chiawei

Denon AH-C260

2011-08-15T12:06:00.002+08:00

On my way back from Boot Camp Training this morning, I received a surprise birthday gift from Hou Chen, a primary school friend of mine. We both enjoy listening to music and we both know that. Hou Chen surprised me with a pair of earphones that he got from Jaben, and being such a considerate friend, he tested a few pairs to ensure the sound signature was to my liking!

I promised him that I'll do a review of it as soon as possible, and so it is here, a first impression of the Denon AH-C260 in-ear headphones.

First up: Pictures :D

Intro
I don't know the price of these in-ear headphones, because Hou Chen doesn't want to tell me since it's a gift. There's also an upside to not knowing the pricing of these earphones - since I was oblivious to the pricing, I would hopefully make a less biased review.

Packaging, Build Quality
The Denon C260 is packaged in a simple plastic encased box, showing it's earphones through the transparent window in front. Pretty simple black packaging that does not scream blingblinglookatme. Good, because earphones are meant to be function over form, at least for me.

The build quality of the Denon C260's are pretty average (I would already guess that it's somewhere in the entry-level range, but I still don't know the price), nothing luxurious to rave about. The cables are thin, but seem okay and would withstand normal use. The housing of the earphones are shiny black and silver plastic with Denon's logo printed on it's back. Nothing out of the ordinary for the housing, but that's okay for me, as long as it does it's job.

Oh and it comes with a package of removable canal tips in different sizes, shirt clip and a nice cable/earphone manager thingy.

Fit and Isolation
I found the housing to be small and comfy, easily resting in my ear, and the default medium sized tips fits nicely for me, so I don't have to switch sizes. Though I have to say that it's just that slightly loose, and does not feel as "airtight" as like the Fischer Audio DBA-02. Your mileage may vary depending on your ear size/shape but I feel it's okay as it is.

Isolation is decent, but since I don't typically listen to music out on the bus/train/public I can't exactly test how well it isolates noise. From what I hear, it cuts out my room fan and my typing sounds, so I guess it's pretty okay.

Sound
The Denon C260 is a bassy earphone and it doesn't try to hide that fact. First off I listened to a jazz piece, Bob Acri's Tribute to Buddy and Sleep Away. The bass really surprised me because I'm used to pretty bass-lean equipment (Audio Technica AD500 and Soundmagic PL30's). However as the bass continued to make it's impact, I was also intrigued by how other instruments were still very clear and separated, and not mushed together by the heavy bass tones. It really is a very different but still enjoyable signature from my current equipment.

The overall sound is slightly warm, and vocals sound pretty nice and sweet on the Denon C260. However higher female vocals can sound a little recessed, and lack that intimacy and smoothness I'm so used to on my PL30's. I'm not sure whether further usage will smoothen out or change the sound signature, but this is what I hear thus far.

In terms of separation it is pretty similar to my PL30's. In comparison with the AD500 it still sounds narrow but it's an unfair comparison (open headphones vs in-ear headphones). I can hear details well enough to enjoy the music, but it's nothing extraordinary.

It's strengths lie in it's bass and overall clarity in the other frequencies despite the bass. The sound is enjoyable and to my tastes (thanks Hou Chen :D) and it is a different signature that I can enjoy while listening to more beat-heavy music (my AD500 just doesn't cut it for dance/electronic/house).

I'd just poke a guess and say it's about RM150-200. :P

Bukit Tabur Hike (a photoless post)

2011-07-06T01:29:00.000+08:00

I'm petrified.

Looking down all I see is the hundred feet sheer drop, and between us is just a rope and two slanting rocks that I have to descend. I've had half a mind to give up, but I'm already hanging precariously on the rope, and there is no way up. The only way is down and forward, yet fear cripples your every step.

Bukit Tabur is not an easy hill to climb, especially for first-time-hikers and people who are afraid of heights. Rocky and steep cliffs litter the trail and there is only your hands and legs that keep you tumbling down to the bottom. You hang on for dear life on those little crannies you dig your feet and fingers into, hoping the stone will be strong enough to hold your weight. You pause every moment or so to catch your breath, and you inevitably look down and back. You cannot believe that you have just made through that crazy ridge with a 80 degree cliff, but there's more to come.

I ask my friends, "How long more till we reach the next peak/descend", and the answer is almost always a lie, "We're almost there". But it's a lie that keeps you moving on.

Bukit Tabur has 5 "peaks" on its ridges, and you had to get through all of them to reach the descending trail. On the 3rd peak we were unable to find a way to the next peak, or a way down, and we just came down from a rope descent which was almost impossible to climb back up again. Stranded here, I felt a pang of despair, as my friends Edward and Koo tried different routes and that seemed impossible to climb. For a lack of option, Mei-fern called up her friend and it was ascertained we had to really go through the next peak and there was no other way around it.

I heard myself curse a number of times during the hike. Never have I been so close to the fragility of life, just a step (or misstep) away.

My climb to the 4th peak was filled with fear. It was literally "rock climbing" as the cliffs were getting higher and so were the climbs. There were also less space for you to safely fall, as the previous are you were standing on was no more than 2 feets wide, with a steep drop on the sides. Loose rocks and slippery slopes were the mainstay of the trail at this point in time. Acrophobia kicked into full gear. I was literally crawling even on flatter surfaces. I wish I could just lay flat on the ground and not move at all.

I felt both relief and satisfaction as we made it to the 5th peak and we could see the descending trail. I had a moment of insight on life, "Sometimes a path in life seems impossible, but moving forward is the only way."

Though, Bukit Tabur to some people isn't as hard as I put it to be, dangerous as it may be. I'm probably just a new hiker, and my fear of heights isn't going to help in climbing hills. Nevertheless, it was a great experience, and maybe it'll start me on another adventure in life.

Browser Usage in Malaysia

2011-02-01T15:09:00.002+08:00

I love Malaysian web users. We have one of the fastest changing trends across the world.

Compare that to the world standard, or the United States of A, or Europe. That's great, because now we can code great websites without having to limit ourselves by IE (especially 6).

Get the stats from http://gs.statcounter.com/

Wantan Mee at Kopitiam 747

2011-01-30T21:02:00.005+08:00

云吞面 Wantan Mee, a very common breakfast/lunch/break meal made of thin noodles in black sauce, typically accompanied by wantans, small packages of meat/prawn/veg wrapped in smooth rice skin. The noodles are usually topped with vegetables and char siu. Another variation is the soup kind where the black sauce is replaced with clear seasoned soup.

It's a very typical Chinese food, and you can find wantan mee in abundance around KL and PJ, usually in Chinese Kopitiams or Restaurants. However, common and typical isn't synonymous with delicious. There is a large variation of good and bad wantan mee, even though it's a simple dish, but many things can go "wrong". There are those whose charsiu is as hard as buffalo's skin, and those vegetables are more bitter than bitter gourds, wantans that have almost nothing in them, noodles that are either too dry and sticky, or too wet and soggy.

So it's actually quite a feat finding good wantan noodles, just like finding good chicken rice (which is also everywhere). So far from memory there are quite decent wantan noodles from Damansara Utama/Uptown (a corner shop that sells mixed rice at night). Just on Saturday I chanced upon this restaurant while my family was randomly searching for breakfast around the Sunway Mas area (to sell our recycled tins and junk).

So by coincidence we walked into this typical chinese restaurant (always on the corner lot of shops, for some reason), and just sat down, looked at what to eat. Then you see this very busy group of people running around in the stall, with a big signboard writing 咖喱云吞面 Curry Wantan Noodles. So to try out new stuff, we ordered some, and since the 烧肉 crispy roast pork looked so appealing, we ordered some as well.

Leet Skills

We anticipated good stuff, since we saw many people ordering it, and their process of dipping the noodles into hot water and cold water in alternate order was actually a process to make your noodles more Q (I have seriously no idea what is the English expression for that).

We were right. It was indeed nice.

The noodles were just nice, Q and the black sauce was little but just right. Sometimes too much sauce is overwhelming.

The main focus, however was the oh-so-charsiulicious char siu. My mom commented that they might have barbecued the meat twice. I'm not sure what that does though. All I know that it was delicious. The outsides were munchy, and the insides melted in the mouth. It was a mixture of fat and lean meat, and the fat meat totally melted in the mouth (oh did I say that twice).

The wantans were great, and was substantial enough, unlike some of the more stingy wimpy ones commonly found in food courts.

The side dish - 烧肉 crispy roast pork was also very appealing. It was not the best I have tried, since I thought the skin was a bit overdone, a little too tough. Some folks may like it though. However the roasting was done well and the fatty parts of the pork also melted like the char siu.

The curry side dish that they gave was laden with cockles, which might have added to the taste, but since I didn't really like cockles that much I gave it a miss.

Overall, pretty good food for the money we paid, which was RM4 for each plate of Wantan Mee, and RM8 or so for the crispy roast pork (I can't remember in detail, we paid a lumpsum).

My parents commented that the Damansara Uptown one was better, but since I don't remember how it tastes like, I shall venture forth to try it someday soon, and report back.

If any of you would like to visit this place, it's nearby Aman Suria or Sunway Mas. Usually I go there via Bandar Utama, where you go straight past KBU and Centrepoint, past the bridge and straight all the way.

Restaurant Murni

2011-01-28T01:26:00.000+08:00

Let's face it. The Restaurant Murni at SS2 serves delicious food in crazy servings, and their daily food produce can probably feed the whole of SS2.

However, there is one caveat of eating such nice and greasy food.

Visiting Murni will ensure you will never lose weight.

Just one plate of Nasi Goreng Napoleon will cost you:
Fried seafood rice ~ 500 cal
French fries ~ 300 cal
Fried egg ~ 100cal
Chicken Napoleon ~ 400cal
Total ~ 1300cal

That and one glass of Watermelon special ~ 200cal
1500 cal.

Now lets say that again. 1500cal.

That's enough energy for one whole day, assuming you're the sedentary kind of person who doesn't usually do exercise, which I'm assuming many are these days.

Eat 3 such meals per day, will ensure that you will need to see a doctor very soon.

Disclaimer: In no way does the calorie information provided above accurate nor reliable. It is rough estimates based on commonly published data of food on the internet. Please take it with a grain of salt, but please do control your sodium intake.

4P'05 Productions

2011-01-26T10:42:00.000+08:00

Manjung Coconut Jelly

Wah Loong Coffee and Curry Mee

RockMelt

2011-01-24T22:12:00.000+08:00

I quite like RockMelt.

Screenshot taken from RockMelt.com

It's basically a souped up Chrome Browser with easy access to facebook, twitter, youtube and various apps or feeds on the right side, with facebook chat and status/wall updates on the left.

Try it out! I've a few invitations, so if you want it you can drop me a comment!

Gadgets

2011-01-20T16:29:00.000+08:00

Why would people buy the latest phone, laptop or camera?

Does it really offer that much of an improvement to the current lifestyle you have?

Is it a habit? Is it a sense of achievement or pride in the best and latest, or just curiosity in trying out new things?

Alone

2011-01-09T23:34:00.000+08:00

Alone

Charity

Chicken Rice - Just another regular day

Windows ME vs Lubuntu 10.10

2011-01-04T20:18:00.001+08:00

I just installed Lubuntu 10.10 on my old Dell Pentium III desktop. It's been lying there for years, with less than sporadic use for the occasional old data kept on the machine.

The original Operating System that Dell supplied was Windows ME, which stands for Millenium Edition, which was unfortunately also cursed with the worst sort of bugs and problems an OS could have. It's neither the old and reliable Windows 98 SE, nor the newer but relatively stable Windows XP. It's resource hungry (for such an old OS), hangs at every possible moment (even opening the control panel), and is slow on every task imaginable (maybe except minesweepers).

Tl:dr, it's a crap OS. Don't mistake me for being a Microsoft basher, because I do think Windows 7 is a fantastic OS, but Windows ME is just plain crap.

Then, I found Linux. Over the years since 2004, I've been trying various Linux distributions on the old desktop, but none have been suitable. I've tried Damn Small Linux, PuppyLinux, PCLinuxOS, Ubuntu 7 through 9, Debian, Slackware, Mandriva and possibly others I've forgotten. All of these definitely run faster than the bloated Windows ME, but just isn't suited for regular usage.

And just this week, I went back up to http://distrowatch.com, and found Ubuntu 10.10. I installed a Wubi edition of it on my main desktop, and it ran extremely nicely. Drivers for display, input devices, sound all worked nicely out of the box. Considering my desktop is built from various different components from different times (unlike a laptop or OEM desktop), it's pretty impressive. I've PCI wifi cards, USB audio output and input, external HDD, fancy mice, and all of them work!

So, I decided to take the leap and install Ubuntu with the LXDE environment (which takes less memory and resources) onto the old P3 desktop. After trying a few times to do a LiveCD installation, I gave up because my desktop is simply too old to run any GUI installation. So I had to try the minimal/alternate installation which ran on a Text-based GUI.

I thought, I'm not really a console kinda guy, am I gonna wreck the whole computer in the process of doing this?

But there's always Google, and the Ubuntu/Lubuntu forums and documentation, which exactly describes the whole process of installing using the mini-iso, complete with exact command-line text you should input, step-by-step. It certainly wasn't that comprehensive a few years back. The Ubuntu/Linux community have done a great job in helping newbies try out the Ubuntu distro.

So after about 2 hours of letting Ubuntu download packages over the Internet and installing it on a separate partition, it's ready to run!

Lubuntu comes with Chromium by default and it's an excellent lightweight browser that runs on my old P3 desktop fine. The drivers work, managing to connect to the router easily during installation. However, there's just a minor issue that the Network Manager Applet isn't launched and you've to fix it by uninstalling it or disabling it or by editing some configuration files in the /etc/ folder that I don't remember. Needless to say, there was Google and I got help from there and now it's fixed.

Happy me :D

#1

2011-01-04T17:28:00.000+08:00

The rain and thunder prompts me to write...

I stare at my monitor, face lit up by it as the only lighting in the room. I wonder at the kinds of feeling that pour out of my heart, the little tingling feeling that runs down your spine to your arm, then your fingertips.

I stare into the darkness of the night, the skyline lit up only by the huge megastore that is 1Utama. Hmmph, I thought, and that is the only thing that is accompanying me through the deep night.

Often I think about the things that I'm doing, the goals I'd like to accomplish, the people I cherish. How can 24 hours be enough time to do everything I'd like. I don't want to sacrifice anything for anything, as inevitable that time would come. Is the perception of the world temporary, and our own reality just a fleeting moment in the vastness of human history? Would the things I do matter today, tomorrow, in the future?

And therefore I think about the significant things that are in my life. Family, friends, contributions to the community, my passion. These are all very precious, yet they can only last but forever. We should cherish them.

And then, I turn off the monitor and finally lie down on the comfort of the bed, and sleep.

Cameras

2010-12-26T01:21:00.000+08:00

Cameras have been my fascination for the longest time ever.

Or rather, photographs taken by cameras held a lot of my attention. A particular train of thought has been lingering around in my mind these past few days. I can't help but pen it down.

Of a particular interest is what that makes a photograph nice. Is it the lighting? Is it the camera? Is it the settings? Is it the photographer? Is it the subject? Is it the emotions and thoughts evoked?

I need more time to explore.

Renaissance Hotel

2010-12-25T20:36:00.000+08:00

Renaissance Hotel - Setting up and getting ready for HELP BPsych Annual Ball 2010

Redesign

2010-12-25T16:29:00.000+08:00

I've edited my blog and used blogger as my main platform.

Wordpress was nice and very customizable, but unfortunately more options means more hassle and more temptations to try very new things that break the code and your head at the same time.

So, welcome back the blog by Chia Wei.

Shopping @ Midvalley

2010-01-17T19:56:00.004+08:00

Haha first time my mom visited The Gardens at Midvalley. She commented that most stuff there were so high-end, not meant for poor people like us. =P
Anyways, I brought along my RM300 Adidas Voucher courtesy of Nuffnang and Digi. Guess what I bought?

Apart from that, went to Borders and tried to use up my Border’s vouchers that I got during the previous semester’s Research Colloquium but end up not buying anything at all. But I eyed on a book by Haruki Murakami. Hmm shouldIbuyshouldIbuyshouldIbuy?
We went shopping for sis’ vacuum flask, so that she could bring it to Germany and have warm drinks in the middle of winter. I mean she could boil hot water there and it would remain hot in the vacuum flask, not us boiling water and sending it in a vacuum flask hoping it would still stay warm. I know my English is kinda ambiguous sometimes. Adds to the fun. (of what?)
Got some irresistible pastries after that at Saint Cinnamon’s. I think the smell was awesome and mouth watering, and they even had a person making the cinnamon rolls right in front of the shop. My mom was so interested and have possibly copied the entire sequence of making the pastry right into her head. I’d reckon I’m going to have one of those soon one of these weeks.

Goes well with chocolate, tea or coffee.

Feeling so blah

2010-01-15T23:57:00.000+08:00

There’s so much stuff to do even in the first week of college.

Feels like getting spaced out… Even while typing stuff or writing stuff my vision defocuses, losing concentration while thinking about other stuff, while still remaining salient about what’s going on around you.

I wonder if people who drink too much caffeine feels like that.

There it sat, blue jeans and a dark shirt with pink collars. The glass like an aquarium, albeit a big one, where you don’t really know whether you’re in it or out of it. Seems like forever, it says. Of course, when you’re posing there in the same pose and same clothes without change for half a year or so, yeah time seems to be forever. No sunlight, only spotlights. No days and night, only opening or closing hours. Putting up with shenanigans of little kids, with their stupid chewing gums.

Hua Fu’s Birthday

2010-01-12T23:06:00.001+08:00

We had a nice comfy dinner at Kelana Jaya lakeside. Nice weather, but a tad bit warm. It was an outdoors thing. 7 of us.

Let the pics do the talking.

College Reopens

2010-01-10T23:45:00.001+08:00

Sigh. Back to college.

Back to all that work, yet filled with challenges and possible opportunities.

Wish I had more time though.