At Last a Swimming Pool for MMU !!

At last, MMU has a swimming pool, a proper football field and running tracks !!





The new Sport Complex also has indoor badminton and basketball courts. I forgot to take picture of those. The photos above were taken using my handphone's camera, so the qualities are not so good.

Oh yes, a gym too and it is pretty well-equipped.

No news about ticketing system yet, I think they have not decided on that yet. In fact, they forgot to factor in the lifeguards issue and have not built any lifeguard post stations yet for the swimming pool! It seems they have not have the final approval from relevant authority yet because of this, I really do not know the details, so for now it is opened but "swim at your own risk" !

There is also a central Food Court there.

p.s. Kind of remind me that my choice to study in USM long time ago was partially (not entirely of course) influenced by the fact that USM was the only university in Malaysia that has a swimming pool at that time. :)

At last Cinemas at Alamanda Putrajaya !!

At last GSC Cinemas at Alamanda Putrajaya !!

http://gsc.com.my/RD/upcoming2.asp?search=alamanda_opening :

GSC ALAMANDA PUTRAJAYA OPENING IN APRIL

In anticipation of the opening of the 5-screen GSC Alamanda Putrajaya on April 3, the public will be treated to free movies for five (5) consecutive days starting this Saturday, March 29 till April 2, 2008 (Wed).

Click the link above for more info on how to get the free tickets.

This is great news for Cyberjaya folks. :)

Happy and Blessed Chinese New Year 2008 !!

Happy and Blessed Chinese New Year 2008 to everyone !!



Also...





The above is the new set up of my fish tank !!

Added 04 Feb, 2008 :

(the water somehow is clearer after 3 days)

New "New LCD Monitor" !

Yeah... I got a new "new LCD monitor" !

Referring to my previous blog, I have purchased the Dell E228WFP 22" Entry Wide Screen Flat Panel LCD Monitor (non-UltraSharp). After trying it out and also trying out my niece's 20" UltraSharp model, the differences in quality are quite significant.

Thus I have decided to change to the 20" UltraSharp model and return the 22" non-UltraSharp model. Here is my new "new LCD monitor" :












It is the Dell 2007WFP 20" UltraSharp Wide Screen Flat Panel LCD Monitor!

The UltraSharp LCD has better dynamic color range and depth while the non-UltraSharp LCD seems to be a bit white-washed. If an image has a big range of color, its appearance does not seems to make much difference in both LCD model. However, if the color range of the image is small, on the UltraSharp model, the image seems to have more shades of color (thus nicer, clearer and sharper) than the non-UltraSharp model.

One thing about the non-UltraSharp model really annoyed me is when I was reading my GMail. The color for read mails (blue-ish rows) and unread mails (white rows) seems to differ only a little bit. This become worse if you are looking at the screen from an angle other than directly at the center of the screen (example from side angle or from upper angle), in fact the color will become darker. This was my complaint about "not getting use with LCD" in my previous blog entry. The UltraSharp model does not have this problem!!

The above problem is also due to the fact that the viewing angle for the 22" non-UltraSharp model is 160 degrees while the 20" UltraSharp model has viewing angle of 178 degree.

100% brightness for the 22" non-UltraSharp model does not seems to be brighter than 50% brightness for the 20" UltraSharp model.

Of course UltraSharp means much sharper, the color is more "stand-out", it is as good as a CRT, even it is even nicer, without all the problems (flicker, eye strain etc.) associated with CRT !!

Other advantages of the 20" UltraSharp model over the 22" non-UltraSharp model are:
- You can rotate it to be in the portrait orientation, this may be useful for certain type of document editing, but not for me.
- There are two USB ports on the right of the LCD for easier assess of the USB ports.
- Allows Digital DVI-D (HDCP)/ Analog/ S-video/ Composite inputs
- You can view from two video source at the same time... the Picture-In-Picture thing.....hmm... have not explored this feature yet (just got it yesterday).
- It look as nice even if viewed from most angles.

The Dell E228WFP 22" non-UltraSharp model cost RM899 when I purchased it, now it is RM999.

The Dell 2007WFP 20" UltraSharp model cost RM1199.

Yup, it is 2 inches smaller but RM300 more expensive ! It is worth! 20 inches is big enough, so the 2 inches reduction is not very significant for me becuase after all I still have the secondary CRT monitor!

Buy one if you can afford it, it is still an offer price now, normally it costs RM1299.

I paid extra RM65 for extra 2 years warranty, thus I have 5 years warranty on it !

Oh yes, some may be curious about returning the 22" model. Dell service is really good! They normally charge RM80 to pick up the good if you wish to return the good within a certain duration (do not know how many days) after you bought it, no question asked. For my case, they waived the pick-up fees from me, I suppose it is due to the fact that I am doing upgrading.

I really like this new "new monitor", very nice! :)

New LCD Monitor!

I just bought a new Dell 22 inches Wide Screen Flat Panel LCD monitor (Model E228WFP). Here it is:












The photo above shows the LCD along with my old 17" monitor. Previously I was using one 21" CRT monitor and one 17" CRT monitor (shown above), When I assembled my PC two or three years ago, I already spent too much money already on the PC that I can't afford a LCD monitor, so I bought the two second hand CRT monitors costing RM450 and RM150 respectively. I was actually waiting for the LCD price to come down so that I can buy a bigger one such as the one I just bought.

The offer price is RM899, quite a good deal, it came with a FREE webcam somemore!. You may see the offer at Dell's Website. I paid extra RM65 to get 5 years warranty instead of the usual 3 years warranty.

Now i got plenty of space to open multiple windows (if not of course I still have my secondary monitor). The quality is not bad but one would need to get used with looking at LCD screen after half a life looking at CRT.

There is actually a 20" model (2007WFP) that is a UltraSharp model, which means much sharper display especially good if you are watching video a lot (not for me) but the response time is slower (may not be as good if you are playing games). Though I do not watch video much on my PC (I got TV and DVD player) and almost never play games, this may not means much to me. Nevertheless the 22" model that I am having now is not as sharp as I hope it is, thus I am now tempted to return this (Dell allows us to return within 7 days) and get the 20" UltraSharp model instead. It is smaller and more expensive, the price is RM1199 (also offer price).

Hmmm... should I change? What do you think? Help me out please... I got only 7 more days to think about this.

Correction: Actually I think the issue is not the sharpness, I think LCDs generally have less color dynamic range and color depth than CRT.