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Right. So this will be a review of sorts for this keyboard.

I'm at work pecking at the keyboard for a good 12 hours a day and my wrists are pretty much crying for relief. The main culprit here is of course the nasty office keyboard made in hell. Designed to give your wrists the fullest amount of torture possible, they are mass produced and are shipped globally with all new pc's.

Light typing is fine but when you face your pc for long hours every day, you begin to realise that your fingers and wrists aren't made up of bendy bits of rubber and they sure can't bend it like Beckham can. Nor is it as straight as the rows of alpha numeric keys on the keyboard. Take that and compound it with bad keyboard habits (pressing and holding the control key with your pinkie comes to mind) will kill your wrist faster than you can type whodunnit.

Enter the world of ergonomic keyboards. They're designed to suit the contours of our hands and can range from a couple of bucks to hundreds (Kinesis Countoured Ergonomic Keyboard comes to mind). Trawling the internet for ideas, I narrowed down my choices to two, the Logitech Wave and the Microsoft Natural Keyboard. I was initially leaning on the Logitech as I wanted the unifying dongle seeing as I already have a Logitech mouse. 2 peripherals and one dongle equals one more usb port (hurrah!). But a quick visit to the local tech store in Low Yat Plaza yielded nada. They weren't in stock. Not a single store there had them. And you're supposed to be able to find just about any IT peripheral there. How about that?

In the first shop I entered, I saw the whole range of Logitech products on display except for the Wave. Asked the sales person and I got was a blank look. Perhaps he couldn't comprehend the word ergonomic. Maybe if I told him I wanted the most expensive keyboard money could buy, he would've been more helpful. Who knows?

After searching for a few more minutes, I threw in the towel but on the way out, I decided to stop by the Microsoft section to try my luck once more. Again the sales man there wasn't very helpful. All he knew about keyboards were if they were wired or wireless. Where do they get these people?

But then I saw it. Tucked away in the lowest shelf was the only ergonomic keyboard there. Unfortunately, there weren't any demo units to test. So there's no way to actually find out if the spacebar is that difficult to actuate (it is. but it depends on where you strike it). So I made a mental note of the price so that I could revisit it in the event I couldn't find an alternative. A couple of stores later, I found the same model selling at a slightly lower price than the first shop but with the Wave nowhere in sight, I decided to take it home with me. Stiff spacebar or no stiff spacebar.

Got back, opened the box and man, is the keyboard huge. Its substantially large than my current one at home. It comes with a wrist rest which is rather handy as you can use it to elevate it so that you're typing at the correct angle. The keys feel kinda mushy though. There's little feedback from the keys and the keys don't register until you reach the bottom of the keyboard (bottom out). I suppose that's why some people go for mechanical keyboards. Plenty of short cut keys on the keyboard with a next to useless zoom rocker in the middle. Who uses that anyway? (a quick hack turned it into a more useful scroll rocker instead. thanks unknown keyboard warrior!). And the spacebar is a wee bit stiff but its not all that hard to use. Its not like you need a hammer to actuate the spacebar...

Overall, the design is pretty good but the real test will be done in my cubicle. Whether or not paying top dollar to reduce wrist fatigue remains to be seen but I remain hopeful...

Another family gathering at my place.
As usual, I pulled out all the stops for this one since my gears were close at hand. :D
Experimented with several lighting setups and camera placement and as usual, the low light caused the camera's auto-focus to misbehave. I'll probably have to find a permanent solution to this but for now, I'm stuck with having to pre-focus before shooting.



Defying gravity.



Power punch!



Power split!



Ryan putting on his cute face.

After putting up with driving at night with dim head lights, I decided that I couldn't take it anymore. Something had to give. So I turned to the interweb and found three solutions: i) Change the bulbs to aftermarket ones which are brighter but have a shorter lifespan (RM120) ii) Replace the halogen bulbs with HID ones which are waaay brighter (RM160) iii) Retrofit projectors into the headlamps (RM480) Now, the first option is the cheapest but for a wee bit more, I can get a HID kit which is brighter than the any of the aftermarket halogen bulbs. But there is a problem. HID kits which are fitted into normal headlamps are glaring to oncoming traffic and it is a known fact that the local enforcement (JPJ) are on the lookout for this type of modification as it is illegal. So the only feasible option is to retrofit the headlamps with projectors.


CCFL in action.

After more hours of research, I decided to go with EA Autowork's retrofit due to the competitive pricing and their reputation. Similar retrofits can go as high as RM850 and although they use a higher quality projector, in my books, the price gap does not justify the difference. Plus their projectors are bi-xenon with CCFL lights and the price is inclusive of the HID kit.

The whole process was pretty simple. Dropped Howie of EA Autowork a personal message, set up an appointment and rolled in to get it retrofitted. The whole process took about 1.5 hours as the headlamps needed to be opened. No modifications was done to the stock headlamps so I can return it to normal if there is a need to.

By the time the retrofit was done, it was already nightfall. The best time to test out the new projectors then. :D The lights now are significantly brighter and with the high light on, I can see even further than before. Perfect for those dark roads and annoying pikeys with glaring headlamps breathing down my neck. I'll just let them overtake, switch on my high light and follow behind them.
Have a taste of your own medicine!

p.s. Workmanship was top notch. Everything was sealed back perfectly as there was no condensation in the lamp on cold mornings.

After driving the Iswara for a almost a year, someone pointed out to me that the tyres were over 6 years old. (!) Although the tyres still had thread on them (about 70% left), rubber hardens with age which reduces grip. Not wanting to find out the effect of driving with old tyres, I went to the a trustworthy tyre shop along Jalan Ipoh (Kean Lee Hin) to get them changed.
New tyres and rims. I had initially wanted to upsize my wheels to 14 inchers but at the spur of the moment, I went with 15". I paired the new rims with Kumho KU31 195/50/R15 tyres. At RM190 a pop, they weren't cheap but the performance isn't too shabby either. Dry grip was good although it doesn't perform as well in the wet while road noise is minimal. Overall, the performance was substantially better than my old tyres. The whole process took almost 2 hours from the time I got there to the time the car was ready to go. Overall I'm please with the car's new look as well as the service provided by Kent.
Another angle.

Not that this is a review of sorts but I love this machine!
But don't get me wrong, I'm no coffee addict. I drink coffee whenever the mood takes me so having this at home is easier than me having to drive out to the nearest Starbucks to get a cuppa.

The only downside is that it doesn't do iced beverages and the choices of beverages are limited to 4; Latte Mocchiato, Cuppuccino, Espresso and Mocha. We now have more varieties (!).

I guess the guys Nestle has finally decided to add several other flavours to their lineup (What took them?). Best part is, we now have iced cappuccino although all the other drinks need to be served hot. Oh well, maybe next time we'll have what the Americans have eh? 

Just the other week we were on a 'hunting' trip for hogs. We kicked it off at the Hungry Hog in Subang Jaya. The pork burger (it goes by the moniker: Three Little Pigs) was sinfully good. It is stuffed with bacon, ham and a pork patty. Awesome combination of all things pork. Served alongside with chunky cut fries and a salad, it makes for a satisfying lunch.



Three little pigs @ The Hungry Hog Subang Jaya

Dinner was at Euro Deli where we were supposed to tackle the Matterhorn.



It didn't seem that big from the pictures but trust me, it's bigger in real life. Thankfully we came prepared and brought backup, 6 guys in total, to take on the Matterhorn. You might think that 6 is way too many but we just barely managed to finish it.

After this stint, I'm swearing off pork for at least a week.



The Matterhorn


Pork powah!

The old workhorse finally kicked the bucket due to a broken ribbon which is a common problem for the Nokia N95. After being fed up with repairing the phone so many times, the broken ribbon was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Ironically, several days before I was reading reviews on the Samsung Galaxy SII. Its funny how things work out.

The new phone is miles ahead of the old one but the only problem is its terrible battery life. Medium usage will see the battery empty itself slightly over 12 hours. Of course, light usage will get me through a whole day and then some but then again, hardly anyone with a smartphone will use the phone just to tell the time. The only workaround was to buy chargers and make sure the phone remains charged throughout the whole day.

A new toy dropped into my lap the other day courtesy of Canon Malaysia (Thanks Canon!). :D



Took it for for a quick spin around the house and from the initial impression is pretty good. The flash output is probably one stop less as compared to the 430 EX II but it loses out in terms of the flexibility in rotating the head.

Another gripe is that the settings cannot be adjusted on the flash itself but must be controlled via the camera's in built menu. On the plus side, it offers ETTL or manual control on the power but again, one mus go through the menu to set it although I've read that the newer bodies (ie. 60D & 7D) can control the flash remotely.



Also, the AF assist isn't the red grid, it's the retina searing flash burst (great way to annoy those who you don't really like because you can blame the camera for it :P). Not very discreet and definitely not subject friendly unless your subject is impervious to flashing bright lights in which case, they'd ought to be seeing a optician.



As for now, I'll probably use it off camera rather than having it sit on my camera as the 430 EX II allows me more flexibility even though the 270 EX II is lighter.

Entering 2012 with an attitude.