x-tReMe Ramblings.....

My Windows 7 Experience - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:16:00 +0000

Guess I'll be posting quite a bit on Microsoft's latest OS for the PC market. Decided to switch to the new Windows 7 Ultimate from my Vista Ultimate over the weekend. Not that I have any complains on my Vista setup. Really.... On my system, Vista was smooth, almost crash proof and I had everything running just the way I wanted. I actually preferred it over XP. You can blame it on my curiosity but I just wanted to experience 1st hand what the buzz was all about, the improvements over Vista and XP, etc. So do bear in mind all the points here are based on my personal experience with the OS and I cannot guarantee the same result for other people. :)

My setup:

CPU: Intel C2D 8400 3ghz
MB: nVidia 630 / 7100
GPU: nVidia 9800GT 512mb
RAM: 3gb Kingston 667
HDD for OS : 100 / 320GB WD 7200
Other HDD : another 320GB WD 7200, Seagate 160GB 7200.10, Seagate 1TB 7200.11
Display: Primary - Acer AL1916W 1440 x 900 (DVI) , Secondary - Sony KLV-40V400A 1960 x 1080 (HDMI)
OS: Vista Ultimate x86

My 1st advise: Do a clean install. 2+ hrs into the upgrading process and I decided to abandon it for a clean install. Took me less than an hour for the Windows 7 to install and another later, I had most of my software like Office, PS, AI, DW, itunes, Firefox and Chrome all working.

Before I complain about the problems I had to go through during and after installation, I would like to answer the question of how fast is it, at least compared to Vista.

Not much difference in the start up times for me. (Don't ask what scientific proof I have, this is purely by "feeling" - to me, a difference of a few seconds does not make or break an OS). Shut down is relatively faster in Windows 7. Opening and running of programs like Office, PS, etc is also about the same as in Vista. This should be in line with the reviews I read on the web that Windows 7 makes more of a difference in speeds in lower end systems like ATOM or Celeron based CPUs. I do not have a ATOM to test the installation, suffice to say there's not much speed difference between Win 7 and Vista in my setup.

Now comes the 1st annoyance I found in Windows 7. When something crashes/hangs/not responding, the whole system becomes unresponsive!!! In Vista I could always (well... 95% of the time) bring up the Task Manager and kill off the offending application and/or process(es). Now in Win 7, a single non-responsive program means I have to hard reboot the PC. So far I have not encountered any applications that could hang and not force me do a hard reboot. The applications that hung on me in Win 7 included Windows Media Player 12, Region / Language Settings in Control Panel, Bitcomet, Explorer (in Music Library).

I guess I'll stop here for the moment. Will continue with another post soon!!! In the meantime I'll "mess" around more to see if I ultimately like this new Windows 7 better than its predecessor.

My New Jabra

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:38:00 +0000

Got this as my birthday present from my dearest. I have been looking around for a Bluetooth handsfree to go with my V9 for quite some time now. Actually we came across this Jabra BT3030 sometime ago in a newspaper ad I think. I did have a look at it during one of my trips to KL but did not commit to buy. I really liked the way it looked but it did not have the radio function like one of the Moto bluetooth set. For those using Moto phones, you would know that MOST, if not all Moto phones do not have the radio function built into the phone. :(

Now for the pics!

Its the “dog tag” style set. Has the dog tag look with V3 like buttons on it. I really like it. And since it has that V3 keypad look, it glows like it as well!! :)

The lights dim off when the buttons are not pressed and only the Jabra words blink to indicate it is connected to the phone. BTW the word Jabra blinks in different color according to the battery level. Blue when its above 70% full, orange in between and red when its less than 20%. And while charging the word blinks green and stays green once fully charged.

It comes with a chain as well as a clip (which I did not attach to yet) – so that you can clip it on your clothes instead of wearing it as a necklace. The thing is you can’t put the tag too far away from your face as the mic is on the tag and not on the earphones – unless you don’t mind taking out the tag and speaking into it every time a call comes in.

I did test the sound and mic quality while wearing the tag as a pendant. Apparently the mic quality is really good. No difference from speaking directly to the phone – according to the person on the other end of the line. And you can trust this person as she is the one whom I speak to most often over the phone – my dearest BB! :)

Listening to music from the phone is now so convenient as I just need to press play on the tag and my Moto starts playing from the last song I’ve listened to. Basic functions like FF, FW and volume works as it should.

If only Moto has its voice dial function better, this would have been a superb handsfree for me – calling from phonebook without the need to access the phone.

Firefly in da House

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Tue, 26 May 2009 09:33:00 +0000

My friends would know that I live in a kampung area. As a kid I had tons of fun catching dragonflies, setting traps to catch birds, digging earthworms to fish at the nearby river, etc etc.

As I grew up I realised that these creatures were just disappearing….. Maybe its the urbanization, the climate change, whatever. So it was quite a surprise when a lone firefly flew into my house on one fine night.

I caught it and took some photos of it :)

Tried to take one with the lights off, but the “glow” didn’t come out too well. You can see the 2 strips of green light near the bottom of the insect and the ARE bright if you switch off the surrounding lights.

Then I thought: “Is this really a firefly?” Did some googling and found this image:

The scientific name is Pyractomena angulata for this variety. Not exactly the same but I did learn that there are many variety of fireflies… So maybe the one I caught was the Asian variety :)

Some facts about these cute insects:

The light they emit is almost 100% efficient. i.e. almost all the energy is converted to light and not to heat and so it is not even warm. Fireflies are also used in the research of cancer, multiple sclerosis and cystic fibrosis. Useful little bugger eh?

I did check my garden and on SOME nights you can actually see about 20 of these fellas glowing and gathering around a tree. Couldn’t take a picture of it as a normal compact camera just could not capture the blinking dots of lights…. pity….

New Furniture

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Thu, 21 May 2009 03:36:00 +0000

Had a bit of time on my hands…. so I decided to make some minor changes to my room. Just minor minor ones… specifically my PC and TV area :)

I have been know to like to change the orientation of my room every few years. It makes the room feel “nicer” with a new breath of “freshness”. Have something in my mind now but we’ll just see how it goes later on.

The room originally looked like this.

Bought a rack, some drawers and a notice board from Tesco. Did a little modification and now it looks like this

You can never have enough place to store everything, especially if you keep almost everything like me!!! Gonna make a light feature / shelf for the bed in a day or two. Just can’t seem to figure out how I like the design best. Will post once its up.

Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Sat, 16 May 2009 07:47:00 +0000

Just finished watching this. For those uninitiated, this is the COMPLETE version that comes with the Blu Ray release. This has additional scenes which are not found on the DVD release.

VERY VERY GOOD!!!!!!!

The additional scenes not only lengthens the movie but it also provides more details and depth to the storyline – like how Cloud found Denzel and many more. I would say that this version would allow people who are not familiar with the FF7 story to have a better grasp of the movie.

One tip – watch all of it including the end credit part. Like the FF games there is a short – very short continuation of the story right at the end. I don’t know if this was on the DVD release. I’ll go through the DVD release again.

If you are a die hard FF7 fan, DO NOT miss this!!! Thumbs up to Square Enix!!!!

About Rechargeable Batteries

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Sun, 03 May 2009 06:45:00 +0000

Most people have many battery operated gadgets nowadays. Remote controls, alarm clocks, wireless controllers, keyboards and mouse. I came across this article about rechargeable batteries - the normal batteries, AA, AAA, D etc and not those propriety batteries that came with like PSPs or laptops.

Very useful read if you are like me.... with wireless stuff all around.

Adventures in Rechargeable Batteries

PC Upgrades!!

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:39:00 +0000

It has been some time since I've done anything to my PC..... Needed to do some upgrades in the graphics department so that I can at least play SOME of the graphics intensive PC games :)

Bought a new graphics card.... not the latest model by a far shot, but will serve my purpose. Its a Palit nvidia 9800GT 512MB card.

Very basic "stuffs" included....

The driver CD, manual, spdif cable, molex to pcie power and of course the card itself.

So all set??? No. Coz then I remembered I had to upgrade my PSU as well. The original 300W PSU wasn't going to cut it and so I bought a Acbel E2 510.

The real watage of this is around 450W and this will be enough to power the new card together with my 3 HDDs, DVD Rom and some fans.

With the basic stuff ready I began to dismantle my PC to install the new stuffs. Some pics so show the process....

PSU installed.... had to tidy up the "snaking" cables.....

TADA!!!! all neat and tidy..... but I HAVE NOT INSTALLED THE GRAPHICS CARD!!!! %^&%^^&%^$%$^$^$^$^^@##@@

So I took out the older nvidia 8600GS.... and tried to put the new card in.... OPS! Problem....
Apparently the manufacturer of my mobo either did not expect graphics card to be able to grow to the length they are now or the did not expect users of a mATX mobo to slot in a full length PCIe card. The SATA ports were in the way of the card!!

What to do???? In the end I had to bend the end of the new card a little so that it slots in between the 2 rows of SATA ports. Here's how it looks like:
A closer look......
Was advised its not good the bend the card so I'll have to shop for a PCIe 1x SATA controller. Found out where to buy it but have not done so :P At least the rig works.

But I am satisfied for the time being. :) 3Dmark06 gave a score of about 12k so I'm happy.

Assurance or Lies?

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 08:39:00 +0000

Hmmmmm.... when does assurance become a lie?

When you assure someone about something that even you are not 50% sure?

When you assure just to be able to get away from the persistent asking and questioning?

Who is to be blamed? The one who lies or the one who keeps on "forcing" for the assurance?

The general reasoning is, "Don't bug me consistently and at the wrong time and I will not need to give you false assurance"

Quite often the one who seeks assurance do not even know what they are asking for. They want this, they need that. All without even going through their minds HOW is it going to be possible at the first place. When other people feel that you are plainly asking for the impossible and apparently they have no way or no mood to argue with you, they give false assurance.

But that is not to say the liar is not in the wrong. If your version of the truth is so important or the issue involved is quite serious, then there is no reason to give false assurance as the whole matter will fall apart soon enough.

But in general, I feel that people in either of these two categories match well with each other. One often needs to be lied to while the other lies so that everyone can get on with their lives.

Wake up people. Both "assurance seeker" and "fake assurance giver" is not going to get anything out of this.

:P

Home-made Lamp

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 13:32:00 +0000

BB and me decided to get a little hands-on to make our own lamp. Actually its more like a modification of my existing (also self-made) lamp.

To put it simply, I had two bamboo candle holder as the stand, drilled some holes so that I can put in the bulb holder, reused the metal frame from 2 old lamp shades and a few pieces of bamboo sheets. Put them all together with strings and glue.... WALA... 2 nice bedside lamps!!!!

The shades were almost done when we realised we did not take any photos of the process..... :)

We took turns to sew the bamboo sheets together as each shade took slightly more than a piece of the the sheet. The finished product looked like this:

A closer look at the finished shade.....

And this is what is looks like when its lighted! Not bad huh??? :)

Picture Post

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:16:00 +0000

Picture Post

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 08:21:00 +0000

Lychee Dragonfruit and Oreo Banana. Ha ha

Picture Post

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 08:18:00 +0000

Stopped at this shop in Melaka 2 try some drinks.

During the wedding dinner.

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 14:28:00 +0000

My bb still eating the desert

Picture Post

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 10:30:00 +0000

My bb still making up even though we are going to be late for dinner!

Messy Hotel Room

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 10:28:00 +0000

Just look at how messy the room is after one night!!!! Hahahaha.....

We were preparing to go for the wedding dinner. BB is putting her make up on.

Download Madness!!!!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:27:00 +0000

For those who have been using torrents to download this might not be anything impressive.... But from where I am.... having this kind of download speed and sustaining at about 150kB for the whole late afternoon till now (about 11:45pm) is practically heaven!!!!

Hahahahha..... its still going at about 160+kB now..... :) Let's see how long this speed will last!!!!

Picture Post

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:44:00 +0000

Trying to blog from my phone. Wonder how it will turn out. Cute pic eh?

Gotta Have It - Blackberry Bold!!

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:19:00 +0000

When is it gonna be available in Malaysia?????!!!!??? I'm gonna go nuts!!!

Personally I think it has a little iPhone feel to it :)

For Blackberry fans its really a dream come true..... Check out the specs!

GPS is enhanced and assisted, and the handset has better map rendering
Has 802.11a/b/g plus GPS
3.5 G
480 x 320 resolution screen with 65,000 colors
624MHz Intel PXA270/Marvell Tavor PXA930 processor (reports differ), up from 312MHz
Runs BlackBerry OS 4.6
4.5" tall x 2.6" wide x 0.5" deep, weighing 4.7oz
Side-loading MicroSD/SDHC slot for up to 16GB additional
2MP camera with flash
Talk time of 5 hours, with standby of 13 days
MP3, WMA, AAC, DivX4 and WMV3 codec support
3.5mm headphone jack
128MB of flash plus 1GB of onboard memory (with encryption)
Black leather back panel that can be swapped for other color leather plates

Need I say more???? When can I get my hands on one!!!! ARGH!!!! :P
One last look before I go.....

Miss Cabana Finals

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:56:00 +0000

First let me say that there's no picture of the Miss Cabana... LOL!!!! Just that I was there as Clark Hatch was one of the sponsor of the prizes.

However, I did take some pictures of our Master Trainer Mr Ahmed in action! He was doing a presentation.... what we tell people as "Tiger show" LOL!

Good body eh? Hahahahah so if you are interested in him or finding out more about body building and keeping fit, come visit us at City Square!!!

I was up on stage as well...... not for any performance, but to receive a token of appreciation for the sponsorship.....

Pictures are a bit blurry coz of the smoke there and a little zoom was used.... :P

Of course there are shots of me and my pals who were there.

The 2 guys in the 1st photo are my buddies, Fan and Vincent. As for the two babes, they are also from Clark Hatch. Janna is the one on the left and she's our Membership Consultant, while Asrine is our Fitness Instructor for Group X Classes.

Last of all would be pics with my BB...... Actually we took quite a few pics but only these two turned out nice.....:P

The last pic was taken using slow shutter speed and hence the light effects... kinda accidental effect anyway. hahahhaa.

I will try to find some pics of the Miss Cabana..... at least for the 1st 3 positions. :)

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:49:00 +0000

Its been some time since I posted anything.....

Busy..... haizzz.....

Got this in my email though.... its fun and makes sense. Enjoy!! :)

5 Min Management Course

Lesson 1:

A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings.

The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs.

When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next-door neighbour.

Before she says a word, Bob says, 'I'll give you $800 to drop that towel.'

After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob, after a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 and leaves.

The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs.

When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, 'Who was that?'

'It was Bob the next door neighbour,' she replies.

'Great,' the husband says, 'did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?'

Moral of the story:

If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.

Lesson 2:

A priest offered a Nun a lift.

She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg.

The priest nearly had an accident.

After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg.

The nun said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?'

The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again.
The nun once again said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?'

The priest apologized 'Sorry sister but the flesh is weak.'

Arriving at the convent, the nun sighed heavily and went on her way.

On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129. It said, 'Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory.'

Moral of the story:
If you are not well informed in your job, you might miss a great opportunity.

Lesson 3:

A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp.

They rub it and a Genie comes out.
The Genie says, 'I'll give each of you just one wish.'
'Me first! Me first!' says the admin clerk. 'I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world.'
Puff! She's gone.

'Me next! Me next!' says the sales rep. 'I want to be in Hawaii , relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life.'

Puff! He's gone.

'OK, you're up,' the Genie says to the manager.
The manager says, 'I want those two back in the office after lunch.'

Moral of the story:
Always let your boss have the first say.

Lesson 4

An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing.

A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, 'Can I also sit like you and do nothing?'
The eagle answered: 'Sure, why not.'

So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Moral of the story:
To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

Lesson 5

A turkey was chatting with a bull.

'I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree' sighed the turkey, 'but I haven't got the energy.'
'Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?' replied the bull. They're packed with nutrients.'

The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree.

The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch.

Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree.

He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.

Moral of the story:
Bull Shit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there..

Lesson 6

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground into a large field.

While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on him.

As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to realize how warm he was.

The dung was actually thawing him out!

He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy.
A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate.

Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.

Morals of the story:
(1) Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.

(2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your
friend.

(3) And when you're in deep shit, it's best to keep
your mouth shut!

THUS ENDS THE FIVE MINUTE MANAGEMENT COURSE

And while we are at it, I found this quote too..

Here's all you have to know about men and women: women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid. George Carlin

Not very flattering for the guys but hmmm...... sometimes its true.... LOL!!!

CNY and New Stuffs!!!

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:05:00 +0000

Chinese New Year has just passed and I'm back to work today.

It was a good time for me to have some well deserved rest as work was terribly busy before the CNY and will continue to be in the coming weeks.

BB and me went to the Nando's at the Zon. To think that we had an unpleasant experience at the Nando's at Plaza Pelangi, this should be better. But we were wrong. It seems that Nando's sucks at customer service. I'll spare everyone the details and go to the happy part :P

Hehehehe both BB and me were wearing stripes on that day :) The next day I was at BB's place. Was tired though.... and was playing with her phone..... :P

Went shopping for a laptop backpack.... BB and me were at the Nike shop for quite a while coz we were trying to decide which back was nicer. Any comments? I haven't bought the backpack yet, but I tend to like the one in the 1st photo. Small, and made of thicker material with some leather.

I like this... RM129

This is also RM129. It has a small opening near the top so that earphones can slip out there and into the ears.

This one is the most expensive. RM219!!!! Suppose to be the latest model, with some "AIR" technology on the straps and back pads. :)

BTW my laptop's only 12" so I don't need a big bag to fit. Just to carry an additional A4 file and the usual laptop accessories. Anyone with other suggestions???

Dell Vostro 1200

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 11:46:00 +0000

Finally its here!!!

Imagine the frustration with Dell when I placed the order on the 11 January and a few days later they told me due to multiple part shortage, the shipment date is pushed to 28 January!!!!

Thank goodness it arrived on the 25th instead.

No doubt this is a company laptop and so I'm constrained by a little budget. Otherwise I would have gotten the XPS 1330 with LED screen. But my boss would kill me by then....... :P

All that said, I'm actually very pleased with this baby. The specs which I got was:

Core 2 Duo 7250
2 gb RAM
160GB HDD
1200x800 Truelife screen
Intel X3100 Graphics
2MP camera and fingerprint scanner
WIFI a/g/n
Bluetooth 2.0
6 cell battery
Vista Business edition
"Small" Dell carrying bag
2GB Thumbdrive

The first thing I noticed was that its quite fast. I have a Core 2 Duo 6300 PC at home running Vista Home Premium and the Vostro IS noticeably faster during startup/shutdowns as well as when doing graphical "stuffs".

If you haven't noticed, the battery has a section that "sticks" out from the chassis. Not particularly good looking. :P

The keyboard is acceptable but the ".", "," and "/" keys are half sized. So it takes a while to get used to. Also the function key is on the right side of the right ctrl key so you tend to press the func key when you are trying to press ctrl.

Whats cool and what I liked most was that all the indicator lights and media keys are in blue!!!! :D Even the LED for webcam and the indicator on the adaptor are blue. Hahahahhaha !!! I love it!!!

Battery life should be ok as I was on WIFI, surfing while doing some Word and Excel files and iTunes playing in the background for slightly over 2 hours and the capacity was 49% remaining.

This is how it looks like in a dark environment. Imagine if all the keys are lighted up in blue too!!!! Hahahahaha that would be TOO much for me!!!!

I've yet to test the WIFI N connection. I'm thinking of getting the Belkin N router. I've seen it at the shops selling for about RM380. I think the price can be bargained a little. :)

Till then I'll be "messing" with this baby for most of my working hours. In short I am happy with this baby.

ABCDEFG Musical Notes

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 17:50:00 +0000

A Boy Can Do Everything For Girl

BUT

Girl Forgets Everything Done, Crushes Boy Again....

LOL!!!!! Don't blame me.... I got this from Friendster........

Also, I got this from BB in my email.....

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:04:00 +0000

Update on my new Aztech modem/router....

Its wonderful!!! Very fast... almost twice faster in downloading speeds than my precious modem. Initially I kept on experiencing intermittent disconnection from the web, especially my MSN and Google sidebar. However after fiddling with some settings (both modem and PC side), everything's smooth now. And the download speed is just incredible.

Hmmm.... I also reformatted by c: drive as too many "unforced" errors have begun to crop up from my XP system recently. I guess thats to be expected since I install and uninstall plenty of programs constantly, not to mention tweaking of the UI, settings, etc etc.... I guess there comes a time when everything has its limits! No amount of registry cleaning, optimizing could have saved my system :)

Since almost everything was gonna start from fresh, I thought it will be a good idea to have a new Visual Style to my XP system. I don't use the popular WindowBlinds, as no matter how little resources they claim it uses, I just didn't like the idea of the need to run a background program for cosmetic purposes. I prefer the normal VS edits.

I like BLACK.... so this is another black VS that I found. But I have to say, this is also the BEST VS I've found to date. Kudos to the creator!!!

Check it out!!!

Lightning Fried My Modem This Afternoon!!!! :(

noreply@blogger.com (x-tReme) — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 12:41:00 +0000

Its the end of the year again when we are greeted by the annual monsoon season.

This afternoon was greeted by the typical thunderstorm - heavy rains with lightning and thunder!! Unfortunately my PC and modem were on and online.... so the unfortunate happened. The lightning fried my modem.....

When I found that I was offline and the modem's DSL light was not on, I knew the lightning had done its job. At first I was worried that my Ethernet port on the PC might be fried as well but thank goodness after checking I found that only the modem has kaput-ed.

RIP my trusty modem.... its has been serving me for about a year, and tirelessly too since my PC is very very seldom offline.

I depend a lot on the internet as it is where I play my games, find my info, do my blogging and most importantly keep in touch with my BB across the causeway. So I had to find a replacement fast.

So after the rain stopped I got to the local PC store and bought a new modem :)

Its a Aztech 2 port router/modem. You may be wondering why not go for the Wifi Router/Modem combo since I'm buying a new modem. First, I only have one PC at home. No laptop... so theoritically a normal modem would suffice. The extra port in the new modem was for BB to be able to connect through USB whenever she brought her laptop to my place. Secondly, with the new Wifi n specification in draft, I was hoping to get a router with the new specs instead of the regular b/g specs.

All in all I'm very pleased with the new modem. It looks nice and setup was also a breeze. Here's how it looks on my PC.

Hehehehe the stand is included so that the modem can be arranged vertically.... AND its WHITE in color!!! Nice....

I guess I'll just have to disconnect the next time there is a thunderstorm, although the one year warranty for the new modem SPECIFICALLY states that it is "inclusive of damage caused by lightning strikes" :D