• My Workstation aka Vearnstation V3

The PC game, “Crysis” which released in November 13, 2007 created a great phenomena in PC gaming hardware where most gaming enthusiasts spend every possible bucks they could afford to upgrade their rig to support if not to match up with the high graphics requirement of the game, Crysis! PC Gamer remarked that “Crysis has pushed PC gaming to a new plateau, marrying the most advanced graphics engine ever created with phenomenal gameplay. From the cinematic opening to credits to its cliffhanger ending, Crysis is mesmerizing.”

I’m a FPS or First-Person-Shooter fans myself. I played with Half-Life, Quake II & III, Red Fraction, C&C: Renegade, Counter-Strike, Condition Zero and many other titles back in my school days. Ahh… those sweet times when we got nothing much to worry beside homework and exam ~ LoL . I stopped my last FPS during the time of Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 legacy where my rig was almost impossible to host a smooth gameplay. I gave up both game after a few hours with it when I couldn’t bear the lagness anymore.

Late in year 2007, my AMD64 rig giving me numerous problems from time to time. It was also critical when I need to finish up my assignment but ended up the rig serving me some downtime and I need to spend time fixing it up. Fedup with it, I made my move to upgrade the whole damn thing! *excuses *

Special thanks to a friend of mine, a dota-kaki to be exact, he helped me to source a low price processor where I made the Intel’s Core 2 Quad Processor possible in my new rig specification . With a little of shopping again done at LowYat.Net, my new specification as follows:

• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz LGA775 (overclocked to 3.2GHz )
• Xigmatek HDT-S1283 Air Cooler
• DFI LanParty DK P35-T2RS
• OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 Titanium 4GB Edition Dual Channel (4-4-4-12 @ 2.0V)
• 500GB Seagate 7200.11 SATA2 32MB HDD
• LG H10A DVDRW-Rom
• HIS HD 3870 IceQ 3 Turbo HDMI Dual DL-DVI & TV 512MB GDDR4 PCIe
• Dell E1905FP 19″ LCD
• Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
• Edifier R501 MKII 5.1
• Fortron Bluestorm 500W
• Thermaltake Tsunami Dream
• Dell’s 104-Keys Black USB Multimedia Keyboard & Logitech MX-518 on Xtrac Ripper

This new rig provide enough “juice” for me to finish the game Crysis on high customized setting. Finally I be able to play same latest PC games, but I keep my finger-crossed on how long I be able to hold on it till a new game which set another blow to shame on current PC hardware capabilities .

I bought a new set of computer table as well. The IKEA’s Jerker series which I admired since long ago already stopped in production and replaced by Fredrick series . Not to say that the Fredick series is bad, but it just does not suits my liking. In the end I grabbed the Galant series instead . It just nice that I able to add 2 cable trunks below the table for some neat cable management . Besides that, I customized it by cutting a 8mm tempered glass to lay on the surface of the table since many people said that it can get scratches easily or leaving marks when something wet rest on it for some time. Now I be able to use it without worrying much about putting anything on the table .

Finally this is the Vearnstation V3.0 where I spent most of my time on it while I’m at home for working, surfing, entertainment and relaxing .

• My Workstation aka Vearnstation V2

Later late in year 2004, I decided to sell off my rig (which I took quite a long time to consider) and topup a little bit of cash to migrate platform into AMD64 system. It was the time when AMD pawned most of Intel processors with their 64-bit and embedded RAM controller architecture ~ LOL . It wouldn’t be successful if I not managed to fetch a high price for my RDRAM, it was ON-DEMAND back on that time when everyone stucked with Intel’s RDRAM motherboard and doesn’t want to migrate platform . I sold few pairs of RDRAM back then by doing some trading .

So I went to do some reading and study on what hardware and setting I should get for my new rig. Thanks to many forumers at LowYat.Net which shared with me their information, experience and guidance, this was my first DIY and self-assembled rig :

• AMD64 3000+ 2.0GHz (socket 754, first generation of AMDK8)
• 2x 512MB DDR400 Kingston Value Ram (Hynix-D43 chipset)
• DFI LanParty UT nForce3 250Gb (best overclocking board for AMD64 s754 by Anandtech’s review)
• HIS ATI Radeon 9600xt Excalibur Edition
• Samsung Spinpoint 120GB SATA HDD
• LG 16x DVDRW-Rom
• Enlight 420W PSU
• Thermaltake Tsunami Dream Silver
• 15″ Philips LCD Monitor
• Altec Lansing AHS502 Headphone
• Logitech MX518 Gaming Optical Mouse on XtracPad Pro
• ANC s650 Webcam

This rig served me for 3 years++ until end of year 2007 before I did another major platform migration again back into Intel Pentium Core 2 system which with me till now while I’m on it updating this post . Occassionally during the 3 years time I upgraded some hardware and device:

• FSP Bluestorm 500W PSU
• Dell E1905FP 19″ LCD Monitor (it is a 8-bit MVA panel )
• Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
• Edifier R501 MKII 5.1 Surround Sound System
• XtracPad Ripper
• Canon Pixma iP4300 Inkjet Printer

Vearnstation V3.0 coming up next…

• My Workstation aka Vearnstation V1

Wah… laziness strikes back? Ahh… it has been almost 1.5 months I did not update my blog T_T . I just came back from Hong Kong about 4 weeks ago and have been very busy with my work lately, thus hardly get the time to do with my blog (hopes I’m not lying ~ ).

The first thing I’m concerned once I’m back to my own room is my computer work place. Usually IT geeks will call their computer as rig and computer work place as workstation which sound more pro? Hahaha… so I put mine as Vearnstation . This idea came up suddenly yesterday and so I took some of my time for it. I dig out my old photo files and trying to make a chronology of my so-called Vearnstation.

I first own a computer back in year 2001. I bought it at a computer shop named SBC at Low Yat Plaza and the spec was:

• Intel Pentium 4 1.4GHz (socket 423, the first generation of Intel Pentium 4)
• 2x 64MB RDRAM (rambus!)
• Intel D850GB Motherboard
• MSI GeForce 2MX 32MB
• Seagate 20GB HDD (5,400 rpm)
• Creative Sound Blaster Live!
• Sony 52x CD-Rom & 1.44″ FDD
• Prolink 56Kbps Internal Modem
• Samtron 76DF 17″ CRT Monitor
• Power Supply Unit & Blue Metallic Casing.
• Thunder 2.1 Speaker Set
• Canon S400 Ink-Jet Printer

It was legend as I’m able to play Diablo II, Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Starcraft and Tiberium Sun without any lag at all! This is the time when I started passionate interested with computer and learning the bits and bytes of the hardware.

Vearnstation V1.0 (nice Ergotech computer table? )

Later on late in year 2003 when I started with LowYat.Net, I begin to learn on how to assemble, troubleshoot and repair my rig. My rig was updated with:

• 2x 512MB RDRAM (rambus again for smoother run on Windows XP)
• JVC Liteon DVD-Rom
• Liteon CDRW-Rom
• Enlight 420W PSU
• HIS ATI Radeon 9600xt Excalibur Edition (for the sake of The Sims 2)
• Rear 80mm Coolermaster White Neon Fan
• Altec Lansing AHS502 Headphone
• 15″ Philips LCD Monitor (dual monitor setup is fun )

The Vearnstation V1.1 lasted for me about almost a year before I move on with V2.

Vearnstation V2.0 coming up next…

• HKCCF 2008 ~ the Babes

These few days almost totally worn me out and left me with only bits of energy enough to get home and clean up before putting myself up on the bed. Lotsa workload, tiring days. Well, it is common as we’re at end of the month.

Two previous posts were all about Hong Kong Computer & Communications Festival 2008. It doesn’t go anywhere for this post as well but probably the most interesting one. Lets peep a view at some HKCCF Babes

Alrights, here come the Epson contenders. Somehow they gave me a feel almost like our Malaysia PC Fair Samsungs’s

The Toshiba’s Japanese-styled were on a small stage with lots of lanterns as decoration. It was really pretty pack as it was nearby the entrance where I need to “drill” a path through the crowd before I could be able to snap them.

Okayz, here is the sad part. I was sweep away by the “crowd wave” and I have no idea where these PCCW babes were heading

Hmmm… the next from E-Zone. Honestly I have no idea with such posing for such event. “Hey, this is ain’t car showgals wannabe”

Another one.

Lets move on next and this is someone cute

Closer shot.

There were a few more babes around but I couldn’t get to reach there as I’m driven by the flow of the “crowd wave”. I stepped out of the hall and this is one pretty smile. “Personally I admired it”

Her partner and both of them from Transcend.

With this I’m finally wrap up my whole coverage for Hong Kong Computer & Communications Festival 2008. Next I’ll try to put on some of my snaps from 10th Ani-Com Games Hong Kong 2008

• Hong Kong Computer & Communications Festival 2008

Alright, here is the update from the previous entry

As mentioned, it took us about an hour to get from the middle of the queue till the ticket booths and into the Hong Kong Computer & Communications Festival 2008, or HKCCF 2008 itself.

Once we were done with the ticketing, we went to the upper floor which was the exhibition hall and here it was how the crowd like for that day.

Just before the main entrance, there were several counters where you can get yourself one copy of this which is the official booklet or rather say directory and advertisements.

Fine, I hardly understand what it was since it was all in Chinese ~ LoL! I gave up and just move into the hall after several flips with it. Immediately into the hall, it didn’t gave me any unique feeling since it was just like rather somehow Hall 1, 2, 3  ~ 5 of our local Malaysia Pikom PC Fair.

It was just almost that identical, isn’t?

On second thought, except for this which the showgirls were treated like celebrities for the event. We do have photographers in the event snapping show babes, but it isn’t till the level like this for Hongkies’. Interesting?

Wandering around in the hall and being sandwiched or stucked with the human traffic, I didn’t see many stuff that could attracts me. I saw this newly launched Acer Predator in several latest Hong Kong’s computer and IT magazines, this is how it looked like in life.

Ahhh… I’m stucked, any alternative route?

I’m not sure if this is a tradition or what, somehow I went to two major exhibitions in Hong Kong which were this HKCCF 2008 and 10th Ani-Com Games Hong Kong 2008. During both events, there was a competition on going. For this time HKCCF 2008, The 5th Hong Kong I.T. Image Girl Competition.

Okayz, nuff said… screeeeeeens ~ LoL

This was one of the very well decorated and lighted booth

Last but not least a show for overclocking with LN2 (liquid nitrogen).

That’s all for a summarized coverage of HKCCF 2008. Basically the hall is just about 1.5x size of our Malaysia Pikom PC Fair’s one hall. With the additional of the booths outside the hall, I guess the whole festival will fit in two halls of our Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, definitely I guess we’ll lose on the number of visitors as compared with Hong Kong. It is just some sort of queue which I never experienced before in my life ~ haha.

Asked if I would come again? I will say, why not? Least for the babes

I’ll cover that in my next update, stay tune ~

• HKCCF 2008 Preview

It was the day after Typhoon Nuri landed at Hong Kong that my colleagues and I planned to visit Hong Kong Computer & Communications Festival 2008 or shortly known as HKCCF 2008. We only work half-day on Saturday and so we had our lunch after office hours before taking a cab to Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre which located at Wan Chai district.

Alright, this is some sort of amazing queue that I ever experienced in my life. The cab dropped us at the main entrance of the centre but then we need to walk all the way to the end of the queue which I likely to called it as the entrance of the maze. Somehow we managed to slip in at the middle of the queue (shhh!!! ). Here it is like which at the middle of the queue.

Next we move zig-zag inside the centre.

At the end of the zig-zag, we reached at an escalator to go down and we felt weird about it as the entrance was on upper floor.

Our next reaction were… HAARRRRR??? A longer zig-zag at the car park???

We go up on the escalator again which we came down by the next escalator just now.

Guess what? More zig-zag… ZZZzzzzz

Finally… we reached at the ticket counter. Phews ~ it was about an hour of queue maze travelling…

Gotcha! HK$20 for entrance to HKCCF 2008 after the “dragon queue”. Lets head in to the real picture

…will be continue

• Day 20082008, My Hong Kong’s Workstation

Today is 20th of August year 2008 which is 20-08-2008 or simply 20.08.2008; 20082008. Honestly, I didn’t even realize the date till someone greet me “Happy 20082008″ in MSN. LoL ~

Since I’m busy with my work and spending only limited time on designing my blog and customizing it. I simply take a photo of my current workstation in my apartment at Hong Kong which I do all my work on it. Here it is the place where my first layout and the design of this site were born. Special thanks to Daniel Chew whom helped me out with the theme and layout.

Hong Kong is a small country with a huge number of population. The lands are very expensive and people having high living standard. The apartment which I’m living in now considered one of very good average home for the Hongkies, despite being small and need to fit in one living room, one kitchen, one bathroom with toilet and two rooms. I’m now in the smaller room which the windows facing outside which has pretty good scenery.

Alright, here is my workstation at Hong Kong.

Yeah, you can absolutely see me on the reflect of the windows while I’m taking this shot. Nothing much on this workstation actually. From left to right you’ll see a container which I dump small and tiny pieces inside as not to mess up the place. Then we’ll see watch, camera pouch, wallet, pack of Watson tissue, small notebook, a pen, keys, QP pendant, pendrive and handphone. Usually these are all my carryings while I’m out of the apartment. Upper part obviously you can see a pink water tumbler (I have no choice as this is the only colour left) and a glass of milk which I usually take before going to sleep.

Next, the big player is on the middle which is a Lenovo IBM ThinkPad R61i which belongs to my company. Thanks to my boss in Hong Kong for his permission to let me use the laptop at home. Definitely not forget to thanks to the anonymous who “lend” me their wireless Internet connection. On top of the laptop is Audio Technica ATH-FC700 headphone. The Bronze Matte console on the right after the mouse is my PSP which come in handy when I feel like going for two or three rounds of Burnout Dominator to ease my mind. Wondering what the pieces of paper doing there? One for my “mousepad” and another one for short notes. This is where I started all for this site.