New Modem

Well, 4th of June
For all you Chinese out there, this marks one special day.
21 years ago, on this very day, those of us who were born (i was only 2 and a bit months old at the time) would have lived through one big historical event. The truths behind this events still remains a mystery today, and to stop our blog from being banned in China for political reasons, I would not be discussing about it.

Oh wait....blogspot IS already banned in China....


Well, moving on to todays topic.
Product review!!!Thanks to CK who kindly lent me his spare Asus DSL-N11, I was able to confirm that it was indeed my old netgear DG834Gv4 playing up on me.

I've had the chance to play around with quite a few adsl modems, and personally, im still quite fond of the Netgear firmware. It is one of the best out there.

Hence, i decided to stick with netgear.
This was the one i got Netgear DGND3300

From Misc

Fairly standard box.
Just like all of netgears products.
Unlike other companies like logitech, who tries to glorify all their hi-end products, Netgear does not give their hi-end products any special packaging.

Now moving on to the modem itself.
Most of you who have seen the Netgear DG834G before, at it was one of the best selling adsl2+ modems ever made.
Its flat white, with a clear glossy border.

From the box, i thought that this modem would be similar aswell.
But then i was very wrong...
Rather than being flat black, this thing was Hi Gloss Black.

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Very very reflective.
And just like all shiny black things, its a dust and fingerprint magnet.

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Similar to the old Wireless G routers, this unit comes with the big blue light display show in the center

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These lights are very bright.

Like the old netgear modems, this unit is also designed to be able to stand vertically.
I find it better this way, as the unit doesnt get as hot.
Clip on the two feet, and the modem stands upright.

From Misc

However, unlike the old DG834G, you can mount the feet on either side because theres no antenna to get in the way of things.
Instead of using one external antenna, this unit comes with 8 internal ones, giving it the ability to broadcast at 5ghz

From Misc

Basically, 5ghz means that it uses alot more frequencies, and avoids interferance from other wireless devices.


And the back of the unit.
One of the main attractions of this unit is the USB port on the back.
Basically, this allows me to hook up a external usb drive to this port, and share media with other computers in my home network.
Another feature that i found was that i could use this port to host my own http or ftp server.

From Misc

Major downside to netgear is that you cant watch iptv with tpg.
but then again, iptv doesnt offer that many nice channels to watch, so i can always live without it.
If i really wanted to watch fta channels on my comp, then i'll just buy a tv tuner instead.
Overall, im pretty happy with this modem.
Sync speeds have been decent
And it also introduces a whole lot more features compared to the older netgear modems.
Worth 150bux? Well, nowadays, you can get a Dlink Wireless N ADSL2+ modem for just under 100bux.
So for that extra 50bux, you get more range, less interferance, and a network storage port. This unit can also function as a wireless repeater.
So yeah, I rkn it is pretty worth considering if you need a new modem.

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学期が終わる

The first semester of 2010 ends with today. Actually, it probably ended at 1700 today, but that's not what I'm here to talk about.

What a semester. It's kind of unusual being back on a full load of units.

Last year, in semester 1 I dropped Differential Equations and Biomaths (Adv) because it was probably the single hardest subject offered at uni. We had our 7-day snow trip in the mid-year break, and I returned home absolutely devastated by an illness that lasted another two weeks.

By that time semester 2 had started, and I was overloading (2xJap, 2xchem, 1xstat). What I didn't realise was that the practicals for chemistry were now 2x4hr/week for 12 weeks, with 8 reports in total due (each report being roughly 12-13 pages, taking about 8 hours each). So, I ended up dropping both, only because of the practicals.

This semester started fairly well off. I'm doing Japanese 7, DE's (again, but not advanced) , Chem (Catalysis) & The Origins of Japanese Tradition (I'm a sucker for variety, I have no idea how people can do four of the same subject in a semester). For the first five weeks I was on top of everything, but as midsemesters came, so did a lingering illness, and I started falling behind again. Nothing like last year though. So enough about that, what actually happened this semester?

For the first three weeks, Gajan and Vu lingered around at uni studying for GAMSAT. I suppose it was a kind of detox, to get the rest of us, who study together, used to the fact that they won't be around at uni anymore. As a result, I've been seeing much more of Abrar, Muna and Fariba (with Michael dropping by now and then).

I joined Kung Fu again, only to leave on hiatus for my other great passion - late night cramming at uni. Here I feel owe a big apology to Cameron, whom I got interested in Kung Fu only to not show up later myself. If I could have it any other way, I would, but I simply cannot cope otherwise. On a brighter note, the semester has ended...

I got in touch with a Japanese tutor at the end of last year, and have been receiving intense two hour sessions roughly once a fortnight. I cannot believe I did not think of this earlier. I spent most of last year worried I wouldn't pass Japanese. This year I might actually get a credit, so here's score 1 for me (take that world, you haven't screwed me over just yet).

I've also made a whole bunch of new friends in all my classes, unusual for someone as antisocial as myself, but definitely not unwelcome. Yu Feng, my friend in Japanese class, recommended I check out the Language Lab noticeboards to look for conversation partners. I found three posters, and took the phone numbers. I messaged Shoko, we met on Thursday and had a great introductory conversation. She just recently came from Japan with her husband, and desperately wants improve her English. We're meeting up again this Monday. And I still have two more numbers.

I don't know why I'm saying all this here, I just want to vent some steam I suppose.

Well, I shall see you guys around! Good Luck with Exams!

(By the way, if you guys know any students of Japanese who would also like to meet Shoko, let me know).

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So I've been pretty busy lately...

This is the reason -_-

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Dou Dou In a Box

A 4PAK headquarters, part of our inhouse entertainment is ToFu's dog - Dou Dou.
Unlike Onderon's dog, Dou Dou is rather intelligent (well to a certain extent)
It took Tim quite a while, using pizza as bait to trap Dou in the box.




No animals were harmed during the course of this film.

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Dessert!!!!

Around this time last year, I made a post about Rice Dumplings.
For those who dont know what they are, its a traditional Chinese food, eaten during the Dragon boat festival.
Now with Rice Dumplings, theres a savoury version, and a sweet version.
The key ingredients, sticky rice, and bamboo leaves are present in both variations.
Despite appearing the same on the outside (although the savoury one is usually bigger)
The two dumplings are quite different on the inside.
Savoury ones usually contains Mung beans, along with many different things, including pork/chicken, mushroom, scallops, dried shrimp, chestnuts, etc
The sweet type, is usually filled with Red beans, and soaked in lye water, which makes the sticky rice turn yellow.
Today however, we are looking at a more modern variation of the Sticky rice dumpling.
For starters, it’s a frozen dessert.

From General

These ones came in different flavours
The coloured string makes them easily distinguishable

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So from the outside, they look pretty much the same as a traditional rice dumpling.
Its probably hard to tell, but they are a lot smaller than in the picture. Roughly around they size of a prawn dumpling which you’d have at yum cha.

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Now we strip away the bamboo leaves and take a look on the inside.
What you’d find, is that instead of using sticky rice, they’ve used sticky rice flour to wrap the dumpling.
The first one I tried was a kiwifruit, and honey dew melon flavour

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Followed by the more traditional red bean

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So by now most of you are thinking- Well, that’s just a ice mochi isn’t it?
Well, yes it is.
However, you must first understand the process of making this dessert.
For starters, making a rice dumpling is not an easy task.
You must carefully layer in the ingredients into neatly wrapped pieces of bamboo leaves.
Then you must tie the whole thing together, tightly, and at the same time, wrap a string around it to hold it all into place.
Then theres the art of making mochi.
For those who helped out for our 21st, you would understand the difficulty of making one.
This was one of our first attempts

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And as you can see, it didn’t turn out very successful

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So making rice dumpling is hard
Making ice mochi is hard

Combine the two together and you end up with something that takes lots of skills and effort to make.
So to whoever made these small desserts which are currently sitting in my freezer, THANKYOU for all the hard work which you’ve put into making these.

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Migration Plans

In the past couple of weeks, we have been discussing whther or not we should try for other blog platforms which is more suitable for our needs

Hence, we have now started experimenting with http://4pakisdead.wordpress.com/

Luckily for us, wordpress and blogger allows for easy migration, so most of the blog content was moved quite easily.
However, it seems like Wordpress does not like Windows Skydrive, so files and images from there are not showing up.

As far as layout is concerned, wordpress doesnt offer much
Around 90 templates, and CSS scripting (too advanced for me)
Looking through all the templates, and testing each of them out, i stumbled across the one applied currently
What i found interesting was how it automatically resized images to fit into the main body.
Very clever indeed.
However, most of you would be running screen resos of higher than 1280, and would probably like to use up more of your screen when reading our blog.
So i guess it would still need some tweaking around before its perfect.

On the other hand, I find that the wordpress dashboard is somewhat better than the dashboard offered by blogger (but i guess thats a matter of personal preferences)

The decision to migrate is not final. Alot of testing still needs to be done, before we jump to any conclusions.

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Alex Scream

Just doing a little experiment on file hosting. It links to my skydrive account, and you'll have to download from there. Still finding a easier way to do things.

The file above is a 2second recording of Alex screaming at Echo point late last year

Most of you would probably would have heard it already

For those who listen to music while they sleep, just remember not to leave this file on loop...otherwise you'll wake up with a headache.

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WORLDS UGLIEST MOUSE

For those who follow our blog, you may already know that I normally use a Logitech MX revolution, and also keep a Microsoft Sidewinder as a spare mouse. More often than not, im rather reluctant to use the Sidewinder as it isnt really the most comfy, or the best looking mouse in the world. Im mean look at it below....its hideous. But now, for the next week or so, i’ll be stuck with this mouse, hence im just here to rant about it.

Previously, I had made a short post about the Sidewinder. However after reviewing the post, i realised i made one big mistake. And that was to take a photo of a black mouse, on the black icemat v2.
Earlier on in the year, I traded my icemat for a similar mousepad made by steelseries. In terms of surface, its identical to the icemat, just different in colour. So why the trade? Long story short, Sum didn’t want a piece of white glass on his desk, so i was kind enough to trade him mine.
So back to the reason why im stuck with the Sidewinder for the next week or two.
For starters, Sum’s MX1100 died, so while its going through its lengthy warranty process, i was kind enough to lend him one of my mice. Knowing that he’d complain about the lack of buttons and the unergonomic design of the sidewinder, i’d decided to lend him my MX rev, just to keep him happy.

So lets look at some of the technical specs
Microsoft claims that this is a 10button mouse



so 1-5 is what you get with a standard 5 button mouse
6 is a record macro button (cannot be reprogrammed and hard to reach)
7-9 are dpi sensitivity buttons (cannot be remapped)
10 is a unusual button that launches the Games folder on your computer. The folder that contains solitaire and mine sweeper etc.... Utterly useless button. Positioned right underneath your palm, so VERY hard to access, and like most of the other buttons, cant be remapped.
So as far as buttons go, its really just a 5 button mouse.

One of the positive things about this mouse is the laser sensor in this mouse. It can be adjusted from 2000 dpi to as low as 200.
As this mouse is all about looking bad, Microsoft even had to put a metallic rim around the laser sensor, just to emphasise its importance.


Speaking of looks, we’ll now go into detail about its ugliness.
For starters...
Looks somewhat like the neon lights you’d find under a street car, but red. To be honest, i wouldn’t mind half as much if this was blue, but red.....hurts my eyes when i try to sleep with this mouse plugged in.

The lights from underneath....looks rather demonic.

The Back and Forward buttons. Personally, i don’t really mind the bling chrome. However, when i first started using this mouse, i got a little bit confused as to which is the forward and back button. These bling buttons gives a really distinctive loud mechanical click when you press down on it.

The scroll wheel Click on picture to view the details. Its a clicky wheel. Which for me is a definite no no. Smooth scrolling feels better, and is a lot nicer to my ears, especially when scrolling down long webpages. Also, no tilt (horizontal scrolling available), which is kinda odd, since Microsoft started introducing tilt scroll to their mice long before the birth of the sidewinder.


Next up is the accessories included with this mouse

For starters, the weights. Well, its not a necessary thing in a mouse, but it is a nice optional extra.
I use weights to simulate the weight of the battery in the MX rev. Also a heavier mouse glided better around a glass surface.

Cable anchor, also doubles as a box to hold 2 different sets of feet for the mouse, and also houses any unused weights.

Heres the anchor in action. Basically you loop the cable through and put the lid ontop of the box…..
Its supposed to stop the cable from going everywhere, but its still rather useless.


Now moving onto the comforts of this mouse. This is by far not the most ergonomic mouse in the world. Looking at the pic below, you can see that Microsoft has attempted to put a tiny bit of effort in, but clearly not enough. After around 10minutes of usage, my hand gets tired. I’ve tried different ways of grip, but it just doesn’t seem to help.



So after all that, I think I’ll go back to using the touchdisc on my beloved dinovo edge.

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hypothetically.

are mg figuarts counted as dolls? i can see a dear friend falling a slipperyslope into dollhood if so. will kamen rider's loveless hollow eyes spell the end of onderon? Are we at an ends of what can no longer be called a hobby but now a fetish of leather and masks?

only time and your opinion can tell !!

pics stolen from ngee stolen from toyworld below !

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Jimmy 21st

Well, as 4PAK turned 1 year old, we also celebrated the birthday of another friend, ie Jimmy.
I guessed most of the photos from his birthday would have ended up on facebook already, so i'll only post some of the interesting discoveries of the evening.

For those who have some basic knowledge about paint, you'd know the difference between gloss and matt colours.
For those who dont, well, heres a short description.
Simply put, gloss coating is shiny. This makes shapes more defined and sharp. Matt coating on the other hand is dull, yet makes shapes softer and smooth.
If that explanation doesnt help, then the following pic should.

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Food at Kasumi is fairly average.
One of the more interesting items on the menu was this - Oyster Shooter
The small picture on the menu didnt really help explain the contents of this drink. We knew it was alcoholic, but had trouble connecting the dots between a shot of alcohol and oyster.
So curiosity (and a bribe) got the best of us, and me and Fu (Mr Gloss) decided to order one each.
And when it arrived to our table.....suprise suprise.....there was an oyster in it.

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When we saw the drink, it did a little bit of mental preparation before we scuffed it down.

After uploading that vid, i kinda felt irresponsible.
Yes, 4PAK is a lifestyle blog, but we shouldnt go around promoting substance abuse (appart from gumshara and crab).
So heres something that should balance things out.

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YES THATS RIGHT!!!! ALCOHOL IS BAD FOR YOU!!!!
IT WOULD MAKE YOUR EYES POP OUT AND SHRINK YOUR BALLS (no wait, thats mountain dew)

And the rest of the evening went past.
4PAK- i mean 4 guys, sitting around a table eating cake

From General

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