Power Shaver and a Breath of Fresh Air...
I didn't really need to buy a new electric shaver, as my existing one is working fine, although is it ten years old. However, the battery doesn't seem to hold a full charge of 60 minutes anymore (nowadays around 40+ minutes), plus Harvey Norman was having their Merdeka Sale... So, a quick morning trip to Midvalley Megamall did the trick. Below is a picture of my new Philips S9982/50 electric shaver that cost me RM1,199 instead of the usual RM1,399.
Of course, being that it was on sale, I was attracted to also buy this Philips S800 Air Purifier. I had been suffering a bit of cough lately, and I concluded it was not just the flu that is flying around that is causing my throat to be a little irritated, but probably a large factor due to the dust and muck in my bedroom. I'm hoping that this small appliance costing RM579 instead of its usual RM768 can suck up all the pollutants and germs in the air.
You can see more photos of the two new gadgets here.
Breathing Life to my Mobile Phone
My old phone - the Apple iPhone 6S Plus - was dying... it's battery was just not able to hold it's charge for long... I think I had to recharge it every hour as it's level would quickly drop below 5% by then.... well, it was over 5 years 7 months old...
I was waiting for Celcom, my telecommunications service provider, to announce their annual special offer to my organisation in terms of a discount package for the latest iPhone models.... and on 12 November 2021, that offer came though and I quickly ordered online for the new iPhone 13 Pro 256GB in Graphite colour for RM4,198. This is actually a tiny bit cheaper than my older iPhone that cost me RM4,199! (Although I didn't buy that through Celcom's usual offer, silly me).
The new iPhone was finally delivered to my home on 29 November 2021, and it took me a day to set it up... firstly, I had to unpair my Apple Watch 6 from the older iPhone, then I performed a backup of the old phone through iTunes, then after switching on the new iPhone, and going through some preliminary installation procedures that included an upgrade to the latest version of iOS, and this took a long time, more than an hour if I recalled. After that was done, I simply restored the backed up data to the new iPhone, and then paired it back to my Apple Watch, and it was completely configured and ready to be used.
I haven't really played around much with my new gadget but below is the first photo taken with it when I had lunch at Dave's Deli and ate the delicious quarter chicken meal.
So far, I'm very happy with my purchase and am delighted in its performance and quality. Hoping the battery would last longer than before....
Scanning Old Transparencies
I have tons (literally thousands) of old slides that I had taken using my film SLR, from when I was just a teen.
My flatbed scanner, an Epson V33 if not mistaken, finally gave up sometime early last year.
So, I decided to buy a proper film scanner - the Plustek 8200i SE. It's pretty small, less than a typical shoebox, but it cost approx. RM2,074 including shipping from Amazon. This model is highly regarded and from reviews by owners throughout the Internet, it comes highly recommended. After using for two days, I totally agree. It is really easy to use, and comes with a film and slide holder that you insert in at its sides, and clicks in place for every slide that you want to scan. Also, provided together is the Silverfast 9 scanning software that is a marvel. It takes advantage of the 8200i infra red channel that helps detect dust, scratches and muck on the surface of the transparency, and then automatically removes it during the scan!
Below is my very first scan - of my Mum and me when i was just a baby.
So now, I can finally devote some spare time to scan virtually all of my old slide collection....
New Year - New PC
- My previous Alienware PC suddenly died on me... well, it was showing problematic signs for a few months, like sometimes only recognizing one of the monitors upon bootup, or occasionally not passing POST.... But one day, it suddenly won’t startup... i tried to reseat the memory chips and graphics cards, and even replaced the CMOS battery, but that didn’t get it to work...
- I also tried to start the PC with no memory chips or graphics cards installed, to no avail; the PC didn’t make any beeping sounds, although the case lights would turn on and all the fans spinning nicely after pressing on the power button.... until one night, while i left the PC on to see if i could revive it, it made a loud pop noise, tripped the whole house, and then exuded a burnt smell.
- Now, it won’t even light up, and i suspect the culprit is either a short-circuited motherboard, faulty power supply, or worse, a fried processor.... Sadly, it’s warranty is over, so, since repairing it could be a costly affair, and i needed a better PC anyway to continue with my photography processing and 3D animation works, it seemed a good idea to buy a new PC...
- So i checked Dell’s website but their usual Alienware models were not sold anymore, and were replaced with the new G5 gaming desktops... thankfully, the G5’s were pretty high on specs, plus were on Chinese New Year sale, so i quickly ordered one...
- Below is Dell Alienware Area 51 R2 (left) and new Dell G5 Gaming Desktop (right).
- Just to compare the new PC with all the Dell PCs I have owned before, the newest is the least expensive of all, yet the most powerful and advanced.... do compare it with the 1999 PC - what an amazing difference!
|
Year |
Spec |
OS |
Price |
|
1999 |
Dell XPS R450 Intel Pentium II 450MHz 128MB |
Windows 3.1 |
RM9,975 (incl. 1x 19” monitor) |
|
2008 |
Dell XPS 730 H2C Intel 4-core Q9450 2.66GHz 4GB |
Windows Vista |
RM10,568 (incl. 2x 22” monitors) |
|
2015 |
Dell Alienware Area 51 R2 Intel 6-core i7-5930K @3.5GHz 16GB 2x nVidia GTX980 SLi |
Windows 7 (upgraded to Win10 over the years) |
RM12,572 (PC) + RM4,198 (2x 27” monitors) |
|
2021 |
Dell G5 Intel 10-core i9-10900KF @3.7-5.3GHz 32GB nVidia RTX3070 |
Windows 10 |
RM9,128 (incl. 1x 27” monitor) |
- Below is a comparison of my previous and new PC:-
|
|
Dell Alienware Area 51 R2 |
Dell G5 |
|
Socket |
LGA2011-3 |
LGA1200 |
|
Chipset |
X99 |
H370 |
|
CPU |
i7-5930K |
i9-10900KF |
|
Cache |
15MB |
20MB |
|
RAM |
16GB DDR4-2133 |
32GB DDR4-2933 |
|
GPU |
nVidia 4GB GTX980 |
nVidia 8GB RTX3070 |
|
HD |
128GB SSD + 1TB SATA |
512GB SSD + 1TB SATA |
|
Pwr |
1500W |
500W |
|
Cooling |
Liquid |
Fan |
|
Price |
RM 12,572 |
RM 8,109 |
- So, all in all, i’m very satisfied with the Dell G5 Gaming Desktop - it’s very fast, compact, and value for money....
VW Golf GTi Engine Rebuild Overhaul
After the APR K04 performance upgrade, I had to do an engine overhaul and rebuild, which was completed in end of February 2020. Karl, Isaac and team rebore the engine block and replaced a slew of components, including:-
- Wossner pistons (for all four pistons)
- Conrod and main bearings
- Timing belt
- Water pump
- Oil pump
- Pressure control valve (PCV)
- High performance spark plugs (NGK BKR9)
The whole new bundle with labour costs me around RM13,900.00!
After a run-in period of 5,000km I had the car dyno tested again (but please take note that from mid-March there was a Covid-19 Movement Control Order (MCO), so since I hardly got a chance to drive my car, as we had to work from home, it took me a while to cover the required distance). Below are the results dated 18 July 2020 (this is the third dyno test) :-
As you can see from the above graph:-
- the red coloured line is the original test before K04 upgrade,
- the blue line was after the K04 upgrade,
- the orange line was after the engine rebuild.
After the engine rebuild, there is a noticeable difference in surge by as much as of 50 Nm in torque at around 3,200 rpm, with a strong pull from as early as 2,500 rpm until 5,200 rpm. In fact, there is also an increase in power by as much as 30 PS at around 3,200 rpm, and certainly a good boost of power from 2,700 until 5,200 rpm. Compared to the original (although I already had done Stage 2 upgrades), I improved about 70 PS and 98 Nm! So now, my car has a max of 281 PS and 412 Nm (which is more than the Renault Megane RS at 280 PS and 390 Nm)! What can I say, the car just feels really, really good ｡^‿^｡