Tower or tree

No. 8 entry for the 30 Days of Photos Challenge.

This telecommunication tower is supposed to blend in into the surroundings but it stands out like a sore thumb. I guess it is better than the normal ones. Not sure who the tower belongs to or whether different cellular phone companies are sharing the same tower.

I have been a loyal Celcom prepaid user for quite sometime now. Initially was a Digi user but got and sick and tired of their low coverage whenever I traveled outside the Klang valley and changed to Celcom. I heard that Digi services are much better now. I have never tried Maxis but it seems like out of every 3 people I know in Kedah, 2 of them have a Maxis line.

Was seriously considering of moving to Digi and even had two numbers (one Celcom and one Digi) at one time. However, I didn't renew the Digi number for a few months. When I tried to, I had a shock when I discovered that the sim card was no longer working. Even worse when I found out that they had given the number to someone else - and it was a nice number. I hate Digi now.

Here are some reasons why I think Celcom prepaid is the best:

- Largest network coverage in the country, covering 95% of the populated areas.
- Their 8 Pax service whereby I can register up to a maximum of eight (8) numbers either from Celcom 013, 019 or Telekom Malaysia fixed lines (calls: 15 sen/minute and 1 sen/sms).
- I also got to upgrade my old sim card to the new 3G card during their promotion period.
- Cheap international roaming services. I put in RM100 and it lasted for the whole period (around 8 days) I was in Australia even though I was calling back to Malaysia every day. I even had around Rm5 credit left when I came back.
- Not sure whether they will take away my number if I don’t renew for 3 months after the network access has expired.

I am sure they are going to come up with more offers as the fight for the Prepaid market gets more aggressive.

Tags: 30dayphoto Celcom Digi tower

Ikea and Mamak

Ikea has nothing to do with Mamak stalls (unless some mamak puts Ikea funiture in his stall). Just wanted to make the title interesting. Actually these are my #5 and #6 photos for the 30 Days of Photos Challenge, respectively.



Taken in the Ikea store in Damansara. After I took this picture, one of their staff (a girl) came up to me and told me that photography is not allowed. I didn't see any warning anywhere. Well! No more free advertising for you guys then.



My favourite mamak stall. We will normally have our breakfast of 'roti canai' or 'nasi lemak' with a cup of hot 'teh tarik' almost every morning. For those who didn't know, 'mamak' refers to the ethnic Indian Muslim comunity in Malaysia.

Tags: 30dayphoto Ikea Mamak Photography

Apartment to Let

Visited our Flora Damansara apartment. All defects have been fixed/ repaired and I am quite happy with MK Land now. They did a good job.

After a lot of consideration, both my wife and I agreed that it is best for us to rent out our apartment instead of moving in as I still am traveling back and forth between Kedah and Kuala Lumpur. It would be more convenient for her to continue staying with her parents.

Well here are the specifications of the apartment:

- 1080 square feet
- 3 bedrooms + 1 Utility room + 2 bathrooms+ kitchen and living.
- Near to Ikea/ Tesco/ the Curve and 1 Utama
- Big swimming pool

We are asking for a rent of RM1000/ month.

What is so special about our apartment?

- Partly furnished (most of the stuff is from Ikea) + a TV and washing machine.

- FREE PRIVATE CAR PARK

- Big balcony with an excellent view of lake and surrounding hills.

Check out my previous posts.
- Keys to our apartment
- View from our apartment

If you are interested to view the apartment (only on Saturdays and Sundays mornings), please send me an e-mail (ahoklah@gmail.com) with your contact number.



BTW, this is #4 Photo entry for the 30 Days of Photos Challenge.

Tags: Apartment 30dayphoto Photography

The Candle

I am now in Kuala Lumpur and have a lot of nice pictures in my camera but I suddenly realised that I had left the USB cable in Kedah- which means I won't be able to transfer the pictures to my computer here. !@#$%^&*

Used the old trusty Canon Powershot to take this picture.



Noticed the candle stand with the blue candle outside our bedroom door. Thought it might be interesting. The candle is my #3 Photo entry for the 30 Days of Photos Challenge.

Tags: 30dayphoto Photography

Milk Booth

#2 Photo for the 30 Days of Photos Challenge.



A lot of people have found the shape of this milk booth interesting as well as eye catching. It was not open when I took the picture. I guess I could have taken it from a more creative/ interesting angle.

Taken with my Panasonic DMC-FX9 in auto mode. Rotated 90 degrees clockwise.

Tags: 30dayphoto Photography

30 day photo

Yesterday I received an e-mail from John Koontz who has a nice photo blog, inviting me to join a photography challenge - 30 Days of Photos Challenge. The idea sounds quite simple: to post a picture every day for 30 days.

Since, I got my new digital camera, I have been taking pictures like crazy and I thought it should be easy. However, there are some conditions.

"Now, the hard part isn’t taking a photo each day. It’s trying to get a photo worth showing every day. I, for one, am interested in how long each person can keep up with worthy photos. This exercise is really going to stretch our imaginations and creative ability"

Going through some of the pictures that I have taken these past few days, I am not sure whether they fall into the “creative” or “worthy” category but here goes - my first post.


Ripe fruits on a palm tree near my office building.

Taken with my Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ9 in natural sunlight without flash/ auto mode. Picture cropped and resized using Irfanview.

Anybody else interested in joining in.

Tags: 30dayphoto Photography

Hi-tech way into a man's heart

They say that the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach. However my wife knows better. Look at what she got me for my birthday. My latest toy - the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX9.

I really love my wife.



A have been looking for an affordable but good quality digital camera for quite sometime now. Our conditions were that: 1) it must be below RM1500, 2)take good quality pictures, 3) at least 5 Mega Pixels and 4) preferably weather proof. Yeah, we are really demanding customers.

I have been reading a lot of reviews and I must tell you that making a choice is realy tough - there are so many out there.

We went around camera shops asking their opinion. After seeing an billboard in PJ we nearly settled for the Olympus Stylus 600 Digital (mju 600 Digital). At RM999, it is the cheapest 6 Mega Pixel digital camera in the market right now. Besides this, what attracted us to this camera was the fact that it has a weatherproof body. However on doing further research, I read that it's LCD screen is broken easily and that the picture quality is not that good. Furthermore, it only takes movies without audio. I mean what fun is a movie without sound apart from Charlie Chaplin's.

Last weekend we were in Mega Mall, KL looking around some of the camera shops. In one of them, a guy recommended the Panasonic Lumix FX 9 and we were quite attracted to it. He was offering it at RM1399 with a 256 MB Secure Digital memory card thrown in for free (the camera comes with a tiny 16 MB card ). We decided to look around.

At one of the shops on the ground floor, we noticed a promotion for Pentax digital cameras. I was attracted to one which can take pictures underwater. However, on trying it out, the results were not that satisfactory.

The guy was quite nice (we hate attendents with an attitude problem) and decided we could see what they had on offer. They also had the Panasonic Lumix FX 9. What we really liked about this camera was that it comes with an anti-shake technology (Penasonic calls it "the Mega O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer) technology". The guy attending to us was offering the camera at RM1499/ with a 512 MB SD card, a camera carrying case and a LCD lens protector thrown in for free.

I have to admire my wife's bargaining skills - she asked for the camera with the 512 SD card minus the LCD protective cover, for RM1400. After a bit of bargaining he finally agreed. However as we were paying by credit card, we had to pay RM20 more. We also bought the LCD screen protector for RM30/. The total cost: RM1450/

They had two colour choices - black and grey (looks like lavender to me). My wife choose the grey one. She told me later it was because the black one was their display model. I must say that the cover really looks nice too.



Here are some of the features of my new toy in brief:

- 6.0 Mega Effective Pixels CCD
- 2.5 inch High-Resolution (207,000 pixels) LCD Display
- 3x Optical Zoom and 4x Digital Zoom
- Mega O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer) technology.
- Leica DC Vario-Elmarit Lens
- VGA movie with audio (30 fps)
- Consecutive Shooting at 2 fps
- Slim Alloy body
- Easy to use function mode dial, 15 scene modes
- Dimensions: 94.1 (W) x 50.5 (H) x 24.2 (D) mm
- Weight: 127g (not including Memory Card and Battery)
- Made in Japan

Read reviews of the camera here:

- Digital Photography Review

- CNET Asia

- Digital Camera Resource Page

Tags: Digital Camera Gadgets Lumix Panasonic