Gold Coast is popular with its beaches and theme parks. This is why thousands of tourists come here every year.

We bought VIP Passes to the Big 3 – Warner Bros Movie World, Sea World and Wet ‘n’ Wild a month earlier, only a day before the offer on their website ended. With these VIP passes that costed $109.99 each, we got unlimited entry to any of these three theme parks until June 2012.

Warner Bros Movie World

This is our first theme park at Gold Coast. There are plenty of rides, from family rides to the super thrill rides.

Besides going for rides, there are also performances by the movie characters here. One of the best performances was the Hell Drivers – Hollywood Stunt performance. It was really exciting and entertaining to witness the car drift, chase and explosion. Check out this video for a glimpse of the show.

I was surprised to see a musalla or prayer room in the middle of the theme park. Wash basins for ablution and the separation of prayer halls for male and female were provided.

Sea World Theme Park

This is another theme park in Gold Coast with the sea and ocean theme. We visited Sea World on our second day here. There are not many rides compared to the first one.

However, there was so much to see here and the main attractions were the animal performances. We really enjoyed the dolphin show and the sea lion show. They were brilliant! Besides that, we also got to see other marine life such as sharks, open water fishes and ray fishes.

Since Sea World is larger than Movie World, there are cable cars and monorails provided to save the visitors’ feet and provide great view of the entire park.

Sea World also provides prayer rooms for their Muslim visitors with separate entrances for both male and female.

Wet & Wild Water World

So this is the Gold Coast version of Malaysia’s Sunway Lagoon water theme park. I really enjoyed all the extreme water rides and slides. It is good to have adrenaline rush while challenging yourself with the zero gravity free fall and stuff.

In the end of the day, we all got really tanned because of the whole day being under the sun. Not many pictures were taken at Wet ‘n’ Wild as we kept our belongings - including the camera in one of the lockers provided. It was strongly advised by the staff to do so as the park was wet and people don’t have pockets to keep their stuff anyway as they were all wearing swim wear.

Well, that’s all the theme parks that we’ve been to. Our VIP passes are still available until June 2012. We might consider to come again to Gold Coast for another round of fun. But I know it won’t be as fun as going with the family.

After having a good night’s rest at our hotel, we had another 9-hour journey heading back home on the next day.

The second day of our family vacation was spent in Newcastle. Before we reached Newcastle from Sydney, my parents-in-law were already excited to see our house, the house we’ve been living in for the past 9 months.

Well, I can say that there’s nothing much to see in Newcastle, compared to Sydney. We planned to go see the beaches Newcastle offers, perform Friday prayers at the Newcastle Mosque, visit University of Newcastle and do some shopping at Glendale.

Newcastle Beach

My wife prepared Nasi Lemak with Sambal Udang in the morning. We then went to the Newcastle Beach and had our Nasi Lemak there by the beach. After that, we strolled along the beach towards the Newcastle Ocean Baths.

We also showed our family how Newcastle city looks like with most of the old buildings still existing. Here the town is small and quiet, unlike Sydney which is densely concentrated with skyscrapers in its CBD.

Newcastle Mosque

As it was Friday, all males should go to the mosque. I went to the mosque in Wallsend together with my in-laws for Friday prayer. As usual, the khutbah was in Arabic and English with multi-ethnicity of Muslims in the prayer hall.

Stockland Glendale

This is the third stop for today. My parents in-law who are a big fan of juicy fruits were really excited to go to Harris Farm Markets to buy fresh and cheap fruits and vegetables there. We got a good bargain of bananas for only 99cents perkilo which is cheaper and tastier compared to the bananas at Woolies or Coles.

Then we toured the other shops at Stockland Glendale and went to Kmart and Target and browsed through their Christmas sale.

University of Newcastle

I guess it is a must to visit the university here for some photo souvenir. This is where my wife is studying architecture at the moment, the university within the woods.

Well, that’s all for the second day. It is another great day well spent with the family. The following day was going to be a big day for us as we were going for a road trip to Gold Coast.

Day 3 – Road trip to Gold Coast

It was my first time driving for the longest distance so far. It is about 700 km from Newcastle to Gold Coast. Our destination was Currumbin, near to Gold Coast Airport.

We departed at about 9am and we arrived about 5pm. It was a 9-hour journey but to my surprise, Queensland did not observe Daylight Saving Time and that was why when we reached there, it seemed like it was only an 8-hour journey.

We checked in at Sanctuary Beach Resort and had a good rest preparing ourselves for the next fun-filled days in Gold Coast.

To be continued in the next post.

My family came to Australia last December to visit us. It was our official family vacation 2011.

Early in the morning, I went to Newcastle Car & Rental to get the rental van. My wife and I departed from Newcastle at around 8.30am and arrived at Sydney Airport at 11.00am. The weather was good and it was my first time driving from Newcastle to Sydney.

The thing I hate about the parking here in Sydney, it is very expensive. So I think we were lucky at the airport as we managed to get 15 minutes parking for free because our family just arrived and already waited for us at the arrival terminal. 15-30 minutes cost $7 and 30-60 minutes cost $15 at the Sydney Airport. After we fetched them from the airport, we went for sightseeing around Sydney.

Sydney Fish Market

Sydney Fish Market is one of the biggest marketplaces to get fresh seafood in Sydney and one of the famous tourists’ attractions as well. We decided to have lunch here as most seafood served here is halal. Besides that, we also bought some fresh prawns and snapper fish to cook for dinner at home.

We had a combination of delicious deep fried seafood at the waterfront, while enjoying the beautiful scenery of the riverside.

Darling Harbour

This is our second destination of the day. It is one of the best tourist attractions in Sydney. We had a walk along Darling Harbour straight to the jetty for our ferry ride and enjoyed the view.

We bought ferry tickets to Circular Quay and it costed $5.30 per ride. The ride took about 35 minutes to reach our destination. We sat on the upper deck to have a better view along the river.

We really enjoyed the view of the Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House from the ferry.

Then we hopped off the ferry and strolled along Circular Quay to enjoy the view of Sydney Opera House from this side of the harbour. This is my second time being here, but this is a must visit tourist attraction here. We took pictures together before going back.

The parking rate in Sydney is very expensive. We parked our van at World Square for the rate of $11 per hour.

Everyone was already tired and we headed back home to Newcastle. It was a fun and enjoyable day at Sydney.

To be continued in the next post.

Salam.

It’s already the fourth of January. Time sure flies really fast for the past one year.

2011 is the first year of my married life; as a husband, a bread winner and a traveller in a foreign country.

It is one of the most challenging year in my life, struggling to make ends meet, especially living in Australia.

Throughout the way, I really thank Allah for all His blessings, bounties and mercies. Living in the land down under, it really teaches me the meaning of life besides giving me valuable experience.

I may not be able to get design projects like I used to back in Malaysia. But the thing is, I had explored the road that I might not have taken if I were in Malaysia.

This is what I call the road not taken, the road less travelled.

2011 is the year where I build my foundation, where I plant the seed and InsyaAllah, 2012 will be the year where I’m going to make the best of myself.

New year resolution?

It is always the same thing, every year. Let me say I don’t have any resolution this year, but I sure have my own goals. It is more like a long term goal which may not be attainable within this 366 days.

I’ll just keep them to myself.

Anyway, I’m wishing all of you guys, my readers and visitors a Happy New Year. May you achieve your dreams and may success be with you always.

Photo credits to Sydney New Years Eve website.

For the past few months, most of my traffic comes from Facebook, because of this Facebook status placard photo.

It has been spreading worldwide, becoming popular among Malaysians, and even the Gulf countries, since we are Muslims.

Privacy concern?

I have been getting lots of Friend Requests on Facebook and so has my wife. This is really bugging me. I’m sorry I don’t accept most of the friend requests. I keep Facebook to people I know. You may follow me on Twitter or my official Facebook Page.

Being evergreen?

I’m not sure how long this will be going viral on the net. But what I know is that it will be evergreen because people will always think we were just married last Friday, as stated on the placard, Friday at 9.41pm.

Some couples also used the relationship status card on their wedding day but inserted their wedding date as well, making it look outdated if it is circulated like our photo. Well, I think I made a good move since I just put the day without our actual wedding date.

People using our picture for tazkirah – about relationship on FB

This is a good thing. I know many people like to announce their relationship on FB without realizing they are telling the whole world they are doing vices.

I don’t mind people using our picture as long as it brings good connotation, to remind others, to make aware of only ‘announcing your relationship once its legal and lawful’.

Since Google Desktop was discontinued by Google, I tried to look for an alternative. Finally I’ve found one of the best desktop customization tools which is Rainmeter. Although it may sound like it, but it’s not an app to measure the rain.

Here’s a current screenshot of my desktop. I happen to put lots of skin from different themes.

The cool thing about Rainmeter is the ability to customize and even design your own desktop widget or gadget. Within the Rainmeter community, they call it ‘skin’.

My first attempt: Prayer Time skin v1.0.

It’s not that difficult to learn how to design your own skin. The manual is sufficient and even people with no background in programming can do it like myself.

The reason why I created this skin is to alert myself on the current prayer times, especially when living in a four season country where the prayer times change almost everyday. Besides, I wanted to make it easy for all Muslims in the world to check the prayer times without having to open a web browser.

This skin basically will parse the prayer times data from Islamic Finder website every 24 hours. Please note that this skin works as an additional skin to the existing theme. I’m not designing a complete theme because there are heaps of beautiful skin you can choose from such as Omnimo, Enigma and Elegance.

How to install the skin?

1. Make sure you already have Rainmeter installed on your computer.
2. Download the file from here.
3. Extract the PrayerTime folder into any of the folder in the Rainmeter skin folder. e.g. My Document/Rainmeter/Skin/illustro
4. Open Rainmeter from the tray icon.

5. Choose the folder illustro – Prayer Time and choose PrayerTime.ini.
6. Click the Load button.
7. You can place the skin wherever you like on your desktop.

How to setup the prayer times according to your location?

1. Go to Islamic Finder website.
2. Choose your Country and your City.
3. Click on the Add Daily Prayer Times To Your Website button.

4. Choose the XML Format
5. Select All and Copy everything in the textbox

6. Right click on the Prayer Time skin and choose Edit Skin.
7. In the URL section, replace the entire URL with the one from IslamicFinder
8. Go to menu File and Save.
9. Right click on the Prayer Time skin and choose Refresh Skin.

I hope you find this skin useful. If you have any inquiry or would like to give feedback, feel free to drop a comment in the comment box below.

Salam.

Last year I showed you guys how to install and us Garmin Mapsource app on your desktop. This is the second part of the entry on how to use Garmin Mapsource for getting direction and way finding.

I’ll show you how to do it in a quick screencast. Watch and learn.

Here’s the note about the tutorial.

Method 1: Using Route Tool

1. Click on the Route Tool icon.
2. Click on your starting point on the map . (Waypoint 1)
3. Click on your destination on the map  (Waypoint 2). While using the Route Tool, you can scroll using scroll bar, pan using Hand Tool, zoom-in/out and back to Route Tool to select the waypoint.

Method 2: Using Waypoint Tool

1. Click on the Waypoint Tool icon.
2. Click on the map to choose your waypoints e.g. home, shopping mall, office and any other destination. All of these waypoints will be listed in the user data tabs on the left.
3. Select your waypoints from the Waypoint tab. You can select multiple Waypoints using CTRL button.
4. Right click and choose ‘Create Route using Selected Waypoint(s)’.
5. Route Properties window will popped up and you can change the settings here. Click OK button to view the route.

Method 3: Find Nearest Places

1. On the menu, choose Find – Find Nearest Places (Ctrl+Shift+F)
2. You can select the category and subcategory of the places to refine the search. Or other wise, you can just put the keyword in the containing box.
3. Click ‘Make Waypoint’ button.
4. Repeat step 4-5 in the Method 2: as above.

So I guess that’s all for now. You can explore more methods on how to use this app on your own. Personally, I’d prefer using Google Maps because I can view the map in satellite view. However, Mapsource app is really useful when you can’t access to the internet.

The Speed Dial 2.0 is not just about giving you the screenshot of the website as the new Speed Dial extension also works as a widget. This is how my Opera Speed Dial 2.0 looks like:

There are four widgets which I currently use. They are:

1. Timeline
A Twitter timeline. It only shows 3 latest tweets. Details.

2. Facebook Preview
It is a simple Facebook widget that shows the number of Friend Requests, Unread Messages and Notifications. Details.

3. Gmail on Speed Dial
It shows unread email in my Gmail inbox. Details.

4. oClock widget
Time is gold. I love the HTC style clock on my PC. Details.

Speed Dial arrangement

I don’t like too many dials so I just make it a 4×3 layout.

In the first row, I’ve put the social network links which are Twitter, Hootsuite, Facebook and Google Plus.

In the second row, is my reading section. This is where I put Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Google Reader and Tumblr links.

The third row is reserved for my blogs, WordPress stats and the clock widget.

There are many reasons why I love to use Opera besides the new Speed Dial 2.0. Sometimes I just leave the Speed Dial tab open all the time so that I can view all the updates in a glance.

Why I upgraded?

This machine used to run Windows XP. Then I wish to try Linux and that’s why I installed Ubuntu 11. But then, I feel less productive working in Ubuntu environment, mainly because I still can’t run Photoshop and Illustrator efficiently.

At that time, I still have dual boot Windows XP. That’s how I managed to survive with the design and graphics stuff. I made up my mind to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7. Since I’ve been postponing the upgrading session, out of the blue, Windows 8 DP was released. Since it is free for now, I guess I should give it a try.

Installation process

I downloaded Windows 8 DP from the official Windows website. Here’s the link in case you want to try it.

Since I don’t want the hassle of installing with DVD or USB drive, I found a way to install directly from the ISO mount. You might as well use this simple trick to install Windows 8 DP on your PC. The installation won’t take much time and all I can say is that I have successfully installed Windows 8 DP from Windows XP.

By the way, this is the specification of my computer. Mind you it’s not a new PC. It’s a used one that I got on eBay. It’s a Pentium D, first generation dual core processor with 1GHz memory.

Drivers issue
There are some problems with the graphic display since Windows does not install the device driver. I managed to rectify the problem by installing Intel (R) Graphics Media Accelerator Driver. Other drivers work like a charm.

First Preview: Metro UI

This is new. This is what you’ll see once you logged into Windows. Apparently Metro UI and the desktop mode works together. Imagine this. When you click on the start button, you won’t be able to view the list of your installed programs. Instead, the Metro UI will open up and your apps or softwares will be displayed there.

If using a tablet has the Home button, while using a desktop, you can press the Windows button, usually between the CTRL and ALT button on your keyboard.

Anyway, since this is Developers Preview, which means, developers are encouraged to develop apps for Windows, then there are not much apps available. It is good that it comes with plenty of basic apps and games. Otherwise the Metro UI will look empty and be quite useless.

That’s all for now. I’m going to enjoy my first ever legal Windows copy on my PC for the next few months.

The thing with MP3 players is that, you’ll only listen to songs. I favour listening to radio stations better because they have radio announcers, songs, advertisements, informations and more. This is what MP3 players don’t have. So now, let’s us continue with the trick.

Things to have

• iPhone with plenty of data bandwidth
• Auxiliary cable
• Car stereo with Auxiliary input (aux-in)
• iPhone apps

Instructions

1. Simply just connect the iPhone to the car Aux-in using the Aux cable. Refer to the diagram below.
2. Run one of these apps

iPhone apps review

There are plenty of iPhone apps for listening to streaming online radio from Malaysia. This is my review after giving them a try. Most of them streams using public radio servers. Click on the app name to view their iTunes page.

1. Radio Malaysia ($0.99)

Simple interface with 15 not so popular Malaysia radio station with record function.

2. 1Radio Malaysia+ ($0.99)

This app has the most number of Malaysia radio station but most of the popular ones (Astro radios) are not available. Some of the URLs are not working.

3. Radio & TV Malaysia & Singapore ($0.99) – highly recommended

This app has the coolest user interface design among the three. There are also Singapore radio stations. You can also watch RTM TV1 and TV2 using this app.

Please note that when you stream the radio using 3G, it will use plenty of data. I use the radio mainly in the city area where the 3G coverage is at its best. Otherwise, I’ll just listen to the MP3.

Give it a try and good luck!