Valen’s Vanity Square

Testing my iPad on Wordpress. Since I got this new toy last November, all I used it to do is Facebooking, checking emails, browsing the Internet, watching YouTube, and playing games. (Recently got addicted to the alligator Swampy, who loves to take shower!)

I have never tried using my iPad to blog, and am now trying to do so.

Besides a bit awkward trying to type fast on the onscreen keypad, the rests seem to function like normal blogging using a laptop or desktop.

This is cool, as I now can bring my iPad with me whenever I go for a short vacation to nearby blog wherever I want as long as there is wireless internet connection available.

The trip to Bali can be considered as our anniversary honeymoon. Of course, besides that ‘fully paid’ holiday (by husband), I had personally requested for a 10th anniversary gift. It ain’t diamond, it ain’t jewelry, but an iPad! Wuahahaha!

I wanted an iPad mainly for Facebooking, internet surfing, watching YouTube videos and playing games. All for leisure purposes, not for work or any serious stuff of sort. Gosh, after working on the office laptop for 8 hours a day (excluding lunch time), who needs an iPad to do serious stuffs after work??

While playing games on iPad may not seem to look as good (or as fun) as playing with the latest wii black in colour, but since I’m more of a puzzle and board game person, I’m happy with iPad. And its screen is big enough for my poor eyesight these days. ^.^

Of course, a Christmas gift - a Wii console that comes with dancing or golfing games - is most welcome!

In the olden days, before one purchase an item, especially when it carries a big price tag, he or she has never used before, they would probably ask around for opinions and recommendations from friends, relatives or neighbors.

Today, we read about reviews from print media and, more popularly, the Internet. Say, if you heard of the Perfect Skin range of products but don’t know if they are effective, you will most likely to search for perfect skin reviews on the net.

The same goes for digital products, before you take out your credit card to purchase the latest camera or mobile phone, you will read the reviews from different users.

So, since so many people have raved about iPhone, plus the recommendation of a friend (a number one fan of Apple’s products!), plus that my sisters and colleagues are using it, I finally got one for myself - an white iPhone!

I got it through signing up with Maxis’ value plan under a 2-year contract. Some people might think that it is not worth it to be bound by the contract, in case you want to get a new phone later. But hey, I don’t want to change phone again in the next 2 years! I have many more things to spend my money on.

Anyway, my friends who are already using iPhone simply said to me - ‘Welcome to the happy family!’. Haha!

Sunday. Am not feeling well, and therefore no shopping trip for me today.

So what can one do at home on a cool Sunday afternoon? I thought of sorting out the photos we took during our trip to Cameron Highlands last month, and then may be print out some of them on normal paper to show my parents. But the quality of printing turned out to be less satisfactory using my old printer.

It was one of the earlier hp printers, color ink-jet with scan function. It was a good printer, just that we have not been using it for quite some time, two of the ink cartridges started to dry up, while another one ran out of ink.

I don’t know why, but the same things always happen, no matter what printer we use. I think it’s because we didn’t use printer often. It’s like a redundant gadget in the study room; we might as well sell it off. But then, what if we need to print something urgently, or documents that we rather not print using printers in our workplace?

Or, may be it’s better to get a new laser printer instead?

Since I bought the Lenovo all-in-one desktop, doing writing assignments is now so much easier on my eyes. Not forgetting to mention that PC games is so much more fun when played on a bigger screen, too!

One of the cool features of Lenovo c200 is its touch-screen monitor. But I hardly make use of that. I even forgot that it is actually a touch-screen PC! So used to using mouse to move the cursor and to switch between windows, much faster actually. Plus, I don’t like seeing finger prints on the screen (although this screen doesn’t seem to ‘collect’ finger prints), so I’m happy to stick to just the mouse.

There are now different brands of touch screen laptops available in the market, too. I think touch screen laptops are convenient if you are out in the street and need to surf the Internet or do some simple typing tasks, but you can only use your lap as your temporary working desk. Under that circumstance, the mouse may not be a convenient device to use.

This makes me wonder if I should get a touch screen laptop in another year or two…

I mentioned in my previous post that I went crazy and became a big spender during the weekend. Err, well, I went beyond that.

As mentioned a couple of posts earlier, I was looking for an all-in-one desktop to be placed in my bedroom. I didn’t have to look around anymore, as two days after my encounter with Coach, I bought a new computer.

Just like how people who make diet pill comparisons before they decide on which diet pill to take, I read some reviews online about all-in-one desktops, and found this model that I think is a valuable buy.

Introducing… Lenovo Ideacentre C200 18.5-Inch Desktop!

The reason for choosing this model is because of its space-saving design, absolutely a stylish made affordable home PC. It has a 18.5″ widescreen, comes with integrated stereo speakers, webcam, Wi-Fi, DVD reader/writer, five USB ports, 6-in-1 card reader, to name a few of its main features. My C200 runs on a 2 GB memory and has a storage space of 320 G. I don’t need a super powerful or speedy computer, so the specs are just right for me.

What I don’t like is the keyboard that comes with the desktop. The buttons are quite stiff, making typing not as smooth and fast as I want to. The desktop is preinstalled with Windows 7, good and bad. Good - I have the latest windows operating system in my computer. Bad - I have to figure out how to use this version of Windows, which is quite different from the previous versions in terms of appearance , settings as well as functionality. Again, this slows me down when I need to work fast. Anyway, I believe I can maneuver this machine in no time!

I have started to play PC games again. It’s not because I have a lot of free time. Quite the contrary, I’m very busy both at work and after work (freelancing stuffs). The more I’m stressed, the more I want to entertain myself with pc games.

Of course, I’m not a heavy duty player. I’m just a fan of hidden object games, so my nice little netbook can still cope with it. But if you are a serious PC game aficionado, then you need custom built gaming PC or gaming laptops, such as cyberpowerpc, because their system is specially designed to cater to long hours of playing with extra performance and good thermal control.

Equipped with such efficient system, such gaming pcs naturally carry more expensive price tags. But you can still get them at cheaper price if you know where to look for cyberpowerpc coupons. Of course, you should also look for a merchant who provide good post-purchase customer service, so that you can get all the help needed should anything is wrong with your newly bought gaming PC.

But no matter how much you like to play PC games, please do remember to take a break every 30 or 45 minutes or so. To give your eyes some rest, and to get yourself out of the chair for at least some minimal physical activity.  You know what are the consequences if you stick to the chair for too long.

Wow! It’s the first anniversary of…. my netbook! Haha! I didn’t count the days, but just noticed that I have just paid the final monthly installment for my Asus Eee PC netbook bought a year ago.

Absolutely love my netbook so far. It hasn’t give me much problem, except that I must not charge it while using it. Other than that, it is behaving very well. Although my internet browser is now slightly low when opening, but it is mainly because I’ve installed so many add-ons.

I think netbooks are really a wonderful light-weight laptop for gals, especially if you like hanging out in cafes, sipping coffee while surfing the net, facebooking or twittering.

Since it’s my netbook’s first ‘birthday’, I think I want to give it a new ‘attire’ - a laptop skin that is. Dear netbook, I will get you your birthday present this Friday, okay?

It’s the first working day of 2010, and husband has to travel out of KL for work. It’s alright, because I’m tagging along!

I’m now doing nothing in the hotel room at Vistana Hotel, Kuantan, while hubby is off to his meetings. Well, I’m not exactly doing nothing; I’m typing this blog post on my Asus Eee PC 1005HA netbook. I bought this model after considering several netbooks and notebooks, and I’m quite happy with it.

Firstly, it’s light, making it very portable. I can carry it in my tote without having shoulder ache at the end of the day. Even its cables are smaller and lighter than those for notebooks. While it’s not suitable for running heavy applications, such as Photoshops and Dreamweaver, I find using simpler photo-editing software like Photoscape or website builder like Microsoft FrontPage is not a problem at all. Just don’t run several applications at the same time.

The only thing that troubles me is that the netbook tends to freeze if I use it while connecting it to the power supply. It has happened a few times, but I haven’t tried to find out why. So I just have to make sure that when I need to re-charge the netbook battery, I have to shut down the netbook. May be it’s the netbook’s way to tell me not to work too long on the computer, and also allow it to take a break. Haha!

I think I’m now going to make myself a cup of coffee, and enjoy chilling out in this very nice hotel room.