DSLR sharing....

DSLR, which stands for Digital Single-Lens Reflex Camera, is a digital camera that uses a mechanical mirror system and pentaprism to direct light from the lens to an optical viewfinder on the back of the camera.

Recently I just bought a Nikon D60 DSLR, which is an user-friendly entry-level DSLR line with 10 megapixel DX format CCD sensor, 3.0fps continuous shooting, 2.5" 230,000 pixel LCD monitor, ISO sensitivity range 100-1600 plus HI 1(3200 equiv.), and of course, equipped with a AF-S DX 18-55 mm VR kit lens. One disadvantage for D60 is that it doesn't have an built-in focus drive motor, which means that you must have a AF-S or AF-I lenses which have their own drive motor to make use of the Auto Focus feature. Do remember to choose a VR lens, which stands for Vibration Reduction as it helps alot to prevent blur on your shooting due to hand shake.

What really makes me in love with D60 would be it's weight.... Only about 522 g and this is very light especially when u need to hold it long for event shooting... Equipped with EN-EL9 1000mAh battery, it could shoot up to 300 pictures or more depends on your settings.... Of course, with pop-up flash enabled the battery might only last for 150 pictures...

Here is how the D60 looks like:

Of course, due to some event shooting I just bought a flash gun, Nissin Di622 instead of SB600 from Nikon... Both flash gun performs almost d same but Nissin is much more cheaper although without the LCD indicator...

Up to now I'm quite satisfied with the performance from this flash gun together with my D60.... Gotta train more and shoot on more events to get more familiar with this flash gun....

Here are some of the sample picture: -

Marco setting, zoom in to 55mm, f/5.6, 1/13 shutter, ISO 200

Pop-up flash shooting in d club, 18mm, f/5, 1/10 shutter, ISO 400

With Nissin Di622 flash gun, 18mm, f/3.5, 1/15 shutter, ISO 800

and here are some arts perform by using flash gun:

Will post more in the future, and since I'm still beginner to DSLR, please forgive me on the high noise level in some of my pictures.... Posted this up jz to share with u all on my DSLR... thx anyway....

MOM's Birthday

Hmm, today is my mother's birthday and i just finished our dinner at Puchong. Decided to go for western food and overall the food is Nice, priced around RM30 - RM 50 and I would say that the food is worth the price!!

Steak Out would be the name of the Steakhouse and it's located next to Giant Bandar Putri, Puchong.

So this would be the looking from the outside, and the entrance is the kind of cowboy style steak house.

The interior design is not bad overall, quite a nice place for couple to hang out!!

So about the food, variety of choices consisting of Beef, Lamb, Chicken, Pork, Seafood, Pasta and some snack are presented in the menu.... It's really a tough choice and I had chosen Pork Riblion for my meal.

Look nice yea?

My mom's meal was the mixture of chicken and lamb, and it looks something like satay... haha...

So here's how it looks like:

So this would be the appetizer for my combo meal, garlic bread and mushroom soup with cheese...

Below is the lamb rack and it tastes good as well....

For those who doesn't like Steak, spaghetti would be another choice as well....

and this would be the fruit punch i ordered:

In the end, overall it cost us roughly about RM185 and it's worth by considering the food served and the environment over there....

Last but not least.... Happy Birthday mom...

Industrial Training Period

It is the 3rd day for my Internship program in Tractors Malaysia, and finally today I gotta chance to get on hands job training on Overhauling engines. Well, this seems like suppose to be done by a trained mechanics, but I bet mostly those termed "Engineers" would never experienced it before...

So, my first job was to clean up this Cylinder Head by using sand paper together with grease. It was a good experience though I ended up with greasy, oily and smelly hand... haha... So the work is easy, jz clean up those carbon stick on it, those rusting, then clean it up all over with water and dry it with a high pressure air. So, just put it back to the place and I'll update next time when they combine the whole engine into 1 piece...

Up next, Pistons....

So, first of all gotta dissemble those piston head from its connecting rod, by removing the piston pins. This is how the piston pins look like:

Up next, when the piston head is seperated, take out the piston rings from it by using a special tools, forgot what it called :-).... Erm... each piston will have 3 rings if not mistaken, so gotta measure it's dimensions to determine the effect of fatigue stress and friction....

So, the piston head we gotta clean it up as well, using the sand paper with grease, to make the surface smooth and clean.... However, this is the training engine and I realized that there were some cracks on the pistons and few burnt spot... Although this is not allowed in real application, but since this is only a dummy set, so as long as it can start and let the trainee see how it operates then should be ok... haha...

Below are the pistons in place after cleaning... Wait another day to assemble it again coz their training module is different... lolx...

End of the day jz managed to take few pictures on the engines, and this would be the diesel marine engine.... Although the training module is for the Tractors Academy student, I'm glad to join them as part of it to learn more on hands training job which would be useful in my future...

So, I'll just end here with the last picture posted above, which I was holding a piston head and Camshaft... Just for fun!! haha...

RON95 or RON 97???

Well, 31 August 2009 was the 52 Merdeka for Malaysia, and while all nations were busy celebrating for Merdeka, government announced the price hike for RON 97 fuel price to RM2.05 and newly introduced RON 95 to RM1.80, as compared before Merdeka the price was RM1.80 and RM1.75 respectively. I think mostly Malaysian will go for the cheaper one after the price hike but does this RON 95 fuel is really suitable for our engine combustion??

RON stands for Research Octane Number, and it is the most common type of Octane Rating. Octane Rating is a measure of the resistance of gasoline and other fuels to detonation (engine knocking) in spark-ignition internal combustion engines. Meaning that high performance engines typically have higher compression ratios and are therefore more prone to detonation, thus they require higher octane fuel. Knocking occurs when the fuel-air mixture in the cylinder explodes instead of burning in a controlled way. This shockwave moves within the combustion chamber, and creates a metallic "pinging".

For Perodua users, RON 95 is safe to use as the manufacturer already stated that on their website. Kindy click on the link below to read through:

Read more : http://www.perodua.com.my/index.php?section=news&year=2009&page=details&id=94

However, there are some issues on older Proton car as they acknowledge some of the old carburetor cars may experience knocking depending on the condition of the engine and needs to go into the Proton service center to adjust the engine’s ignition timing. However, Proton’s Campro engines and most of the 16 valve Mitsubishi engines installed in Protons (4G92 in Wira 1.6 and 4G93 in Satria GTi) run on a minimum of RON95.

Read more: http://paultan.org/2008/04/07/government-proposes-subsidised-ron95-and-unsubsidised-ron99/#ixzz0PqnEOQXF

Read more: http://paultan.org/2009/05/14/can-proton-cars-run-ron95-grade-fuel/#ixzz0PqmvUzVn

Honda Malaysia also announced that all models distributed by the company except Civic Type R, of which they recommend RON97 because of its high performance engine, are compatible with petrol RON95. However, for models distributed before 2001 or distributed by non-authorised Honda dealers, owners are advised to cross check the vehicle's minimum RON requirement by reffering to the owner's manual.

Read more: http://www.zerotohundred.com/2009/auto-news/all-models-from-honda-malaysia-are-ron-95-compatible-except-for-the-type-r/

It is advisible to check with your workshop or manual or the Manufacturer to find out what octane your engine really need before switching to RON 95 as information above are the source from internet!!!

Alright, now come back to the point why government wants to introduce the RON95 pertol. Previously the government thinks that this could effectively takes some burden off the low to middle-class income earners. But that's the case when RON95 was priced at RM1.75. However, effectively from 1st Sept the price for RON95 is RM1.80, which is same as the price for RON 97 before price hike!!! So what's the point to introduce this newly RON95??? Well, let the users to justify it and one thing for sure is, the price for petrol will be higher and higher in future!!!

Bing vs Google???

Bing(www.bing.com), the latest search engine announced by Microsoft (previously known as Live search, Windows Live Search, or MSN search) in order to compete with the KING of search engine Google!!! What is more, Bing will soon become the search provider for Yahoo in the next 10 years, meaning that Bing already enter the 2nd rank market share in search engine, but still long way to go to compete with Google!

Personally, Google has already become part of our habit while surfing on the net... People will say "jz google it and you'll get what u want", "google it for more information", bla bla bla, and it's really hard for Bing to turn this over in short period. At least it sounds weird when I said "try Bing it instead of Google it" to my friends!!! haha..... What a shock, some even dunno what Bing is !!!

Recently I was quite busy with my assignments, and I did make some comparison between Google and Bing. As usual, google will give u the information needed with jz a click without a mess!!! But recently some article stated that Bing is more than a search engine, and they called it decision engine!!! So, lets have a try on both search engines to see how it differ..... I try to search for the same information on google and bing, and of course, Google will as usual be proud to show that few milions results in less than 1 second, but for Bing, the way they present the information is more tidy and informative. Personally I like the tool-tip feature which will show u the synopsis of the search results once u point the cursur on the right side. There is no need to go to another website it is relevent o not as in Google!!! On the left side, there is some collection on related links, which would help in making decisions. This is why they call it the decisions engine instead of search engine!!! This is how it looks like:

One thing for sure is for few years to come Google will still dominate the market share, but Bing will soon gaining more and more market shares in future in which will soon becoming a threat to Google!!! With the search battle going on, internet users will get benefits from it as search engine will be facing a revolutionary era soon from my point of view!!!

Portable Wheelchair Assignment

It's 7 in the morning and guess what, I just completed my wheelchair assignment 3D Solidwork Rendering and Report!!! Still not feeling to sleep so decided to post a blog first....

Credit will be given to Chen Yao Qing for sure as without his help I would not have completed this in time. Thx for the guidance on Photo View rendering software.... Here's few picture after my editting for the Solid work drawing:

this is how does the wheel chair looks like

With detachable cushion so can be used in toilet as well

This is the 1st rendering done by me

Foldable frame

meal table and adjustable height arm rest

footrest

Adjustable height wheel chair

Adjustable back rest as well

Of course this is just simple to be done and still can be improved. Yao Qing plz don't laugh at me when u see this as this is produced by a newbie in 3D rendering... haha...

Overall it's quite nice to do this rendering as it was not as hard as I think before. But, one thing for sure is your PC must be powerful enough in order to run this smoothly!!! Even my newly bought i7 processor also have to wait for few seconds to respond and when Photo View rendering my image, 100% full usage of 4 cores 8 threads!!!!! What the heck coz I never thought of my proc can be fullly utilize since the first day i bought it... Luckily I'm engineering student but not designer students... Otherwise I would hv to change my pc frequently... lolx....

Shopping Spree!!

Mega Sales is back!!! Yeap, for sure I'm not going to miss this chance to grab some stuff for myself althought I'm quite broke recently... haha....

My shopping spree began when I was on the way back to Melati Utama, I decided to shop around in Mid Valley to look for some cheap stuff perhaps!!! So went to Soda, Nike, Top Shop, Esprit, Giordano, Addidas, Banana Peel, Quiksilver, and bla bla bla... Grabbed some shirts and short pants in Mid Valley, then I deciced to head on The Gardens seeking for cheap sneakers....

Surprisingly, Nike there offer a great deal for MainDraw series, and I decided to buy it since my shoe is dying due to fatigue stress!!! Of course, I did prefer some new arrival by Nike and Adidas but due to budget limitation, at last I go for Nike Main Draw!!

Overall it looks great, jz the white colour will not last for even a day after I'm wearing it.

This leather sneakers cost me RM149, which I think is quite a good deal comparing those expensive new arrival stuff. On the way back, I found a shop named Banana Peel, which is a new brand in Malaysia. They sell slippers, from low range, mid range, to high range all could be found in that shop. However not all designs come with the size u want, so after choosing for some time, decided to take this:

This cost me RM29 and it's quite comfortable and the design look good too... But my heart is still on another pair which come with anti slip function which I think is quite special for slippers. However, they only have size of 11 and above for tat!! WTF... For more details on this brand, log on to www.bananapeel.net.

So that the end and I've spent 1 and half hour for that!! Shit, going to be a shopaholic soon as compare to girls!!! Gotta really control my spending from now on coz I'm going for Internship this coming holidays and only get pay RM500/month!!! Haiz... Perhaps have to watch "Confession of a Shopaholic" more often from now on!!! lolx...