Did anyone visit the IT store in Ikano?

Some weeks back, the new IT store in Ikano had an official launch during the weekend. I remember seeing an ad in the newspaper about it, and they offered some pretty good deals like being able to buy some of the products for just RM1! We were quite interested in a few things at the time, like a 8G thumb drive and a micro sd card for mom's new phone. There was a special deal for the 8G thumb drive, going for just RM25 but it was only available at 7pm that particular day. We got there a bit early thinking we could stand a change to grab one. But we didn't.

We didn't spend too much time at the store after we found that most of the great deals weren't available anymore. We didn't buy anything that we wanted. In fact, mom managed to buy her SD card somewhere else and at quite a reasonable price too. Good thing we didn't buy on impulse thinking that an opening sale would probably be cheaper, right?

So don't fall victim to clever marketing!

It's a gadgety year for us

Just this year alone, we have been dealing with quite a lot of notebooks. First, mom wanted to replace her "old junk" of a desktop with a laptop so that she could bring it along whenever she travels. I was tasked with shopping for it on her behalf since she didn't know better what to get. I looked at a few, the Acer Aspire, Toshiba Satellite and the Lenovo range. We ended up buying a Lenovo and she has no regrets.

Then, soon after, Ray had his notebook replaced too with an Asus. Next was me...but no, I didn't get myself a new laptop because I'm quite attached to this little Acer babe of mine. It was working very slowly because I've maxed out the memory, so I sent it in for a reformat and upgrade. It cost me a lot less this way than to buy a new one with brand new specs.

You see, I'm quite faithful when it comes to having gadgets like these. I have no idea why. People change mobile phone models and laptops a few times in a few years, but I stick to mine until I really can't use them anymore. So you can expect to see me quite outdated although I'm a gadgety person.

Having said that, I'm also about to replace one other gadget which I hold quite dear to my heart - a camera. The current camera we have is only one year old, and yet I'm thinking of getting another one because I want to upgrade to better pictures. I can't help it, I just got so hooked to handling a DSLR although I know nothing about how to use it properly!

I'm still contemplating whether I really should indulge in one seeing how times are difficult right now. I can do without a DSLR and save the money for a rainy day ahead.

It's been quite a year of replacing gadgets...and that means quite a lot of money spent! I really should watch it already!

It's year end and I'm longing for a vacation!

The year 2008 is almost up. The last long vacation that I went on was in January and it seems a distant memory now although it's just been 10 months ago. I've been thinking about going somewhere close by, like Bangkok or even Singapore. But I've always been stopped by the expensive fuel surcharges by the airline companies. The second reason I would also hesitate is because of my little 1-year old. He's so much fun to be with now and he's also at the stage where he recognises people and would cry if a stranger carries him away. I know we can always leave him with his grandparents and he would be alright with that, but I keep wondering if he would "forget" us in the time that we are away on vacation. This is a mother's separation anxiety at its best, isn't it?

Anyway, I never fail to keep thinking where I would like to go to if I could just get pass the stage of not missing or worrying about the little boy too much. I know it seems crazy at this stage when the US dollar is very expensive, but the USA is the destination of my choice for now. I've never been there and it looks like a good place to shop too! :P

If I ever get myself to go that far to NY city, I think I would like to drop by Las Vegas too to visit the world famous casinos. I've never been into a casino, can you imagine that?! Not even the ones at Genting Highlands! Anyway, I did some check on hotel rates for fun, and found some rather affordable ones at las vegas nv and it made me even more tempted to want to plan a trip there soon. But then again, it wouldn't be anytime end of this year.

Perhaps Singapore might just do it for us in the month of December. We're always headed down south that time of the year, so crossing over to Singapore might not be too impossible, provided that I remember to go make a passport for the little one.

Anyone has any great vacations lined up for year end? Most people plan their holidays then and it's always nice to hear stories of holiday-makers :)

So sick of TMNet's service

My Streamyx service has been down for 4 days now. Suspecting that it was the line that was giving trouble, I called for technical assistance. The next day, 2 guys from TMNet came over and after doing their rounds of checks, they whipped out a modem and swapped it with mine. I was asked to see if the line was alright and it was. They then told me it's just a modem problem and after witnessing it for myself, I had to agree. I wanted to have it replaced right away but they said it was illegal for them to sell me a modern there and then because I had to purchase it directly from TMNet at any of their TM Point outlets. Fine, I'll just go out and get one then.

Instead of buying a TMNet modem, I went for a D-Link one. Happy with the purchase, I headed home right away to have it fixed and configured. To my utter disappointment, it couldn't work because the internet line was down. Again, I dialled for technical assistance and was told quite a bunch of crap like I didn't configure the modem properly. I asked the girl how could I have configured it wrongly when I couldn't even get started to configure to begin with?! I needed the internet connection to be up and running for me to configure it. Why didn't she understand that?

Anyway, I was so tired dealing with all that, I decided to give it a break. After many hours, I finally went back to get it done, hoping that the line now was alright. It wasn't and upon another call to TMNet, I found that my line was suspended due to billing issues. My God! Will I never get online??

Payment was made immediately but I was told to wait 24 hours for them to activate the line. Fine, what else can I do right? So I duly waited and wondered in the meantime what juicy mails would've sneaked into my mailbox in the last couple of days.

Finally, I was told that my line is taken off the suspended list and has been reactivated. But you know what? It's just Murphy's law...there was still an internet connection problem. Astonished, I decided to fix the old modem back and see what happens. With both old and new modems, I couldn't get online. I'm now wondering if there really was a problem with my old modem in the first place.

You must be wondering how I'm blogging right now if all's dead on my internet front. Well, I'm at some place with free wifi. Thank goodness for places like these. When I get home afterwards, I will again have to deal with a pain that is TMNet. I so wish there's some other broadband line that I can go with instead of being at the mercy of TMNet whose customer service sucks big time!