..:: ZOMBiE Destinee ::..

Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Wow...tml is my birthday
[ZOMBiE CyGiG] ranted at 9:00 PM --- Post#7660540701962100931

Tml is my birthday, while im still drifting in my digital dreamland...until...

SH:Yo..SH here. Happy Birthday in advance =)
SH:I am somewhere in Thailand...hence not able to wish you through any other means except an internet cafe!
SH:Take care and enjoy your birthday =)
SH:I am off...Time's up for me!

Its an sms, and from the number, it looks like its being sent from Singtel Internet SMS Chat website. Creative. Wow...Im really impressed and touched.

Though I wonder if its cheaper for him to sms me than to pay for the fee in that internet cafe. Or maybe he never bring any phone with him?

View/Post Comments (0)

Google Wheel
[ZOMBiE CyGiG] ranted at 3:26 AM --- Post#6099307271837422249

This is what happen when you google wheel my name...

View/Post Comments (0)

AGOX Adaptor
[ZOMBiE CyGiG] ranted at 2:55 AM --- Post#4504124013523162520

Call me mad, but I simply want my USB cables to be arranged in the way I wanted. There is this connector which is quite unknown to a lot of ppl, and I cant seem to even find a proper name for it online. Wikipedia says it is called "AGOX 8 pin", while some China distros say its "Ultra Mini 8-pin USB". I dunno which is right, especially when I see "Citation Needed" next to the "AGOX" name reference to the connector in Wiki.

But! Both my camcorder and Sanyo S6 camera use this connector. Sure Im supplied with a long USB cable with video and audio out (thats why got 8 pins so many), but I want it to be an adaptor instead, just like what I did to my micro USB connector.

Since not much info can be found online, i spent quite some time and effort poking fine wires into the AGOX connector with a DMM to find out which pin is which. If you are interested, this is the pin-out info:

Pin Connections for AGOX to USB, Mono Audio Out and Video Out
Pin 1 - USB Pin 1
Pin 2 - USB Pin 2
Pin 3 - USB Pin 4, Audio Ground,Video Ground
Pin 4 - USB Pin 3
Pin 5 - USB Pin 4, Audio Ground,Video Ground
Pin 6 - Audio Sig
Pin 7 - Video Sig
Pin 8 - USB Pin 4, Audio Ground,Video Ground

Corresponding Connecting Poles at the Back

--[a]--[b]----
----[c]--[d]--
--------------[i]
--[e]--[f]----
----[g]--[h]--

Pin 1 - a
Pin 2 - e
Pin 3 - c
Pin 4 - g
Pin 5 - b
Pin 6 - f
Pin 7 - d
Pin 8 - h
N/C - i

Note that Pin 1 refers to the rightmost pin when viewed from in front (imagine u are the receptacle and this connector is coming into you) or the leftmost pin when viewing the back (where you will be seeing the connecting poles)

AGOX connector.

Inside got 8 pins.

Wired them up together.

Heat shrink tubed it.

View/Post Comments (0)

Sunday, July 12, 2009
Birthday Present!
[ZOMBiE CyGiG] ranted at 3:32 PM --- Post#8078455529211941566

From Me to TL:

[Click to see larger size picture]

This is the RA21 headphone amp. Its actually just a basic CMOY amp with delicated rail splitter and uses wall power. Came as kits from Hohodiy. Audio wires are silver plated copper ones.

The tough part is not assembling the PCB's, but actually taking everything together and forming the final product - selection of casing, wiring, hole drilling, cable management, sourcing for extra components, effort to redo some parts when gone wrong etc...

From TL to Me

I dun really know much about GUNDAM..apparently he told me that he air brushed the whole model himself. Its quite small, so I reckoned its not as easy as it looks.

"Ready for Battle!"

*All covers open up*

*Swings knife*

"HIA!"

The back view.

View/Post Comments (0)

LED Bendy
[ZOMBiE CyGiG] ranted at 3:20 PM --- Post#5421170915416542038

Curious me thinking of how I can make use of LED to make interesting stuff. USB LED products got many many, but what I really needed is something self powered and portable and adjustable angles. So I went to SLT and picked up some parts and made a prototype of what I needed. Its still early, prolly, i got to think of a better way to case it and improve on its aesthetics before using it.

This is how it looks like. Please note its still in early prototype stage. Rather small in size.

Light on.

The LED prongs can bend one.

One use can be to hook it to the top of laptop and light up the KB in dark a room.

Same thing for wireless KB. Maybe can mount it temporarily on KBs using suction?

Another use is to aid in photography at nite, in your room where its dark. This photo is taken in a very dark room and using only the LED Bendy as light source.

View/Post Comments (0)

A.S. Gun
[ZOMBiE CyGiG] ranted at 2:55 PM --- Post#1687756544145067795

This is a prototype of A.S. Gun, aka Anti Sister Gun.

Overview of the A.S. Gun.

Imagine I point this at your eye...Wheeeee!

First persion view. Im proning.

Same pose, but now from side view.

Its main function? To deter irritating sister from entering your room. Girls are scared of sling shot look-a-like mechanism and this should drive them away quickly. For now, it delivers a wooden shot capable of bruising at new distance but not fatal. Unlike a sling shot, you can lock the projectile at the back of the gun, ready to be fired anytime: You may not have time to load the ammo when your crazy sister comes into your room. Do not use this on good sisters...only use on irritating ones.

Other function includes splattering lizards and roaches from far. As well as for target practise.

This is a cross design between a sling shot and a crossbow. Yes, I know it looks chui, and thats cos this is only idea exploration, a prototype. Its not so easy to develop a mechanical gun on home workbench.

Other possible improvements include having a sliding mechanism driven by a industrial spring or heavy duty rubber band, right now using home rubber band, which snaps often and cant store enough force. In that way, the sliding mechanism can be shaped to cater to the projectile of my choice. It should also have a stopper in front to absorb extra force and reduce impact on the mechanism itself. To fire, I should have an easier way to cock the weapon, whereas now i need to pull and adjust the rubberband while sliding the wooden projectile in place. Very slow and inconvenient. Projectile should comes from easily available material, like nails, screws, wooden dowels or hardened paper. Automatic firing could be achieved by using a high torque battery powered motor to cock the sliding mechanism. Multiple projectiles could be loaded in automatically by putting them on top serially and with the help of gravity, they would drop into the chamber when the previous one left.

View/Post Comments (0)

High Voltage Stun Prod
[ZOMBiE CyGiG] ranted at 2:20 PM --- Post#2239976580837642535

This is a DIY high voltage stun prod. Originally wanted to zap roaches with them..but ermmm...after several testing, they seem to have a very high resistance body...dun seem to have any effect on them. Whereas for lizards, they would twitch abit after being zapped...and..wun die leh. Then I tot my project failed, so i zapped myself. OOOO FUCK! Damn pain...I wonder why those crawlies got no feeling one...

Right now its main function is same as the A.S. Gun...to deter sister out of my room.

This is how it looks like. Red LED lights up on powering on.

The probes are detachable, they are just 2.5mm power plugs and jacks, its possible to custom make a probe to a shape and size that you like.

[Click to see a larger picture]
Dun you guys just like to see the innards of gadgets?

View/Post Comments (0)

Impossible Record
[ZOMBiE CyGiG] ranted at 2:19 PM --- Post#511359168168073577

This is a VERY backdated blog post. We went to watch about two weeks ago. Quite impressive as compared to the Da Mo Jie on Zhong Yi Da Ge Da. Some of the tricks can see thru easily, some are just mysterious.

Anyway, the thing is to do 15 grand illusion in five minutes. Very fast for performance, but well, its a world recording setting, not really a performance for audience, if you want to enjoy their performance then need buy tix and go see.

Honestly, some are quite "cheating" in a sense, their 15 illusions, some are actually part of a set. For example, making a person disappear and then appear count as two. Probably in magic terms, these two illusions are quite different in execution therefore count as different tricks. The last illusion was 3/4 completed, but I heard as long as the effect was done, even if the choreography isnt, its still considered.

Nite View of Clark Quay

The duo

Group Photo with them!

The Poster I received with their signature

View/Post Comments (0)

Monday, June 29, 2009
DIY USB Standard A Male to Micro B Male
[ZOMBiE CyGiG] ranted at 12:16 PM --- Post#2828571810407413050

Yucks yucks yucks. I hate having tons of cable, esp all the various USB types. I purchased short USB Standard A Male to Mini B Male from dealextreme, so that I can turn a normal USB A Female extension into a Mini Usb cable when needed. Since from experience, I seldom use more than one USB mass storage devices at the same time, its not practical and messy to have one cable for each kind of USB.

Sure, I can purchase those all in one kits, that SLS and Dealextreme sell, but till now, most of them lack the new micro USB connectors that I need for my Nokia.

From the previous post, I had gotten my hand on a micro USB short adaptor. But sadly, the other end is a USB Standard A Female. Which is why I need to buy another male to male to mate them to my extension. Sucks la..very untidy leh. So use lots of tools and tore them apart and soldered my own short adaptor. Also went SLT to buy some connector spares in case I cock up.

The front after soldering the wires. I had a tough time figuring out which connector is to which pin, by matching the wires on the broken off wires on the micro connector to the torn apart female connector.

This is how the back side looks like.

Weeee...finished liao. Tested. Functional.

Connected to my USB extension.

Using on my Nokia

Left: This Diy short Micro USB.
Right: Short mini USB from Deal Extreme.

View/Post Comments (0)

Thursday, June 25, 2009
My Lunch
[ZOMBiE CyGiG] ranted at 1:28 AM --- Post#8233502652839962033

USB Adaptors

This is a USB Standard A Female to USB Micro B Male adaptor. Originally wanted a USB Standard A to USB Micro B but not available. So I need the help of another double USB Standard A Male (Pic Below). Looks really untidy and cheap inside.

Double USB Standard A Male taken apart.

My Lunch

My humble slimming down lunch today.

View/Post Comments (0)

Tuesday, June 23, 2009
What can a $40 Digital Camera Gives You?
[ZOMBiE CyGiG] ranted at 11:00 PM --- Post#5540107537805913469

I own a Nikon D80, it takes wonderful images, lots of features, interchangeable lens...the list goes on and on. But it has one very major disadvantage - BULKY!

Alot of our life's random shots are among one of the most interesting images around, which serves as a very good blogging material - to inform others of what you observed, and keep it as an archive of your life. Other than that, good random shots gives me opportunity to practise the usage of Photoshop and its relevant skills.

Whenever I see something interesting, I would use my handphone to capture the scene without hesitation, but my Nokia 5320's photo are beyond hope. My BlissView T8 takes acceptable video, but when it comes to photo, it seems only to be a little better than my Nokia. And most of the time, I would be taking photo instead of video.

Thus I decided to head down to VR-Zone's Market Place and hoot a second hand digital camera. Though I put "$100" as the price of the digicam in the thread, I was actually targeting at "50". I was offered:
- Sanyo Xacti VPC S6----$50
- Canon Ixus II---------$80
- Minolta Dimage E223---$20

As sample pics aint available, I can only choose via specs. And S6 wins in this case. I decided to push the price down to $40 and carry on with the deal.

The above shows the EXACT S6 I got. Note the bursted LCD sides. I was shocked to see the damaged LCD when I received the unit as it was not mentioned before to me. Further more, the sample pics he showed me was really chui and he told me he had problems with the cam, namely
- Shutter speed too slow, need to always use Sports Mode
- Rechargeable Battery dun work well
- Unable to delete images off the SD card.

The lens are pretty scratchy+dusty.

Still, I was confident that I would be able to solve all these problems and still bought it for $40 in the end. Im will not post the spec of S6 as it looks like a joke when compared to DSLR, you can Google it easily if you want to. Mainly, it has a 3Mp sensor, about 2.4" LCD, powered by 02xAA batteries and uses SD non-HC cards as storage. It has a "Touch Sensor", which will auto focus the camera once your finger touches the shutter button, and all you need is to press all the way down. Conventional camera normally need a half press to auto focus, and then a full press to activate the shutter. I find this "Touch Sensor" feature useless as Im not used to it.

Anyway, later on I found out that there aint any problems with the shutter speed, you just got to know where your lights are and how to hold the camera still. I got a mini tripod and its very helpful if a long exposure is needed. Tweaking the ISO and EV settings helps too. I used Konnoc 2000mAh NiMH low self discharge batteries and they are working perfectly fine, I had taken near 100 shots since and yet to change batteries. The SD card was partially corrupted and full formatting it helped, I had got the same memory card problems for my old Olympus cam too.

Talk less, here are the sample pics (They are NOT additionally enhanced aka Photoshopped other than cropping and resampling):

The Neighbourhood Cats

The tail lights of a car.

A stone tablet near my house.

Closed up shots of toys.

Small object photography under studio lighting.

RC car chassis.

EDIT: Indoor shots at Plaza Singapura.
*Thanks sihui for reminder. Its PS not Vivo.

Food Photography: LAKSA!

Cropped macro shot of an opamp.

So do you think its worth $40? I think quite worth it leh, and also skills (photography+photoshop) can sometimes greatly overcome low end hardware...

View/Post Comments (0)

Saturday, June 20, 2009
Tioman Trip
[ZOMBiE CyGiG] ranted at 2:32 AM --- Post#9179272732609065469

Went to tioman from the 15 to 17 June 09. It was initially quite a bad idea due to the "trauma" from the last bintan trip, and no matter how, I fail to see how will Tioman be more fun than the uber boring Bintan trip. But it turned out to be much much better than expected.

As Tioman is more of a "seeing" than "telling" place, I decided to give a short text on the tour schedule, follow by all the pictures.

Day 1 (15 Jun 09)
Woke up just after two hours of sleep and proceeded to Golden Mile. I just realised that the tour company we booked the package from subcontracted the whole trip to another bigger tour company: Konsotium Express. How does the tour coy we booked from earn then? Unless Konsotium actually offered the same thing but much cheaper?

The coach arrived at 6am and I was quite shocked there were less than 10 ppl on board the, I think, 24 seaters. Went to second link into Msia, and my sis so damn shua ku, never used the biometric automated gantry before. There was NO ONE on the Msia custom, which was quite a shock to me as it would normally be filled with ppl, thats prolly cos we were too early.

The trip to the pier was three hours, and we waited a freaking one hour for the ferry cos it was damn late. There was this stall with this aunty telling everyone to buy souvenirs from her cos she claimed that over at Tioman island, everything will be damn exp, which was later found to be very untrue.

Not surprised, alot of the souvenirs were "Made In China", but well, I still bought some, though I was rather disappointed to know the fact that the stuff were mass-manufactured cheapskates from china to fool tourists. I heard that the pewter merlion ornaments sold in Changi airport were made in Philippines.

The ferry ride was rather peaceful..well...cos I was sleeping most of the time. It took another two freaking hours to reach the island. The ferry worked in a manner like our buses, it had several stops along the coast of the island so that ppl going to diff parts of the island would be able to walk less.

We alighted on the third stop, and I was super relieved to know that there was a shuttle bus to fetch us to the resort, "Berjaya Tioman Beach, Golf & Spa". Up the bus and to the resort. The rooms were ok lah, air con was cold enough and the facilities works. It was fairly clean too. A major complain is that the WC took a loooooong time to fill itself with water before you could flush the toilet bowl.

Following that, we went out for a walk. Most of the attractions were flora and fauna, there were barely any interesting stalls to visit, most of them sold boring sea shells and provision goods. There were lots of stray cats, as many as there are on my void deck. Mangos were dropping from the trees almost every time and everywhere, and it made sense that the shops aint selling much fruits as they could be picked up by the roadside.

We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant, which was a looooong way downhill (and uphill while returning ON FOOT). Food was so so only, and uber exp, as I was expecting a 40% decrease in price as compared to SG as Tioman is an island and food in MY is cheap. Ended up the food was as expensive as SG, esp the crab. One of my hypothesis is that the sea around Tioman is protected, and thus the seafood comes from mainland MY, which explained the increment of price of seafood despite being near a sea side.

At night, I camped at the lobby to use their free wifi. N770 can retire liao..I need a better MID.

Day 2 (16 Jun 09)
In the morning, we had breakfast at the Resort's dining area. After that went to book for sea activities. It cost RM550 for the family to go on a snorkelling trip with a delicated boat and boat operator.

No photos were taken during snorkelling as I did not have any water resistant camera. Words in this entry would also be barely enough to describe the whole experience, so I guess you would need to have snorkel before to understand it.

The first place was a shallow beach where the water level is so low that you can stand on the sea bed. Despite the low water level, there were lots and tons of sea creatures in it. Among the waters were fishes that I failed to identify, sea cucumbers, corals, anemone, live rocks, shell creatures etc. There was not a single piece of rubbish or oil cogs, the water is so clear that you can see the seabed from the boat.

I found my life jacket a hindrance and took it off, i tied one of the loose straps to my watch and clicked on the fasteners to make a floating platform out of it. I could then dive into the sea and collect sea cucumbers!

Sea cucumbers were really interesting creatures, I had one in my marine tank which shrinks as time pass, prolly due to malnutritient? It is hard like coral when you first pull it out from the sea bed. Its little suckers will cling on to rocks and various debris found on the sea bed. Then when you surface it, it will 'pee' from its ass and become soft. Ten minutes in the sun will make it skinny and shabby. I collected around 10-20 on my 'floating platform'...Put one on my dad's head while he was snorkelling and poured one extra long one onto my sis. Kinda fun with them around :)

The second place was much deeper. You can see huge specimens of coral reefs that you saw at aquariums. They took various different forms and colours and the largest one I had seen can span more than 10m in diameter. I kept my live jacket on for safety reason as the water was deep (>5m), and I keep fearing that some unknown creature would appear out of nowhere as depicted in games and movies. I had a slight photo with those giant coral reefs too, due to my lack of knowledge on them, I would never know if one may just close its flaps around and swallow me.

Then we went for lunch at another small island. There were practically nothing much to eat but burgers and nasi lemak. It was surprisingly NOT cold when I ate with all my clothes wet, as I dint bother to change and wash up, unlike what I used to experienced in SG swimming pool.

Then after we went to the 3rd, and 4th place and 5th place, which is much like the 2nd spot just that 3rd has lots of small fishes for you to feed (w bread), 4th has big fishes (not that big actually..15 to 20cm fish) and 5th is near an offshore island not bigger than half two swimming pool. Its about a kilometre away from tioman island.

On the 5th snorkelling spot, the water was rather cold, and the corals were larger there too. Clusters of sea urchins lied on the sea bed, as if waiting for me to sink so they can poke their spikes into my ass. This tiny offshore island is made of large boulders, white top and grey bottom. The 'white' on top was SEA GULL SHIT. There were lots of sea gulls and they nested on the trees and boulders of this tiny island. Nothing special other than that. I was looking into the sea bed and noticed that the boat was further away from me, I dint really cared, but soon, my dad informed me that the water current was strong. By then I was FAR AWAY from the boat liao. I tried to swim back but the current is simply too strong, my dad came to my rescue but as the current grew stronger, we got further from the boat and cant proceed anymore. The boat operator was alert enough to drive up to us to provide aid. After being rescued, we saw many other groups of snorkellers being swept away by the water current from far.

Actually, if you still have no idea how snorkelling is like, its just swimming. By right you are to wear this mask with a pipe so you can breath while swimming and looking into the sea bed. But the masks we got was so lousy that I decided to abandon it and use my own swimming googles, hold my breath and dive down to see the corals. You may be asking, "huh liddat then every few minutes you got to surface, see what?" Actually, most of the stuff down there were repeatative. You see the same kind of giant coral reef everywhere, same fishes everwhere, same large anemone everywhere, same clusters of urchins everywhere. Not much of a variety, despite them being beautiful to see and being everything BIG. Thus, all you need is that few minutes of view underwater and you would had seen most of the stuff.

Other than that, what I saw was almost like what you guys saw on documentary. I bet you had seen documentary of coral reefs or underwater expenditure before, the real thing looked just like what you see on video, just that the water depth and creatures differ from place to place.

After the tiring and burning snorkel, me and dad went for jacuzzi at the Resort's swimming pool. Quite lousy for a five-star resort leh, inside all filled with sand, and I cant make the water pressure reach my upper back without going into funny postures. The cables to the waterpump sprang out from the ground and dipped into the pool in an obscene manner, there were no effort seen to even conceal it, which kinda scared me, would 240VAC leak into the pool kill everyone?

Just as I was in my deep fantasy and weird imaginations, I heard the ground shook and saw two ang moh ladies walking along the pavement. Mind you, they aint "normal" ang moh ladies, but looked like as if they had been eating Carl's Junior Upsize for breakfast, McDonal upsize for lunch, 5kg Beef Steak for dinner and three packets of nong shim for supper. They are, indeed, UPSIZED ladies! I bet each of them weight more than 150kg. And just as I though, the started heading for the Jacuzzi pool than Im in and everyone in the pool stared at them like a frozen frame of a dramatic movie.

SPLASH!!!

In they went as I made my way away for them. I almost though they displaced all the water sia!

Dinner was another Chinese Restaurant, which... somehow had the same menu as the one we had on the first day. The dishes were the same..the pricing were the same...Even the attitude of the waiter seemed to be the same. Lol, a branch of the one downhill?

We saw Edmund Chen, Xiang Yun and their children sitting beside us. I think I saw that they ordered quite alot of stuff, including a red wine, but only cost RM110. Celebrities get special offer? Anyway, ppl were coming and asking for photos and the boss gave them extra nice treatment. He wanted to take a family photo, he gestured my dad to go over to help him, and when he went over, the boss rudely took the camera away from him and gave him the what-makes-you-think-you-can-take-photo-for-them look. Edmund Chen frantically said thank you to my dad. My mom was busy gossiping away about them, which irritated me a lot as we cant order our food with her keep talking non-stop. I dint even really go and look at them or ask for photos or autograph, cos I can imagine if im them, I would be so damn stressful to keep my reputation, greet my fans, sign their books and take photo with them, I think letting them have the time to themselves is the best way to respect them then.

Day 3 (17 Jun 09)
The check out time is 9.30am according to our ferry timing, which is supposed to be about 10am. So we had to wake up early to pack our stuff and leave for breakfast.

While I was taking my orange juice, I saw a big puff of smoke looming towards me, I siam and went over to see what happened. OMGWTFBBQ, from what I heard, some idiot go and up the temperature of the bread toaster despite the clear label saying "Do Not Adjust Temperature". It was an old fashion bread toaster, there there is a short conveyor belt that will drive your bread close to the heater, and at the end of the belt, it will drop to signify that the bread is ready. That idiot was probably frustrated or smthing, prolly max up the temp and somehow her bread got stuck there, wun drop down. I think she walked off or smthing after a failed attempt to get her toast. And then after a few minutes, it caught fire and POOF! Smoke came out and when I peeked into the toaster, I could see the bread happily enjoy being on fire. A kitchen assistant came over and extinguished the burning bread, then it was just a piece of charred black mass. The day before, someone actually apply peanut butter onto the bread BEFORE sending it into the toaster. He came frantically asking my dad for help, but they cant do anything but to stare at the bread being stuck to the wall of the toaster. Guess what, these were all Singaporeans.

The ferry was late, again, and came only at around 11am instead of 10. Despite having a custom and some random bag checking, the railing of the waiting zone is so low that I could climb over it with ease and "escape" to the outside for a much cooler and fresher air, as compared to the hot and stuffy waiting area.

Ferry came and we were brought back to the ferry station, where a mini van came and fetch us. We requested for lunch and the in-charge said we could only have 20mins as they still have got other passengers. I rushed my food and the fact is, I CANNOT EAT FAST. Its not that Im unable to speed up my act of devouring food, but that eating fast will cause "gas" in my gastric. The results were evident in the later part of the van ride, my tummy was filled with gas, and as I was trying to burp, I puked. Luckily I had a large mouth and was able to hold my puke in my mouth until I found a plastic bag.

The rest of the journey back home was pleasant. And when we reach home, we had a little surprise - the pest terminators just finished fuming the place with insecticide, my kitchen floor, where the rubbish chute is, was filled with half dead roaches. GG.

Pictures

Lots of pics, takes a while to load. Click on the pic to get a larger view!
Using Nikon D80 with Tamrom A16.

Chicken and duck by the roadside.

Tasty yet stale catfish. Lunch at a stall beside ferry station when gg to tioman island.

Those kettles were meant to be used for washing hands. Same stall as catfish.

Cat. Very skinny.

Sis playing DS while waiting for ferry.

Ferry Station.

Souvenir stall at ferry station. All MIC goods.

Resort room, Taken from the door.

Hotel room from another angle.

Bed view.

Some tea therapy shit.

An urn, I suspect inside put dead ppl's ash one.

Attap Chee plant. U always get attap chee in Iced Jelly.

Resort's souvenir shop. Cute glass ornaments. MIC also?

Wearing this hat makes you and official Tiomanian.

Thats you.

Half dead dunno what flower.

One of my favourite photo from this trip. The silhouette of a dead tree. You can hardly find one in SG.

Jetty of Tioman Island.

The fruits of cashew nuts. I believe the outer part will drop off leaving the nut there. Imagine how many they need to pick while you song song eat one whole packet?

Flowers of cashew nuts.

Jackfruit.

An alley of Tioman.

Ultra big slippers.

Banana.

Black Kitty.

Ling Zhi?

Some flower.

Another of my favourite photo in the trip. Sunset!

The chinese restaurant we ate at on the first day.

Our resort chalet from outside.

Fun pool for kids.

Jacuzzi where the two "extraordinary" ang moh jumped into.

Adult Pool.

Thats the tiny offshore island that is made up of boulders and had lots of sea gull shit on top.

Dining area for breakfast.

Ayura Spa Services.

Some sort of jelly fish or tube worms?

These are the deluxe resort chalets.

That's you again.

Shabby resort entrance.

Preggy komodo? Looks too small to be a komodo leh...

Lots of bats hanging on the trees. Almost every tree has a family of bats on them in Tioman.

View/Post Comments (0)

Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Tuts My Barreh
[ZOMBiE CyGiG] ranted at 6:03 PM --- Post#2456899417461847576

WOOOoooooooOOOOOooo YEA!

View/Post Comments (2)

Friday, June 05, 2009
Sennheiser HD800 Launch
[ZOMBiE CyGiG] ranted at 3:39 PM --- Post#8852933313481497726

72-13 is the venue for Sennheiser HD800 Launch, and looking for 72-13 wasn't an easy feat, it took two military trained men one hour to locate its position, but the long journey there was definitely worthwhile. A little info-bite, 72-13 is not a block number, "72-13" is the building name, and it used to be a rice warehouse, but now converted to multi-purpose hall, capable of transforming into a gallery, stage, cinema etc. Its by International Centre of Asian Art (ICAA) and its the home to TheatreWorks.

Pic of 72-13. Taken from www.theatreworks.org.sg

Invitation card mailed to me.

After crossing the river, trekking up the hills and stepping on dog shit, we reached the building and was overjoyed by the "aura" of aircon. The personnel there were dressed in suites, which made my tee and jeans looked contrastingly informal. To my relief, a lot of the rest of the invited were dressed rather casually. We were given a goody bag containing a demo SA CD by Stockfisch-Records and a booklet on HD800.

Goody bag and its content.

We were brought to a holding area where its rather dark, and joined some other audiophiles and, assumingly, one of Senn's higher authority in a causal audio discussion. Titbits were served along with "Sennheiser Blue" drink, which tasted like 100Plus Lime. After about 20 minutes of waiting, we were ushered to the audition area.

Random: C-730UZ. Ancient camera that had its lens all dropped out due to some unknown reason (one day when I used it, the lens were already out of place). I managed to assemble the lens back and got it working again. Poor pic quality but its the only alternative I have other than my DSLR which was too heavy and bulky for this event. Pics below are shot using this cam.

Down a dark passage way barricaded with stage cloth (or whatever you call those velvet big cloths you use for a stage), videos were projected to show the history of Sennheiser's.

Making a right turn at the end of the passage brought us to the audition area. Its a wide and dark room measuring roughly half the size of a typical school hall. At the end is a screen with speakers.

In the center, there were two "audio cubes". Each cube measured around two meters on each side, and the walls were made out of clear glass. they looked like some futuristic chambers.

TheWicked's Audio Cube.

Stepping inside the cubes, I was told to enjoy the video and would be given 20 minutes to audit HD800. There was a comforty leather chair and in front was a table top with CD player, headphone amp and an array of CDs. A video played for about ten minutes before instructing us to audit the headphones.

The video on screen. Taken while inside my audio cube.

Equipment, with HD800 on the CD Player.

Equipment, without HD800.

Transparent Audio IC cables.

The HD800 definitely won the best looking headphones in my heart. The futuristic look is achieved by usage of aluminium in the housing, as well as stylish curves and prominent shapes. The cables are of Y-design and nicely sleeved. It fitted very comfortably on my head

Front view.

Side view.

Top view.

I did not use any of their CDs as I always believe that I should audition equipment using music genre that I like most. My taste is slightly different from the other audiophiles, as I mainly listened to Mando Pop and Rock, as well as Techno. I placed my own compiled disc into the T+A CD Player, upped the volume and listened. Later on, I tested on Chesky's Ultimate Disc as well.

T+A CD Player.

Load tray opened.

My own compiled CD.

Lehmann Audio headphone amp.

From the precious 20 minutes of audition. Here is my verdict of the HD800: It has exceptional details and imaging, and does very well in high resolution songs. The balancing was very well done, it does not have too much mids or bass that covers the highs, and yet it did not sound too boring and analytical. The sound stage waged between my RX700 and ESW9, and has that "airy" sound by most open cans, which is not in favour by me, who chose focus over sound stage and naturalness. I love HD800's dynamics, it was able to reproduce rapid high and low attacks without muddling up. The highs were fast, and seemed to do better than the bass, the treble seemed to be a mini little bit too high, but I liked it as it adds on to dynamics in the cymbals, but rest assured there was no sibilance at all. The bass was well controlled, but personally, I would prefer a much punchier and deeper bass.

On the other hand, I feel that, although HD800 is a marvellous headphone, it wasn't something as "WOW" as the advertising video portrayed (marketing?). There are definitely other headphones playing on the same league as HD800, many might even be a lot cheaper. Im not very sure of the pricing of HD800, but I heard it exceeds S$2000, which instantly killed all non-working audiophiles like students.

View/Post Comments (0)

Tuesday, June 02, 2009
DIY: Charging Station
[ZOMBiE CyGiG] ranted at 1:52 AM --- Post#9102192263544761804

This is the charging station I made. I got the idea from various videos online. Its nothing Rocket Science and you dun need skills of a case modder to do it.

The main purpose of this charging station are
1. Centralised charging of all your in-use gadgets; Convenient.

2. Cable manage your step down adaptors by hiding them all inside the box.

3. Easy retrieval of those adaptors to bring to school or work due to separation of the cables from other equipment as well as centralising.

4. Removal of ugly sight of having multiple adaptors on wall socket; having just one 3 pin plug, the power extension is hidden inside.

One major disadvantage is that you got to open up if you want only a certain number of adaptors to be switched on/off. Well, unless you dun mind wasting some power by the other 3 devices while only one is charging, which will save u the hassle of opening the box up as you just need to on/off from the wall power point. I read somewhere a nokia charger takes roughly 0.5W while its plugged in, powered on and not charging anything.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

Materials:
1. Power Extension, you can use your favourite brand with surge protection. I used a cheap Taiyo cos I no money and cos its small. Bought from Cold Storage.

2. A Casing with lid, could be a box or a left over amp case, or even mini ITX casings. To keep things simple, I used a steel box that I bought from Ikea Tampines at 2 for $9.90. The set of 2 are of different sizes: 18x29x13 cm and 20x36x14 cm. Make sure you have enough length for your extension and enough depth and width for your adaptors.

3. Non-slip mat, I bought them at a few bucks from Dollar Value and cut them to size.

Tools:
1. Power drill, the steel is thin, no need got impact drill. A battery operated one will do. Drill bit of up till 15mm for large connectors.
2. Scissors.
3. Double sided tape
4. Ruler
5. Small file.

Instructions:
1. Drill a roughly 8mm hole on the side of the box. File the edge so its not sharp. This hole if for the power cord to go through. For thin steel like the Ikea box, it would be good to clamp them on waste woods and use high torque mode and go slow.

2. Disassemble the 3-pin plug from the extension. Most of them are held by small screws to make assembling or disassembling easy. Take note of the positioning of the 3 wires. Ignore the fuse, and make sure there is a fuse there.

3. Feed the "3-pin plug"-less through the hole.

4. Reassemble and connect the 3-pin plug back to the power cord. Please take note of the live, neutral and earth wires and DO NOT mix them up and make sure the three wires aint touching each other. Make sure that you secure them properly. Ask for help if you are unsure.

5. Take the lid, and drill four (or any other number you deem fit) holes the same way you drilled the hole for power cord. Make sure the hole is big enough for the connectors of the adaptors.

6. Cut the non-slip mat to fit the shape of the lid. It serves to cover the big ugly holes as well. Use double sided tape to secure it onto the lid. Do take note that the non-slip mat has quite some holding power on the lid, and the use of double sided tape is just to make sure the mat wun move around when you are working on it. There is no necessity for the usage of strong adhesive.

7. Cut on the part of the map where the holes on the lid are. This is to let the connectors past through.

8. Hook up your adaptors according to the pictures and you are done!

Optional: You may want to label which connector is for which device.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

This is how it looks internally. As you can see, its nothing special, its simply a way to organise your charging adaptors. It is possible to keep extra length of the power cord inside the box. It is possible to add more adaptors via a power splitter, or using a bigger box with a more way extension.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

All the wires are kept inside, you can cable tie them up neatly if you want to.

Obviously this DIY charging station is made for ultra lazy ppl like me.

View/Post Comments (0)