Some updates

Okay, just some updates. The Sylphy got crashed, and most probably be written off. On the brighter side, I'll soon write about the Nissan Grand Livina 1.6M and my own Saga BLM 1.3M. Yes, I've finally got a car.

Nissan Sylphy Test Drive

The other car I managed to drive was the Nissan Sylphy 2.0. First impression of the car is that it's kinda roundish. And the rear end still kinda looks odd to me. The front end is nice, and so is the side profile. FYI, there's also a 1.5L unit sold in Singapore, but here, we only have the 2.0L version.

Front end of the Sylphy.
The front end of the Sylphy cannot be said as aggressive, as this car is not a young punk's type of car. I'd say the design slants more towards older customers. The foglight is standard.

Rear end of the Sylphy
The side profile and rear end has a black lower part for the car, which gives an impression that the car is longer. The exhaust is hidden. 2 reverse sensors come standard.

The wheel(s)

The first thing I noticed is the "slightly" undersized wheels. The rims are 15", and IMO, it's 2" too small. To me, 17' would be just nice for the Sylphy. Anyhow, it does offer almost-excellent ride comfort. The other thing is that the rear brakes are not disc brakes, but rather drum brakes. I was like, wtf? Rear drum brakes on a 2.0L car? What is Edaran Tan Chong thinking??

Front Indicator(s)
This little ingenious fella can help the driver to estimate where the front end of the car is, and it also looks kinda cool.

Meter Cluster @ Day time

Meter Cluster @ Night

The meters are simple and nice. Not overly fancy at all. At night, it's not glaring, and it's also very sharp. Well, it may not be Optitron level, but that's good enough.
Center Console
The Sylphy here, has a nicely designed center console. The 2-din HU is decent. Sound quality is good, provided the source is good. The HU is Nissan's own unit, so there's nothing too fancy, and swapping it for a better unit is possible, due to the standard 2-din mounting. The Sylphy is also one of the uncommon CKD cars that offers a heater in the car. Why a heater in such a hot climate you ask? Simple, rainy and nights. Those two can freeze your fingers and those behind. So having a heater is actually a good thing. The aircon's strength is nice and strong, and it's also not noisy at all.
The gear lever
The Sylphy comes with a CVT transmission, and thus does not have a fixed 3-2-L. And the wood grain design throughout the car looks really fake.
Pedals
Nope, no aluminum plated ones, as this is not a youngster's car. The left most pedal is the footbrake, same like how most Mercs have it. It might get some time getting used to, as you will be finding high and low for the handbrake.
The Engine Bay
Here lies Nissan's MR20DE powerplant. The engine is mated with a CVT transmission, which provides very smooth operations. The think paddings around the engine bay keep the NVH levels at a minimum.

So What Do I Think About the Sylphy?
Well, to be frank, I am somewhat satisfied with this car. The ride comfort is almost perfect, and the low noise levels means that cruising on highways won't be a noisy affair. The rear legroom is also very generous. As for driveabilty, I must say this car may not be a drivers' car, but this still can impress. The steering, for example, is variable weighted. This means that the weight of the steering changes according to the speed. For example, when maneuvering in a tight car park, it'll be light, and then cruising on the highway, it'll be nice and heavy. then the power delivery is very smooth and constant. There's no jerk where the car changes gear, which ensures a smooth drive. While cruising in trunk roads at 110km/h, other than looking at the speedo, there's no way of telling that you're going at 110, as the noise level is very low, and the car is very composed at high speeds. Body roll is also kept at a minimum, but the ride is still nice and comfortable. The comfort may also be due to the 195/65 tires. While driving with 5 people in the car, it still has enough grunt to keep going without revving too hard. My verdict is - The Sylphy is a very easy car to drive. Good alternative to the Civic. Generous rear legroom. Comfortable ride. Enough power.

Isuzu D Max Short Drive Afterthoughts

Manged to get behind the wheel of the Isuzu D Max for a short drive.

To be frank, this is not the 4WD version, but rather the lower end FR version. Driftable? Hmmm..
Simple looks, but no fog lights.
Rear view. Yup, it's a 2.5L Turbodiesel.
Meter cluster. OMG, redline at 4200rpm?
Vie of cockpit. Very boring interior. And it's a manual.
Engine bay. Pretty dull looking. Had to be expected cuz it's a workhorse. hey, what's the small words there?
Wow. Turbo. Niceeee~

Well, I must say that this car, initially it's kinda hard to drive, and you need to keep an eye on the tachometer, as the redline is at 4200rpm. And a note to myself, this is not a car to go vroom vroom. The manual shifting is smooth, and the clutch is nicely weighted. Since it's a FR/2WD version, there's no low range box, and this can cripple the D Max off road. It may have a turbo, but no matter how hard I rev, the speed just won't climb dramatically. Anyhow, driving the D Max is quite an eye opener, as the view is so much higher, and it's way longer than the Optra I drive.

A Random Outing with Ji Yang

Went out to Plaza Lowyat with Ji Yang today. He drove his Myvi to fetch me there (thanks man!!). While in Bukit Bintang area, the whole damn place was congested as hell. And best of all, parking at Lowyat was full by the time we got there. ==" Oh well, after spending another 20 minutes or so in the jam, he parked the car in Times Square. No big deal. lol.
Anyway, he managed to get the stuff he wanted, which includes a Cooler Master Infinite, 320GB External HDD (Seagate) and 100 pieces of DVD-Rs. As for me, I finally got this ->
Yup, it's a Microsoft Sidewinder X3. Got it for a mere RM49. Looks like I can finally retire my Razer. lol. Very pleased. ^^

Pro -

- Shape much better than the other Sidewinder, fits my hand better
- Nice and smooth
- 2000dpi + laser @ RM49
- Programmable buttons
- Nice rubber scroll wheel. Also very smooth
- Side buttons not that hard to reach

Cons -

- A tad bit too light
- No LCD (has to be expected, lol)
- Might feel "cheap" (to some, lol)

Anyway, we then decided to makan at Old Town. I took the wheel of the Myvi. It's quite an okay car, really. Throttle response is good, and the brakes are reasonably strong. Engine noise might be a bit intrusive to some, but its fine under normal driving. Acceleration wise, it's good up till 60kn/h or so, more than that, there's not much power already. Suspension is fine for city driving, but when driven moderately hard, it starts to show its weakness. Body roll is also a bit too much, but it has to be expected for a car like this. Anyway, it is a reasonably good car for that particular price range.

While at Old Town, I had some chicken rice for dinner. lol.
Nice and filling.. ^^ Also had their signature white coffee. Total bill came to Rm14.30 each. @@ But since it's nice, I'm not complaining.

Thanks again to Ji Yang for this outing. =)

Using Winamp to Manage your Ipod

Firstly, you need to have WinAmp installed (duh!). If not, head down to "http://www.winamp.com/media-player/download/en-us" to download Winamp.

Then you will need to make sure that your iPod appears as a drive in "Computer (Vista/7) " or "My Computer (XP)" .

Then start to install Winamp. Make sure that iPod support selection in Portable Media Player Support (which is a part of the Winamp Library) checked.

Start Winamp. Make sure Media Library is shown. On the left, under Portables, you iPod should show up there.

You can drag and drop music into your iPod this way. The song list might not update itself automatically, so you would need to click on Portables again.

To remove your iPod, right click on Portables, then your iPod and choose Eject Device,.

Done. ^^

Final Day of, err, Finals.

Yesterday I had my last paper. Was Introduction to Multimedia. The invigilator was, just, sad. First hour into the test, he kept looking the the clock, every 10 minutes.

Then, the last 30 minutes, he started playing with the string (used to tie our exam papers), his fingers and some paper. LOL.

10 Minutes left. He kept looking at the clock like, every 2 minutes.. Poor guy.

After collecting our answer sheets, he was the first to sprint out of the exam hall. Odd guy.

Mandarin..?

我的华语非常差,打不到很长~

觉得有一点怪怪的~

Mandarin And Me

To be frank, I was from a Chinese primary school. And at that time, my Mandarin was quite good. yeah yeah yeah, so I did score an A in my UPSR, but that was like wot, 7 years ago? Fast forward to secondary school. Ended up in some newly formed smart school, which wasn't remotely smart. (Was referring to the students, not the school), and knowing more people from English educated backgrounds. This changed me a lot. Back in primary school, it was 99% Mandarin, 1% English/BM. Here, in secondary school, its the total opposite. Well, not really, more like 90% English, 2% BM, 8% Mandarin. Darn. And due to that, I mingled more with those from SK backgrounds that those who are Chinese educated. Well, I still can mix well with the Chinese educated ones, as I still can speak some Mandarin. So I take it as my advantage. LOL. Anyway, my parents kinda forced me to relearn Mandarin in secondary school, claiming that they did not want my 6 years of Chinese education to be wasted. Yeah right. Reluctantly, I took up Mandarin, from Form 1 all the way till form 5. Results? None too satisfying. Did not fail, but gosh was it boring. Tell me to write an essay or read a Chinese newspaper, chances are, I might have some difficulties. Heck, even using XunLei is kinda hard. Should I or should I not learn Mandarin? I guess I might need to. The Chinese market is growing at a very fast rate, and if my Mandarin continues to suck, there goes my future. Yeah. Looks like I need to read some more Mandarin words. Last week, my sister SMS-ed me in Mandarin. Took me ages to decipher what those words were saying. I can see where is this going...

Win7. Ain't that great?

After weeks of using Win7, here are some more in depth problems.

1) Plug And Play service kinda buggy. I don't know if it's just my side, but every time after using a USB drive (pendrive or external HDD), and I want to eject my drive by clicking on the "Safely remove hardware" icon, it takes a very long time (around 15 seconds) before the pop up message appears. At first I thought it was my USB drives problem, but using it on my friend's laptop, which is also Win7, there was no problem. I noticed that svchost.exe will take up a lot of CPU time when i try to eject the drive. (around 45-50%). I've ran Windows Update to see if there was any problem, but there were no updates as yet)

2) When I launch Media Player Classic to play any video file, the mplayerc.exe process will also shoot up consuming CPU time. I've downloaded the latest the version of KLM, but the problem persists.

3) DCOM launcher occasionally eats up tons of CPU time again, and yes, via svchost.exe again.

4) Is it actually possible for a video to make the video card driver stop responding? cuz I have a video that causes the ATi Catalyst driver to crash everytime i play it. It seems that KLM has a problem, as when I used WMP to play it, it works perfectly fine.

5) While opening folders in Win7, the explorer.exe process again consumes a lot of CPU time.

Kampar has affected me

Ever since coming to Kampar, my body clock has gone haywire. Back in KL, i usually sleep by 12am. But ever since coming to Kampar, my sleeping habits has changed dramatically. Now? The earliest I sleep is 2am. Latest? 8am. Bloody hell yeah, 8am. That does suck. Penning this down at exactly 5:30am didn't help either. I had assignments yesterday, which lasted till 7am. Got home, bathed, spammed /k/ a while and slept at 8am. yeah, then i woke up at 4pm. Damn. Talk about body clock gone wrong. Well, unless I'm working a night shift at McDonald's or 7 Eleven, having my day turned into night is just so wrong. I can't imagine what would it be like 3 years later. Would I be dead by then (literally), or would I have changed all my habits? My mind tells me that is this not good at all, and in which, well, I could be dead before next year. LOL