I find Iron Man just brilliant, terrific and uniquely entertaining. It’s the best comic movie ever. A perfect adaptation from the comics and there’s more character development in this single movie than any other comic based movies. No flat cartoon characters like Fantastic Four here and if compared to Transformers, although Iron Man is also glossy and shiny, he’s more human inside.

Robert Downey Jr plays Tony Stark. He’s a multi billionaire womanizer who’s a bit boyish sometimes, a little too sarcastic, arrogant, but as a whole, he’s likeable … and believable. He actually holds the film together.

The movie starts with a scene in Afghanistan, where Tony Stark is doing a demo on the ‘Jericho’ missile, his latest destructive creation. On the way back, he was attacked by a group of terrorist called the Ten Rings and was severely wounded by his own weapon, and captured. He was forced to build them a version of Jericho’ but instead he built his escape plan. He returned as a changed man, and now wants an end to all weapons development. His new found conscience led him to the creation of Iron Man.

Enough spoilers, go and watch the movie. You will love it. It’s ok if you have missed Ghost Rider or Fantastic Four, but if you are a comic/marvel fan, this is not to be missed. Anyway, I saw Iron Man alone at Sunway Carnival Mall after my shift ended. The whole team has been working 24 hours for the past 6 days and we are now LiVE!

I am going for my second round with the kids next Saturday. So, look for me if you are going to One Utama.

By the way, if you are a fan, Marvel also introduced SHIELD in this movie and if you don’t know, Iron Man is the Director of SHIELD.

Tags: gwyneth paltrow, iron man, marvel comics, robert downey jr, tony stark, ten rings, jericho, shield, one utama, fantastic four, ghost rider, marvel studios

Ok, now I am on Twitter. I registered for quite some time already but never got the chance to try it out. I was only following others but did not post a single thing. So, last week while in the office late at night , tried it out and it looks fun. I even linked it to my GMail Chat.

Now, I can post to Twitter directly from GMail. You could also link Twitter to your mobile phone. That means, when you are out .. away from your laptop, you can still update your status or you can receive text message from the people you are following.Twitter doesn’t charge anything for this, but I am not sure how much Digi will charge me, anyone have any idea?

Anyway, I am just starting, I don’t know how it really works yet. Twitter allows you to socialize at another level and it seems to be getting more famous lately. Read about how a student ‘twitter’ his way out of Egyptian jail here.

You can follow me at http:/twitter.com/azwanhadzree. I even got it on my sidebar, but as a blogger, I still feel that is is better to blog more and less twittering. More info, check out blogjer’s post on Twitter for beginner.

Tags: socializing, twitter, tool, gmail, chat, egyptian, jail

It was crowded as usual and I only have one thing in mind. To get an all in one printer. Actually I planned to get myself 3 items. An external hard disk, a wireless modem router and a printer.

External Hard Disk

But, since ‘the amoi’ was also looking for one, I asked her to get one for me as well. She went on Saturday and got me a 160GB Western Digital SATA external hard disk. She bought a better casing than her old one and it comes with a leather synthetic pouch. Even she bought 3, there wasn’t any discount as the price was already very cheap.

Wireless Modem Router

I also planned to get a Linksys wireless modem router (instead of only a wireless router) at the PC Fair, but after meeting with an old friend a day earlier who just got himself a Maxis Broadband package, I bought his 3 months old Aztech DSL605EW ADSL2/2+ Wireless G++ 4-Port Ethernet Router for half of the current price.

HP Photosmart C4280

So, on Sunday, I was there to only buy the HP C4280 as planned. I thought of getting the HP5160 which is also an AIO printer with fax but I find it too bulky. Setting up was a breeze and it was ready to run in 15 minutes. I just hope that I don’t need to contact HP for support for this, but since I am using this in KL, I don’t think I will face the same problem/engineer again.

Oh, by the way, imagine being in the crowd with a 6 year old on your shoulder and carrying a box of printer.

Tags: photosmart, hp, printer, all in one, AIO, external, hard drive, disk, wireless, modem, router, aztech, linksys

Will I buy HP laptop in the future for my own personal use?

If I only take the previous technical support incident into consideration, I will not. If that is how they support a company, imagine how will they support me in the future. Anyway, if you are thinking to get yourself a laptop for own use and planning to get a branded one :

• Get some advice from your IT department. They might have a tip or 2 to share.
• Consider the type of support you need. Some only offers ‘carry in’ support which means you need to bring it back to them for support. Most of the notebooks spec are the same, the support should be an important deciding factor. Main reason - when it’s mobile, it gets ‘hurt’ easily.
• Determine your requirement and only consider the ones that meets your minimum requirement.
• Get it during PC Fair. It’s cheaper, but don’t do your research during PC Fair. It’s crowded, noisy and there are too many notebook brands to consider. You might also ended up buying the specs you don’t need i.e. buying a high end notebook when you only need something less. Start researching 2-3 months ahead.

Buying a notebook for pleasure and for business is different. Both have different usage and when looking for a personal one, a next business day support might be too expensive. But then, it all depends on how much you are willing to spend and how much time you can tolerate downtime.

For next year’s PC Fair, I might consider a Dell for myself. The entry level Dell XPS M1530 laptop looks tempting. Consider the specs below :

• Intel Core 2 Duo T7250
• Vista Home Premium
• 15.4″ WXGA with TrueLife and intergrated 2.0 MP Web Cam
• 2GB DDR-2SDRAM
• 250GB Hard Drive
• 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT

It is priced at RM4199. It was RM3999 during PC Fair.

I only have one problem if I get myself a Dell XPS. I might not want to share it with my kids . So, a better choice is to get a normal ‘cap ayam‘ PC. It can be upgraded easily and for the same price as the XPS above, I can get an Intel Core 2 Quad with better specs. That will be perfect for playing games at maximum settings.

I already have enough money for an entry level PC. Another 2-4 months blogging income, I should be able to get a decent one.

Any suggestion for a PC?

Tags: HP, notebook, Dell, XPS, cap ayam, PC, core 2 duo, ddr, web cam, geforce, vista

Now, back to my post. The ‘Iron Man‘ above is now back online, alive and kicking. The HP engineer changed the charger and the motherboard. Now, I am back to blogging as usual .

If only my bosses knew that I blog with it, they will be pissed off … eh..h … but I don’t blog during working hours

Come to think of it, after analyzing what happened. It was not the laptop or HP, but the stupid HP engineer that attended to my laptop. He does not has the skill.

Imagine this. He came, opened up my notebook, took out something, put in something and then called HP Support for support … WTF! He called for help? He came again the next day, took out something, put in something and then called HP Support for support (again!) and only after that, that he decided to bring my notebook back. 5 days to fixed one notebook.

No wonder HP’s service is bad in the northern region.

By the way, the previous post was my 200th.

Tags: HP, Compaq, notebook, laptop, Dell, boss, alive, warranty, expired, support, charger, motherboard

More details at their announcement post at WordPress blog.

Tags: 2.5.1, wordpress, security fix, bug fixes

HP’s Support

In terms of support, HP was very slow to response. When my IT technicion called for support, HP said that the charger warranty has expired. So, I proceed to raise a Purchase Requisition, but once the PR was approved, the HP Account Manager said that it is still under warranty. WTF! Time wasted for nothing, but now, I am still waiting for confirmation whether the charger is under warranty or not.

As for the mother board, they are only able to come tomorrow or Tuesday. Damn bloody slow!

HP vs Dell

We also have Dell notebooks, but unlike HP, Dell’s response is outstanding. All the while it is always the next business day for all that are still under warranty. I am not talking about servers here. I am comparing the support for a notebook between HP and Dell.

Anyway, my notebook is still out of commission

Tags: HP, Compaq, notebook, Dell, boss, alive, warranty, expired, support, charger, motherboard

The 2nd blog to be upgraded is my kids blog. All done in 20 minutes. This one was faster. The 1st blog is done manually but for my kids blog, I used the WPAU plugin to upgrade. Fast and fabulous . For this blog, I have a problem with the automatic plugin update (a WordPress new feature for 2.5). The wp-content/upgrade directory was not created automatically. Just do a search at Wordpress and found the solution.

So, only this blog left. Since this is on 2.3.3 I have no worries, but for you that are still on the version older that 2.3.3, please upgrade your blog asap. Older WordPress version have security holes and Technorati is also de-listing blogs that have been compromised. You don’t actually have no choice, better upgrade fast.

For more information on WordPress 2.5, you can also refer to Weblog Tools FAQ at here for version 1 and here for version 2.

Tags: wordpress, technorati, security issue, plugin, update, upgrade

Overview

Overall, I like the theme’s look and feel. Clean, simple and with white backgrounds. I always love sites with white background, so you can’t blame me for liking his one too. Everything is nicely in place except for the space taken by the RSS button and email subscription box.

This is a good example of a niche blog. A blog about internet, softwares and computer tips, and it reminds me a lot of my friend’s blog, Amanz.Net. Anyway, I will not do a comparison of both blogs. There’s not many tech site in Bahasa Malaysia and I really applaud his effort to maintain such site. His writing is easy to understand, but coming from a person with an IT background, it is not fair to say that. The best way to find out is to get someone who is new to computing to read a post and comment. You should do that MK and rate your own site.

Monetize

I will not touch on PR, Alexa, and other Rankings as these information can be easily extracted by the tools available free on the net, but I would like to touch on monetizing. That make sense since my blog is partly about making money online.

Other than having a clean blog, I can’t find any single advertisement on his blog. Either he is not interested to make money or he is waiting for the right moment to introduce ads to his blog. Maybe. Even I waited a few months before introducing adsense on this blog, but whatever the reason, there’s no harm to try to make money. There’s already a few Malaysian Online Advertising companies which he can join, particularly NuffNang and Advertlets. He could also put some affiliate link of some Malay ebooks out there on technical stuff such as FTP and Upgrading WordPress.

I may sound like a person interested only in money, but we are living in the 21st century and money does play a big part of our life. Why not let other people pay your domain and hosting, and also maybe your cup of teh tarik every morning?

Traffic

Being a niche blog, the traffic to his blog is quite low. Maybe because the blog is barely 6 months old. I can see that he has done a few things to enhance his blog visibility to the search engines i.e in his permalinks structure, google sitemap and all-in-one-seo-pack plugins, but he is missing the basics that is tag and ping. Try SimpleTags.

Notable Post

I find his post on Setting Up WordPress on Your PC very interesting. With the release of WordPress 2.5, I am sure there is a few of you who feel that maybe it is too early to upgrade. If you can’t afford to install another wordpress blog on your domain for testing, then you should consider setting it up on your PC. Perfect to be used as a sandbox, but not sure whether it support 2.5 though.

That’s about it. Then again, my opinion might not be the same to what he has on his mind regarding the future of his blog. But the basics of blogging is to tell the world that you have one and get the most exposure that you can (making money at the same time is a big plus).

What do you think?

Tags: computer tips, review, contest, winner, ads, 21st century, internet, software, computer tips