Get Yourself Covered When Traveling

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Almost everybody at some point of their life travel somewhere. I don't think I have ever met a person who hasn't traveled anywhere in his entire life. With today's modern transportation, the time taken to go anywhere is a lot shorter and faster. Taking speed into account, it is a lot riskier traveling these days compared to before modern transportation were created. However, the good thing is we can get protection nowadays from anything that might happen to us when we travel.

What kind of protection are we talking about? If you have some knowledge about financial stuff, you'll definitely know about insurance. From what my experience has showed me, if you apply for any loan whether a car loan, a home loan or probably a credit card, you might have automatically bought yourself an insurance policy. The reason; the person or entity that have given you the loan need to secure themselves financially if something were happen to you. It's basically a win-win situation where you don't have to burden anyone else when you are incapable of paying back the loan or medical expenses if you happen to get injured.

You might be surprised if you asked people around you and they tell you that they don't have any insurance policy. Some of them might not even aware if they have one or not. It's a matter of education, well there's plenty of information out there on the internet. Back to our main topic, while most life insurance policies cover you in case something happen to you, they only cover you with a lot of exception. If you are too old, you are not covered. If you have serious illness or known diseases, you are not covered. If you travel, you are not covered. The list goes on and on and on. Let's cut the crap, here's a better way to get an insurance when you travel:



The above is a website claims that they offer travel insurance for every occasion. Their claim might be true. I haven't tried it yet but I do like to know that have other alternatives just in case I have difficulties in getting the right coverage. So far, I've never seen any travel insurance being offered this way but then again, I haven't been traveling overseas for a very long time so I'm not really looking for any travel insurance yet.

It is interesting to learn that we already have to tool to make our life easier just in case something happen to us. I kind of adore how the layout of the website is being built. It has this Web 2.0 kind of look. The navigation is neat and I can manage through the website without getting confused. I haven't tried the quick qoute because I'm not so sure if the travel insurance is valid in my country or not. From a plus perspective, I really like what they are offering and their website layout. Very interesting indeed.

Learn more about this medical travel insurance.

So You Think You Can Dance..Geek!

When I first watched So You Think You Can Dance America, I would have never guessed 8TV would bought their franchise and did So You Think You Can Dance Malaysia. I have great respect for those dance performer because their dedication, hard work of practice and their passion. This is one of the reason when I first met Laadvamore, I fell in love with her because she's so passionate about dancing, which makes her so special to me. Did you know that passion can be contagious?

It was not until a good friend of mine asked me to join him to a dance studio 3 weeks ago. At first I rejected his idea but eventually I changed my mind. I became curious to know what it's like being in the dancing shoes. My friend didn't go for some cheap aerobic style dance class, he chosed a premium one, Linda Jasmine Performing Arts Studio just next to Ampang Point Shopping Mall. So, there I was in a dance studio paying RM50 for the membership fees and for the class I've chosen, I need to pay RM110 per month.


Linda Jasmin Dance Membership Kit 

The dance class I've chosen is called fusion dance. It's been conducted by the lovely Pamela Chong. Pamela is Vince's (Akademi Fantasia 1st Winner) sister and she is 'da bomb'. It was unfortunate that my class wasn't being conducted by the owner herself, Mrs Linda Jasmin herself but after seeing her conducted a class, I was thinking twice about it. I even heard that she can be so mean. Being a dancer is tough, I mean really really tough. It demands physical fitness, proper technique and a lot of practices. I can't even swing my feet properly let alone dance according to the step Pam has showed. My whole body got sored by the time my first class ended. Here's a few picture of the dance studio stolen from SuperStalker:

I finally decided to call it a quite after the second class because I realized one thing, my body is so stiff. The only time I've ever been athletic was when I was back in school, that was just for some marathon run which was compulsory for every student. It wasn't much of a marathon because it's only like 5 - 10 km of running around. Still, I am blessed with the health that I have. However, I need to work out some more if I want to keep on being healthy.To cut my long story short, I find dancing fun, exciting and very good for me. However being a self-proclaim geek, it's kind of hard to break off from the habit of laziness. I need some motivation, I think Laadvamore can help me with that, right darling? ;-) Some related links and info about Linda Jasmine Performing Arts Studio:

The Official Launch of Linda Jasmine Performing Arts Studio

Linda Jasmine Joint Yahoo Group

Linda Jasmine Performing Arts Studio Sdn Bhd
23C, Wisma Ampang Triangle 2,
Off Jalan Ampang,
68000 Ampang,
Selangor Darul Ehsan.
Tel: 03-4270 1777
Fax: 03-4270 4550

Taking Care of Your Car's CV Joint

Several weekends ago, I decided it was time for me to change my left hand side car's Constant Velocity (CV) joint. It's been a while since I've noticed the clicking sound whenever I make a U-turn but I just ignored that. It costed me a few hundreds RM in repair for my car's right hand CV joint last year because I've been telling myself that "it's still okay for now and everything would be alright". The cause of CV joint damages is most of the time because of the worn out or tear of the rubber that contains the grease. Visually inspecting my undercar components, it's been several months already that the boot of the CV joint is torn. If I were just to replace the boot alone, it would have just cost me less than RM50 but only if the CV joint doesn't make any funny sound. As for my CV joint, the sound is too obvious. Procrastinate just makes thing even worse but it is one tough habit that is not easy to get rid off.

Being a bootstrapper, I hunted for several shops to get the best deal for my repair. I was tempted to do it on my own but of course I was short on tools plus my car mechanic skillset has been rusted for so many years. The only thing I have is the knowledge on how to minimize costs and repairs. So, in order to prolong your car's CV joint this what I am going to share:

1. Avoid making very sharp U-turn so often; this is because you'll make your CV joint rubber boot to stretch in and out excessively and will make it torn off quickly.


2. Try and avoid small and tight parking spaces where you need to turn your wheel from end to end.


3. Check your undercar at least once a month and take into consideration every smudge of grease on your wheel.

Here's a snapshot of how my mechanic removed my car's broken CV joint. If I'm not mistaken, this is my fourth CV joint that I've replaced eversince I've been driving my own car.

The cost of the repair was RM130 for a brand new CV joint. It's not an original part but hey, original parts doesn't mean that it is really original. A car manufacturer have thousands of vendors working for them, they just kind of assemble them together and for aftermarket products, they just make the packaging use their own brand. As long as it works, I don't see the trouble of using some other brand but of course don't get a cheap imitation product or you'll just endangering yourself.

I haven't made my wheel alignment yet after replacing the new CV joint. I guess I'll wait for my tyres to worn out and then proceed with a tyre alignment. Oh no...more procrastination..

By the way, check out this girl mechanic who got trouble removing her car's CV joint. I stumbled upon this trouble with my former car and my mechanic had to cut his way through using a grinder. It's not an easy job but somebody has to do it.

A Day Trip To Ipoh

Last weekend, I went to Ipoh for a day trip. I've planned this trip for 2 weeks already however I was kind of in a tight budget so my trip had to be in a minimal cost as possible. I've never been to Ipoh by bus before, I've been on a day trip by bus to Butterworth last year. I've brought along my digital camera so I'll let you see a glimpse of what I've experienced.




My trip wasn't so bad. It cost me RM13.30 for a one way trip using MARALiner Express bus. The seat were comfortable and the leg room is quite big. In my old days, these kind of seats are considered executive seats and cost more. Anyway, I parked my car outside of Jalan Duta Bus Station (there's free parking but you park at your own risk), get on the bus and I'm off to Ipoh. My journey starts at 9am. Almost three hours later, I arrived at Medan Gopeng Bus Station somewhere before Simpang Pulai if I'm not mistaken. I didn't actually arrived at Ipoh town but I was on a mission to someplace else which I have no idea yet because I had to wait for my host to bring me to the place where ever that is at that time. Here's a few shot of Medan Gopeng Bus Station. At least this bus station has air conditioned compared to the other bus station I've been to.




Less than an hour later, my friends and I arrived at Hutan Lipur Sungai Salju located somewhere in Batu Gajah:




We had to climb all away to the top with all of our food before we can reach the waterfall. Seeing the waterfall was a really refreshing experience. Eventhough it was raining a little bit, I enjoyed every moment of it.

We then left the waterfall, had some spin around the outskirt of Ipoh and head back to the bus station for some snack. My bus was at 7pm and I arrived safely back in Jalan Duta Bus Station in KL at 9.30pm. By the way, I took Transnasional express bus and their seats are quite cramped. I pretty much preferred MARA Liner better. Total cost of the trip was less than RM50 which was cheaper than my weekly date trip in KL. I think I should take the bus more often. ;-D

Your Hawaiian Vacation Spot

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Most of us doesn't really realized this but Hawaii is part of the United States. It's the only state that is completely surrounded by water, it has lava flowing out from mother eath which causes the area of Hawaii to grow and it has no territory on the mainland of any continent. There is also a mountain called Mauna Kea which is taller than Mount Everest but only if measured from its based at the floor of the Pacific Ocean.

By just reading that facts alone, doesn't that makes Hawaii interesting for you? If you want to know more about Hawaii, you can search for Hawaii on Wikipedia and read more interesting stuff. Hawaiian Beach Rentals offers a variety of services which includes:

1. Vacation rentals
2. Hotels
3. Condos
4. Extended Stay
5. Airfare
6. Car rentals
7. Packages
8. Reviews

It also has a search feature that enables you to do a vertical search on the exact location that are in your interest. If I were to plan my honeymoon or a vacation trip to Hawaii, Hawaiian Beach Rentals would definitely be my top website for my destination research.

Check out some of the Hawaiian images below, I wish I could be there soon:

What Will I Consider For A Merchant Account

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This is my second post on behalf of Advantage Processors. My first post was an overview about Advantage Processors website, so this time we narrow it down to the Tutorial and Merchant Account Processing.

Advantage Processors has compiled a list of quality articles in my opinion. One of the best article that I found pretty much useful to me is the Glossary. From my opinion, a reader need to read the glossary first before even read the rest of the other financial stuff. A glossary is like a dictionary where it tells you the meaning of a word and how it is used in a writing. When you have enough vocabulary in your head, things would slowly starts to make sense and you can always think wisely before making any decisions.

Some of the keywords that is inside the glossary page is:

1. chargeback
2. chargeback fees
3. contingent liability
4. credit-card processing
5. discount rate
6. fraud
7. high risk
8. merchant account
9. monthly minimum fees
10. cardholder
11. factoring
12. net settlement amount
13. pass-through fees
14. processors
15. offshore merchant accounts
16. reserve storefront solutions
17. transaction fee
    

You might be surprise to know that there are business owner themselves have no idea of most of the topics above. Unlike bloggers, one of the reason might be the lack of proper reading or too much time spent on business operation rather than knowing the basic topics of business or in this case, merchant accounts.

Now that we've all learned our lessons. Let's read more about business merchant account.

Trying Out Safari Browser

All my life, I've always been a Windows user. So if you ask me to use other operating system such as Linux or Mac, I can always use it but the comfort level would never be the same as using Windows. However for Internet browsers, now that's different. I've tried most of the browser that is available for download but I've never tried Safari browser. When Apple decided to give away their beta version of Safari 3 public beta browser, I downloaded it. So, what is so special about this browser and is it suitable for me?

Another reason for me to download is because I need the latest Apple Quicktime that is bundled with Safari browser download package since I just installed a fresh Windows XP SP2 on my computer. I tried and install Ubuntu as a dual boot on my computer but something went wrong so I decided to scrap that idea and just stick with Windows. I'll write about that in a special blog post.

While downloading, I was reading my RSS feed using Google Reader and found this:

• Safari 3 Is An Half-baked Web Browser from Apple, Wait for a Patch

I almost ditched my downloaded Safari browser installation file but I decided to install it anyhow. I wasn't really going to use this browser permanently so I gave it shot.

I like the fonts and the User Interface (UI) that Safari browser renders. It looks similar when using FireFox on Ubuntu and also when we use Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista, everything looks so nice to the eye. What I don't like is, it slows down my PC. Until I can afford a faster PC, I don't think this "eye candy" software would benefit me. Still, it's a great alternative for a change. I don't think web developers and designers would welcome this browser as that would mean another change to the source code.

My Citrawarna 2007 Video Snippets

So many things happened since I last wrote my last post. Now I just have to many drafts that I need to finish up. Last weekend, I could have finish up or at least add in a couple of blog posts but something strange happened to my Windows, it got corrupted. I had to concentrate all my effort to track down my files on the hard disk because I have this bad habit of not having a full back up. I then found out that it was my RAM that was loose that cause my motherboard to act weird on my hard disk detection and some other useless computer crap. I had to say goodbye to most of the junk files I have but it did hit me that I need to further schedule ahead for some timely back-up just in case something happen. This might be one of the reason for me to use Ubuntu as a change? Well, not quite.

Anyway, last month I went to Putrajaya for the Colours of Malaysia launch 2007. It's already over if you look at the dates on Tourism Malaysia. I never would have known such event if not for my sweetheart who participated as one of the 1600 dancers. I wrote a blog about it in Malay on her blog. I've also uploaded a couple of videos shot using my Kodak Easyshare DX6490. The camera doesn't work at night but I finally figured out which mode to use. Here's one video where I had a little fun and danced with her after the event: