Ourplaypen Gadgets, Toys & Stuff

Samsung Omnia i900 – ROM Download & Upgrade

Posted on November 4, 2008 by Adrian

It’s almost been 4 days since I’ve installed the new ROM which I stumbled upon Samsung’s Site. The first impression I got was a smoother running interface and secondly an improved battery life! The Keyboard selector does not hang like per before. Then again, the sluggishness could have been due to the fact that I might have overloaded my Omnia previously with all sorts of program which I wanted to test out. For this new ROM, I only installed back what I use as per what is stated at http://www.ourplaypen.com/2008/10/13/samsung-omnia-i900/

The battery level improved drastically especially under normal usage levels. I use the phone to receive and make business calls so you can expect pretty “heavy” usage. The battery level you would be surprise is still remaining at 100% and it’s already 6:47pm granted that its been pretty quiet over the last hour or two Normally under the same circumstances, I would have had to re-charge the phone already. But having said that… if the phone is used for heavy GPS or GPRS usage as well as games, the battery level does come down… then again.. shouldn’t it ? Everything uses power esp transmissions. Using the Internet Sharing to surf via 3G+ shouldn’t be a concern as the USB cable will charge the phone at the same time. Using WMWiiRouter as a wireless hotspot is a different case because both the WIFI and GPRS is running concurrently. All in all, I’m happy with the battery level for this new ROM and I would recommend it to those of you who are complaining of short battery durations.

You may download your own ROM from http://www.samsungmobile.com/promotion/omnia/index.jsp. Upgrade your phone today if you haven’t done so already. You’ll notice a marked improvement in the performance of your phone.

Posted in Gadgets, General, Mobile Entries | Tagged i900, ROM Upgrade, Samsung Omnia | 5 Comments

Good Samaritan Home @ Klang – Charity visit 26 Oct 2008

Posted on October 29, 2008 by Adrian

Halloween’s the Theme this time round and we sure brought it home to the kids at GSH aka Good Samaritan Home in Klang recently on the 26th Oct 2008. Shereen Tan CE who was elected as our team leader for this round did a splendid job in prepping us for the event. She was assisted by Pooi Fong and KC in her difficult task. In the process of preparation, other team members did some running around to purchasing the necessary props, food & useful gifts (at least 1 for each kid) for the event.

Funds for this round of charity which was managed by our treasurer Sue San and was obtained from the left over balance from our first charity event at Rumah Shalom. So those of you who contributed previously… we’ve managed to help you spread some joy to yet another group of kids at another home. Congrats and thank you to all contributors.

Moving on to the visit details now…. The day started with us reaching the home at approximately 5pm+ to decorate the place to give it a halloween feel. Everyone got down and sweaty in the sweltering heat to decorate the place to our best ability. Balloons were blown and hung up. Fake cob webs were placed on the swing and gates. Spiders and Bats were added to the set and we even had a witch doll compliments from the home to add to decor and spookyness effect.

Once the decoration was speedily put up and completed, we immediatedly started on with some preliminary games to break the ice. May Lee was incharge of the games but this time round she was assisted by Dannie (a regular volunteer at GSH) to control the enthusiastic crowd *haha* After a couple of “Do the Opposite” and “Mathematical” games, the kids were treated to some lovely food prepared mainly by Siew Yin & team. There were Sandwiches from Subway, Homemade Spaghetti, Meat Balls for all to enjoy…. and enjoy they did because at a blink of an eye, the food was all gone.

After dinner, games resumed with fashion show put on by the kids. More presents were given to creative cat walk participants. Pastor Albert, the founder of GSH, was kind enough to kick start the fashion show by giving the kids a demo on how to strut their stuff. Needless to say, it was most hilarious and entertaining. What a good sport! Our very own Shereen also strutted her Superman style pose for all to enjoy.

The home has a total of 28 kids ranging from 3 yrs old to 17+. It must surely be a personal enjoyment and gratification for Pastor Albert who is able to nurse the kids from young to adulthood. This is something we all need to learn. Miracles do happen when there’s compassion. I’m sure all the kids will be forever grateful for their home as well as all the brothers and sisters for life that they have found from the home… and not to mention occassional visitors like ourselves. It was great to be able to spend some time with the kids and to talk to them. They’re all definitely a friendly and chirpy bunch.

I must also add that the older kids manning the DJ Console did a most professional job in providing us with background music. The way the music was toned down and up was so professional, we thought they were hired to do the job! Keep up the good work guys. We loved your dancing skills and demo as well.

We, the Happy Angels, hope you have enjoyed our visit and your brief introduction the what Halloween is all about. We also hope the younger kids will not use the prop spiders to frighten future visitors to the home *haha*

To see more pictures of this special charity visit, please View Photo Gallery

Posted in General | Tagged charity, Good Samaritan Home, Klang | 4 Comments

Jalan Alor to Jalan Kejora

Posted on October 29, 2008 by Adrian

You would have noticed in the papers recently regarding the proposed name change of Jalan Alor to Jalan Kejora (What?). Yes, Jalan Alor’s popular name listed on the internet and widely known amongst locals and foreigners alike has been changed to Jalan Kejora (Translated to English to mean Venus) just so that Bukit Bintang Area has one of the stars/planet within its vacinity.

Most people are wondering why they’re changing something which ain’t broken. My sentiments exactly. But if you think about it deeper, perhaps these people behind the changes have a higher ulterior motive. Imagine how many road signs will need to be changed as a result of the name change. Imagine how many maps will need to be updated. Brochures, books & Other materials with the mention of Jalan Alor will also need to be changed. Someone’s definitely getting rich because of this. Frankly speaking, a pure waste of the tax payer’s money. I definitely hope they re-think this properly and not jump into it just coz some fella wanted to have a constellation under his belt.

Posted in General | Tagged jalan alor, jalan kejora | Leave a comment

Cooking chez CV – Scrambled Eggs Breakfast

Posted on October 27, 2008 by Adrian

Our previous dish which was the Paella meant that we had leftover mushrooms, tomatoes, onions & etc… What better way of using them and finishing them off the next morning than to cook scrambled eggs? Here are some nice yummy pictures of our Scrambled Eggs dish solely prepared and cooked by May Lee….. ya I was still half blur after sleeping in… Tasted Wonderful… was awake after that with my Instant White Coffee

Meal dated: 26 October 2008

Posted in Food & Cooking, General | Tagged food & cooking, Scrambled Eggs | 1 Comment

Cooking chez CV – Seafood Paella

Posted on October 27, 2008 by Adrian

This weekend, we had a craving for Paella but we were unable to find any at the Curve… Not that we looked hard but we were told (by our food connoisseur Lim Fong) that they only had it at La Bodega. Feeling adventurous we decided to attempt to cook this dish in our little kitchen. We bought all the necessary ingredients at the Cold Storage. I think the main ingredients cost us about RM30.00 in total (Not too bad eh) but that was because we had to buy a whole pack of small rice, garlics, etc which can be used another day. We got home and downloaded a little recipe from the internet as guidance so that we know what order to put the ingredients in. Anyway why did we cook this dish? We decided we wanted to see how long it took us to cook the dish since we saw them cooking this dish in Kan Cheong Kitchen on NTV8. hahah… needless to say, it took us approximately 1 hour to prepare and cook and there were two of us. I think we would have lost badly if we took part.. but having said that… the end product was superb. We enjoyed the taste and the lovely dish though we got the water level a little on the soggy side. I’m sure we’ll do better during our next attempt… that’s after we buy a nice big pan to cook it in. If you refer to the pictures… you would have noticed we cooked the rice in two separate dishes… one corning ware and the other in a pot. A little hard to judge the water level when using such deep “cooking” dishes.

If anyone wants to try cooking this dish… I would recommend you to try it out. Its really not that difficult to cook and it’s really yummy!

Meal dated: 25 October 2008

Posted in Food & Cooking, General | Tagged food & cooking, Paella, Seafood | 4 Comments

Cooking chez CV – Smoked Oysters on French Loaf

Posted on October 27, 2008 by Adrian

A little bit of tib-bits don’t hurt anyone…. Here we have our breakfast and tea time snack. We opened up a can of smoked oysters and sliced up our French loaf bought from Atria’s supermarket. We toasted the French loaf slices and buttered them and shoved them into our little toaster over (compliments of Richard & Sharmaine.. thanks guys). Once nicely yellowed, we took it out and spreaded the smoked oysters onto the slices… added salt, pepper, a little lemon and some tobasco sauce….. yummy!

Meal dated: 19 October 2008

Posted in Food & Cooking, General | Tagged food, food & cooking, french loaf, smoked oysters | 2 Comments

Cooking chez CV – Spaghetti Bolognaise

Posted on October 27, 2008 by Adrian

First main course dish to come out of our Changkat View kitchen would be our special Spaghetti Bolognaise (with Lamb meet). Oh yes, we bought the wrong kind of meat from Cold Storage but the taste was still just as good as beef. We also prepared some Fresh Salads and Sautee Mushrooms to accompany our Spaghetti. Needless to say, we were stuffed to the brim. That’s quite a bit of food for just the two of us. The home made vinegarette dressing prepared by May Lee ensured we finished all the salad.

Meal dated: 11 October 2008

Posted in Food & Cooking, General | Tagged food, fresh salad, sautee mushrooms, spagetti bolognaise | Leave a comment

Using Wordbook to update blog post in Facebook

Posted on October 22, 2008 by Adrian

If all is working properly, this post should show up on my Facebook Wall. Somehow the new layout and format of Facebook seems to be breaking apps left right and center. Wordbook has not been spared. Hopefully this new setting of moving the Wordbook Box to my Wall will solve the problem of posts not appearing on my Page’s Feed.

Fingers… crossed….

Posted in General | Tagged facebook, wordbook | Leave a comment

Addicted to Online Life?

Posted on October 22, 2008 by Adrian

Are you an internet junkie? Since you’re reading this post of mine, I would think you’re 99% confirmed junkie. Fear not though of this accusation as majority of the people online these days are addicted to the internet. Most people can’t live without logging in daily. Others need to check their emails constantly. Then there are others who feel right only when they have their crackberry by their sides. Even if you do not belong to any of the groups mentioned above, I’m sure you have a facebook account which you can’t stay away from. Apart from checking out what your friends are doing via facebook instead of talking to them directly, most people feel a need to update their profiles and upload new pictures everyday as though its some kind of competition of sorts. Afterall.. who likes a boring profile…. or boring blog (like this one?). So yeah… I can be considered an internet junkie and addict myself. Even if I tried avoiding such activities, I am unable to avoid it fully as being on the internet, understanding how it works are all part and parcel of my full time job!

Anyway I gotta stop for dinner now… Am trying to tear myself away from the PC before it chews my life away. Call me out for a coffee if you’ve got the time… then again.. you can always send me a coffee through facebook if you’re the lazy type like me

Posted in General | Tagged online addiction | 1 Comment

Samsung Omnia i900

Posted on October 13, 2008 by Adrian

It’s been a while since I’ve updated this blog… but then again it has also been a while since I bought myself a new phone. Well actually, it has only been 1 year since my last phone purchase, a Nokia 6300 but what was more important in shaping my decision to get a new phone was the fact that my PDA (HP iPAX rx3715) was due for a change after having served me for many years.

After having had 3 weeks to play with my new Samsung Omnia i900, I’m glad to report back that its money worth spending even though I paid a hefty RM2800 for my unit. This does not include the new bluetooth headset I just purchased since my Ericsson one gives up on me after receiving/making 1 call after each charge. I also just purchased myself a cool car handsfree kit that helps me hold my Omnia when I’m driving and navigating with the cool GPS.

I’m sure a few of you would be wondering why I said the purchase was worth it? Well… since I consider myself as one of those “power” users instead of a “basic” user, I think the purchase was worth it. If you’re a basic user then I don’t think this phone is for you. Why? Coz apart from the Chic Factor, you’ll be under utilising a lot of the phone’s powerful features. For starters, I currently use the phone for the following tasks:

As a Phone (Duh)
As a Modem (Connected to Maxis 3G – HSDPA) for true internet mobility
As a PDA – Organiser (Calendar, Tasks, Notes & etc)
As a truly mobile platform for retrieval of Emails, SMS, & Immediate Notifications
As a tool to avoid boredom (yeah games & puzzles)
As a tool to stay connected? Oh yeah I mentioned that… to surf facebook & avantgo & various news sites
As a GPS Navigator to help me get to where I want to be quickly without wasting petrol
As a camera to take nice pictures and videos as and when needed
As a Pen Drive (Storage)
As a Media Player (Songs & PodCasts)
A 3G Video Calling Phone… (No I haven’t used this yet… need to try it out with someone who has a 3G capable phone)

As can be seen, I am fully utilising and enjoying this phone. Basically, for RM2800, I got myself a Phone, a PDA, a Camera and a GPS device. If you add all of them up… I’m sure the cost will be around there if not more. Plus having all these features in one cool looking devide is just the way to go.

Why Samsung Onmia ? Well, first of all I didn’t hessitate to try out Samsung although I’ve never tried Samsungs before. But since I did have my HP PDA which utilises Windows Mobile, I was more or less already comfortable with the operating system. Learning how to use the unit took only a fraction of the time. What took the most time was the configuration and messing around with the system. yeah 3 weeks in total… and still messing…

Here’s a list of programs which I have installed onto my device which I strongly recommend to owners of the Omnia (listed not in any particular order of preference) :

S2U2 (Slide2Unlock2) – http://slide-2-unlock.en.softonic.com/pocketpc
Microsoft Voice Command – http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/en-us/downloads/microsoft/about-voice-command.mspx
SPB Mobile Shell – http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/mobileshell/?en
SPB Time – http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/time/?en
fring – http://www.fring.com/
Garmin Mobile TX (GPS Software) with Malsingmaps – http://www.garmin.com & http://www.malsingmaps.com / http://www.malfreemaps.com
Resco Keyboard PRO v5.11 – http://resco.net/pocketpc/keyboard/default.asp (Helps speed up data entry… making it easier to type in stuff without using the stylus)
WMWifiRouter – http://www.wmwifirouter.com

Other Programs which I have installed onto my unit:

SPB Pocket Plus – http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/pocketplus/?en
SPB Traveler – http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/traveler/?en
SPB Pocket PC Tips & Tricks – http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/tipsandtricks/?en
Games – SPB Games – Air Islands, Arkaball, Balltracker, Brain Evolution, Bubbles, Matches, Sudoku, Xonix & etc

I’m not writing a review on the unit here but basically just skimming on the surface as to what the Omnia can do. Do you think this phone suites you? For an indepth review on the Omnia, check it out at http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i900_omnia-review-267.php