the upcoming Windows Longhorn. We were shown the pre-beta build 5054 of Longhorn in soon-to-be-released IBM Thinkpad T43. There are few features that were shown last night, from the latest Longhorn Display Manager, which can zoom and shrink windows into any size in your screen, to the new index-based search and filtering.
You can have a notepad or calculator so small that you can put it on the corner of your screen, or so big that it fills your entire screen. For the search capability, it is nothing new, as I am using Copernic Desktop Search to fulfill the same purpose in Windows XP. But having this capability built directly into the operating system means we will get better performance, accuracy and result. What the speaker showed us last night was that Longhorn can search your document faster than you can blink. It is that fast.  It is certainly a much welcome addition if you compare with the search built into Windows XP now that may take minutes to return search result.
For the eye candy, there was semi-transparent, glassy title bar, dropshadow all around, and few more things that will justify your purchase of high-end video card next year.
A word from me, if you can wait a year, do wait until next year to upgrade your current PC. It’ll be rather sad if you decided to upgrade now, and realized that the hardware you bought is not optimized for Longhorn experience. For Longhorn, there are a lot in the pipeline waiting which I believe will get everyone excited when it is released mid-2006.
Lastly, as much as I wanted to, I can’t post any screenshot, sorry about that.





My Opera 8 Browser Review

24 04 2005

I realized that there are too many features in Opera 8 browser for me to review, so I will better let you read reviews by professional reviewers. Try Google for Opera 8 reviews or CNET reviews. I have been using Opera for the past few days, and I am truly happy with it. The interface can be so minimal to provide maximum viewing space in your screen (see below). If you are really interested to try it, follow 30 days to become Opera 8 lover where Tim will discuss each and every feature found in Opera. However, I realized that Opera 8 is not for everyone. There are still a lot who prefers Internet Explorer, for the simple reason that they don’t know that other browser exists and they are not willing to try new things. Then there are those who prefers Firefox for its compatibility with most sites and mainly because it’s free. Opera, however, I think suits advanced web surfers since it can be complicated, highly customizable, and full of features that neither IE nor Firefox provides. I have seen enough people who said Opera was not good only after 10 minutes of using it. Given time and chances, I believe those people will find Opera features very addicting. In conclusion, which browser you use depends very much on your daily usage of Internet, and how sophisticated you want your browser to be. For me, it will be Opera, because I can browse, I can read my Gmail via POP3, I can read websites by RSS all in one place. Firefox can’t do all those, never mind IE.
Opera is not without its flaw, it doesn’t support rich text formatting in Gmail or Blogger, Starhub doesn’t work well in Opera (this one is Starhub’s fault), Opera Ad filter not as easy to use as compared to Firefox’s Adblock, etc. Mainly because of websites which does not support Opera instead of Opera’s fault, so I hope with this advances, websites will start to provide support for Opera. However, these instances are very rare, and there’s always IE to fall back to when websites starts to play nasty with Opera. Overall, to me Opera features far outweigh its drawback, and to me, Opera is way better than Firefox and Internet Explorer.





BBQ, Alcohol, and Amara

22 04 2005

After last month outing in Zouk Wine Bar, this month we had a BBQ last night somewhere around Clarke Quay. Satay, sausages, chicken wings, fried rice, fried bee-hoon, string-ray, prawns, corn, garlic bread, and such are on the food menu, and a lot of varieties of alcoholic drinks and fruit juices for the drink menu. Last night, I virtually had most alcohol in one night ever, in my whole life. I started with what we called Avanade plus, a mixture between Sparkling Wine and Sunkist, followed by Tequila Shot, Jack Daniels, Whisky Cola, Vodka with 7 Up, closed by Red Wine with 7 Up. Wow …  that was close to my maximum already. Amazingly, I was still quite sober last night, albeit a bit high. hahaha…  Sorry, I don’t have any photos since the one who took the photos is now overseas, will post as soon as I have it.

Today, for lunch, we went to Amara hotel for $50++ buffet , I had a lot that starts with "S": shark fin soup, sashimi, salmon, sushi, scallop, shrimps, salads, and those that doesn’t start with "S" like lobster, beef, chicken, mango mousse, etc. etc. A very filling lunch indeed.  But today, they didn’t have a discount for Citibank credit card holder, which they usually have, just because this week is the so-called Secretary Week. yeah right …

However, this week may still not comparable to what I may have next week. As of now, there are three dinners and one lunch already arranged for next week. Hahaha… so happy … Bring it on …





Opera 8 Released

21 04 2005

I have been waiting for its released for a while now, but finally Opera 8 Browser has been released.  It’s a browser, it’s an email client, it’s a RSS newsfeed reader, and it’s an IRC client, all packaged in a 3.6MB size that’s smaller than Firefox browser alone.  It’s the fastest, most standard compliant, highly customizable, most secure (compare with IE or Firefox), works in Windows, Mac, Linux, you name it, and the most full-featured browser we have now (unlike Firefox, in Opera, everything is built-in). Opera also received PC World’s Best Browser Award in 2004. No kidding, no exxagerating, it’s just something good, and something good, like Bible, must be shared, right?
I will post my review in a few days, but in the mean time, compare Opera with Internet Explorer (Browser 1) and Firefox (Browser 2), read all the buzz about Opera , or 30 Days to become an Opera8 Lover (a very good article to highlight all Opera features), or check why Adobe chose Opera for its latest Creative Suite 2.
So, download the browser now, and try it for yourself.





To the Top

19 04 2005

Think I would share this, especially to those who are having their exam right now. All the best!!!