money - the pc hardware solution.

A week ago, I had a situation with my PC. Initially, my diagnosis was software problem. The system got jerky. So, decided to restart the system, and to unistall the suspicious software, which I thought was causing the problem.

Unfortunately, the system failed to boot up when I opted for restart. Just as I thought my data all loss for that cause, a lifeline came in. My friend thought I could try backing up my data in the drive using Linux-based Knoppix Life CD. We tried whole night via that, and it WORKED! Thank you Knoppix. Phew~! That left me sweating a bit.

I re-formatted the system, and tried re-installing the system. But, problems stucked there. I kept on getting error message from the installation. It kept telling me that files cannot be copied over to the hard drive. I thought, it MUST be either the ROM, IDE cable or the RAM. I ruled the possibility of my hdd having bad sector/corruption out, as my hdd was still considered pretty new. I purchased it back in 2004.

So I decided to pay Low Yat Plaza, a place where you get PC fair all year round, a visit. I bought myself a new 512MB DDR Ram, and couple of IDE cables. Came home and tried them out. And.. still the problem wasn't solved!



I was really getting annoyed now. I decided to swap my older hdd with the new one, replacing it as the Master drive on my PC. And, that proved my worst fear to be valid. My 80G Western Digital was the main cause. The system partition was corrupted.

That left me no choice, but to visit LowYat Plaza again the following day. Having spent about MYR 150 on the DDR earlier, now I need to fork out another MYR 260 for a 160G hdd.



Blooody dang, that bill costs me about MYR 400 already. Quite some chunk off my salary. *sigh* Why does shit happen all the time?

Anyway, I am not complaining too much. I have got larger capacity now, with more RAM, which helps me a lot on my PC performance. 200G of harddisk space, with 768MB of RAM. (I wonder if the 256MB I took out from the system is still usable?)

Pretty fast. Yeah~!

back online

PC is fully functional now. The source of breakdown to my PC has been identified. Apparently, it was a failure on my System partition that caused the breakdown. Now I need to claim the warranty.

On top of that, I am now billed with a near MYR 400 of credit statement.

Sigh.

pc down

Dang! I hate when this happens. Most people do!

PC went down just now. Argh. I hate going thru the hassle rescuing it. All the backups, re-installations, and restorations. Not to mention the fine-tuning to suit my personal use. Lucky for me, I had a friend who lend a great hand with this Knoppix CD, it's a life saver! Really!

Windows OS couldn't access to my partition of hdd, I couldn't do my backup to my data in there. Thanks to this live-saving CD, it's all considered done. (Although there was steps going thru the technical part, like the command line and such, as it is on Linux platform)

5:06A.M., and I am still awake! Darn! I'm gonna waste my Sunday morning again. Sigh. I just hate sleeping in the daytime.

*Currently updating this entry using my friend's laptop.

I think it is about time for me to shop for a new DVD drive, as well as a writer drive. I'm considering a DVD Drive (Standalone), and a DVD-writer (depends on the price). I'm also looking into a new mobile phone. I have a Sony Ericsson K750i in my mind.

Hmm... Plenty to consider. Research and survey to commence soon!

one month

It has been already a month since I joined my current employment. And it didn't feel that way, time flies! Let's hope everything goes well! Cheers!

camera

It has been about five minutes since I am logged on to blogger.com now. Yet, I have nothing in my mind on what to write yet.

I wonder how other bloggers do it. I am a regular reader in few blogs around, e.g. Kennysia.com, Sixthseal.com, and even one of my old pal Val, they all seem to capable to update their blogs regularly with quite some interesting content. I wonder how they do it.

*sratch head*

I still don't get it.

10 minutes later...

Oh, I think something just came up into my mind. CAMERA!

Yeah, CAMERA! Somehow that came into my mind, and I don't know how!! Anyways, speaking of camera, I am missing my old camera badly! I'm referring it as old camera, though I still have the camera with me here, as it's not functioning well already. I am considering for replacement already.

My digital camera used to be Canon A70. It worked great! There are so many functions I could play around with. The macro was great. It has long shutter exposure. It also has apperture priority setting! You can click on the link for more details.

Here's how it looks like.



I bought it around August-September 2003, not too long after it was released. It has been with me for almost 3 years. It has served me well alright. No doubt about it, capturing many happy moments, and fantastic shots as well.

It has had problems prior this. I have sent it back to Canon to claim the warranty while its coverage is still valid. Back then, it was just some minor problem with the "Review" selector. It was somehow stuck. After that, there was this 'flickering' problem emerging on the Display screen. I had sent it for service in Canon, and it costed me MYR 100! Problem did not solved there. It still persists.

Sigh. Now, it has problem with memory card. I don't know why the pictures it captures, would have been corrupted. Odd eh? I have made an exchange for the CF card, but the problem still stays. Sad.

I have not sent it for servicing since that time, long long time ago.. But on second thought I don't think it's worth it.

Here are the replacement I am considering:

Canon 350D (don't think this is an exact replacement)

Canon ixus-series;

or

Any other affordable range of consumer-ranged camera.

Any suggestions?

barney's best friend

I think Barney has just found his/her new best friend. Is Barney a she or a he? Well, let's just presume that our friend here is a he.

Taaa daaa...

Barney's new best friend!!!!! Spotted in KLCC!









Don't you think they have similarities? Irritating and annoying, isn't it? No wonder there were children running away from this mascot, screaming for mama. Poor kid!

* Sorry if there are Barney friends among you.

back again

a2blog is back, again. It's been a long time since I last update this blog. Hopefully this time, I'll be able to do this on a consistent basis. I, personally, had gone through a lot of changes during the period of time.

I had been thinking through on what concept I should inject into this blog. I am looking for a not so personal, yet entertaining and informative elements for this blog. I will leave my old entries as it is just for now. Won't be removing it just yet.

Nowadays, we seem to be going into a asymmetric trend. We have hair style designed that way, fashion leaning towards that trend as well. Our very own national car isn't much of an exception. Here, I present Proton Gen2 with asymmetric rear tyres!



Take note of the Left wheel! As you can see, it's smaller than the one on the right! It must be hard for this Gen2 to balance itself. I guess that explains why he was going about 40-60kmph on the highway!

Here, a closer look...



Weird huh?

a2blog is now quite messy, and needs a face-lift. I'll clean it up bit by bit, for sure. For now, I'm content with this temporary new layout. Hopefully, I can come out with my own layout. ;-)