1 Terabyte Hard Drive! Have you heard??

A terabyte (TB) is a measure of computer storage capacity that is 2 to the 40th power or approximately a trillion bytes (that is, a thousand gigabytes). The prefix tera is derived from the Greek word for monster.

Hitachi began selling 1-terabyte hard drives to consumers in 2007. (Today, consumers can purchase a 1-terabyte external hard drive for around RM500.) A one terabyte drive can hold:472 hours of broadcast quality video. 150 hours of hi-definition recording.
For readers who are still wondering how big is this 1 Terabyte capacity. Remember those USB pen drives of yours? Some are 512kb,1 G or 4G, the largest capacity for USB pen drives now is 16G.

# 1000 unit of 1G pen drives = 1 Terabyte. . Amazing huh?

Climbing Mount Kinabalu in ONE day??

YES, you can climb Mount Kinabalu in ONE day, climb up in the morning, and climb down in the afternoon.

They said it is possible, but there are few things that you have to do.

1. You have to present yourself (and your two other friends) in Kinabalu Park at least a day before your intention to climb. Look for the Manager of the Park, Mr. Haji Abdul Wahab and ask to get the permission & permit to climb in one day. If he is not around, look for the Kinabalu Park Ranger On-Call, and mention the same thing. If everything is satisfactory, You will then can check in to where you have book for your night stay.

2. For ONE day climb, you will then be allowed to climb next morning after confirmation from the Rangers. Guide, insurance and permit is compulsory, i.e. guide will be around RM100-150 for the group, insurance will be around RM10 and permit will be RM100 per person. Certificate of achievement is optional (RM10). All fees to be paid next morning before the climb.

3. You need to start climbing very early next morning, usually before 7am. Better to wake up at 6, and head to the Park office and you will be allocated the guide for you. You will start the climb earlier than other regular climber.

4. You will not allowed to continue your climb to the peak, if you are not able to reach Laban Rata before noon (12pm) or if the weather is not permitting.Remember, you need to be really FIT, maybe as fit as a climbathon runner… or maybe at least 50%of their ability…

Glee,

Mell ^_^

Introduction to Paintball

What is Paintball?
In 15 short years, the sport of paintball has become recognized as one of the world's most exciting outdoor participation sports. Paintball is played in over 40 countries by millions of men and women of all ages and lifestyles. Whether homemakers or high-school students, professionals or retirees, all paintball players share in common a love for adventure and a strong competitive spirit.

Capture the Flag
Paintball is a combination of the childhood games "tag" and "hide & seek," but is much more challenging and sophisticated. Although there are many different game formats, typically a group of players will divide into two teams to play "capture the flag." The number of players on each team can vary from one or two, five or seven or ten, to over 1,000 on a side, limited only by the size of the playing field. The object of the game is to go out and capture the other team's flag while protecting your own. While you are trying to capture a flag, you also try to eliminate opposing players by tagging them with a paintball expelled from a special airgun called a "paintgun." Games run from 20 to 45 minutes, depending on the size of the field and the number of players. Between games, players take a break to check their equipment, get more paintballs and have a snack or soda while they share stories about the thrills of victory and the usually funny agonies of defeat. Win or lose, everyone has a good time and there's usually the next game waiting for you.

Paintballs
A paintball is a round, thin-skinned gelatin capsule with colored liquid inside it. Paintballs are similar to large round vitamin capsules or bath oil beads. The fill inside paintballs is non-toxic, non-caustic, water-soluable and biodegradable. It rinses out of clothing and off skin with mild soap and water. Paintballs come in a rainbow of bright colors: blue, pink, white, orange, yellow and more. When a paintball tags a player, the thin gelatin skin splits open, and the liquid inside leaves a bright "paint" mark. A player who is marked is eliminated from the game.

Paintguns
Paintguns, also called "markers," come in a variety of shapes and styles . They may be powered by carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen (N2) or compressed air. Many have power systems that use large refillable cylinders called "tanks" or "bottles" that give hundreds of shots before needing to be refilled. Some use small 12 gram CO2 powerlets as their power source, each powerlet being good for 15 to 30 shots. With pump-action paintguns (pumpguns), each time you want to shoot a paintball you first cock the paintgun by using a pump, then you squeeze the trigger to shoot the paintball; you must recock the paintgun before you can shoot again. Stockguns, using 12-grams, have the most basic pumpgun configuration (though they are becoming ever-more high-tech within the constraints of the configuration) and stock gun play is in a class of its own. With semi-automatic paintguns, the first time you want to shoot you must cock the paintgun (usually by pulling back a cocking knob or handle), but after you shoot the first paintball the paintgun's action will recock the paintgun for you; you simply squeeze the trigger each time you want to shoot a paintball. With a full-auto paintgun, when you squeeze the trigger for the first time, the 'gun will begin to shoot paintballs and will keep on shooting paintballs as long as you keep squeezing the trigger; when you release the trigger, the 'gun will stop shooting. Paintguns range from simple to sophisticated, but what they all share in common is a limitation on their power and range. The international safety limit on the speed (measured in feet per second, "FPS") at which a paintgun shoots a paintball is 300 fps. A chronograph is used to test for speed limits, and all paintguns can be adjusted to shoot under the speed limit. A paintgun's range is limited, too; even shooting 300 fps, at maximum elevation with barrel pointed up into the air, a paintgun can lob a paintball only about 50 yards.

Safety
For safety, paintball players always must wear goggles specifically designed for paintball to protect their eyes. Goggles must be worn during a game and at all times when a person is in an area where shooting is permitted, such as the target range or chronograph area. A protective facemask is mandatory nearly everywhere, and should be worn regardless. Paintball is a very safe sport as long as safety rules are followed. Insurance statistics have shown that paintball is safer than golf, jogging, tennis, swimming and many other sports. Referees on the field enforce safety and game rules. No physical contact is permitted in the game, and players are ejected from games or the playsite for breaking safety or playing rules. Fields have boundaries, and a player who steps outside a field's boundary is eliminated from that game.

The Game Paintball is a sport played by people from all professions and lifestyles. It is a sport where women and men compete equally, and where age is not dominated by youth. Like a game of chess, being able to think quickly and decisively is what makes you a star in paintball. Intelligence and determination, not merely strength, speed or agility, are key to success in the sport. Paintball is a character-building sport. Players learn about teamwork, gain self-confidence and develop leadership abilities while having fun and getting welcome stress-relief. Increasingly, corporations are finding the benefits of having their staff and management participate in paintball games. Paintball is an exciting sport, and above all paintball is fun! It's a chance to shake off your day-to-day responsibilities and rekindle your spirit of adventure. When the adrenaline starts pumping, you can't help but love the thrill of the game!

Ten Tips for a Frugal (Not Cheap) Wedding

What advice do you have for a frugal wedding? We’re getting married in 2010. Since we are both in our early twenties and don’t have a lot to spend we were hoping to keep our wedding as small as possible.

1. Avoid guest list bloat.

For some people, it can feel very tempting to invite hundreds of people to the ceremony. However, with each addition to your guest list, you’re adding a person that’s of lesser importance to you compared to the people you’ve already invited. To a degree, this was a trap we fell into with our own wedding - our guest list grew and grew to the point where we invited people that we didn’t know well simply out of a sense of obligation. Instead of just adding more and more people, consider inviting fewer people and making the event more intimate. Try cutting your list in half and see if you’re happy with it.

2. Ask for wedding help instead of wedding gifts.

You are lucky if several of your friends and family had musical talent, so they were able to provide musical accompaniment for your ceremony. If you also have a close friend who is an extremely skilled amateur photographer and he/she is willing to serve as photographer for your ceremony as your wedding gift.

3. Have the ceremony at home, or outdoors.

You may find that the cost of renting a building for your ceremony and reception is expensive. Instead, consider using your own home (or the home of a parent) for your ceremony, or perhaps a public park with a beautiful view. In each case, you can also have your reception outdoors, often eliminating the cost of renting a place as well as creating a memorable ceremony.

4. Do the catering yourself, or hire a family-owned restaurant.

It would drastically reduced the food costs for the ceremony if you do the catering yourself.. If this isn’t your forte, look around your community for a family-owned restaurant and ask the owners directly to cater your wedding. Family-owned restaurants are always the first place to check - they will almost always go the extra mile to make your wedding special and will also charge a reasonable rate.

5. Go minimal with the flowers.

Instead of having huge piles of flowers everywhere (something that will only really last for an afternoon), instead simply go with a single rose for each bridesmaid and a very small bouquet for the bride. If you know someone with a rose bush, you can actually easily make your own bouquets the day before the ceremony by cutting the roses yourself and trimming away the thorns.

6. Make your own invitations.

With a quality home printer and some time, you can make very classy invitations on your own.

7. Patiently shop for any decoration needs.

Wedding decoration suppliers all have sales somewhat regularly throughout the year - and they all sell supplies that can be helpful with your wedding. Know what you’re looking for as far in advance as possible and let the sales come to you.

8. Make a simple honeymoon, not an ostentatious one.

A huge, over-the-top honeymoon might sound fun, but it’s far, far cheaper (and often more enjoyable) to have a much more laid-back honeymoon. Instead of planning a big trip, just hop in the car and spend a week or two together just driving around and enjoying being married. The fewer plans, the better - and the cheaper.

9. Involve your closest friends and family in the preparation.

As you’re developing plans, you should get your closest friends and family involved with the details. Quite often, they’ll have surprisingly good ideas that can save you money and effort - perhaps they’ll know someone that can cut you a deal on a certain part, or maybe they’ll just volunteer to help out with that piece. Good friends and family are always there to help, so you might as well use it.

10 Plan, plan, plan.

List everything you can think of and walk through these items step by step. The earlier you get started - and the more things you think about early on - the less “last minute stress” you’ll have and the more time you’ll have to find sales and discounts and other good ideas.

Good luck!

Movie Review - Transformers:Revenge of The Fallen

Something is seriously amiss when a movie as noisy and frenetic as “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is so boring it puts you to sleep.
For 2 ½ hours, everything in “Fallen” assaults the audience at a furious meth-fueled pace, and the thing’s so loud you could fire up a chainsaw in the theater without anybody noticing.
But I’m not ashamed to admit it: I think even I might have caught a few ZZZZs near the end of Michael Bay’s latest. Not so much sleeping as resting from the onslaught. Every scene in this movie is like every other. You could snip out big chunks of the film without doing any damage to what passes for the narrative.
Think of it as epic emptiness.
The thin plot, ships teen hero Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) off to college (look for some fine comic work from Kevin Dunn and Julie White as his empty-nester parents). After his experiences with sentient machines from outer space in the first flick, Sam wants nothing more than to enjoy the simple pleasures of a university freshman.
Not so fast. An encounter with a shard of Transformer leaves his head filled with scientific data and arcane implants. Seems that Sam is now the repository of info about a long-hidden energy source sought both by the good-guy Autobots and the bad-guy Decepticons.
Meanwhile a special military unit made up of Autobots and humans (including Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson) is engaged in a worldwide effort to destroy the remaining Decepticons. Easier said than done, because the villains can disguise themselves as almost any sort of machine. In fact, this film introduces Decepticons no bigger than a housecat and others that can pass for human.
Sam teams up with the renegade former government agent Simmons (John Turturro), main squeeze Mikaela (Megan Fox) and his new college roomie (Ramon Rodriguez) and gets caught in a big metal-on-metal smackdown in an ancient temple in the shadow of Egypt’s pyramids. If you think the place was a ruin when the fight starts, just wait.
As a display of creative f/x, “Transformers” is impressive. The scenes of these beings transforming from trucks, cars and planes into humanoid robots are initially fascinating, with cogs whirling and metal plates clanking into position. Problem is, they never stop moving — the movie’s so busy there’s no place for the eye to rest.
A much bigger problem is the lack of characters. The 2007 original benefited from a genuine sense of discovery and LaBeouf’s boyishly appealing sense of wonder. But this time around, not even the huggable LaBeouf makes much of an impression — he’s been reduced to a buffoon. And Fox spends most of the movie looking … bored.
The Transformers don’t have characters — their dialogue runs from “Let’s roll!” to “You want a piece of me?” And when they do exhibit personalities — like a couple of goofy Autobots who talk like demented gangsters — the results are borderline racist.
In an effort to appeal both to original fans of the Transformers — now in their 30s — and their offspring, writers Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman dish both simplistic slapstick and off-color elements.
There’s liberal use of PG-13 language and some crude visual humor — like one tiny Decepticon that keeps trying to hump Fox’s leg (yes, really).
The action is rough enough that if it were among human characters rather than big metal giants this “Transformers” would easily have earned an R.

Good thing robots don’t bleed.

‘ ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen'’ ★
Director: Michael Bay
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, John Turturro, Josh Duhamel
Rated: PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, language, some crude and sexual material, and brief drug material
Running time: 2:30

Happy Gawai 2009!

We would like to wish all readers Happy Gawai 2009!

Our apology for the lack of posting lately due to workload at work. Heeeeeheeee...

Stay tuned for more posting soon!

For those might not know what is Hari Gawai all about, feel free to enlighten yourself reading the history of the festival below; =D

The Birth Of Gawai Dayak & Its Celebration

Author : Unknown

Gawai Dayak, a festive celebrated in Sarawak on 1st June every year is both a religious and social occasion. Dayak would visit their friends and relatives on this day. Such visit is more known as "ngabang" in Iban language. The far would receive greeting cards.

How it all started can be traced back to a 1957 radio forum organized by Mr Ian Kingsley, a radio programme organiser. This generated a lot of interest among the Dayak community. Up till 1962, British colonial government still refused to give recognition to the Dayak Day.
To the Dayak, Gawai Dayak would be a recognition of the Dayak race, their source of national pride and a way to reciprocate social hospitality extended by the other races during their festivals.

After numerous requests, it fell on the sympathetic ears of the First Sarawak Chief Minister, Datuk Stephen Kalong Ningkan and his cabinet comprising among others, the present State Chief Minister, Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud. The then Governor, Tun Abang Haji Openg, who when he was a member of the council Negeri, had always supported the move in the Council, gave his assent.

Gawai Dayak was formally gazetted on 25th September 1964 as a public holiday in place of Sarawak Day. It was first celebrated on 1st June 1965 and became a symbol of unity, aspiration and hope for the Dayak community.Today, it is an integral part of Dayak social life. It is a thanksgiving day marking good harvest and a time to plan for the new farming season or activities ahead.

Present Day of Gawai Dayak
The word Gawai means a ritual or festival whereas Dayak is a collective name for the natives races in Sarawak; the Iban, Bidayuh, Kayan, Kenyah, Kelabit, Murut and a few more. Thus Gawai Dayak literally means the Dayak Festival.

The mode of celebrations varies from place to place. Preparation starts very early. Tuak (rice wine) are brewed and traditional delicacies like penganan (cakes from rice flour, sugar and coconut milk) prepared. As the big day approaches, everyone will be busy with the general cleaning and preparing the food or cakes. On Gawai eve, glutinous rice are roasted in bamboo (ngelulun pulut). In the longhouse, new mats will be laid out on the ruai (an open gallery which runs through the entire length of the longhouse). The walls of most bilik (rooms) and the ruai are decorated with pua kumbu (traditional blanket).

The celebration starts on the evening of 31st May. In most Iban's longhouse, it starts with a ceremony called Muai Antu Rua (to cast away the spirit of greediness), signifying the non interference of the spirit of bad luck in the celebration. Two children or men each dragging a chapan or winnowing basket will pass each family room. Every family will throw some unwanted article into the basket. The unwanted articles will be tossed to the ground from the end of the longhouse for the spirit of bad luck.

Around 6 pm, miring (offering ceremony) will take place. Before the ceremony, gendang rayah (ritual music) is performed. The feast chief thanks the gods for the good harvest, ask for guidance, blessings and long life as he sacrifices a cockerel. Dinner will then be served at the ruai. While waiting for midnight, the folks gather and mingle at the ruai and berandau (talk/converse). Meanwhile, drinks, traditional cakes and delicacies are served.

At midnight, the gong is sounded. The tuai rumah will lead everyone to drink the Ai Pengayu (normally tuak for long life) and at the same time wishing each other "gayu-guru, gerai-nyamai" (long life, health and prosperity). A procession up and down the ruai called Ngalu Petara (Welcoming the Spirits) will follow. The celebration by now will get more merrier. Some will dance to the traditional music played. Others will sing the pantun (poems). In the town, the Dayak will gather at the community centres or restaurants for a enliven the evening.

Other activities that may follow the next day include cock-fighting, demonstration of blowpipe skills and ngajat competitions. On this day, 1st June, the homes of the Dayaks will be opened to visitors. In the longhouses, there is a practises called masu pengabang where guests will be served with tuak by the host before they can enter the longhouse. Dayaks will attend a church mass to thanks God for the good harvest. Gawai Dayak celebration may last for several days. Visitors are most welcome to the homes of the Dayaks during the festival.

Say HELLLLOOO to PSP GO!

Sony made its PSP Go portable gaming console official at the E3 2009. As the upgrade to the PSP, the PSP Go has a sliding design. It is boosted by a 333MHz processor and 64MB memory. It has a 3.8-inch 480×272 LCD display, 16GB internal storage, integrated Bluetooth and WiFi 802.11b connectivity. You can also find built-in stereo speakers and a Memory Stick Micro (M2) card slot.

Other than gaming, the PSP Go supports media playback. It supports MPEG-4, H.264, Motion JPEG video, MP3, WAV, WMA, ARACT3/plus and AAC audio as well as JPEG, TIFF, BMP, GIF and PNG images.

Sony PSP Go will be available on 1 October 2009 in N. America, Europe and Asia for $249 and on 1 November in Japan.

Writer's review: The format is nice, it is much smaller than the product photos would have you think. That is definitely a pocket device. It looks small and light and comfortable in your hands. The controller looks OK for most games but we know that many of you would miss an analog stick. Fortunately, I’m an old school player, so I can deal with the standard direction control. There’s one thing that worries about the buttons on the right: they are a little small. It’s OK when playing games that don’t require a difficult string of buttons, but something like a tap game (Guitar hero) or a fighting game (Tekken) might be problem because there might not be room for more than one finger. <:P