Let’s see. I kick start my year 2007 with nothing special. Seriously, year 2007 isn’t as happening as my years in secondary school. It’s all about going to class, meet the great lecturer, do a little revision, and go back home. Sometimes a little lim teh with friends, but that was just about it.

February was a great month, because there’s Chinese New Year. However, while everyone is happy celebrating it, I was in front of my computer, waiting for my December 2006 exam sitting result. I passed, and I was very happy This is also a romantic month for those couple celebrating Valentine’s Day, but it’s a SAD (Single’s Awareness Day) day for me I am single and available at the moment, and enjoying my bachelor life .

March was a bad month indeed. For a computer geek like to have no access of computer for a month is absolutely killing. I smoked my CRT monitor and my parents didn’t bother to fix it. I only got my new monitor after around a month during a PC Fair. Nothing much happens in April, other than my first TLA cheque and also the news where Miri will have free WiFi across the city for free for one whole year. But the free WiFi was quite disappointing. Frequent disconnection and slow speed. Perhaps the area I was in have lousy signal

I moved from a free hosting to a paid local hosting in May. It was good for the first few months, but now it’s getting slowed down and sucked up because the server is getting over crowded. If they don’t plan to get a new server next year, I am not renewing my hosting plan next year. I’m moving out. Well, I guess shit happens, and perhaps I should take out the post that praise them on their service. Their tech support are still bunch of nice people, but their service are getting lousier.

Oh, I also happen to know a girl from college and she happens to be a distributor in an MLM company. I got annoyed by her calls and I eventually confronted her that I would stop answering her calls if all she talks about is MLM and buying her products. She changed, and now we do hang out once in a while, which is a good thing .

And of course in June, I celebrated my 19th birthday. I also sat for my exams, and I remembered how tough it is to study in the eleventh hour. Well, I guess it was all worth it because I passed the exams and now I am to proceed to the next level in ACCA Qualification. Wish me luck as I will be doing the Skills Module starting next year .

I was pretty inactive the few months after I finished my exams. I was busy looking for jobs and I guess that’s how I stumble upon a funny ads on the newspaper. Putting that aside, I manage to get myself into a job interview which I failed deliberately. Their offer was bad and their staff smokes in an air-conditioned office. Other than looking for jobs, I have a friend who kept on dragging me to go out for movies. But I hate it because the cinema in Miri sucks.

Few months later, I manage to get myself a job in a local accounting firm. Working life is fun, with all the colleagues and all but when you’re with an accountant boss, you’ll know what is it like to be there. Oh, I also manage to get myself a new phone, thanks to the online income I got I also managed to get a web design project, but it turns out to be a scam.

December was quite a happening month. I went to the Miri Bug Fest where I get to see the classic Volkswagen Beetle. It was a lovely event. I also went to probably one of the biggest bloggers gathering in Miri, thanks to Uchu Keling for organizing it and Advertlets for the sponsorship. I didn’t blog about the event because I didn’t take any pictures. If you’re looking for posts on the event, go over to Uchu Keling write up on the event. He’s linking everyone who blogs about the event.

Photo thanks to Ian.

My Year 2008 Plans

Living without plans and goals is pretty pointless to me. Like any other years, I usually have my sets of goals and work my way up to achieve them, only this year, I decided to blog all about it

Goal 1: Earn more money, and invest them.

This year, a large percentage of my online income goes into my new handphone. This year, I plan to make more money online, and invest them in mutual funds. I earned around RM1,500 this year, and I am hoping to double the figure next year, and invest them. I know, the amount is little compare to all the big shots. Well, I guess its worth a try I never intend to blog full time. It’s just my side income.

Goal 2: Get at least a Web Design project.

It’s time for me to build up my portfolio. The scam case never fails to stop me from trying and hoping for another project to come. No harm being optimist on this, right?

Goal 3: Launch MiriBloggers.com

This project is not dead yet. Not just yet. I plan to launch by Chinese New Year. I guess I still have one month plus to work on it.

Goal 4: Finish at least 3 papers in Skills Module

Finish 3 papers in 2008, and finish another 3 papers in 2009. Well, I am hoping I didn’t fail any of the papers. I want to work my way up and get the ACCA qualification as fast as possible, while working at the same time.

Goal 5: To stop putting on weight

I have to start exercising. I am getting fatter each year, which is not a good sign.

I guess this is all for this year. See you next year?

Merry Christmas and have a Happy Holiday

And that’s exactly the same SMS I send to around 50 people in my phone book.

Flying Pan!!

Now you see, the letter L and R is pretty far away from each other in the keyboard. It can’t be unintentional, isn’t it?

To make things easier, I’ve listed the stuff that is happening to me for this past weeks. Everyone love lists right?

1. I’m Employed!

Yes. I finally got a job. Not related to the job interview last month though. It’s a local accounting firm, an approved ACCA Employer. I am employed as a Tax Auditor, but currently doing Accounting Audit as part of job training. The company is willing to train me for 2 years, and I think I will do so while studying my ACCA Skills Module part time. So I guess I will still be in Miri for the next 2 years.

I have yet to discuss this with my family, because I do know that my brother really wants me to go study and experience college/uni life first, then start on my career. But I think I will see first because I believe accountancy is a job that relies mostly on experience and training. My respond at the moment is; “See if this company is good or not”. I’ll just see if this company is worthwhile for me to invest my time in. If not, I will just quit next year and study full-time as my original plan.

And this is the main reason why I can’t even find the time to read my feeds and go blog-hopping. I got so tired after work and I go to bed at 10. Perhaps another reason is that I am sick for the past few days. Getting sick for the first few days in your work is definitely not a good idea X/

2. I’m hired for a Web Design Project

I will not reveal much on the project, but just to tell you all briefly. I am currently working on a simple selling e-book website, and it is schedule to finish by November. I am currently behind schedule, but I think I will pick up and go according plan next week. I still need time to adjust myself for this transition of jobless to employed status :sweat: That said, I am not available for any web projects for this month.

3. Sickness

I was sick, but I feel better now other than my throat. I got antibiotic from the speedy doctor, but my throat isn’t getting any better. I tried all sorts of alternative methods such as taking honey lemon, salt water, “Ubat Batuk cap Ibu dan Anak”, throat lozenge and gargle mouth antiseptic. Doesn’t help. I hope my throat feels better tomorrow.

4. Hari Raya Visiting

I went to visit my friends who are celebrating Hari Raya. I see all sorts of delicious food, BUT I didn’t eat any because of my sore throat. Those currys and rendangs looks so delicious!!! Well, the food isn’t as important as being able to catch up with friends that I have lost contact with for almost a year. :happy:

I guess that’s all for now.

Click for the full size

My wallpaper: Saber and BMW
My Visual Style: Luna Element Black

My desktop resolution is 1280 x 1024, using Large Icons and Large Font Size. I don’t like to strain my eyes when reading, in fact, I always enlarge the font size whenever I am reading from any websites. Don’t ask why I am still playing games as old as Red Alert 2, and not C&C 3. You don’t want to know why

That’s my new toy. The picture is taken with my sister’s W810i. I wanted to shoot more picture of my new K550i, but my digicam is dead. Well, erm, the battery is dead. I’m too lazy to buy new battery to replace it, so this is the only shot of my new phone.

The K550i Review

I was using a Motorola C350 (or was it C310, kinda forgot), and it was a disaster. The button is stiff and hard to press, the screen is small, the SMS Dictionary is crap, it’s inherited, and the battery drains real fast. That’s why I buy a new phone as I got my money.

Right, enough the rant. Let’s talk about this K550i. At first glance, the phone looks slim and classy. The blue light makes it looks even fancier This phone comes with a camera protector, so camera lense don’t feel as naked as my brother and sister’s W810i (they somehow got the same phone, some long story behind )

Picture taken with my new phone. That’s my brother’s Myvi.

Transition from my old Motorola to this new phone is not too bad. I think i kinda got used to it after 2 days using it. The interface is great, at least that is what I think so. I don’t really like Nokia’s Symbian phone, somehow it feels very slow. Sony Ericsson’s own interface is fast and up to my liking.

This phone’s speaker is inferior if I were to compare with the W810i. Since the W series is WALKMAN series, so I guess it’s normal for it to have better speakers and sound quality. But to my disappointment, the K550i 2MP camera is not as good as the W810i 2MP camera. Pictures taken indoor have noisy pictures and somehow it is yellowish.

My monitor, taken with my K550i.

Also my monitor, but taken with my Digital Camera.

Look at that picture and compare it to my old 3.2MP Digital Camera that I use to take the picture of my monitor. Same place, same lighting, but not a good picture Well, of course the picture quality is not to be compared, but the thing is, the colour is somehow yellowish when I’m in indoor in this bloody hot afternoon! X/

However, the picture is great when the lighting is good. Here are some more shots using my K550i.

Outdoor shots isn’t that bad. But shots in dim lighting is really bad, compared to the W810i. Well, I can’t really compare it with the W810i because it is a higher end phone. Perhaps someone with W610i can share their experience?

Conclusion

It’s a great phone, only the camera is quite disappointing, because I thought it should be as good as the camera that my brother and sister has on their W810i. Perhaps I can’t demand more since this is a phone with camera capability, not a camera with phone capability. You should get the idea.

The Damage:
The Phone: RM600
SanDisk 1GB M2 Memory Card: RM95
Rubber (or was it Silicon?) Cover: RM10
Screen/Lense Protector: RM15
Total Damage: RM720

I am RM720 poorer.

I have also created a Contact page. This page holds information on how to contact me, and also a contact form if you want something more formal. That serves as a facility for people to contact me more easily and formally. And besides, I’ve decided to do freelancing on web design and accounts book-keeping more aggresively.

Other than that, I’ve did some minor visual enhancement to my site. The most notable one is the comments listing. Instead of alternating backgrounds, I changed it to alternating left border colour. I use the magic of :hover so that the comments backgrounds highlights as mouse over. I’ve also placed comment number so that replying comments can be a little bit easier because I’ve recently remove the comments quoting system.

And lastly, I’ve added a few 2 new emoticons, and 4 icons for commentors, and also myself to use. The 6 new icons are:
:love: :sweat: :heart: :nuke:
Well, it’s fun to have new icons to play with

My Future Plans

Get employed and settle down until next year to further my ACCA studies. If I happen to fail to secure a job, I will be doing freelance aggressively. At the moment, I offer affordable web design and web development service for individuals or companies who wants a website. I will also give consultations for those who needs to get their website up and running.

Other than that, I am also offering accounts book keeping service. I believe this is the first time for someone who’s doing web design and book-keeping at the same time! Well, the reason I’m doing book-keeping is because I have a partner who have the experience and is looking for opportunity. And me here, will help her to get clients and at the same time, help her and learn book-keeping for the commercial world. I am, after all a CAT graduate. It shouldn’t be weird for me to do this. However, I am accepting clients from Miri only for this book-keeping service.

ACCA just emailed me my result on the exams I sat in June. And guess what? I passed!!! Though the colours is not so flying, I still pass my first level towards professional accounting nonetheless.

Updates: My mistakes. I am not allowed to use the CAT title until I have working experience.

Reason #1: The Smell

Imagine having at least 50 cramming in a room to watch movie with you. People from all walks of life and all sorts of SMELL. You don’t know whether that person, sitting in front of you took a shower or not. You don’t know if the person behind you have body odour or not. You don’t know if the person if the person sitting beside you (not your friend of course, if you have company) is using some weird perfume or cologne that might kill you in no time.

Reason #2: The Handphones

Some people just don’t understand how annoying their handphones are. Can’t they just freaking silent their phone, or even better, just turn it off? I don’t really care if you have the latest Bleach Opening song as your ringtone, or some girl’s voice saying “You got a message, baby” as your SMS tone. That’s not all. Some people are like shouting, trying to fight the volume of the movie when talking on the phone. How ridiculous is that? I just want to watch my freaking movie!

Reason #3: The Late Comers

I don’t mind if those late comers kept quiet and go to their seat silently. Some even bend down (so that you are not blocked) and whisper “Sorry, sorry” to you. That’s the people with respect. Some people, they’re late, they’re noisy, and they’re like purposely stand in front of you arguing “This is our seat lah!” while pointing fingers here and there. Eh please lah, I want to watch the movie, not watching you pointing fingers arguing over nothing, even if you are some pretty girl. There’s a lane at the side there for you to argue, not in front of the movie watchers! IDIOTS.

Reason #4: The Noise

I don’t understand. Why some people can’t keep quiet and watch the damn movie? They are chattering all the way through out the movie. We’re in the cinema, not KOPITIAM! Please lah, talk after you watch the movie. If you still want to talk because you have too many things to kaypoh, well, WALK OUT OF THE THEATER HALL. It’s not that hard.

Reason #5: The Spoilers

There are certain people who have nothing better to do, so they watch the same movie for the second time. I don’t mind if they can just watch the movie QUIETLY and laugh or react when they should. There are people who are loud, and likes to spoil. They sat at the back there, shouting, “After this is funny… Hahahaha…”, or “Later the ghost will jump out from that window… SEE??!!”, or “He’s the killer!! I tell you! No lies!!”. I hate those kind of people.

Reason #6: Crappy Miri Cinema

If I were to be in some other place this reason will not be in this list. Miri’s Star Cineplex seriously sucks! The video quality is so blurry. The contrast is freaking low. Yesterday, I went to watch Invisible Target with my friends. And you know what? After like an hour watching, I realise that the bad guy in that movie is Wu Jing, the same guy in Twins Mission. It’s not because he change a lot, it’s because the video quality is so damn blurry. Not only the video quality, the audio quality sucks too. The theater hall have so many speakers, yet, you can only hear sound coming from the front only. The rear speakers are there for decoration. Wait, there’s more to complain. I feel occasional water dripping (which kinda wet my shoulder) from the top of the hall because of the aircond water leak. What a great MOVIE experience eh?

If I were to watch at home, I don’t have to be annoyed by the smells, the late comers, the noise, the spoilers, or any other distraction. Why? Because you can PAUSE THE MOVIE! Though my TV is not as large as the screen in the cinema, but at least I it is clear (I always make sure the pirated DVD I bought is in the BEST Quality) and I can adjust the CONTRAST. Now tell me, what’s so cool about going to the cinema?