Some quick before going to bed:
Finally, a Digital SLR camera from Sony, which has never release any professional digital cameras before.
It will be interesting to see how good the quality of this camera is. Sony is very aggressive in targeting a 10% before next spring! Let's see how well this baby does.
As my old phone has a broken screen, I needed to find a replacement phone. There is probably no place better than Hong Kong to find a decent mobile phone (besides maybe Japan). As anyone can imagine, choices are vast. There are so many different kinds of phones. What to choose? And what service to get? I realized I simply cannot just walk into any shops and pick a phone. I need to do some research and equip myself before buying. Afterall the money is mine and I need to spend it wisely. So I began researching on the web the last couple days. My criterias are 1) flip phone, 2) big screen, 3) Good battery life, 4) camera good enough to take pictures, 5) ring volume loud enough 6) I don't care about mp3 listening, 7) bluetooth.
After weighing the pros and cons, I finally decided on a mobile phone by Panasonic (VS7). I like it because it is Japan-style flip phone; big big screen (2.5) - probably one of the largest screens ever in a mobile phone; bluetooth; decent ring volume; 2.0 megapixels camera. I can also change the faceplates. One drawback about the phone is that it doesn't has any miniSD slots, so if I want to listen to mp3s I will need to squeeze everything into the tiny internal 32MB memory (which only has 2xMB left). As I don't really care about listening mp3s, the drawback is of minor importance to me.
So far the phone looks fabulous and usage looks easy and convenient. The phone isn't the latest and greatest in the market, but all I need is a working phone with good features. Now it just makes me want to talk more on phone :-)
After more than 8 hours of configurations, I have finally configured the wireless router range expander so that it works. And now it works perfectly :) Rooms with no wireless connection now has a very strong signal since it amplifies the original signal to the places where signal is non-existent. To get it working, I have to go online for resources. After reading the 229 posts from Amazon.com user comments. Then I spent some nights until 2am to test and to configure repeatedly.
Nothing is too hard with a little help from others. Key is to find the right resources online to accomplish what I want to accomplish :)
My car equips with navigation system. Since I got my car, I've been using the navigation whenever I have a little doubt on the route I am taking to various places. My sense of direction is quite good, but with the navi it is just so much more efficient in finding the place and save me a lot of time getting lost and not being sure of whether I'm at the right location.
A lot of people think that getting a navi in a car is a waste of money. Why spent over a thousand bucks when you can look at google map before your trip? To me, navigation system certainly is well worth the price. Not only does it get you to the right place and right spot almost 100% of time, it gives you alternate routes so I got to take different routes to the same place. There is also voice guidance to tell me when to turn. I cannot imagine my next car without a navigation. I highly recommend any girls who plan to buy a car to get a built-in navi or 3rd party navi (usually guys' sense of direction is...a little better...ha). It is probably your best friend on the road. Some people think it's just a glorified version of plain old paper map but this is not the case. The GPS pinpoint your exact location and it even re-routes you immediately when you are off the projected route.
In conclusion, I think this is one of the best 'inventions' of 21st century. In quotes because it is being invented in 20th century. But not until recent years do the systems shine and be really useful!
I recently stumbled across an interesting piece of 'toy' while browsing some Japanese blog site. The product is called Homestar and what it does is project stars to a vertical or horizontal space at your home. It projects 10,000 stars in the room, almost equaling to the business use planetarium. Imagine switching off all the lights in your room, turning this thing on, and all the stars in the sky (or most stars visible) appear right in your living room. It is US$250 which is NOT cheap. But it is a 'romantic' piece of toy that is quite innovative and interesting.
