the new computer

After umm-ing and ahh-ing for what seemed to be months, the upgrade of my main workstation has begun! Spurred on by MSY's new funky website that "displays stock levels" I configured several possible cpu, motherboard etc combinations for the new machine.

What started off as an excercise to get a Quad core processor ended up with an entry level intel i3 chip! what can I say, the power consumption and quietness of the cpu cooler won it for me in the end!

Here's the pickups;
1. Intel Core i3-530 2.93Mhz LGA1156 CPU
2. Ritmo CR-46D USB Mini Thumb Size External SDHC Card Reader
3. 8GB Sandisk Flash Pen Disk
4. Iomega 2.5" 500GB Prestige Portable External HDD
5. Hitachi 3.5" Deskstar 1TB SATA HDD
6. ASUS P7H55-M H55 LGA1156 DDR3 Motherboard
7. Antec TruePower TP-550Watt. PSU
8. G.Skill NT 4GB Kit(2X2GB) DDR3 1333 RAM (Intel 775pin, Intel 1156pin, AM3)
9. Gigabyte 1GB 5770 PCI-E VGA Card

I've just transplanted the contents from the aspire x-qpack to my old Coolermaster case. Strangely enough, the urge for a small form factor which prompted me to get the x-qpack before has subsided. It was so much easier to put everything into the coolermaster case. Now that I've got is sitting beside me, I'm not bothered by the noise, well not that much anyway, especially since I've removed the 7600GT video card!

Time to clean up and watch the World Cup, laters

Music Roundup

I've been actively pursuing a lot of a new music over the last few months. It seems like the void of boredom needs to be filled with something! Of late, I've noticed that my music preferences have changed, or rather evolved over the years. There's the old corny stuff I still listen to every now and then (especially when shuffle play mode is on!) but lately, some of the newer stuff have managed to catch my attention.

MSTRKRFT's Fist of God (2009)

These Canadian DJ duo recorded this album under the auspices of Armand Van Helden. The numerous remixes they've done for the likes of Justice and Wolfmother to name a few are excellent listens!

What drew me to this album is the amazing electronic sounds and the energy it emanates. The long list of collabs also adds to its strength. Lil' Mo, E40, Ghostface Killah and John Legend are a few.

Silversun Pickups - Swoon (2009)

With a sound reminiscent of the Smashing Pumpkins, how could I not give this a listen? You know being a *BIG* pumpkins fan. This Indie band's second album has been on my playlist since I acquired it!

The first single "Panic" with it's muddled guitar riffs and the lead vocals adds to the whole "hey! ain't this the pumpkins" paranoia.

But I'll be frank to you, it's nice listening to this album, it made me feel the way I felt when I first listened to Siamese Dreams and Gish.

That's all folks! let's see how long this goes on for :P

Revival?

Just got myself a Dell 2209WA 22" lcd monitor, it arrived today! here's a flickr feed of it.

Moving from my old Proview 19" lcd, this is a nice (and huge) difference, who would've expected a bump in resolution to be such a blessing? Full sizing windows now seems a little awkward.

I'll attempt to get this back up and blogging and all. How do you like the new layout?

anyone?? :P

Nintendo Wii Fever

I have to admit to being a bit of a gamer. First it was the Nintendo DS Lite and now the Wii!!

Seeing the Wii in action at the recent egames expo (how funny is the URL? egamesexpo.com.au) made my desire for it grow!



The Nintendo Wii will be launched in Australia at midnight tonight!!!!1!

Before I realised that this was a pay week I was hesitant to go out and pre-order, but now I'm just plain confused. More like caught up in the insanity that is the Nintendo Wii!!!! Still undecided on whether I should take the plunge and go to Chadstone later tonight for the launch party!

Decisions.. decisions...

On the upside, tomorrow is work's combined Xmas function and the Head honcho gave us the rest of the afternoon off! how cool is that ?!?!

Nintendo Wii ftw!!!

Guess who's back?

It's been a long time since I touched this blog, no motivation and laziness are the culprits. But since the recent windfall of spare time on my hands, I'll be attempting to revive this. Let's see how it goes :)

It's a cool and wet morning in Melbourne today. Getting out of bed is rather challenging when your wrapped under the warmth and comfort of your doona (blanket, quilt). The weather is not the only thing to blame though. I was out til late last night.

A good friend of mine is heading back to Singapore for good ... or not, that remains to be seen. We've been friends for about 5 years now. So yesterday evening we headed down to St Kilda for drinks at the Vineyard Restaurant . Service was ok, but there were a couple of cute waitresses. Spring in Melbourne is beautiful, but the weather soon got chilly as we proceeded to an excellent vegetarian joint called SoulMama. All in all a good night of good company, good food, scenery and of course, Melbourne's weather.

[Fifa World Cup 2006 - the Socceroos][Flahed my NDS]

Once every 4 years, the cream of the crop of football teams convene for the World Cup. There's no argument that it is the BIGGEST sporting event in the world. Residing in Australia, you do feel the lack of emphasis on the "beautiful game". However, this time round it seems that the atmosphere is there. It's a nice feeling supporting a team from the place I'm living now (even though most of the players are based in Europe).

So here's a post for the continued success of the Socceroos!

In other news, I've been clocking some serious hours on my NDS Lite. After receiving the Superkey and Supercard devices, I'm now able to run homebrew and backup games. It was unfortunate that the 2 devices working together causes the battery to run out quickly. So tonite I bit the bullet and fashioned a flash tool (out of some foil, tape and an unused cable tie), GBAtemp's excellent Flashme tutorial/Article really helped me out and now it's flashed. We'll have to observer how much battery is actually being saved.

Now that I don't need my superkey anymore, anyone wanna buy it?

naked Sansa e200.. toshiba gigabeat s30

It's always pleasantly surprising to look at the innards of gadgets these days. In that line, check out the innards of the Sansa e200 at http://www.flickr.com/photos/francilloscope/sets/281445/

Another 'touted' ipod-killer from Toshiba, the Gigabeat S30. Review available at cnet.com and then the people from anythingbutipod.com presents the innards of the S30. The growing market of Digital Audio or mp3 players only goes to show the uptake of technology. After all whats the point of owning an mp3 player with no device to feed mp3's into them... right?

Sandisk Sansa e260 review

MP3 or Digital Audio Players come in all shapes form and sizes. Growing popularity (thanks to apple's marketing) and an increasingly competitive marketspace has produced a whole truckload of players flooding the market with refreshes every 6-12 months. Heck, Steve Jobs was even quoted saying " .. you should buy an iPod every year... " in regards to keeping up with the best and latest.
I personally like the iPod, but I also like to support the non-iPod manufacturers, like Sandisk, iRiver and the sort.
The Sandisk Sansa e260 is being touted as the iPod Nano killer. Well, it may not be as slim as the Nano but with added features like FM radio, recorder and video playback, there is a good fight.
Continue on for the review of the e260 via engadget