Today marks the 3rd 6U gathering (I’ve known) and the first (only to be known by me much later) time it’s celebrated along with a member’s (YML) birthday. By the positive responses I get from inviting people to come, I was in high expectations for everyone to turn up.

Two words to describe 6U members – professional FFK-ers. Period.

The only ones who turned up are TKY (the hostess), YML (birthday girl), XQW (pinyin only, sorry) and yours faithfully. We were joined by a couple of YML’s friends, one from New Zealand (J) and another was her high-school mate (which I mistakenly thought she is from New Zealand too, and darn I forgot her name – Chinese names are so hard to remember, maybe I should introduce myself as Lance from now on).

I didn’t get to talk to the girl much, but as for J (because we always end up sharing rides due to the girls sticking together in pairs) – he’s quite an interesting chap. At first, I thought he’s some cold guy but later turned out to be quite a humorous guy.

Details? Alright, it goes like this: I arrived at Berjaya Times Square much earlier than I thought, which was around 10:45AM (agreed time was 11:00AM), so I hanged out at Borders until 10:55AM and waited at the entrance of the theme park. I was right on time – 11:00AM sharp NIST atomic clock GMT+0800 offset no mistake.

[RADIO] Lance: Report in team!
* .. static .. *
[RADIO] Lance: Control, come in Control!
* . . . *

Our birthday girl and her two friends finally arrived at around 11:15AM. She didn’t introduce them to us by telling us to self introduce ourselves. So I was like “Hi, I’m HL” to the girl first which my highly observant vision sensor (eyes) caught a brief glimpse of ‘snorting-look’ from J.

Our hostess, TKY is still nowhere to be seen, so TML suggested we wait in McD. J was like walking in front right away (with everyone of us at the back) and I was like “WTF what’s wrong with him”. He took out his (fried rice?) what I believe was his breakfast and eat right away (I caught a glimpse of one of the server working in McD looking our way, puzzled – probably thinking whether to tell us no outside food is allowed but retracted because of J’s pissed-off look [shown in photo, that’s his idling look, no worries]).

Maybe he was hungry, that’s all. Remember folks, hungry people are grumpy. In McD, it was almost total silence from both YML’s friends and myself. Man, t’was cold.

Eventually we couldn’t wait for TKY, so we’ve decided to queue up for tickets before the queue gets long. Our hostess finally showed up around 45 minutes late, but still managed to buy tickets along with us.

First ride – the spinning-rotating-and-levitating-thingy. The centripetal force and the levitation (height) were the thrilling parts, otherwise it was kind of boring. So J end up beside me and we chatted a bit on (the usual) education, college and stuff. Surprisingly, he started the conversation.

Second ride – the space-thingy aka pirate ship aka (my preferred generic term) the tomahawk. The girls once again ended up in pairs, leaving J and me.

“That makes us partners again.”

Immediately when the ride started and I suddenly thought of someone telling me about a ride which is described something like this in Sunway Lagoon – the pirate ship. So, I was like “Shit, I think this will turn 360.”

It started off as gentle swings front and back. Right when I was about to relax, the swinging angle hiked to more than 90 degrees and the moment I realized I was in deep shit, it it started swinging 360 degrees.

“THIS IS AWESSOOOOOMMMMEEEEeeeeeeeeee… (while falling)”

After a few swings and you finally get used to the swings (the centripetal force is larger than gravitational pull), it slows down (gravitational pull larger than centripetal force). You’ll start to grab the handle bars tightly to prevent yourself from slamming down (to the cage, of course).

The nightmare starts (or ends, for another side, they start with falling up instead of falling down) when it goes on another direction – instead of falling down, you’re now falling up and believe me, it’s really a thrill when you get sucked up 360 degrees.

During the whole ride, TKY had her eyes completely shut while YML didn’t even hold the cage bars (drastically opposite). When the ride is finished, J started describing how awesome was the ride, that’s when the entire party starting to lighten up.

Third “ride”, haunted house. Total crap, partly due too many people going in at once (the whole party, instead of just one couple at once) and I, being the the guy who guards the back (the girls decided to place one guy in front and one guy at the back), so all the fun is spoiled by the girls’ screaming (and J got all the glory – 3 girls dammit, the last one, like me, got spoiled by those in front of her), while me, staying at the back, saw everything coming at me before coming at me.

The only thing that scared me (rather, shocked me) was the sound of the “ghosts” banging the metal wall. Other than that, all spoiled x_x. RM9 = 2 minutes of boredom and dual-shock – bullcrap.

“I thought you say this is a kiddy-ride.”

Fourth ride, dizzy-thingy. Well, it looks like a kiddy-ride, but boy, I was wrong. Initially it was really thrilling when it picks up speed and reaches top-speed while throwing you up and down + vertical-axis spinning. But later it tones down to average speed and remained that way for the next 2-3 highly boring minutes. “Dizzy” is a lie, believe me, “eliminating dizziness” is part of the dual-v-axis-spinning design.

“Ow… Did you feel that bump there?”

Fifth, galaxy-thingy aka corkscrew aka roller-coaster. After the tomahawk, this was rather less thrilling, but the spins and speed were more interesting than Genting’s Corkscrew. But we had fun nevertheless. (Gotta love the speed and speed bump during the end of the ride)

Sixth, the only name that I did not forget (and perhaps will never forget) – DNA Mixer. By looking at people riding it, it already gave me the creeps, seriously (YML was happily hopping up and down while looking at others suffer/enjoy/w.e.).

In a nutshell, it spins you more than 360 degrees (360 degrees a lot of times) in high speed along the horizontal axis, along with the adjusting of vertical height (you can see wall + ceiling + ground + wall + ceiling + ground blended in a straight line); occasionally suspending you upside down or downside up (yes, it’s different, we’re talking 3D here), something like the dripping mode of the dry cycle of a washing machine – you can feel blood draining from your legs and flowing to your head, as well as blood flowing from your brains to your feet.

“I feel something not supposed to be here *points at heart* (heartburn from fried rice?)”

In other words, it completely disorientates you in high speed – voted the most thrilling ride in Times Square’s theme park.

And… <Insert some other less-thrilling rides and kiddy rides here>…

After pretty much trying everything, we went for lunch outside the theme park, at a Taiwanese snack restaurant named Shihlin. The happy-meal-equivalent-thingy there is rather simple, yet scrumptious. While waiting, J showed me his photos in China and New Zealand (he has a nice house >.<).

We went to the arcade, nothing much interesting there (except for my case – there’s a Taiko no Tatsujin 4 there; the skateboard arcade is kinda cool too, too bad it’s for one player though and I don’t think the girls can play it). Being at the arcade made me realize something – the fact that Times Square is a lalaland full of lalashops and lalamui (hey, some of them look nice, so no offence here :P).

Right, back to the theme park for us, and it’s off for us to the tomahawk (once more). Once with YML and her friend (her name came into me now – SL?) opposite me and J, and we perceived in our own eyes how YML completely ignores the presence of cage bars. And second time (in a row) I and J chose the edge seats. Man, it was REALLY different. The view, the air, the perception of force – everything is much more thrilling when you take the edge seats.

And then we took the roller-coaster ride. YML still can’t get the first row so we gave it a second shot again. Lucky for us, with her newfound friends, we were able to block the-evil-queue-jumper-dude and gave YML her much-deserved first row. Much before this, J told me there’s a photo on the Internet showing a guy reading a newspaper during a rollercoaster ride. This time, J brought (smuggled) along his glasses and diary (calendar book) – fully prepared for the camera shot during the ride. I don’t have props, so I’ll just put away my hands and sleep when the camera snaps (which I manage to frantically grab back the cage when the speed hiked up during the end of the ride).

The camera shot was perfect (for him, he really looked like he’s reading) and failure (for me, I looked like I was looking at my watch with my hair blown into a mess). I’ll post here if I ever get the photo from him.

Then, we went for bumper car ride. From the scent of burning rubber and the absence of noise coming from electrical sparks, my observations suggest the bumper car design is a non-conventional one. It doesn’t use a cable connecting to the electrical grid on the ceiling, instead, it somewhat conduct through the specially constructed rubber-like ground (you can see sparks firing from the surface of the ground towards the base of the bumper cars).

During the ride, my phone started making calls to random people. I’m not sure if it was due to the seatbelt pressing against my BL@ST or the sparks triggering random bluetooth messages to my phone.

And then, I and YML went for our second serving of DNA Mix (the others pass, LOL). We chose to sit at the edges (sides). It was less thrilling from before, probably due to the edge or the experience, but exciting nevertheless.

Then we moved back to the bumper car ride once more (couldn’t take enough of it, the duration of the ride is darn short). This time, I turned my BL@ST off and made sure it doesn’t get in the way.

Then, we head off to tomahawk (again!) for our final everybody-on-the-edge-seats ride. This time, J’s with TKY and I was with YML. She not only didn’t hold the cage bars, her hands were up on air throughout the ride and I was grabbing the cage bars like my life was depending on it (okay, partly due to avoiding myself from slamming onto the cage).

Total, we rode tomahawk 4 times, rollercoaster 3 times, (for myself) DNA Mixer 2 times, spinning-rides 3 times (1 each), kiddy-rides 2 times (slo-mo train and merry-go-around). The result? Total disorientation of the brain for extended periods of time – and a lot of laughter and screaming = fun. Now, while writing this, I still feel as if my body is on the tomahawk ride… floating somewhere with the ground above my head.

That pretty much concludes the day. Belanja-ed some makan-makan and everybody head home.

I still feel pretty bad for not knowing her birthday and thus going empty handed with everyone well aware of the situation (and brought gifts). >.<

Give yourself a pat on the back if you managed to read what I wrote above.

Now, something unrelated:

Caught with binoculars + my N82 during my days of bird-watching (sounds so wrong). These two birds frequently visit the same tree on my balcony; one of the birds will usually call out another one and they’ll meet there. It’s kind of like a dating place for the birds.

My dad said the one with a purple collar is male and the other one with plain yellow collar (no collar) is female.

[10:14:54.09] 261c            Messenger:     Zone_HotmailService CHotmailService::FireLocalStateChangeResult@002CAAA0:(S_OK, 0x0200)
[10:14:54.12] 240c            Messenger:                Zone_Net Logon Performance report - Time line
[10:14:54.12] 240c            Messenger:                Zone_Net    Contacts Loaded:           -77851.9852 sec
[10:14:54.12] 240c            Messenger:                Zone_Net Logon Performance report - Elapsed Time
[10:14:54.12] 240c            Messenger:                Zone_Net    Contact Load:                  0.0000 sec
[10:14:54.12] 240c            Messenger:                Zone_Net       WAB Collection:             0.0000 sec
[10:14:54.12] 240c            Messenger:                Zone_Net       WAB Contact Creation:       0.0000 sec    (0 contacts)
[10:14:54.12] 240c            Messenger:                Zone_Net       LMCDATA Contact Create:        0.0000 sec    (0 contacts)
[10:14:54.12] 261c            Messenger:Zone_Contact_Platform_Errors Contacts store startup failure: 0x80040200

Sloppy programming.

Solution: End wlcomm.exe with Task Manager and try to login again. (it should work now)

A few months ago, I got scammed by an online GPS device retailer ActionGPS, Inc. which I believed has gone rogue due to the financial crisis in the USA. My first purchase, which was a couple of months before the fraud was fine and everything went smooth.

The second purchase – worth $493.70 USD was a nightmare. As usual, I trusted Paypal’s security and use it to pay all my purchases online. A few weeks after the purchase, something was not right – the order is still marked as ‘new’. Immediately, I tried to contact the customer support email I got from my last purchase.

Weeks had passed and no sign of any reply from them after a few attempts of trying to contact the various departments. Disappointed, I filed a non-delivery dispute under Paypal, expecting Paypal to refund everything to me.

It took around a month for Paypal to escalate the dispute to a claim, and it was decided in my favor. Just when I thought the situation is not so bad after all since I was able get all my money back – Paypal, being a payment gateway that stores verified information from the seller (including his/her bank accounts/credit cards) actually failed to recover any funds.

That’s $0.00 USD recovered. Not even a cent, penny, whatever you call it.

“Dear xxxxx Chong,

After careful review, we have concluded our investigation of the Buyer
Complaint described below.

We have decided in your favor, however, we were unable to recover any funds
from the seller's account. As stated in the PayPal User Agreement, recovery
of funds associated with a Buyer Complaint cannot be guaranteed.

Please know that we will make our best effort to recover the funds in
question if they become available in the seller's account in the future and
will take appropriate action against the seller. Such action may include
issuing a warning, a temporary restriction, or terminating the account.
Keep in mind that PayPal uses a number of factors to determine when to take
action, including member complaints. Due to privacy laws, we cannot discuss
the details of any action taken. We hope you understand our policy and that
it assures you that you are safe using PayPal.”

“Best effort”, you say? Alright, I’ll be patient and wait.

A couple of months had passed. As you might have guessed it, Paypal did nothing to the funds. The website www.actiongps.com is still happily online continuing to scam innocent buyers. Very disappointed with the the staffs at Paypal, I sent a complaint letter, hoping to find someone in that company that shares the vision of Paypal.

“A few months ago, I've opened a non-delivery dispute on the transaction #xxxxxxxxx as  a buyer, with the seller being a web store ActionGPS, Inc. (sales@actiongps.com). 

The dispute is closed in my favor, promising a full refund of $493.70 USD to me. 

Currently, there are no sign of any action taken by Paypal yet. The web store is still surprisingly online and my funds are still
nowhere to be seen. 

As Paypal claims to be a safe online payment gateway, I can't help but feel disappointed - the security is on-par, or worse than 
online credit card payment. 

I sincerely hope Paypal bear the responsibility of refunding the funds to me, or at least take legal actions against the web store.”

The reply from Paypal – absolutely sloppy:

“Dear xxxxxx Chong,

Thank you for contacting PayPal.

We regret to inform you that we were unable to recover funds from the seller's account. If this transaction occurred on an auction site, we encourage you to contact that auction site, as they may provide you with insurance coverage.

eBay's PBP### program reimburses buyers for eligible transactions where an item was purchased on eBay and either not received or was received Significantly Not as Described. Reimbursement is guaranteed up to a maximum of $200. Multiple Item Auctions (Dutch Auctions) are covered as a single transaction.

We value your business and regret that you have had this experience. To avoid similar experiences in the future, visit the PayPal Security Center by clicking the "Security Center" link in the upper right-hand corner of any PayPal webpage. If you have any further questions, feel free to contact us at any
time.

Sincerely,
Hedy
PayPal Protection Services
PayPal, an eBay Company”

Wow, so the Buyer Protection Policy only covers eBay purchases? I must conclude here Paypal’s security features are strictly for eBay only. For other purchases, use a credit card – at least you can file a chargeback in case something went wrong, unlike Paypal.

As one might have noticed, 99% of the message is suspiciously copied from a mail template, as if I am talking to a machine, and Hedy didn’t really read and tried to understand what I’ve wrote. So, I tried to contact Paypal again regarding this issue with another email:

“Dear Hedy,

(Note: This transcript will be posted to the public domain. Please take your time to read, understand and act.)

I "regret" to inform you that you have either failed to understand the situation or trying to ignore the situation, or simply replying with a template message. (I mentioned it's an online store, NOT an auctioning site)

In the website (https://www.paypal.com/my/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/Marketing/securitycenter/buy/Prevention-outside):
Paypal claims to have 24/7 Transaction Monitoring and:
1. Will contact the user if it suspects fraud in the user's account.
2. Work with authorities to shut down fraudulent websites.

Let alone the first point, which Paypal as failed to deliver. It has been MONTHS since the dispute AND THE FRAUDULENT WEBSITE IS STILL ONLINE. (as mentioned in the previous message)

REMINDER: The seller is a COMPANY.

In other words, I can claim Paypal is CONDONING ONLINE FRAUD. Since I, as a buyer could not do anything with it - with Paypal as the payment gateway;and Paypal, on the other hand, decided to do nothing about it.

More importantly, Paypal claims to possess "PayPal Verification System" and still refused to take any legal action against the fraudulent web store even with the identity already on hand.

From a buyer and a victim of online fraud's point of view, Paypal neither took legal actions against the seller (Reminder: The seller is a VERIFIED member) nor sincerely tried to recover funds.

My faith in Paypal lies in how your company handles this issue.

I apologize should I made my point in a rude manner.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
xxxx, Chong”

Looks like my attempt of trying to knock some common sense out of the Singapore staffs of Paypal ended with another machine-like reply which totally avoided my enquiry on why Paypal have yet to contact the authorities and shut down the fraudulent web site.

“Dear xxxxxxx Chong,

Thank you for contacting PayPal regarding case PP-564-995-666. Although the claim is closed, it is noted in the seller's account records, and the seller will need to complete the refund to you if he/she wishes to continue the use of PayPal's service. As stated within
the PayPal User Agreement, the PayPal Buyer Complaint Policy does not guarantee recovery of your funds, and recovery is done on a best effort basis.

You can review the PayPal Buyer Complaint Policy by clicking the "Legal Agreement" link on any PayPal webpage and click "User Agreement". We value your business and regret that you have had this experience. To avoid similar experiences in the future, we recommend that you read our Security Tips on our website by clicking the Security Center link on any PayPal webpage.

Please let me know if you need further assistance.

Sincerely,
Li
PayPal Protection Services
PayPal, an eBay Company”

Thanks for pointing out the obvious, Captain Obvious! Obviously from Li’s reply, the previous transcript was not read. With this, my opinion with Paypal is: they hire sloppy idiots that quickly browse through the email without further investigation, to handle customer care issues – they don’t even care about their customers.

How to Scam People through Paypal – for Dummies

1. Set up an online store.
2. Get a verified Paypal account.
3. Start selling thin air and upon successful payment received, quickly withdraw the money.
4. Your business should be sustaining for 45 days (dispute timeframe) + 30 days (dispute duration).
5. By now your Paypal account should be banned, open another one and repeat from Step 2 (you saved 1 step!).

Yes, scamming people has never been easier with Paypal – the secured payment gateway.

(Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any direct and indirect effects whatsoever caused by reading and performing the actions I mentioned above.)

In today’s installment of KBU – School of Innovative Thoughts, we bring you a pilot episode: “KBU – School of Outstanding Engrish” that showcases the excellent Engrish and logic used in official letters (as well as announcements) in KBU.

First of all – don’t worry about the fees, I’ve already paid them before the carbon-copied letter arrived at my doorstep (many days later than the issued date - ironically the original copy is nowhere to be seen).

Initially, the letter is presumed to originate from a party – until “Please do not hesitate to see me”. Whaa..? Oooh… kay… So “you” are in control of everything regarding this matter. Alright, so I am supposed to take a look at (“see”) KBU INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE, the computer (“This is computer generated”) with the position of Ms. Patricia Lim (an advanced HID position that has the honorary title of ‘Ms.’) in the Account Officer (an organization in KBU?).

KBU is so advanced till they’ve hired a machine to serve as a Ms. Patricia Lim that has a Human-Interface Device that uses visual feedback (“see” to “discuss”), COOL.

“Futher” more (yes, this is the latest Engrish word introduced by KBU that combines the meanings of “further” and “resistance is futile”), KBU has an advanced rule that requires the recipient to sign any incoming letters (for kicks) if it’s not computer generated.

I’ve learnt a lot today. Thanks KBU!

I’ve just received my Lambda Bl@st (Blast) from Lambda Mobile Apps this morning. Surprisingly their main office is just in Centrepoint, just opposite KBU. Maybe I should pay them a visit when I go to college.

Lambda Mobile Apps, the designer behind the Lambda BL@ST claims that this product is designed and manufactured in Malaysia, which is the one of the very (VERY) few examples of innovative technologies I heard being actually designed in Malaysia – kudos to Lambda Mobile Apps for that.

Buatan Malaysia or not, I don’t really care – I’m more interested in the raw performance of this baby. Without ado, I gave my new toy a spin after charging it for a while.

Build Quality
Before we head to the meaty stuff, let’s look at the design ergonomics of this device. The design concept of BL@ST is actually aesthetically pleasing, but the poor finishing (100% plastic body) is a bit of a letdown. It would be much better if the silver rims are made out of brushed metal instead of painted plastic. (I’m worried if the paint will fade out after some time.)

Overall the device feels light, VERY light – according to the specs, it’s only 20 grams, paired with the plastic body, it doesn’t feel quite solid, but yet giving an impression of it being able to withstand a drop from high places without suffering much damage due to the feather-like weight.

The buttons felt sturdy, not too soft and not too hard, which is much better than Nokia HS-43 where the buttons are prone to accidental presses. The OLED display is excellent, simple and nice, with a right amount of brightness. The additional button backlighting is so-so, but being more diffused with be more aesthetically pleasing.

The aspect I love most about the design is the 4-mode (90 degree each) rotating clip. It’s simple, yes, but it’s hell of a smart – you can clip it anywhere you want, and rotate it to your liking so it doesn’t get in your way.

I give a 7/10 for the build.

Firmware/Functionality
This product’s outstanding feature is the FM transmitter mode (inside a bluetooth headset, how cool is that?). Imagine yourself wearing a shirt that says “I’m listening to FM 107.3” in LRT while broadcasting what you’re listening through FM frequency 107.3 MHz so anybody (equipped with an FM radio) can listen to it. Heck, it can be a new trend!

The OLED screen shows your phone’s signal strength, BL@ST’s battery strength, FM broadcasting frequency, sound pressure and status messages (and also a brief display of your network operator when booting-up). Status messages really saves you a lot of trouble trying to figure out what’s going on, you’ll save trouble trying to decipher blinking LEDs as with other bluetooth headsets.

A rather disappointing flaw in the system is the responsiveness. BL@ST is very slow – it typically takes 1~2 seconds to perform the operation on each key press. Forwarding and Rewinding your playlist is a pain, you’ll have to bear with a few seconds of music you don’t want to listen before it changes to another (probably the one you don’t want to listen too).

Among them rewinding (back) is initially the most irritating task to perform – as with other music control devices, rewinding your playlist requires you to press ‘back’ twice – first time is to repeat the song, second time is to initiate the rewinding. Because BL@ST is SLOW, your timing for the second press must be really accurate – too slow and the song get’s replayed; too fast and BL@ST will just ignore your key press. It took me a while (from pressing twice really fast, pressing twice with 1 second delay between presses, pressing twice really slow, press and hold) to get the ‘proper technique’ of performing it – press once, wait until it beeps then immediately press again

Another irritating flaw has got to be the popping noise whenever the device establishes an audio stream. By default, as a power saving feature, the device switches the bluetooth communication mode to idle by stopping audio streaming whenever no audio signal is present. The device automatically switches on audio streaming (with a noticeable delay) whenever your host (phone et al.) makes some sound. The good thing is – it saves battery life; the bad thing is – BL@ST has an irritatingly loud popping discharge noise whenever it initiates an audio stream with the host.

It doesn’t matter much if it occurs once or twice. Noooo, between each key press when you’re navigating your phone comes the ear-piercing popping noise (followed by the beep of your phone). One more thing, the audio stream initiation delay is long enough to cut a small portion of your music.

One more (last one, I promise :P) flaw that is a common problem in FM transmitter is the very low streaming volume. “Just turn up the volume” you say? If you jack up your car stereo’s volume, you’re going to blast your speakers whenever the channel is changed to a normal radio broadcast; if you jack up BL@ST’s volume… Well, BL@ST still streams music to your attached earphones, so it’ll get BL@STed as well.

Again, 7/10 for the features (and flaws).

Audio Quality
Now for the moment we’ve been waiting for – the audio quality! BL@ST comes with two sets of earphones, a mono one and a (pair of) stereo one. Both earphones are ear-canal type phones with the stereo earphones look (and sound) suspiciously like Creative EP-630 (without the triangle logos). With the stereo earphones BL@ST came with, for an average consumer – the audio quality is decent – adequate bass, generally warm output – sonically identical (based on my memory) to Creative EP-630; for an audiophile that thinks Creative EP-630 is El Cheapo, the highs are subdued, the bass is bloated and overwhelming (I suspect this is the OEM version of EP-630 without gold-plated connectors) – I don’t blame them, what you pay is what you get (unless you expect 1 grand audio quality fit inside something 1/5 of the price tag). (Update: Did a detailed audition on stock earphones – sounds like RM15 stuff.)

The L-style cabling of the earphones is a bad move, considering the impedance of both channels are affected due to different cable lengths. With trained ears, you can notice the right channel is softer compared to left channel.

Now, plug in with my trusty Ultimate Ears Triple.Fi 10 Pro (In-Ear Monitor). Immediately I can hear the electrical noise (hissing) when audio streaming is active, it’s noticeable but bearable – not too irritating (compared to the popping noise). Load up my standard benchmarking music - ‘JOINT’ by Kawada Mami (it’s a good benchmarking material due to a complex balance of mids – female voice and instruments, highs – cymbals, and lows – drums and bass guitar).

My eyes opened – it’s better than I thought – the sound signature is close to my XPS M1330’s Sigmatel HD CoDec, clear mids, good highs but slightly shallow bass (compared to Sigmatel. FYI, Sigmatel has hissing issues too).

After some extensive playing around with the settings, a flaw is found (noooo!!!). I presume the pre-amplifier (digital volume control) is done on software DSP, because if the phone’s signal is placed to low and BL@ST’s signal is jacked high, clipping would occur (might due to pre-amp’s current bottleneck if it’s not done on software). With proper balancing of host’s and BL@ST’s volume control, clipping is almost entirely eliminated (still noticeable in some music).

So overall, the highs are kind of ‘flaky’ due to the clipping or some oddball equalizer settings they applied to make their El Cheapo earphones sound better.

(Update: They use Cambridge Silicon Radio BlueCore05 Bluetooth Stereo Chip, ironically made in Taiwan instead of UK http://www.iec.dk/products/csrchipdescription.asp?C_D_Id=28 :P)

Now, let’s see if computer signal analysis results agree with my ears:

(Note: Normal audio signal in Line-in is ~ 50% pressure, the popping clipped my input – meaning > 100% pressure – that’s how loud it is.)

There, I’m proud of my ears. Shown above, bass is slightly lower (might be intentional EQ-ing to suit their El Cheapo earphones). Solution? EQ back on my phone.

Deja Vu? 7/10 for audio quality.

Conclusions
Overall, the Lambda BL@ST is a decent new-kid that currently lacks the maturity of an old market player. The features in BL@ST are quite interesting, but the many minor flaws are rather disappointing, like rough edges on a glass ball.

Hope Lambda Mobile Apps be more careful with their next release of BL@ST v2 (if they plan to work on it). (But then my wallet does not permit me to try on any more new products :( )

Overall Score: 7/10

Pros:
- 3.5mm audio output jack
- FM Transmitter
- Great OLED Display
- Swiveling Clip Design
- Decent Audio Clarity (non-audiophile)
- Decent Earphones (non-audiophile)
- Made in Malaysia

Cons:
- Ear-piercing Popping Sound
- Noticeable Hissing (audiophile)
- Imbalanced Audio Spectrum (might due to EQ-ing) (audiophile)
- Audio Clipping (audiophile)
- Slow Response
- Low FM Volume

(non-audiophile) – An average consumer’s point of view
(audiophile) – An audiophile’s point of view

Minutes later I thought of an idea to calibrate my Nokia N82’s software equalizer, aiming to get ‘reference quality’ sound.

What I did was wire the audio output of N82 into the line-in port of my laptop. My first test involves running white noise on my phone, recording on my laptop and compare the results of decoded PCM data and recorded data with the spectrum analyzer.

White noise is an audio signal with evenly distributed frequencies across the range, the analysis of my reference WAV files looks like this:

First off, I tested the rig with my preset equalizer settings (which I set earlier using feedbacks from my ears). The results are rather shocking – a really clear (and audible) imbalance across the frequencies, emphasizing high frequency.

The idea immediately crossed my mind: Why not turn off EQ? So I repeated the whole process with the equalizer disabled on my phone. Surprise, surprise! The signal is near perfect (at least I can’t see or hear any differences)!

Wow… That means the DAC chip inside the N82 is not bad after all… That can mean two things:

1. My theory:
   The headphone amplifier on my N82 is unable to pump out enough current to drive my earphones, contributing to distortions. My laptop’s line in might have really high input impedance, so current is not drained from the headphone amplifier, thus no distortions are made.
2. The ‘other’ possibility:
   My laptop’s audio output is distorting the signal, might be intentional to make it sound good, or unintentional due to hardware problems. (But it does sound better than N82 un-EQ-ed)

So, I conducted an experiment by wiring my laptop output to the line-in (ala loopback) and did the same test. The results are… well… picture’s worth a thousand words:

Some odd boosting occurs at low frequencies but no audible difference though.

Bottom-line:
I shall build/get an amplifier, which I believe the N82 should sound superb when paired with it.

Yes, Christmas is around the corner and Elecom Solutions is slashing down the price of the Elecom Shield range of products to keep eAthena server owners from the nasty Grinch ~

For a limited time only the following products have their prices updated:
Elecom Shield v2.6 LITE – USD363 USD261
Elecom Shield v2.6 XT – USD469 USD365

All Elecom Shield products feature:

1. Packet obfuscation
• Keeps robot players away
• Prevents unauthorized alteration of packet data
2. Packet integrity checking
• Prevents packet duplication
3. Automatic client patching utility
• Does not require manual hex editing
4. Easy installation
• Installs in less than 30 minutes
• Maintenance free
5. Time proven performance
• More than 17 servers are protected by Elecom Shield
• 100% of the users are satisfied with the performance of Elecom Shield
• Stable track-record of more than 2 years

Elecom Shield XT features:

1. eXTended Graphics Engine
• Server-controlled* client-side screen tinting (emulate dawn, day, dusk, night)
• Server-controlled* client-side screenshot (automatic captures the screenshot for players)
2. eXTended Sound Engine
• Irons out all existing bugs of Miles Sound System
• Server-controlled* custom BackGround Music (BGM) and BackGround Sound (BGS) for dynamic sound effects
• Supports wide range of formats MP3, OGG, MIDI etc.

* all features are accessible by scripts

Operation Objectives
Christmas has gradually evolved from a celebration day for Christians to a global festival. Malaysia have majority population of Muslims. This operation is aimed to survey on how Malaysians act after seeing some random guy wearing Santa Hat.

Operation Directives
Teams should wear standard red-and-white Santa Hats to college and other public areas. Reactions of the public should be observed.

REPORT – Day 1
Agent L took the initiative to start off OSH in KBU International College, Petaling Jaya. The response from the students are mild, only curious glances. Occasionally there were people smiling back. However, verbal attacks from a few parties were also observed, which might due to narrow passageway of the cerebral cortex. There was one reported case of attempt to snap a photo of Agent L in action.

In the public transport, response is non-existent. Agent L is virtually invisible to the crowd.

- Agent L

I’ve opened a new category here for my future audio and music related posts. To commemorate this (auspicious) occasion, I shall write about what I found out just a few minutes ago.

Audio Source
I always thought sound played from my phone (Nokia N82) and my PC (Dell XPS M1330) are the same – until I get a higher fidelity earphones and accidentally spotted the differences in the reproduction of the same MP3 I put on my phone and my PC. Note none of the devices are using equalizers.

Comparing side-by-side with my PC without any custom settings, the Nokia N82 sounds like dodos – hollow, sounds as if echoing a wall, but with more bass impact. The PC, however revealing more details on the music but with weaker bass response – sounding very thin. Adding up an attenuator (and jacking up the volume to compensate the increase in impedance) to the earphones on the PC though, increases the bass a bit  but lowering down the details.

When enabling the “Loudness” option in the Nokia N82 stock music player, the mid-ranges are immediately refined (no more hollow), sound layers are more defined, and the bass is boosted – my instinct tells me it goes deeper as well. This time, it makes the PC sounds like dodos. The bass of the N82 really packs a lot of punch now, contributing to the “body” (I wonder if I’ve used this term correctly) of the music.

Test Media: JOINT by まみ川田 – MP3 320kbps CBR, KUON –The Troupe Performs– composed by Noriko Matsueda/Takahito Eguchi – MP3 192kbps CBR

“Loudness” Option in S60 Media Player
I have no idea the workings behind this option, but activating this really pushes your earphone’s bass potential (don’t turn this on if your earphones produce muddy bass), as well as removing the weird mid-range hollowness (or bathroom-singing-effect, if you prefer) – revealing more detail.

As for whether this option distorts the audio reproduction – I have absolutely no idea. Currently I have no clue how should my media actually sound like. But as for enjoyment-wise:

Nokia N82 with “Loudness” enabled > Dell XPS M1330 > Nokia N82 stock configuration

A few moments ago I received an SMS from Dr. Christine:

If you can, go outside and see the moon. Its a smiley face. What a wonderful sight.

I can’t see anything from my room, so I thought it was a joke. At the same time, another friend of mine messaged me:

Go out see the moon ...... its is smiling .

That’s when I decided to go downstairs and go a little Moon Hunting. The Koreans downstairs must be puzzled by my look of running around watching the sky. Alast, I saw two bright stars and beneath it… The moon. I was expecting the shadows of the moon somewhat resemble a smiling face, but boy, I was wrong.

The moon is smiling.

The whole scene lasted for around 10 minutes only, before the moon vanished (covered by clouds or lunar eclipse) and the stars “moved” downwards, blocked by the building.