Tuesday, December 07, 2010

A Night At Tune Hotels Penang

Ever since Tune Hotels established 3 years ago, I have been wanting to try and stay there just to experience how the hotel is. Last September, I had the time and the chance to go to Penang after Hari Raya Aidilfitri to visit my mother's relative up north. One room was booked and paid online 3 weeks earlier at Tune Hotels Downtown Penang which total up only RM70++ per night. Arrived and checked-in at the hotel at 10pm after being stuck in a one hour jam just before boarding the ferry services.

Check out the photos I've taken:


Tune Hotels Downtown Penang



Tune Hotels Downtown Penang lobby



Tune Hotels Room Hallway



Loved the comfortable bed



RM5 toiletries



The stylish glass door bathroom


Unfortunately the room doesn't have a TV, however it wouldn't be worth the resting time if you spend it watching TV. The bed was astoundingly comfortable. I wish my bed was as comfortable as the bed at Tune Hotels. Overall, I give this hotel a 5 stars rating and would love to stay for another night there.

Friday, November 05, 2010

In Memory of My Proton Iswara Aeroback

5 year ago, together with my younger brother and my father. We went for 'car shopping' to replace the current car I was using at that time. Check out the colour of the Proton Iswara Aeroback car before I bought it from the second-hand car lot:

My Red Proton Iswara Aeroback at the 2nd hand car parking lot


5 years later, check out what happened to the shiny red colour:



So it is true that car paint can only last for 2 years. For the past 5 years, the car has been through a lot together with me. It also served my wife for a couple of months before we got married.

I've written a couple of blog posts that talk about my car, mostly on the maintenance part of it.

There were also incident that happened:

All of them were memories that I'll never forget. So back in July 2010, I couldn't afford the repair of the car since there were too many broken parts within the car itself. I had to let go of the car eventhough I still owe the bank another 2 years of loan. It was a sad moment for me but the car has to go either way:













The car is still in its original state, so hopefully, the next car owner could take care of the car even better than I am. BTW, I sold the car back to the 2nd hand car dealer where I bought it.

Friday, October 15, 2010

TM Net Internet Streamyx Downgrade

On the 29th September 2010, after much thought and consideration, my family made a decision to downgrade the current package of Streamyx internet. This is to reduce our monthly payment for TM services that we are paying. At the moment we are paying RM149.40 for a rarely used telephone line with 1MBps Streamyx Internet line. The internet line is the busiest because my family has 4 computers connecting using WiFi. My mother is now an avid user of Facebook since she uses the internet to learn new stuff and interact with her old friends whom is also catching up using Facebook as well.

I discovered from my brother and also other people using Streamyx 384Kbps that the speed was sufficient for normal browsing and casual download. So the decision is final, we wanted to downgrade the existing 1MBps Streamyx to 384Kbps. After making calls to 100, the best way to downgrade is to go to the nearest TM Point which is for me located at Kepong. Since the line was still under my father's name and my father passed away last December, I first had to transfer the account to my name first by filling up a form before I can apply for the downgrade (RM10 was charged for the account transfer).



TM Point Kepong design is quite nice and comfortable, as usual the queue required me to wait for almost half an hour before my number turned up.



Here's another view of TM Point Kepong.



The only thing that surprised me was that my internet line would be disconnected for 2 weeks in order for the downgrade to proceed. I then asked when will the line would be cut, the guy at the counter said immediately. So, I was out of internet for 2 weeks. I had to use alternative broadband internet I have which is the DiGi Internet Prepaid that I've bought a while ago but the reception in my house was really slow. I then tried using Daily Unlimited Celcom Xpax Prepaid Internet during last weekend, the speed was acceptable but the budget was a bit steep for me.

I made a call to 100 last week which the operator told me the downgrade request hasn't been processed yet. So yesterday I made another call where I got the same answer with an additional information that I can request for a rebate for the entire stretch of my downtime (that was nice to hear). Last night, when I got back from home, my internet Streamyx was restored. A total downtime of 15 days.

So there you go, that was my experience downgrading TM Net Internet Streamyx.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri 2010

Hopefully it's not too late to wish all my readers (if any of them left), a happy Eid Mubarak or Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri. My festive holiday was rather short because my wife and I are saving up our paid leave for a travel project we are planning next year. Hopefully our dreams would come true by then.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

My Blog On Mobile

Once in a while, I browse the internet on my HTC Touch PDA. I have no interest yet in owning an iPhone because of the price so I make use of everything that I now own. Recently I've tried out Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini. It's an awesome piece of smartphone with amazing touch features.

There is a drawback when using mobile phone for browsing the net. Apart from having to pay for the data charges (that is assuming if you are not not subscribing to any data plan provided by your mobile carriers), the screen is just to small to look at all those amazing design and features a normal web browser can provide. Nevertheless, when using these tiny little small screens, we only want to read text or maybe some resized pictures or images.

Because of this, it would be best to provide your blog with tools to help people who loves your blog but only have time to read them on their mobiles. There's a solution for this, Onbile.



Whenever a mobile user logs, the javascript provided will detect whether you are browsing using a mobile phone or a normal browser. This would really help your mobile readers and encourage them to visit your blog more often.

The only issue I have is:

  • Only 2 pages of your title list will be available (I am guessing this would depend on your feed setting)

  • You can't revert back to your original layout once it's loaded on your smartphone



I am still going to try this tool for a while and see if suits my need or else I am going to remove it and search for another tool or Wordpress plugin.