This is my standard kit lens, EF-S 17-85mm F4-5.6 IS USM. A pretty versatile lens, I would say, albeit a little slow but with my Canon Speedlite 580 EXII, it’s not much of a problem.

However, just when I needed it the most for my up-coming “project”, it has to fail on me by giving me this error message. No matter how I clean the contacts, the same error message popped up.

I defintiely have to send it back to Canon Service Center and get it fixed as soon as possible. Still, I doubt they are able to fix it for me before my “project” on October 18 and the Hari Raya public holidays aren’t helping either.

Sighs.

All these crucial “events” have to happen now. F**ked.

Note : The lens fixed in less than five working days! Ha! All is good now.

Blogger’s note : I have ran out of things to blog, even picture stories. I am totally dried up, like a dried raisin. Probably, I shall be announcing my break soon, as in, really really soon that kind.

I have to admit, I can be really lifeless sometimes.

Someone sent me a link to this game and I got hooked up with it then.

Orisinal : Winterbells.

The objective of the game is to jump as many bells as you can and score maximum points.

To play the game, just move your mouse to guide the rabbit to the bells and move upwards. Every now and then, you would see a bird flying across the screen, jump on it and you get to double your points instantly. Of course, the bell’s size will get smaller and smaller as you go higher.

Of course, to top it off, I am challenging anyone to break my record. The reward, a really decent meal in KL, on my treat. Its either I decide what to eat or you can make the call.

Yes, you didn’t see it wrongly. Its 13,286,757,825,232,123. Anyway, that’s for the print screen. I actually broke the score till it came to a situation which the score won’t update itself anymore.

If you think your photoshop skills can help you claim the prize, I do hope, with your maths, you should know roughly how many bells you need to step before you can achieve such high score. Deal?

Didn’t I tell you, I can be really lifeless sometimes?

As I came all the way from Malacca to attend the exclusive sneak preview of Maybank2U 2.0, the organizer a.k.a David Wang put me into Impiana KLCC, Spa and Hotel, which is just two buildings away from Marc Service Apartments, for a night. A brief check showed Impiana KLCC is a 4-star hotel, with its own spa center as well.

The smallest room (I assume.), superior queen, is priced at RM230 per weekday night. Despite being the smallest room available, it is really spacious with plenty of space to move around or even fit another queen size bed on the wooden tiled floor.

There are three different softness and thickness of pillows for you to choose from. If you are not happy with the tree, there are another five more to choose from by calling room service and ask for the pillow menu.

At the other end is the TV cabinet with a small sitting area with four more small cushions. There are more channels than I could watch, including HBO, Star Movies, ESPN, TV3, 8TV, MTV, NTV7, Disney Channel, Discovery Channel and etc., a total of 16 channels. I watched Project Runway, an hour of Discovery Channel before flipping to MTV for some musics while I chatted on MSN.

As usual, free 3-in-1 coffees and tea packets at one corner, with a mini fridge filled with ridiculously priced soft drinks, beers and mineral waters. You got to love the cup they provided instead of the usual tea cups that could barely hold more than three mouthful of liquids.

A full set of toiletries minus the toothbrush and toothpaste but replaced with a use-and-throw shaver is provided. It was quite an experience to watch Iron Man while soaking myself in a tub of hot water while sipping my chilled mineral water. Heh! The toilet is really clean. The tub was spotless and everything was in placed when I first walked in.

Most importantly, each room has a LAN socket for its free broadband facility. If it wasn’t for Internet, I would probably have hung myself in the room due to extreme boredom. While on MSN, Bryan kept trying to brainwash me to spend RM150 recklessly yet have some fun all by myself.

I had my breakfast around 9am the next day. There was the usual nasi lemak, roti canai, porridge, breads, ham and bacon, omelet, fried noodles, cereals, fresh fruits, chilled yogurts, salads and etc.. Pretty much the usual stuffs, I would say.

As usual, I whacked two bowls of KoKo Crunch with full cream milk after my plate of nasi lemak. It’s not really cost saving if I am to buy my own KoKo Crunch and milk for breakfast on daily basis. If only they serve cold milk instead of warm milk, it would have been perfect. The yogurts weren’t spared as well as I walked away with one in my pocket. Ha!

Overall, the room was really clean, neat, spacious and really comfortable. The staffs were very helpful and attentive as there was some minor problems during my check-in. The hotel is about five minutes walk to Mandarin Oriental and probably another five to 10 minutes walk to KLCC. Pretty convenient, I would say although it wasn’t fun to walk that short distance with an almost 3.5kg notebook on my left shoulder and another 4kg worth of camera equipments and clothing bag on my right shoulder.

More information at http://kualalumpurhotels.impiana.com/.

David Wang of Agenda Solutions Sdn Bhd was kind enough to extend an invitation to me to an exclusive sneak preview of the upcoming Maybank2U 2.0.

Most importantly, my transportation fee and accommodations would be footed by the organizers since I was coming from Malacca. In no time, I was walking towards Delicious @ Marc Service Residence, along Jalan Pinang.

The restaurant was closed for the event.

Everyone was there chatting away or busy looking at their own notebooks as I entered the restaurant, hoping to look for a familiar face until I saw Nicholas Chay from Nuffnang. I sat at the table and saw many familiar faces like Suanie, KY, Minishorts, Ringo and Chris Tock. Nigel Sia and Thomas Yap joined in not too long after that.

Spot any familiar faces.

In an event that both of us attended, I finally got to meet KY of kyspeaks.com.

Malaysian Dreamgirl Ringo or Cheesie of cheeserland.com. She’s so petite, even more so by standing next to me.

Another one with KY and Ringo.

Thomas Yap of yapthomas.com who supposed to handle my air tickets but ended up being asked to buy at MATTA Fair instead.

Nigel Sia of nigelais.blogspot.com, name that I seen a number of times in various blogs.

That’s Suanie of suanie.net in action, actually. Heh!

The event started with a presentation and speech by the head of virtual banking, Ahmad Shareza Abdul Rahman, which he showed us some statistics, histories of Maybank2U online banking, the steps and processes taken to create the all new Maybank2U 2.0.

Web 2.0 is all about user-interaction and personalization and Maybank2U 2.0 is geared towards this direction as well. In addition, apart from the usual internet banking, Maybank2U 2.0 is also branching out to the lifestyle categories which include movies, foods, lounges, musics and etc. The whole process of creating Maybank2U 2.0 took approximately six months to build where numerous tests, discussions, discoveries and prototypes were done before the sneak preview.

Before everyone realized, the speech has ended and Maybank2U 2.0 was launched.

According to Ahmad Shareza, there were more than 3000 templates used to create the Maybank2U 1.0 and for 2.0, the number was shrunk to four master templates and six sub-templates, significantly reducing the loading time of Maybank2U 2.0 by 50%. Site loading is extremely fast compared to its older counterpart, no doubt about that.

To test out the functions and interface, I made payments for my electricity bill and phone bill through Maybank2U 2.0. With the tabs nicely sitting on top of the page, its very easy to navigate from one page to another. With all the functions and services neatly categorized, its not difficult to find the proper link to make the payment.

Another interesting feature is Agent M, a robot that you can add into your MSN Messenger that can chat with you and more importantly, help you with any troubles during your internet banking. It is somewhat like a live customer service agent assisting you, but through an instant messenger. Head over to read the ermm, interesting conversation between Agent M and Nigel Sia.

Generally, I love the revamp of the clustered Maybank2U 1.0 website. Less text, more direct link and dive straight into the point, less mouse movement too! The tabs are a very nifty and good looking feature, whereas the old ones was somewhat javascript-ed. Most importantly, the website still loads at a significant speed even though my BitTorrent was downloading at 90kb/s. If it was the older version, you bet it would never load successfully until I quit my uTorrent.

Maybank2U 2.0 will be available to public for beta testing in one or two weeks time, just watch out Maybank’s homepage. It is currently scheduled to launch during October and it won’t be too long until your turn to experience the new interface of Maybank2U. Being the first bank to provide internet banking, Maybank is and has once again, set the benchmark for all other banks.

Now, if and only they have a branch in Bukit Beruang, I would definitely ditch CIMB for Maybank anytime. Too bad, they don’t and the nearest Maybank branch is like 10 - 15 minutes drive away while the nearest CIMB branch is only 5 minutes away from my house / inside my campus.

P/S : Some pictures are courtesy of Nigel Sia.

Summer Live Concert by 8TV was in town, specifically MITC car park, last Saturday.

Performers included Awaking 元卫觉醒, Show Lo 罗志祥, Jolin Tsai 蔡依林, Rainie Yang 杨丞琳, Stanley Wong 黄立行, Gary 叶俊岑, Hau 徐仕豪, Henley 许俾文, Jam Hsiao 萧敬腾, Cheryl 李欣怡, Desiree 陈诗莉, Dylan 梁佑诚, Energy, John 黄俊源, Kay 郭晓薇, Natalie 小玉 and Orange 陈慧恬.

While the concert was a successful one, I didn’t enjoy it.

Attending a concert where you only know 6 out of 12 performers and probably, out of the 30+ songs performed, you only heard of 1 song, isn’t fun at all.

I have nothing to blog anymore lately, so expect a lot of photo filled entries within the next few days (or maybe weeks?).

Stay tune!