There was a long power outage in Sabah back to 23rd April. My dad being a former member of the senior management in Sabah Electrical Sendirian Berhad (SESB) he was flooded with phone calls.

The next morning when we happent to have a short conversation on msn, he regreted to tell me about the news, "don't know la, I am no longer in charge" my dad said. The reason was unknown until later the day. It appears that the outage was caused by someone stole and removed steel pieces on a major transmission tower. See the news.

So sad. I have heard that people even steals copper line (telephone lines) for living. Unfortunately, there are always people doing this "business" in Sabah as it has uncontrollable illegal immigrant problem back to decades ago. If you happent to visit to a more rural area in Sabah, you can see houses build liturally by wood and steel pieces extract somewhere. I took a couple of shots 2 years ago about a roadside wood hawker. I presume the business has been "legalized" some how. Which in a way encourage the "suppliers".

So after this incedent, I guess the sales for UPSs and power generators will be increasing dramatically. :/





PS: Photos taken 30/12/2006 before lunch time at a small town in Sabah.

You all knew I have a bad internet connection since 2 months ago. The problem was persisting and I was not able to get a stable connection. As part of the work requirement I am forced to seek for alternative ways to get online.

Three Mobile Broadband is one of the cheapest alternative solution. For $15 per month I get 1Gb download and no charges for the USB modem (24 months term). I walked in a Three store in Carousal last Thursday and told the lovely sales girl I wanted to get one of those 3 Mobile Broadband with my existing contract. 15 minutes later I walked out with a DVD size box and a lousy 3 recycle bag.

As I wasn't in a hurry and the sales girl told me to wait for "a few hours" before trying it I waited until this morning. Everything works seemlessly. Once plugged in the USB modem, my Windows XP detected the extra CDROM device and prompted me to install the Three Connect software. Within 5 minutes I am connected to the HSPDA bandwidth, rated 7.2mbps mobile broadband.



Without further delay I also tried to connect to my workplace via Citrix and tested the data usage. Not doing much excepted for outlook and rdp session to my workstation the data usage was about 2Mb for about 30 minutes. Impressive, yet I did feel a little delayed in the action despite it should be connected at 7.2mbps. Interesting.

I remember when I was back to Malaysia last year my friend purchased a Dell Vistro laptop with build in mobile sim slot. I recalled my friend mentioned a flat rate of RM 98 for unlimited download on the mobile broadband. That is about A$35 per month for unlimited mobile broadband access. UNLIMITED. Given that even the landlines based ADSL access is limited by the monthly quota, I wonder when will Australia Telco give us similar service.

SO I went to Perth Motor Show again. After been there a few times for the past few years, I wasn't expecting much. Just treated it as another photographic session. There were a few cars I actually test drove while I was hunting for a new car early this year. So it is sort of another chance to revisit and see if I have made the correct decision (even though it might be too late by now).



The show was packed on Friday (ANZAC day). I mentioned in the earlier post the queue to get the ticket was like a km long, I lied. That fact? it was about 500m long but there were 4 queues, so technically it was more then 1km long. :P

I was there on the Friday with my sister but decided to give up on the spot. We went home and purchase the ticket online, print the receipt out and went back the next day. Thinking that the next day will be pack like hell again and we can just walked straight in to the door. WRONG. It was still a lot of ppl but there wasn't any long queue at all. Well.




While we were inside, I tried my best to sit in all of the cars. Took a couple of shots inside and then feel the seat comfortability. I can't tell you which was the best for you coz my butt is obviously different from yours. But I was still very delighted with the Swift Sport seat, and I still found the Mazda3 MPS seat was a bit hard.

I also have a good look at the Subaru Liberty 2.5i. That was one car jumped to me when I was considering increasing my budget to get a Lancer VRX and Civic Sport. The quality and class was another level with the extra $3k on top of my Civic Sport only. But that is one of the thing, you can always get something better with a few more thousand dollars, never ending story.





Ok, for those who are interested to the pictures, here they are. But do note that the iso was set to 800 for fast and effective handheld shot and go photographics, expect a bit of over exposures. They are really nothing too special compares to the past few years one.