Window 7 Home Premium Review

I have been using Vista Home Premium about 3 years and found out it's actually not as bad as being said by many users. Most of the complaint is slow boot time, resource hog, annoying UAC, incompatible driver, 'Sleep' issue just to name a few. Here is my 2 cents view. Vista is actually not that bad. I like Vista more than XP a lot in term of features and appearance. Yes, I do admit that Vista really a resource hogger but installing 2GB DDR2 will help. Hey, what you expect when you want all those muchy niche aero view and dreamscene on your desktop but at the same time complaining Vista is a resource hogger? Best appearance VS best performance, you decide. I dun have any issue on slow boot time as I close almost every startup programmed except the essential one. Some users having problem with 'sleep' mode but it doesn't affect me. Maybe I am the lucky one. So what's the main different by switching from Vista to Win 7? One word, simplified. Microsoft irons out the entire problem in Vista and gives you a turbo charged version of Vista which renames it to Window 7. No more resource hog, fast boot time and simplicity. It's like a lite version of Vista. The best changes for me will be wireless connectivity. It's so easy and effortless to connect to a wireless network in Window 7. This is what I called simplified. Nice! Next on my list will be Jump List. I wouldn’t wan to go further explaining its feature but you can Google for it. Then there is this Aero Peek features. Once you're using it, the main change is a new fade out feature, which highlights the window you're hovering over by fading out all other active windows on the desktop. So not only do you get a window preview in the "peek" window, but you also get a full on preview of the window as it looks on your monitor. On top of it, Superbar is great too. There is improved thumbnail preview, show desktop and you can easily identified open and running process in the Superbar. Window do have sidebar gadget but this time, you can place the sidebar application anywhere you want it to be in the desktop. The ram usage is low too while boot time is a little bit faster than my ex Vista. There is still so much to learn in Window 7. I am still not familiar with the libraries features but it seems that one can connect an ext hdd and somehow when you took out the ext hdd, there will be a virtual folder which is accessible from there? Not sure not sure. Then there is also Group Home which when you put a network access on Home, the rest of PC with Win 7 with Home network will simply connected and share all the printers and connected device with each others. Easy, simple and very convenience. No setting needed. It benefits home or office with many pc. Again, it’s effortless. There are still many unknown and more time needed to explore Window 7. I would say Window 7 really trim down unnecessary steps in Vista and make this OS a more user friendly and simple but without sacrificing the features. Neat! When I upgraded Vista to Window 7 the other day night, it’s a nightmare as it got stuck at ‘Gathering Files, Setting and Programs (18%)’. I tried canceling and installing again and it failed me 3 times. It took me 10pm to 6am failing to install. I googled for answer and apply many solution but still failed miserably too. At last, I did a clean installation rather than an upgrade. It took about one day for me to completely installed, updated, reinstalled other programs, driver, transferring data, pictures, setting etc. A piece of advice to anyone who wanted to upgrade, please do a clean installation. Upgrade you will not be losing any programs in Vista, but it’s a real mess as Window 7 need to take care all registry setting, files and directories, permission, ownership etc. Not to mention currently installed software and libraries that expand from time to time that may cause your system files cluttered. That is why it has higher chances to FAIL.

Why do I get free Window 7 Home Premium?

Customers who purchase a qualifying Windows Vista®-based PC from June 26, 2009 to January 31, 20101 can get an upgrade to Windows® 7 when Windows® 7 becomes available. This is being advertised in most of the major computer outlet for Window 7 free upgrade kit when you purchase any pc that come preinstalled with Window. Those who purchase their pc from 26th June will get free upgrade for selected model with preinstalled Vista Home Premium and above. I was so disappointed as I bought my new notebook on 21st June, 5 days too early otherwise I would be eligible for a free upgrade from Vista to Window 7. The price for Window 7 Home Premium currently priced at RM370-RM390. Expensive! I remember when Vista launched in year 2007 and I bought it around that price too. It's hard to get a pirated copy back then as it’s still new and ‘uncrackable’. I couldn't stand the temptation and bought it. Here is my 2007 blog . (Dillema!! To buy or not to buy!). Fast forward to present, I wouldn’t have do so as it's too expensive for just an OS. Furthermore, there is so much pirated cd easily available on the shelf and not to mention download. But I always believe that using a genuine copy of OS is a must as we will get updates without worrying on anything. Yes, pirated can be updated but there will be a day when Microsoft detected it was non genuine and reduce the function of the OS. I agreed that by then, hacker team will do the job again and this cycle never ends. I was in LYN forum and looking at comment drop by fellow forumer about the free upgrade programmed. They are excitingly waiting for their copy and there I am only able to drool. So I thought to myself why not try my luck to order the free upgrade. It's just 5 days early. So I place the order at Acer website keying in my notebook serial number and date of purchase. I changed it to 28th June 2009 hopefully able to get it. I didn't place much hope on this as I knew they will surely ask for Proof of Purchase (POP). I couldn’t care less until I received an email saying that my credit card has been charged. Yes, there is shipping and handling fees of USD18.76 which equivalent to RM60+. I was excited to see this because only those who passed and eligible will be charged. Furthermore there is an order number given to me. From that days onward, I checked the status in the given website for almost everyday. I heard that the ETA will be approximately 2 months! Two COA on my notebook (VHP and 7HP)! On the 11th days from the email, I was given shipping detail and a tracking number stating that the delivery will take 6-8 days. I check with POS website and found that it will be deliver on 16th November which means in 3 days time. So on Monday I waited for the postman to come but he didn't turn up. When I checked the status again on the next day, it said the item have been delivered yesterday at 5.20pm. I was shocked and called up POS immediately. She told me that the item has been sent out and I should have received it yesterday. Finally she gave me a report number and will pass to investigation dept to further investigate. I received the Acer Upgrade kit around 12pm on that day itself. When my guard checked with the postman, he said that he was on leave yesterday, so no delivery for the whole Shah Alam. Apparently, the call center doesn’t know about that. Great job POS Malaysia! Stay tune as I will blog for installation, upgrading and review for Window 7 Home Premium soon.

3 Steps Meguiar Polish + Wax

I made an online booking with Posh Car Care Auto Detailer on last Sunday to polish my car. One and a half year has pass since my last polish. That time I was still new to car detailing. I remember I went to Autoglym Indian shop to get my car polish. That time I am quite unsatisfied with their end result. It cost RM180 for a lousy Indian shop to polish my car during that time. Hack, the worst is they even use bath tub cleaner to clean my interior dashboard. It's was damn glossy and not to mention super oily. More info of lousy Autoglym shop at here Wash and Claying Fast forward to this year, I went to Meguiar’s 3 Step Polishing which consists of washing, claying, polishing and wax. All this was done by using Meguiar product. I also did a cushion and interior cleaning too. Total cost me RM248. Polishing I am very satisfied with the end result. My car colour was dull but now it’s back shiny and he car appear to look brighter. The only thing that can’t be done is my engine bonnet. According to the guy, he said that the there is no more coating layer thus impossible to bring back the shine. He is right as the bonnet have been repainted by a lousy paint. Maybe I might respray back the front bonnet later. Wax It took more than 4 hours to polish my car. The name of the shop is Posh Car Care and located at USJ 19 nearby Digital Mall. Here is their website: Posh Car Care. The staffs are friendly too. They did their best to do the best for me. For this, I gave thumbs up for their effort.

Acer Aspire 1810T Timeline

I seriously love this Acer 1810T notebook. It looks simply amazing. I was scouting for Daph desktop replacement before we decided to get a netbook. But then Daph upgraded her budget as netbook isn’t that good and decided to get Acer 1410T instead. It's running on SU2700, 250GB Hdd, 1GB DDR2 and freedos. There are only two colours which is blue and red. Both colours look dull and boring. Anyway, since there is not much option, we decided to get it on this coming Saturday. It's lucky enough that then Acer 1810T was launch and just only started available yesterday. So I call up my friend who is working in Imbi and quickly place a booking for this Timeline. The price is about RM400 higher and we get a double speed processor of SU4100, 320GB Hdd, 2GB DDR2 and genuine Window 7 Home Premium! An additional of Rm400 for all that mention is a steal! Mind you that a genuine Win 7 HP OEM alone will have already cost RM365 the cheapest. Nuff said! Its very light and the screen are 11.6" with 1366x768 resolutions. The metal hood look very nice and the word Acer and Olympic logo were crafted into the notebook hood. Nicely done and I have to give Acer thumbs up for this. Another thing I really like bout this notebook is it came with Multi Gesture touchpad which I find really nice and useful. Of course a mouse is still the best but when there is none available on hand, this multi gesture touchpad work brilliantly. I played around with Window 7 HP and found it quite similar to Vista. The biggest different is it really boot and shut down faster than Vista HP. The interface looks more neat and simplified. There is some slight improvement overall which make thing simpler. People actually said that Window 7 is like a turbocharged version of Vista. Haha. Love it! Btw, I am still waiting for my free upgrade kit for Win 7 HP which I have placed an order to Acer. Anyone who bought their notebook on 26th June onwards on selected model and VHP above will get a free upgrade kit to Window 7.I read on a forum saying that eta is around 2 months. Just keep my finger cross. Overall Daph seems really satisfied with her notebook. I am sure she is still awake by now testing his new toy.

Hotel 81 Rosegarden & The Skewed Tobacco Pouch Street, Beijing 2009 - Day 6

Day 6 is purely for leisure and relaxes without any plan. We really need a day to wind out from our exhausted day 1-5. We woke up at 10am today and check out from Dong Si Fu Yuan. We had our breakfast nearby before taking train just up a station to Beixinqiao. It took us sometime before we could locate Hotel 81. It's off road from the Ghost Street. We were so excited when we entered into Hotel 81. It's one of a kind. A traditional Chinese courtyard style hotel! It's pretty expensive at CNY580 though. There is a plasma TV hanging on the wall, the toilet crafting are so beautiful, the atmosphere is peace and relax, top with the wonderful cold weather. It's just a perfect and wonderful place for us to fully relax ourselves. I was imagining myself if there is any chances to see a Kungfu man come flying in at night and fight at the courtyard. Lol I guess too much of watching those movie I. Anyway, check it out the pic! Of course we wouldn't want to waste one whole single day just to relax in the hotel. So at night we went to The Skewed Tobacco Pouch Street. It is one of the most famous hutongs in Beijing. There are many different kinds of bars, tea houses, coffee house and souvenir shops mushroomed on the street. The street is ablaze with lights, giving a homely atmosphere as we stroll around. The only thing which we can't stand is the cold and windy weather. Then we had our dinner nearby that street. I have being told that Beijing is also famous for 'Water Cook Fish'. We jokingly said it as 'Who Cook Fish' as the word 'sui' is rather similar for water and who. The fish is soaking in chili oil with lots of peppercorns and beansprout. It tastes good at first but it turnout very 'geli' after a few times of eating. It's not very spicy but somehow it will turn your tongue numb. We also ordered fried cabbage too. We then went strolling at Beijing famous eating street, Ghost Street aka Guijie. There are red lanterns, traditional courtyards and hundreds of restaurants along the street. We walk back to our Hotel 81 and took some night scene picture. Then, we started to pack our thing into luggage. We are going off to Tianjin and saying goodbye to memorable Beijing tomorrow morning.

Temple of Heaven & Liulichang Culture Street, Beijing 2009 - Day 5

The Temple of Heaven was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998 and was described as a masterpiece of architecture and landscape design which simply and graphically illustrates a cosmogony of great importance for the evolution of one of the world’s great civilizations. We arrived there around 10.30am and were amazed to see a lot of Beijing senior citizen doing several of activities in Temple of Heaven. There is people singing, dancing, gambling, writing, playing traditional game, opera and many more. It was all being done in a group and every activity will have their own little fans. Some are in large group while some are small. It's really unbelievable to see all this senior citizen joining and grouping together to do various activities. I am sure it's a real heaven for the retiree. This activities stretch from North gate and along Long Corridor. We spend more than 5 hours here visiting POI such as Double Ring Pavilion, Imperial Vault of Heaven, Divine Music Administration, Hall of Prayers for Good Harvest and others. One thing to be noted in Beijing are almost all the attraction we visited are super huge and need no less than 5 hours worth of visiting. You really need to have a 'good pair of leg' to walk around Beijing main attraction such as I mention in my previous blog in Beijing. Nuff said and let the picture rolling. Then we visited Liulichang Culture Street aka Liulichang Hutong. Hutong means narrow streets or alleys. Since the mid-20th century, the number of Beijing hutongs has dropped dramatically as they are demolished to make way for new roads and buildings. Liulichang treasure house of precious calligraphy, paintings and duplicates of Chinese ancient books. Being endowed with so many Chinese ancient treasures, Beijing Liulichang Culture Street really deserves a visit to experience the Hutong culture in Beijing. According to a Chinese saying, no visit to Beijing is complete if you miss seeing the Great Wall or dining on Beijing Roast Duck as a famous and delicious food with very long history. Of course we wouldn't give any changes of missing the best so we had our dinner at Quan Ju De He Ping Men Roast Duck Restaurant. Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant is one of the best restaurants serving Beijing Roast Duck. It has a history of nearly 150 years, and today there are many chain restaurants of it around the city. The dish is prized for the thin, crispy skin, with authentic versions of the dish serving mostly the skin and little meat, sliced in front of the diners by the cook. The meat is often eaten with pancakes, spring onions, and hoisin sauce or sweet noodle sauce. The taste is simply heaven like. We ordered half roast duck, chinese herbal mushroom soup (which ended up as one of the best soup I ever had for my entire life), duck meat fried rice and tofu with egg. We really enjoyed ourselves throughout the dinner. The bill is a lil expensive though at CNY375 but trust me, it worth every single cent for this heavenly 'peking' duck and the superlicious soup and you wouldn’t want to miss it! Enough of talking and let your saliva start drooling. Haha After the scrumptious dinner, we went back to our Dong Si Fu Yuan hotel at around 9.15pm and started to pack our luggage. Tonight will be the last night we are staying here. Tomorrow, we are going to rest and stay at one of the most beautiful and unique courtyard hotel… at least for me.