Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by tong1774

www.agoda.com

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 07:30:00 +0800

www.agoda.com

tong1774 — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 20:38:48 +0800

Hi, i recently booked 2 rooms X 3 night for my family trip to Phuket with agoda.com. The total amount i was billed is USD512.49 around RM1773.20 (X3.45). But when I recieved the statement for my credit card, I was charged USD554.64 around RM1913.51. So there is an extra charges of RM140+ which is about 8% different. I understand the currency excharge going up and down everyday, but I think RM140+ is a bit too much, so I email them regarding this issue, and here is their reply:

Thank you for your email.

Regarding to your inquiry, we charged in local amount, Please be aware that many banks charge fees for processing exchange conversions. These charges are typical in the industry and are often built into the exchange rate. We only select partner banks who agree to maintain competitive levels for these fees. For charges that are converted to your local currency by us before being processed by your Credit Card Company or local bank we use the mid-rate applicable on the date of the transaction. As most of the world's major currencies are valued against the U.S. Dollar, the mid-rate is a true indication of the current exchange rate.

If you would like us to recharge in USD then we will process full refund for the previous local amount accordingly. Would you kindly advise your acceptance by return. Thank you.

Should you need further assistance, please feel free to contact us at credit@agoda.com

Best Regards,

Titima Panjach
Credit Specialist

So is this a comment practice? I am not sure, since this is the first time i book oversea hotel through online. And they are offering me a "recharge in USD" which i don't fully understand how different would that be. So i really need some opinion here. RM140 aren't really breaking the bank, i just don't like being "con", if thats the case here. Anyone?

Thanks.

BTW, even with the extra RM140, they are still a lot cheaper than any other website i can find. The same hotel from Air Asia GoHoliday would be RM2400, and if i booked directly from the hotel it would be slitly cheaper than GoHoliday.

Genetic specialist or Haematologist

tong1774 — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:36:15 +0800

Me and my wife are both Alpha Thalassaemia, but we dont know if we are Alpha Plus or Alpha Zero. Now we plan to have baby, and need to consult a Genetic Specialist or Haematologist, anyone have recommendation?

Li-on battery on Canon A460

tong1774 — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:04:48 +0800

Hi. My wife's Canon A460 is eating up the battery so fast. Around 20+ snaps with flashes only then the low battery icon already come out. I have try using Hybrio, Eneloop, Energizer 2500mAh and Sony 2700mAh and still the same. Thinking of the possiblity to use rechargeable Lithium Ion in AA form, namely 14500. But i am not sure whats the maximum input voltage of the A460, and couldn't find any info online. Every webside just state "2X AA". Anyone have any clue or how can i find out without waiting for an official answer from Canon? And their answer may not be accurate since they may not encourage people to use 14500 Li-on on their camera.

No sound with mic-in through my speaker.

tong1774 — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 00:56:57 +0800

I am having problem with my Audigy 2 mic-in. I can record sound and play it back through my speaker, but there is no sound coming out when i actually use it in real time, is this normal? I need to use it for skype. Thanks.

Best place to go for holiday during CNY?

tong1774 — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:40:40 +0800

My family and i are planing to skip the chinese new year festive fever and go for holiday. However due to past experience of going to china during CNY, we would like to avoid going to any chinese country during that period of time. We were either going to Thainland, Indonesia or just within Malaysia. Would like to hear your opinion on different destination.

1) Thailand: Basically we had been to Hatyai, Songkhla, Bangkok, Samoi, Phuket, Cheng Mai, Pataya. Among all we like Phuket the most. Any other places like that in Thailand beside Phuket?

2) Indonesia: We only been to Bali. Dont plan to go Jakarta as there is nothing much to see there. So any other interesting place in Indonesia?

3) Malaysia: Basically we been to almost all tourist attractions in West Malaysia. At first my father suggest to go to Penang since he havent been there for quite sometimes. But due to the heavy traffic on the way to Penang and in Penang island itself, i do not really kine to go there during CNY, and if possible even try to avoid driving up north During that time. So any other interesting, but not well known places that you would recomment?

4) Singapore: May sound stupid to go to Singapore during this time, but could be a good decision. But i am not sure about the traffic and also if there will a lot of shop closing for CNY. Anyone experieced CNY in Singapore?

5) Other closeby Asian country: If there is any interesting places beside Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos (My dad been there few times) Plese advise.

We will be going in 5 people, and my parent are too old to do all those moutain climbing or bunchy jumping and other extreme stuff, so my choice here are limited. Oh and budget try to stay within RM1500 per person including air flight and hotel, for at least 4 days. I know its hard, but got budget limits here.

BTW, if you have a good travel agency to recomment, or you are an agent yourself, plese drop me a PM. Thanks.

My dad's Lumix just die

tong1774 — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:22:12 +0800

Ok my dad's Lumix FX8 just die after 4 years. Well the camera power up and can still take picture, but the LCD is blackout. Can't see anything nor matter in what mode. So i am thinking weather to repair it, or buy a new one. If repair, where do you guy recommend? And if buying a new one, which camera you guys recommend. The criteria would be:

1) Its for my dad when he go travel, so no need super high Pixel as he wont make a big print.

2) No need fancy function, as he wont use them. But basic function like anti-shake, anti-flare, good auto focusing and shuttle/exposure is essential.

3) The LCD screen need to be bigger, like the old Lumix FX8. Not sure how big is that, may be 2.5". This is because my dad's eye sign aren't really good any more.

4) Budget. Well not sure about this, but anything range below RM500 will be great. The Lumix i bought 4 years ago is RM1500. And my dad didnt even use 50% of its function.

5) Durablity. This is important as my dad bring it with him all the time, and he make quite a lot of travels each year. And he is not those who know how to take care of his camera.

Any suggestion would be great. Will need to settle this within this few days. As he is going for another trip this month. Thanks.

Looking for conveyor system supplier

tong1774 — Mon, 26 May 2008 14:29:59 +0800

i am working on opening a Japanese sushi restaurant. Contacted a few supplier, and trying to get more options now. Anybody who knew any supplier or you are the supplier yourself, please PM me. Thanks.

Is it worth repair

tong1774 — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 16:59:04 +0800

Hey Edifier, my R501 MKII seems like kaput already, what ever i play only the sub got sound, any other channel are mute and no sound coming out from it. Everything set right, even try with different PC, possible to fix?

How do i monitoring external hard disk temperature

tong1774 — Thu, 31 May 2007 09:58:37 +0800

I am using hard disk sentinel, and they claim that it can monitor the temperature of external hdd, but its not after i tried. So anybody know what software would be able to do that?

How to do a " Soft" auto shutdown

tong1774 — Mon, 14 May 2007 22:18:36 +0800

Hi i am currently running my server with my APC Smart UPS. Just wonder how to do a auto "soft" shutdown when the ups is low on battery after power failure, meaning window will save all my active programs and do a proper shutdown. Right now i use Window XP power management to auto shutdown when the battery hits 50% of its capacity.

But today i experience a power failure and window do shutdown as what i configured, but when i restart my system there are few progams claim that there is a "non proper shutdown". So what do i need to do to make sure that window will shutdown the system properly and not a hard shutdown. There are a few options which i am not sure if it works:

1) Hibenates_ Would it work?

2) Alarm action- Meaning when the low battery alarm goes off i can run a specific program, but is it possible make it shut down the program insted, and how? Like running a cmd to shut down a series of program. What command should i use?

3) Third party software- If there is impossible to do it with window build-in power management, what other program can i use to accomplish that, prefer a freeware though...

I am not a very technical person so i hope that some expert out there can help me out. thanks...

DVD player to Audigy2 ZS

tong1774 — Tue, 01 May 2007 21:06:10 +0800

I am curently using Edifier 501 with my Audigy2 ZS. But the way i set up MPC is bit tricky for my parents to handle especially to change audo stream and subtitle while playing DVD. So i am getting a dedicated DVD player with upscale capablity. And i would like to connect my DVD player's digital out to my Audigy so that the sound can be pass to my pc, and then out again to my Edifier.

I knew it would be better and easier if i get an AVR and a set of HT system, but i am staying in a condo and i can't really blast it, so no point of getting them at the moment.

I would like to know what kind of cable do i need to do that, assuming my DVD player has both coaxial and optical. Thank you.

Need some expert to explain

tong1774 — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 00:29:20 +0800

Ok i am having problem understanding 3:2 pulldown with my htpc. Recently when i watch DVD with my LCDTV which is connected to my pc, i notice that there is some kind of ghosting/trail ( Not slow respond time, i can still see it even when i pause it ) while playing back some DVD, even when the movement are not fast. And i can tell that its not interlace problem because the ghosting has no horizontal scan line on it. I check the vob file with Gspot and it says that:

Number of pictures per second: 25
Number of frames per second: 30
Number of fields per second: 60

And below that i can see the 3:2 pulldown and NTSC icon are in green so meaning that Gspot has detect the flag and so do the media player classic or other software player. So in this case, would MPC play it back at 24 frames per second, or 30? And which one will produce a better PQ? Or its actually the LCDTV should do the 3:2 pulldown instead of the software player. I understand some basic about this thingy, but when it come to this issue i am a bit blur.

Hope some expert out there can explain a tad more details to me. And thank u in advance.

Weird color with LCD TV

tong1774 — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 19:33:47 +0800

Just bought a DVI to HDMI cable when holiday in china. Tried to connect it from my 6800GS, and i got this weird red color tint on the screen. I have tried to set it as monitor and HDTV and both exibite the same problem. And if i set it more than 480P, the screen will strat to flicker, with the red tint problem also. Any idea what's wrong? Iam using Sharp 32BX6. Thanks...

Media Player Classic

tong1774 — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 02:49:22 +0800

I am using MPC 6.4.9.0 together with ffdshow to upconvert my media files and DVD to my 32" LCD. How ever MPC refuse to play certain DVDs with some unknown reason. Which PowerDVD manage to play the same DVD, so obviously there is no problem with the DVD but my media player & ffdshow setting. I have tried a lot of different settings to no success, and the same disc can't be play on Window Media Player, Real Player and Zoom Player. But it play fine on PowerDVD and VLC.

I am running out of idea now and would be happy if some one can tell how to config MPC to use the exact setting like the PowerDVD example overlay/VRM, video/audio decoder and such, so that i can play it with MPC and use the upconvert the DVD. Thanks...

What happen again?

tong1774 — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 03:09:03 +0800

Tonight the line had been extremely unstable. 1 minutes ago the DL is alright, 1 minutes later can't even log into lawyat.net. And having problem connecting to openvpn too. Any one having this problem? Reset modem and router and can only get 219.XXX and speed keep up and down from 100kb/s to 5kb/s. Perhaps another service maintainence? If u are having problem like me please report in, just curious if its just me or all of us having this problem.

Which shop in Pasar Road

tong1774 — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 01:04:04 +0800

Try to look for this cable to no success and everybody point me to Pasar Road. Just wonder if anybody know which shop in Pasar Road carry this cable and how much would it cost. And has anybody with Sharp BX series try to hook up your pc with this cable and does it work? I am asking this because some LCD do not support DVI to HDMI and i couldnt find any info about this tv regarding this issue. Thanks in advance.

Keep The Iswara, or buy a new Myvi/ Old Toyota

tong1774 — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 13:51:04 +0800

I am still thinking if i should just keep my 10 years old Iswara, or buy aother car. and i still have to decide to get a brand new Myvi, or a secondhand Toyota within the same price range. Any suggestion? And which bank offer the best package for loan now?

Weird problem with some DVD

tong1774 — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 22:11:42 +0800

Recently bought a original D9 Star Wars. However this DVD come with a software call Inter Actual, and i didnt bother to install it. So i lunch Media Player Classic and play the DVD. I cant seems to navigate during all the FBI warning and all the THX thingy. After waiting for 30sec i finally come to the root manu, and select "Play Movie". Once the movie started, the player crashed. I tried different setting and external decoders but all fail. So i tried Window Media Player 10 and same thing happen. But weird thing is when i play it with Powerdvd there is no problem, not even a lag! The only problem is that i cant resize with ffdshow when using Powerdvd. I tried install the Inter Actual software and it didnt help. Anybody got any clue how to solve this problem, is there any setting in MPC/WMP or ffdshow that i can change so that i can play this DVD.

Edit: BTW every time when it crash, it display the massage: faulting module qdvd.dll. Hope somebody can help because i really dont want to return the DVD. Thanks...

Pal/NTSC detection

tong1774 — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:27:53 +0800

I am using MPC with ffdshow. I am not sure if MPC/ffdshow can auto detect the format (Pal/NTSC) and play it acordingly with the correct frame rate. I try using reclock and the icon always stay yellow when active (Follow guide in AVS Forum). I set the frame rate in reclock at 30 because i am running 60HZ on my LCD and as i know the frame rate in reclock has to be a equal multiplie of the refresh rate. Is it possible that the problem is due to my dual view setup as i am running the LCD TV as secondary monitor and my CRT as primary running at 75HZ. Do both displays need to be at the same refresh rate for reclock to work properly? I run it with dual view but not clone, so the player only active in 1 monitor at a time. But i do open the file in my primary then drag it to the secondary after the player was lunch though...

Any helps? This thing is confusing me.