Over the weekend, besides processing photos from two weddings, I also was busy getting other stuff done as well as getting a new old PC built for a good friend. Like I said earlier, I've never owned a pre-built PC since I was 17 and probably will continue to do so even though Dell's tempting me but I figure a custom built Media Center is still going to kick-ass. Anyways, I decided to stick with XP for this build cos I didn't have an extra Vista license lying around but also to "try" ATI's (AMD actually) Radeon 3450 which has great reviews for its price/performance. As it turns out, it didn't like my Dell 2405FPW on the DVI port and only partially liked it on the analog VGA port. Worse, it didn't like the E207WFP either and the only monitor it liked was the 2007FPW. Enough of that kind of crap. I drove out and got it swapped for an NVidia 8500GT. I've not encountered a video card that doesn't POST on DVI before so for now, I'm sticking with anything NVidia. The Radeons can go to hell for all I care. Simply unacceptable.

After that little fiasco, the build proceeded so quickly, I mean Windows XP SP2, applications, patches (over 107 critical patches shows how old XP is!) and all that complete in just 2.5 hours

You can't have enough of RAM so, likewise, you can't get enough of cores!

I really forgot how bad KL traffic at 7;30am was and is! Have been spending the last four days at Tech-Ed South East Asia over at the KL Convention center. And traffic was really bad! Anyways, here are a few photos. I didn't bother bringing my camera plus also after last weekend's off-road jaunt, something whacked my truck's air-conditioning fan out of commission so no cool air if the truck isn't moving and on Jalan Damansara, Mahameru and Tun Razak, moving is defined as snail's pace!

I know I've not made any updates for over a week but there's been a whole lot of activities that just leave me totally zonked out by day's end. Good thing is that I finally got my wife's PC up and running. Everything's sort of installed and in place except for a few minor utilities like DVD authoring software and the like. Then came the big bathroom leak incident. For poor workmanship (gone are the good old days), the master bathroom of my condominium started leaking into the unit below. We've been using the second bathroom for a week now and that doesn't help my weariness as I've got to boil water to get hot water since I don't have a water heater installed there.

Loading durians for the trip home!

Last weekend was Sanofi-Aventis' Corporate Social Responsibility trip into the SEMOA villages and we did eat lots of durians and donated some needy supplies. And I had to rush to deliver the photos for their marketing department within 48 hours! Oh well, I still have got two weddings to process, a photobook to complete by next week and another wedding shoot the week after!

Yes we ate all that!

Well, yesterday I headed down to LY Plaza to my favorite IT retailer for a bunch of parts. I was aiming to wait till end September to get this upgrade but an unexpected disaster happened. Anyways, so, here goes upgrade phase one. Phase two is smaller and is not so obvious. If you noticed I have two Intel Core 2 CPU boxes in the photo. The one below is a Quad-core CPU which will be going into my main workstation but not exactly so soon. Why wait? I've two weddings to process so that takes priority and I need to stabilize the other workstation first. Choice of parts is nothing extraordinary. Just reliable parts to get the job done. After all, tech refresh is every 18 months anyway

Bunch of new parts ready to be assembled!

New architectural marvel or just a simple heat sink?

64-bit Vista install...

Normally, I'd never ever buy a fully built PC for myself (or wife) from anybody - HP, Acer, Apple, Dell, you know. This is probably the second PC I can consider getting other than this HP TouchSmart model that looks quite snazzy. The XPS One doesn't count because it's not available in Malaysia yet. What's not to like? Price is one thing but why can't Dell Malaysia remove all the useless stuff (monitor, speakers, keyboard, mouse) because I've got better and sell just the unit? Secondly, it maxes out at 4Gb RAM. Come on, this is 2008, we need 6Gb and 8Gb! Anyways, pricewise, it gets pretty high (I spec'ed mine up to RM4,968 with a 2.5Ghz CPU) so again, I have to pass on it. However, it looks like Dell's waking up a bit and PC manufacturers are begin to make snazzier boxes. The new Latitude E-Series looks good

Yes, it's just over a month since I got rid of my crappy symbian-sucks-big-time Nokia N80. The 3G iPhone has been released. Yes, I'll be getting one in November. Anyways, for now, the crap Maxis network occasionally hangs my iPhone -- you know it's Maxis cos if you go into Airplane mode (no connection to a RBS - Radio Base Station), the problem goes away. In the meantime, besides all the usual stuff I use on the phone (contacts, etc), my primary other use is for my shoot calendar, currency converter (when buying stuff from US and HK), and of course, my collection of all the super inspiring, super extraordinary photos from the super group of workshop people at the Louis Pang From Ordinary to Extraordinary workshop in Penang. For INSPIRATION, what else?

The day I show up in the office fairly early (earlier than my normal time anyways) and first thing was I saw crowds of people everywhere and for the first time, the Semasa Sentral security personnel deployed at various locations. I asked the guy assisting illiterate people at the season parking boom gate (yes, people cannot read a sign with 16" letters stating "Season Parking Only" and attempt to get a parking ticket where there is no dispenser!) what is going on. He replied "api-lah" in a very nonchalant way. So anyways, I head into my parking and assume it's all a drill.

When I get back up to the ground floor to change elevators to go up to my office, it smells a bit strange and there was an actual fire it seems. So anyways, I was a bit lazy to walk to Starbucks so I head over to Gloria Jeans, get myself a iced coffee and waited out the crowds of hard-working people queuing up to re-enter their offices. And all I could get was this blurry photo with my iPhone.