Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by shipal

XBOX 360 : HDDVD player

shipal — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 15:36:58 +0800

Was thinking XBOX360 setup is cheapest available Hd-dvd player (compared to Toshiba), but is it lacking something?

Thought I read somewhere that XBOX cannot output 1080 or something.... or no HDMI? Can't recall, I'm guessing something is lacking.

Anyone knows?

Miracle scratch removal solution? Polish/wax spray

shipal — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 19:14:00 +0800

Friend told me he bought from direct seller, said spray and polish .... scratch gone.... deep and light scratches included. Wah!!

I'm waiting to see first hand demo to confirm.

Looking for audio/video transmitter/receiver

shipal — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 12:38:52 +0800

Thinking of sharing same movie on multiple tv

Any good foreign blogs? About personal life?

shipal — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 12:25:43 +0800

Tried googling.... always see malaysian and singaporean personal blogs.

Would be refreshiing to see some from overseas eg. USA, Europe, Australia, etc. Or do they think personal blogging is private (not available to public eyes) or worth making money from?

Which shops have phones on demo?

shipal — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 16:57:12 +0800

Hate looking at dummy phones .... what's the point holding a fake? I'd like to test the OS, lag, display, functions, etc.

Any such shops?

Can phone be fixed if fell into sea water?

shipal — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 23:56:22 +0800

Wife's phone fell into sea water .... phone went blank and that's the end of it.

Would it cost a lot to fix?

Which country has cheaper retail price cameras?

shipal — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 20:56:08 +0800

Am thinking Hong Kong is cheapest eg. Fortress chainstores.

Multiple flash function

shipal — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 17:42:13 +0800

Do I need to get some battery pack and attach to my existing CANON SPEEDLITE 420EX flash unit? Or do I need a special camera as well?

Best wifi phone/device for surfing web?

shipal — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 21:05:50 +0800

Was wondering which is most user friendly, easy to navigate, lots of RAM to view big content and has biggest screen? Any in market?

O2, Nokia communicator/N95, Pocketpc, HP, Asus, etc.?

How to buy movie tickets these days?

shipal — Thu, 31 May 2007 20:52:49 +0800

Haven't watch a cinema movie for a long time now.

With all these new online/sms/phone booking, I think the service is abused. Many people doing multiple bookings.... always full. (cinemas should charge during booking process, instead of during collection)

So what's left to do? Queue for tickets 30 mins before movie, for booking cancellations?

Disappointed with pc upgrade

shipal — Thu, 03 May 2007 22:43:43 +0800

Been using my 10 year old AMD K6 III pc for so long, decided to spend 2k on the following, hoping to see a big significance in speed/performance :-
1) Pentium Core2Duo 1.8
2) Gigabyte N650SLI-DS4 motherboard
3) 1GB DDRam
4) 250gb Seagate SATA2 HDD
5) 17" Samsung LCD

Added the following from old pc :-
1) 300GB IDE hdd
2) Samsung DVD writer
3) 250GB IDE hdd

QUOTE

Problem 1
Aside from fast installation of XP and and subsequent XP startup, I don't feel much increase in speed and performance. Opening and closing windows/screens seem to have a lag or delay (I expected to be so fast... zip here and there)

Is there anyway to test if my setup is at its best? Or is it missing something?

Status : SOLVED. The lag and slowness was due to GC and motherboard drivers

QUOTE

Problem 2
Cannot boot properly when set BIOS to boot CDROM first.
When I look at my CMOS setup :-
IDE Channel 0 Master = DVD writer
IDE Channel 0 slave = none
IDE Channel 1 master = none
IDE Channel 1 slave = IDE hdd
IDE Channel 2 master = none
IDE Channel 3 master = SATA2 hdd
IDE Channel 4 master = none
IDE Channel 5 master = none

If I set my BIOS as follows and then later I don't boot from cd (don't press any key to boot from cd), error shows "NTLDR is missing. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart". If i swapped the boot sequence, no problem:-
First boot device = CDROM
Second boot device = Hard disk

Status : NOT SOLVED

QUOTE

Problem 3
System automatically assign my SATA hdd as D drive and IDE hdd as C drive

I've tried setting IDE hdd as master or slave, no difference to drive letter assignment.

This is strange considering the boot drive (installed with XP) is SATA. There's only data files in the IDE hdd. Never had this problem before in old pc, always the C drive is the one with the XP installed.

I tried using DISC MANAGEMENT to assign different letter but got error saying "Windows cannot modify the drive letter of your system volume or boot volume". The IDE shows as (SYSTEM) and the SATA shows as (BOOT). How come?

Status : SOLVED
Found out that old PATA was formatted with system last time. Therefore, if PATA is booted together with SATA, system automatically assign PATA as system volume. So I formatted the PATA again (without system). Now there's no more mixup. The SATA is always C drive now.

QUOTE

Problem 4
Till now, I've formatted and reinstalled XP 4 times !! Somewhere along the way, XP doesn't boot up at all, some files missing.

Status : SOLVED (sort of). Problem was because of Windows Updates. When downloading/installing the XP updates, system restart will show the problem. So, after 4th XP reinstall, I avoided the WINDOWS UPDATE. Again, this problem never occur in old pc, I always do WINDOWS UPDATE. This could be somehow caused by some drivers in new pc. Example, when installing GC drivers, got warning saying not 'XP compliant'

Real arcade machine - where to get?

shipal — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 14:07:23 +0800

Anyone has one or knows where to get in Malaysia?

How do arcade centers get their machines? Surely must have some distributor.

Sharp 903 or 904 - why no praise?

shipal — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 11:20:58 +0800

Thought Sharp was having good camera since the 1+MP days. What happened? Overtaken by Nokia N73 and SE K800?

Frequent travel or not. Sacrifices?

shipal — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 09:34:59 +0800

Was wondering what you think about travel in your job ie. long term (more than a week at least, per month) .

Possible cons :-
1) Away from family/loved ones
2) Stay in lousy conditions (bad hotel, environment, people)
3) No place to call home (neglected to set up proper base, chores, etc)

Possible pros :-
1) Perdiem/allowance (if saved)
2) Experience new culture/country
3) More attractive cv / experience

But most crucial factor I think is the family/loved ones. Some are fine some are not, very much dependent on spouse. Some spouse are ok as long got money (money over relationship) or got time away from each other .

Because of travel restrictions, some had to change job paths.

Similar color CD player for Honda CT interior?

shipal — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 17:18:11 +0800

Dun wan silver or black. CT interior is beige/brownish.

Ways to test effectiveness of antivirus software?

shipal — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 11:41:19 +0800

How do you all test if antivirus is good?

As far as I know, crack and serial websites are highly infected with virus or trojans or popups. Good test for antivirus right?

Free online photo archive or storage?

shipal — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 11:38:07 +0800

Was wondering if there's such service. Photobucket automatically resize uploaded photos. Shutterfly can upload original size, but cannot retrieve.

Easiest home design/renovation software?

shipal — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 09:05:05 +0800

I bought 3D Architect but struggled with it, trying to get decent 3D mapping up.

Is there any easy to use software? One that I can just enter/click the apartment or house dimensions. Then put in some windows/doors, furniture/accessories, choose wall colour and tiles.

High salary is dependent on luck... not certs?

shipal — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 08:58:59 +0800

My observation...

Have seen many having same certs, but because of fate/luck/choice, certain jobs give much higher pay while others drag behind.

Choosing the right company or job makes the difference. Sounds obvious but many don't realise after graduation. Most tend to apply the standard ho-hum companies and lag behind. For finance or accounting degree, standard is to apply with banks and audit firms.

Job has to be special skill, which less people know. Accounting and consumer/retail banking... most people know, starting pay sucks and have to suffer a long time till some decent salary comes along.

From the Salary thread (http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopic=118423&st=0), can see those earning high are the specialised skills position or big multinational company.

Also, sometimes twist of fate presents big reward eg. company go listing, profit sharing, frequent travels, etc..

So, even with cert, in the end, choosing the wrong company or position, will make it useless.

Original anti virus - do they last long?

shipal — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 11:51:08 +0800

Was wondering how many out there are using and paying for original Antivirus software.

Just by paying the license, does the 'updates' last long? Or would suddenly they tell you to buy new software (more cost) after less than 1 year ... and they won't issue updates to your existing software?