Update: To make matters even worse, my building now has Unifi all the way till the 12th floor and the top floor (27th floor) has Unifi whilst I have to wait until the rest of the building gets Unifi. I really don't know why they just can't do the entire building at once.

[caption id="attachment_2441" align="alignnone" width="221" caption="Unifi hates me :("][/caption]

Merry Christmas everyone and happy holidays! Its the end of the year and I still haven't been able to get my Unifi up and ready. Apparently promises made by TM are rather empty as they have promised to contact me when Unifi is available but they haven't (I know its available because someone on the 8th floor has Unifi already in my apartment and its stated on their website!).

When they finally did inform me that I can register with them, I probably gave them my details for about 4-5 times and yet they still get my address wrong. Now their latest promise to contact me in regards to the installation date. That was last week on Thursday and I have yet to receive any call from them to schedule an appointment.

Thanks to the lack of an internet connection, its hard to blog let alone go online most of the time as my Maxis broadband crawls at an incredibly slow speed. Maxis on the other hand seem to be emulating TM as well! Yesterday I called their helpdesk to report of extremely slow internet connection and was put on hold several times because the operator didn't know how to do basic trouble shooting for Macs. While I was put on hold, the line disconnected and they didn't even bothered calling back. Another call to their hotline brought me back to another operator which I had to go through all the hassle again.

I bet by the time 2020 comes, we wouldn't see much improvements. Heck, everytime I call any of them, TM or Maxis, it always start with an automated message saying "This conversation may be recorded to help us further improve". I wonder if there is anyone take the effort to even go through these recordings and figure out if there is something wrong with their helpdesk.

Unfortunately I do know how these callcentres operates and their KPI's are always measured by the number of call tickets they receive and close within a set amount of time stated in their SLA. Unfortunately again that they can close the ticket without even resolving the issue and state that the customer is "satisfied" or problem is resolved.

Now if only it wasn't so much of a monopoly here.

Ok, time to end the ranting, its the end of the year and hey, I look forward to next year. Hopefully with a stable internet connection.

I've got quite a number of blog posts which have been sitting in draft mode for the longest time! And to include that in, I've got a number of photo folders filled with RAW images which have been crying for my attention but most of the time, that has sort of eluded me. I guess its the end of the year where I've got a lot of things to clear up.

It is also the peak season whereby everyone is getting married so most of my weekends are used up for wedding shoots. The lack of a permanent internet connection at home is also another factor. Yes, I have been bugging TM non-stop of when Unifi will be installed in my apartment.

In September I asked them, they replied October

In October I asked them, they replied November

In November I asked them, they replied December

In November I tried asking them twice and even lied that I said a contractor came and installed it for my neighbour, their only response was that I was lying and it is not in their system. In my defence, the contractor did say that Unifi was available (but he was installing a phone line for another unit and not Unifi) and even TM Marketing called me to inform me that Unifi was available.

In December I called them, they replied at the end of the month.

I might as well give up soon, still have to rely on my Maxis Broadband connection instead.

The iPad was launched in Malaysia last week, loads of people got it and I saw a huge crowd around it at Epicenter at Pavilion last night. Still, I wonder, what can it really be used for? I started a thread at a local forum and judging from the responses I get, most people tend to agree with me that in terms of business wise, unless your company has applications which supports it, most of the time, its mainly used for leisure. Mine has kept me entertained especially on long flights, bus rides and while waiting.

iOS 4.2 was also released for the iPad and I am really glad that I can reduce the number of pages that I have and organize everything in folders. Downside is that I really did see a drop in terms of my battery performance as I have applications running in the background which I forget to kill.

So if you have an iPad, what do you use your iPad for?

Well this post is completely unrelated to photography but recently I managed to get a good look at various car mods around and found this particularly interesting for those of you who drive a Volkswagen car (namely the Polo, Golf, Scirocco, Jetta and Passat). Of course, this mod falls under the category of "In Car Entertainment" or ICE for short.

Just to give a little background and put this into context, the RCD series is basically the head unit for Volkswagen cars.



The image above basically sums what I am about to speak about or review. Now in Malaysia, the Golf GTI, Golf TSI, Polo and Scirocco 1.4 TSI comes with this head unit as standard. Its a great unit, it reads CD, for some models, it shows the parking sensors and provide you with information especially if you are going to reverse into something or someone.

Now, here comes the poison. Introducing the RCD 510.



This head unit is vastly different especially in terms of looks which relies on touch screen technology. Other added extras would be the SD card slot and there is an optional bluetooth connectivity kit which allows you to pair your handphone with it and make calls using the Multi Function Display (MFD) or via the controls on your steering wheel.

Here are some of the key changes you would see in terms of graphics that is shown when using the RCD 510 in place of the RCD 310.



Image above shows the welcome screen when you turn on the head unit.



This is when you use either a USB  thumbdrive to plug in to the system. The RCD 510 will display the song title, artist and the album name. Volume and song selection controls from the steering wheel is also available.



This shows the air conditioner controls. As dual controls have been selected, so there are two images depicting the air flow as well as the temperature of the respective areas. Of course this does not replace the control buttons which are still located below the head unit.



This is how the parking sensor will look like. There are two zones, front and rear. When you are rather close to an object it will flash out in orange as shown above. When you are VERY CLOSE, then a bright red will appear. The RCD 510 is also smart enough to identify if your car is a Golf or if it is a Scirocco. The display shown for the Scirocco is different than the one above because the current Golf TSI's sold here in Malaysia at this time, includes the "Light & Sound" package which also features a front sensor.

Note that the following images were not taken by me. I swiped this off my friend's page. If you are interested in getting the RCD 510, do check out his page here and here or just Google "Ryou's Modshop" and you will find it :)



This is how the Bluetooth integration kit would look like once it has been set up.



This is how it will look like from the Multi Function Display (MFD).

The RCD 510 comes standard in the Passat CC and Scirocco 2.0 here in Malaysia so if you go to any of the VW showrooms, you will see this head unit on those models.

After a nice relaxing weekend two weeks ago, I was hammered with a long and busy week. Firstly I attended a two day seminar at the Renaissance Hotel where I checked in there on Wednesday night till Friday then followed with a quick flight up north to Langkawi with the Stories team for a wedding shoot on Saturday.

It was the first time I stayed at the Renaissance Hotel here in KL. I've shot there a couple of times and have seen the rooms there but my stay there throughout the two nights was a pleasant one. I had two beds to myself in the room (until now I have no idea why the firm books those rooms) and the room was fairly large. Still they can't compare to the rooms where I stayed in the Marriot in Putrajaya.

After the 1st day at the seminar, a group of us decided to walk over to the Asian Heritage Row (located next to Sheraton along Sultan Ismail) only to be greeted on a Thursday night, a completely empty street. A lot of the bars were being renovated and those that were open, were completely empty, lest for a few tourists and our group. Apparently everyone has decided to party at Changkat Bukit Bintang according to one of my mates.

On Friday evening, I flew off to Langkawi only to be greeted by a delayed flight but at least the delay was only an hours delay. The shoot started on Saturday morning at The Westin in Langkawi. The resort looked stunning, one of the best looking resorts in Langkawi. I shall leave the details of the wedding for another blog post :)

On Sunday, the sky was very clear as we were flying back to KL and I managed to take a couple of shots of the scenery with my iPhone.



Thats one of the islands around Langkawi in the photo above.



I managed to capture a shot of the Penang bridge when we flew over Penang Island and Butterworth.

After a couple of rounds of playing "Flight Control", I noticed that we were flying over PJ and I could actually see my apartment from the plane! Wo0t!



Can you see where Sri Hartamas is in the image above?

Anyway when I arrived back, I noticed this array of supercars parked in front of Tropicana City Mall. There were a huge number of Ferrari's, Porsches, Lotus Elites, a couple of Audi R8s and a few Lambos.



Everyone was crowding around the cars, taking photos with a couple of the models there as well as with the cars themselves.



Then something caught the eye of everyone's attention. I was also struck with shock, everyone just turned around and started looking at a car which drove by. It was the first time for me seeing this car on the road, the license plate showed that it was totally newly registered, probably a day or two ago. The driver inside had a wide smile because his car caught the attention of all the passers by amongst all of the super cars. Heck, it even made me turn and capture it on camera.



It was the brand new Proton Inspira!!! First time seeing it on the road leh....

Okay, I was just kidding myself. Yes, we had a long 3-day weekend and after two weeks of hectic living, it was good that I managed to get some rest. Note that I just said "some" instead of a good rest. Anyway, Friday itself wasn't exactly a rest day. I was supposed to collect my car on Friday and then head down to Malacca with the peeps for a day trip but alas, I was utterly disappointed when the dealer messed up my registration hence there is yet another delay.

Nevertheless, the trip must go on so we headed down to Malacca for some great food (although I hardly know the various spots for eating even though I was born in Malacca and have traveled there countless of times). The trip down there was eventful as it is, especially if you like travelling in a moving sauna ;)

First stop of the day, Seremban for some good ole beef noodles and loads of sugar cane with lemon (yes, that is my new favourite drink!). The beef noodles were good as well and it was starchy as hell.

Traffic there was totally insane, everyone in Singapore decided to check out what Malacca has to offer as well. The meals started with the coconut shake off Klebang, then for some chicken rice balls in Jonker, loads of cookies and pineapple tarts and ending it with some crepe from Nadeje. So much for my dieting plans.

Saturday itself was relaxing with loads of sleep and SC2 and ending it with dinner with some old uni mates.

Spent more time in Ikea finding stuff for the new place, I am constantly finding new things to buy, or basically more things to get such as a wall clock and a dish drainer and other smaller items which we might have missed out initially. Also it was MW's birthday as well so we had a drink with her as well at Sid's TTDI.

I realised that a snake bite black can definitely keep me awake because I couldn't sleep till 3am this morning. Was busy fiddling with the new Sim City Deluxe game which I bought on iTunes. Although the game was meant for the iPhone but because unlike my mum who has the new iPhone 4, I am still using my older one, hence it gets slow but playing the game on the iPad is just fantastic!

Here's to a great week to everyone out there!

For the past couple of weeks, there have been so many activities that went on. First, I had gotten married, then tried moving into our new place at the same time (which we are still moving in and getting things sorted out) as well as flying off on our honeymoon and straight back to work. Honestly, I wouldn't recommend getting married and trying to move into your new place at the same time!

One of the things which I really would like to thank both Alex and Grace was this amazing video which they helped me and Munz to put together as well as film, edit and set up and was shown during the wedding dinner :)



Now I can definitely help those of you out there if you want more and more "fun" proposal ideas and how this post ties back to the title of "Proposal Ideas"  :P

But in case you do find this amusing, here are some of the reasons why I decided surprise Mun Tzin this way.

1. Marriage has already been a discussion point so doing anything overly romantic will definitely make her suspect


2. If I bring her for a nice dinner she would suspect :P (goes to show how often I bring her for nice dinners)


3. I knew if I did something photography related, she really wouldn't suspect a thing (and I was right!)

Here are some funny things that happened during the real proposal,

• Munz bought the flowers that I eventually gave to her, it was so funny when she was commenting about the flowers and she kept asking me why was I the one getting flowers.


• She accidentally spilled some water on the wrapping which she spent 20 minutes trying to make the bouquet look presentable for my friend BK.


• The restaurant I booked screwed up my booking hence we ended up at a totally different place. Lesson: Make sure you triple confirm your booking with the restaurant.

Anyway for the full story of my wedding, head on over here for Grace's view of things :)

Yes, that is right. Malaysian Airlines changed our flight without letting us know about the flight so we have 4 hours to kill at the airport. This gave me plenty of time to clear out my inbox which exploded over the weekend as well as check up on some news.



Earlier if most of my friends ever asked me why I had gotten the iPad, my answer would be that its mainly used when I am travelling and for me to catch movies whilst I am on the go. Such as this occasion where Mun Tzin is happily using my iPad to watch a movie on it. I think she was watching a very serious movie from her expression! LOL.

Wow its been a while since my last blog post. I guess time really does fly with so many things to do. A new beginning starts for me tomorrow, so until then, it will be busy busy busy for me.

One of the things that has kept me busy is getting my new place ready. So far the contractors have done quite a good job and what's left are some of the more minor stuff.

Here are some of the stuff they have already completed.





Shot both these images with my trusty iPhone 3Gs. First one using an app called Pro HDR.

Its day 2 here in Cebu, feels very different here because the sun sets very early. It feels like 8pm in Malaysia when it is only 6pm here where the sun is almost completely set. But I definitely love the food here! Today has been a hectic day for me as Ian and I have been shooting Nick and Sharon's wedding here in Cebu.

I will be here till Sunday and I hardly get much access to the internet. So far things here have been fantastic, just came back from eating one of the best scallops in town as well as finger licking roast pork knuckles and suckling pig and to top it off, a huge barbequed tuna jaw (really huge, larger than my head!). I am completely stuffed from dinner.

The flight here wasn't that comfortable, traveled via Cebu Air but the flight was through the night and I had a 3 hour lay over at Manila which I will have another on Sunday as well.

Wished I could post a picture as well but since my Macbook Pro is in the hospital and I shot mostly in RAW today, I don't have the necessary software to convert them over. Only way is to get the image imported onto my iPad and use my iPad to email the image to my PC. But first, I need to get the camera connection kit!

Will post up more pictures when I get back.

Not to stand too close to the bride and groom when they are about to pop the champaign!



Ok the image was a little blur as I think I sort of self consciously tried to move away.



Seriously, I could have sworn that he was aiming it at a totally different direction.

Well, at least I can tick this off my to-do wedding list.

Gizmodo just launched a great overview of the 4 competing tablet devices. Check them out below.

Do note that some of these devices has not yet been officially launched and some of the specs are based on what the media has revealed.


Image source: Gizmodo

Check out the full comparison over here. Personally, I am still loving my iPad's larger screen size as I love to watch movies on it especially ever since VLC created an app for that.

Some more information here on the new Blackberry Playbook.

Got this piece of info from BK.



The stars have a total of 1,593 kills which is quite a lot! Jet Li has a total 231 kills which is no small figure.

But I think the guy who might have the most kill would be the Death Star Weapons Officer. Until now, we have no idea who donned the suit (ok, I am just way too lazy to check out the credits). Anyway, his pull of the trigger which destroyed Alderaan and a couple of cruisers (taking these info from just the movie and none of the Star Wars book), these guys probably beat our Expendables action heroes.



Speaking of killing a lot of people, I also remembered that Eric Bana who played Captain Nero in Star Trek (2009) who also killed off billions of Vulcans when he dropped the red matter into the planet and destroyed planet Vulcan.

Here is a filler post while I catch up with plenty of work, recently came about this thread at the BMW owner's club. Its a very long read but it talks about Mizhan's personal pet project to restore his old 1984 E30 323i BMW.

If you are unfamiliar with how a E30 looks like, this is how Mizhan's car first looked at the beginning of the project.



It started back late last year and if you checked the thread, it is still ongoing! Yes, it has been that long but the results are really truly fantastic.



Mizhan is still sourcing for various parts for his car so do check out this thread to see the latest updates on his project. If you have the time, read through the whole thread to appreciate the amount of restoration put into the car already.

The first episode of the Ninja Report is now out! Took me a while to piece everything together as I am a total video editing noob!



In this episode we talked about:

• A cool iPad application for photographers to draw inspiration


• An interview with Lito Sy, a very famous photographer from Phillipines

Do check out the video and let us know what you think about it!

Last updated: 21st September 2011 - New map update from APR, results are looking good!


(Image source: Motortrader.com.my)

After all the hype about me posting up on the Golf on both my blog as well as on Facebook, Wearnes VW saw my post on their fan page and informed me on Friday (September 2010) that the car was available for a test drive. This is definitely thanks to the power of social media. Immediately I called Wearnes VW and made an appointment with them for a test drive on Saturday the moment the opened. Not that I was super kiasu or anything, it's just that I had a number of wedding meetings and errands I had to run hence I decided for an early test drive.

Both CW and BK as well as Ash followed me to the dealership for the test drive. Ash had already placed a booking for the Golf earlier but I just wanted to test drive the car first hand to see it. Of course there are plenty of pros and cons when I sat in the car and looked at it. Initially I did say I wanted the car to be red but after seeing the red colour in person, I felt as if it didn't have the same effect as the Golf MkV had with their tornado red paint jobs.



First Impressions

The unit that was available in the showroom was in Amaryllis Red and I didn't like it that much. Stepping into the car, the first thing I noticed was the lack of leather seats as well as manually adjustable seats (versus the electric seats you get with the GTI). Of course these luxuries have been taken away in order to bring the price of the car down. The dashboard looks decent as well as the number of knobs and gadgets are a plenty. Build quality was good as BK was trying to figure out how in the world did they make such a good solid feel for the compartments in the car especially on the side hand rest.

Although there were some comments on my Facebook which I totally agree with, was that the 16" rims and the fabric seats does give it a budget look and feel.

Visual differences compared to the Golf GTI

 

From the outside, there are quite a number of visual differences between the Golf TSI and the Golf GTI. First and foremost would be the front bumper where the GTI's front bumper is different and it also includes in a front lip as well. The GTI sits lower compared to the Golf TSI. The number of fingers I can fit between the gap of the tyres and the car is around 4 fingers on the TSI versus 3 on the GTI. The GTI has a simple side skirt (although I don't really think its a full skirt). The rear bumper as well is different as the GTI cater's for twin exhaust versus the double exhaust ports on the TSI. Another small but important difference is the rear spoiler, the TSI's one is a little short which seems a little short. Also the GTI's brake calipers are red in colour.

On the inside, the GTI car is wrapped in leather and the driver's seat has electronic seat functions. The steering wheel is wrapped in leather and red stitching and it's a flat bottom steering wheel which gives a better and sportier feel to it. The TSI uses the same one in the Passat CC. Also the GTI does have aluminium sports pedal versus the standard rubber ones on the TSI.

Cabin Space and Boot Space

Let's face it, the car is small and it has less boot space then what I am used to. Well as a comparison, what I am used to is ferrying 3 friends to the golf course with 4 golf bags in the boot of my Honda Civic. I am definitely not going to be able to fit in 2 let a lone 3 golf bags unless I bring down the rear seats which in turn means I can't ferry the other people as well. Seating wise, it's still comfy but the fabric seats that come with the car are a little more on the hard side of things.

I am having slight difficulty fitting in a large-sized golf bag into the boot. In order for it to go in, I had to angle it in such a way that the bag is laid down diagonally. But other than my golf bag,  there hasn't been much of an issue getting other luggage in. It is rather ironic that the Golf has difficulty fitting a golf bag in its boot.

The Drive

The most important thing to me was the drive, I drive a lot. As in, I travel over 100km a day to and from work alone and this does not count in lunch runs and dinner runs or the occasional trip to the city center for meetings. But most of the driving time is limited to the highways where I feel fuel consumption comes into a very big effect here. The engine was beautiful, pickup was good, way better than what my 1.8 Civic can handle but there have been comments about it being a little bit of lag before the turbo kicks in. I guess I probably would need to have driving experience with a GTI first to have a good comparison.

Power (updated Sep 2011)

Now I have to be very frank, the power output between both the 1.4 TSi and the 2.0 TSi engines are really day and night. I have driven the GTI as well as the Roc 2.0 and the power difference can be easily felt. The amount of torque generated and the pull factor will leave you pressed back against the seat. So this is the true difference between the 1.4 TSi and the 2.0 TSi versions. To some, 160ps is enough for their usual day-to-day drive but I guess the power junkie in me seems to want to have more power!

I recently brought the Golf to GT Auto in Sunway (Sep 2011) again using the same dyno machine as the previous run below. The difference this time is that APR has released a version 2 of their 1.4 twincharger map and I wanted to see what is the difference on a proper dyno machine instead of relying mainly on my butt dyno. So using the same machine and also seeing the previous results (170whp and 267Nm torque), this time I came out with a smile! Latest figures is that I am running on 194whp (wheel horse power) with 307Nm of torque! That's more torque than a stock Golf GTI and the horse power is quite close to that of a Golf Mk6 GTI. Definitely a happier guy right now! Note that hardware wise, everything remained the same with the exception that I changed my drop-in filter to a K&N drop in filter.

I brought the TSI to GT Auto in Sunway and put it through a couple of runs on their dynometer. On paper the spec rated it at 160ps and that is achieved using Ron98 fuel. So with Ron95, based on other 1.4 TSI cars including the Roc as well, power on wheel was around 150-155whp when running on Ron95 fuel. After remapping the engine to a Stage 1 APR v1 map, I only managed to pull around 170whp on Ron95. I still think that is a little low and even the guys at APR has informed me that the reading was on the lower side. I definitely have to bring the car out for a datalog session to check out the readings and the boost levels.

The infamous DSG Gearbox

Gear change was quite smooth and the paddle shifter were fun to play with but as the shifter are in a fixed position, the weird part comes when you are turning on a winding road and you wanted to change hence you might have some difficulty changing gears quickly using the shifter. You have 3 different gear modes, the standard "D" mode for your every day-to-day driving, the manual mode where you have to change gears manually without the need of a clutch and the "S" mode where you usually red line your rev meter a lot more before it changes gear.

Braking powa!

The brakes were very sensitive as a little tap would send the car to a screeching halt almost immediately. That is quite good considering for a car that has 160hp.

Handling and suspension

Handling on the car wasn't too bad, although the salesperson didn't let try to slalom the car along Jalan Maarof so I can't give a good perspective on that. In my defence, there were plenty of potholes on the road which allowed me to snake my way in between them but I also wanted to try out the suspension comfort whilst going over the potholes. Compared to the Golf GTI and even the Sciroccos, the Golf TSI is a little wobbly especially after taking a high-speed corner. You definitely feel a lot more planted in the GTI and the Roc due to their stiffer setup.

Features

The car comes with plenty of features which include optical parking system(OPS) in front and at the back of your car. Whenever you park your car, you get a display on your head unit, which in my case is the RCD 510. Note that the original head unit you would receive with your cars would be the RCD 310.



Definitely comes in handy especially when you try to reverse into a tight parallel parking space.

Other features also include the ability to plug-in your USB thumb drive into the player as well as your iPhone/iPod via the MDI (media device in) connectors. Note that upon delivery of the car, only the MDI-to-USB cable was provided. I managed to source through eBay to get the MDI-to-iPod cable hence I am now able to plug my iPhone into the system and control it via my steering wheel (control meaning controlling the volume and switching of songs). All of this whilst the car also charges my iPhone at the same time.

Some interesting features which may seem standard for those of you who are used to drive a continental car but seem to be exciting for me because this is my first European car would be the auto rain sensor, auto lights, paddle shifters on the steering wheel, radio and MFD (multi function display) on the steering wheels and much more!

Fuel Consumption

Technical specs states that the car can travel up to 100km on 6 litres but I would be happy if it could go for 700km on a full tank of 55 litres.

At the end of the test drive, we were brought downstairs to the basement to have a look at the various other colour models available, reflex silver, a deep blue colour and another red was available. The test drive car was in white (candy white). Personally I would have chosen the blue but once you have driven on the highway everyday for the past 4 years, you would know that our highways are filled with stone and small pebbles which would eventually chip away at our front bonnet and bumpers. Hence going for a light colour is always preferable.

By the way, I also saw the Polo 1.2 in the basement. It's not the final one which will be launched as it is a manual version brought in here to pass the Puspakom test. From the outside, it looks exactly like a Golf, only smaller. Not mini-me small but just a little smaller.

Overall I would say it is a fantastic car, European built quality and the power is there. Two thumbs up from me :P

Some updates on the fuel consumption. I have also included in the Ron of the petrol I used to fill it up with. Personally I swapped over from Ron 97 to Ron 95 mainly because of the fuel hike but I can definitely notice the difference in terms of pickup and power. Overall power is slightly less but with Ron 95, the pickup feels as if it is a little more sluggish.

• 1st run - 520km (Ron 97)


• 2nd run - 520km (Ron 97)


• 3rd run - 500km (Ron 95 mixed with Ron 97)


• 4th run - 500km (Ron 95)


• 5th run - 520km (Ron 95)

As of right now, I am sticking to only using Ron 95 petrol as the prices of Ron 97 has increased.

4th Jan 2011 - I have driven almost 4,000km and my average fuel consumption is around 9.7km/L

11th March 2011 - I have driven almost 7,300km and my average fuel consumption is around 10.7km/L. I get about 550km average for a full tank of Ron95 petrol.

21st April 2011 - Trying out the new Petronas Ron95 Extra petrol, still see no difference in terms of mileage. I get the average 550km for a full tank of petrol

4th May 2011 - I just downloaded an app from the iTunes store for my phone. I need to fuel up my car for another 3-4 more times before getting a good set of data. Will post those up pretty soon.

Fuel preferences:

1. Caltex Ron95


2. Petronas Ron95 Extra


3. Esso Ron95


4. Shell Ron95


5. BHP Ron 95 - I get the worst fuel economy out of BHP

Car Maintenance:

This is my first hatchback car ever and I have never had a chance of maintaining one. Since the car is still relatively new, the service period hasn't popped up yet hence there aren't much information about it here. One of the things that I am rather anal about is how clean the car is and the colour I chose for my car was white. Personally I would have loved it in Tornado Red. Anyhow, no matter what the colour is, the car gets very dirty very easily especially the back. In rainy weather, mud, grime and dirt gets trapped at the lid of the 5th door so you will see that the back portion of the car is always dirty.

I have sent the car in recently to apply Sierra Glow on the body to maintain and sustain its white shine. You can read more about Sierra Glow in my review post here.

Car Services:

As I have recently passed my 7,500km mark, I have decided to send my car in for a simple service. Note that I did not send it in to the official VW service center as all I needed was a simple engine oil change and replace my fuel filter. I sent the car to Exquisite Marques over at Sunway Damansara and the 1st cost was RM380 in total of labour charges.

7,500 km - RM380 @ Exquisite Marques
15,000 km - RM525 @ Wearnes Service Center at Sg. Besi (total service time was about 6 hours)

Car Modifications:

When I first wrote this article, I would probably think that keeping this car stock would be very good already but once the modding bug hits you, it hits your hard, as well as your wallet. Here are some of the modifications you can do which may or may not void your warranty.

• Change your existing head unit (RCD 310). Alternatives around would be the RCD 510 as well as the RNS 510. Both the RCD and RNS 510 sport a touch screen LCD whilst the latter provides 20Gb of hard disk space and a built-in GPS navigation system.


• iPod MDI cable so you can control your song list using the steering wheel controls


• Change your rear lights to the Golf R LED lights. Shops which sell these babies include Ryou's Modshop (found on Facebook), Exotic Mods in Sunway Damansara, Exquisite Marques in Sunway Damansara and many more.

• Change your rims, let's face it. The stock 16" Atlanta rims just doesn't quite suite it especially since the advertisement features the Golf with 18" Atlanta rims. I fell in love with these Caractere rims!


• Upgrade your ECU with APR's tuning. Bring your car from 160bhp to 205bhp! Other tuning brands include MTM, ABT, DKTuning, Custom ones available at Exotic Mods as well.


• Change your pedals to aluminium racing pedals! Love these from OSIR.

• Add a bodykit, ABT has a showroom in Glenmarie. Get a copy of Hypertune and you can find loads of them available for the Golk Mk6.

• If you are thinking of increasing the power for your Golf TSI, I would also recommend that you change your brakes! Get the Golf R BBK (big brake kit) or 3rd party market brakes such as Brembo discs and brakes.

• Door sills scuff plates to protect your sides from scratches especially if you track on a lot of sand and dirt.

• For those of you who bought the 2010 Golf TSI, the latest mod you can do is get the front DRL Bi-Xenon lights. The 2011 Golf TSI and Golf GTI's will come with these lights as standards (damn Volkswagen! If only I had known!)

Places where I wash the car

• Waxsons in Aman Suria - Best place and very good cleaning job. A RM28 nano-wash and interior cleaning job really is worth it here! What I can notice is that even the dust on the air con vents have been cleaned up!


• Cars International - Expensive and don't really get many benefits by joining their membership.


• Susheteki in Tropicana City Mall - Don't like the staff's attitude, didn't really do a good job and must be a member to wash your car during the weekends

Conclusion

It would sound extremely biased especially if I said that this car is a very good car but with so many other choices within the price range, I can safely say that the ride and power on this little white rabbit is really amazing! Of course the next closest thing would be the Peugeot 308 Turbo which also offers similar power ratings (on paper) with the Golf but because it is a CKD model, the interior and ride quality doesn't come close to the Golf. But then again, you are paying a lot less for the Peugeot 308 Turbo. Overall I am very pleased with the Golf and even though I pump it with Ron 95, there is always power available especially when I want to overtake cars. The feel of the supercharger and the turbo kicking in is awesome. Only problem I have is that thanks to our wonderful Malaysian weather where it rains almost every other day, a Candy White car gets dirty very easily!

Discussion Groups and Forums

Do check out these forums where I participate together with other VW Golf TSI owners. Good source of information and a great place to hang out and learn from one another. A warning, you will get severely poisoned by some of the members there :)

• Lowyat.net VW Discussion Thread


• Autoworld VW Group Discussion Thread


• Volkswagen Golf Club Malaysia Forums

Do look out for me there in those threads. I am known as either "Mavik", "mavicarus" or "rendezvous".

Other Test Drive Reviews

• Check out Motortrader's more comprehensive test drive here.


• Check out ZerotoHundred's test drive review here.

I guess after the whole fiasco with the TV 3 Hari Raya Aidilfitri advertisement which was recently banned, here is one advertisement which touches us right at our hearts!

Click here to download the pdf version of the image above.

Organized by Models Inc., this exclusive workshop gives you the opportunity to work with models one on one. If you are looking to expand your portfolio, experience, learn how to ’see’ the light, and network with other photographers, PLUS get an opportunity to go on live shoots after the training, this event is for you! If you are an aspiring model, this is also an event for you! I am excited to share my experiences with all of you during this workshop.

Day 1, learn how to make a good portrait even better by learning different lighting & posing techniques. You will be utilizing different lighting techniques from available light to off camera flash and also video light to create your portraits. From theory, we will move on to a practical on-location shoot as the photographers will have the opportunity to photograph the different models. Each photographer will be assigned to one model so you have maximum control, and the ability to build your own personal portfolio!

For models, an up and coming stylist will coach you on hair and make-up application and will be giving tips on how to spruce up and keep looking fresh even on a hot day out on set.

Day 2, learn about how to create a good workflow after your shoot. You will be learning some cool post processing skills using Lightroom and Photoshop. A panel of renowned photographers will be invited to review the images so that you can maximize your learning experience. After the review, one photographer will be chosen to go through an apprenticeship period with myself (T&C apply) – to learn from live shoots! Models will be given a professional portfolio worth RM 200 within two weeks of the end of the workshop, including a fashion show line up in October.

Limited to only 10 photographers and 10 models – you are guaranteed a personalized experience.

If you wish to sign up, please email fiona@themodelsinc.co.uk with the following subject and body.

Subject : Re: Visual Depiction

Body : Full name, contact number, alternate contact number (if any), e-mail address, IC number/ passport number, photographer/model.

To be completely honest, I have a desktop sitting at home which serves me more as a multimedia device. Its exactly almost 3 years old running on an old Core Duo processor at 2.13Ghz. Previously it has been running on Windows Vista Home Premium edition and I never had any issues with it because I hardly use the machine for any serious work. This is until Starcraft 2 came into mind and I installed the game and started playing it.

That was when all of the problems started to appear. The game was quite slow, at first I blamed it on my old PC specs and I haven't had the cash to upgrade it. Well, I just can't bring myself to spending so much cash on upgrading a perfectly working machine. Another problem I kept getting was that Vista kept crashing my Starcraft 2 and after trying to reinstall the game again, I just couldn't do it! I blamed it on the game at first, because in order to install the game, I had to be connected to the internet which somehow my Vista's protocol was preventing the game from detecting the internet.

Well after a long hard consideration, I went ahead and reformatted my PC, installed Windows 7 on it and am loving it. Starcraft 2 seems to be able to play much smoother now. To be honest, I actually installed XP on it first but the copy of XP I had was a little too old which didn't have any of my hardware drivers which meant I couldn't connect to the internet to download them. After a painful weekend of installing it, I am quite pleased with Windows 7. Its a pity that I only have the 32-bit version with me, otherwise I would have installed the 64-bit version and fully utilize the 4Gb of RAM I have installed.

At the moment I am still keeping this machine clean, only installed Google Chrome, Open Office, Alvira AntiVirus and VLC player. I guess those are the softwares I pretty much need at the moment.

Can't wait to get a new replacement office laptop fitted out with Win 7. My current one is still running on XP.



Not too bad for a 3 year old PC scoring a 5.4 on the Windows Experience Index.

Update:
Check out this commercial for the new Windows 7 phone.

This week on Wednesday Clicks! I really need a new image to be used for my Wednesday Clicks posts.

• Check out some of these amazing photojournalist images, really worth the click!


• Who says the iPhone isn't a fantastic phone? This guy definitely begs to differ!


• The crazy folks at Colorware has done it again, charges you USD$75 to change the colour of your Magic Trackpad. Or should I just spend USD$550 to get my Macbook Pro coloured as well!


• Always getting bullied as a photographer especially during street shoots? Well, worry no more! Check out these cards, they tell you your rights!


• Of little lies and small promises, this link definitely is a good read on personal integrity. How often do we constantly say, "I am on the way", while we are still happily lounging at home? This article hit me at my very nerve.


• Jessica Claire wonders if she might just want to switch over to Nikon??? Woah that is huge news!

That's all for this week. Have a great week ahead everyone!

Every year on the 31st of August, Malaysians come together as one to celebrate our nation's independence day but this year seems a little more of a solemn affair for me. Maybe its the tiring weekend I had and with all of the frustrations I went through, perhaps the joy of the day has become another passing holiday. Maybe its due to the extremely sorry state of our nation that we constantly read in the papers, read online and watch on television.

Youtube has been a great source of information but everytime I watch our politicians in the Dewan Rakyat, I have nothing more but more concern. As leaders of our nation, instead of focusing on the key points, getting us out from a bad economy and continue to build this nation into a developed one, we have those who tend to like to take every opportunity to gain some limelight and make an arse of him/herself.

Oh well, that is what happens when you just simply elect a representative without knowing their true capabilities.

So instead of out celebrating, I am a little more inclined to read these bit of news instead.

• The ultimate Malaysian debate: Malaysia or Malaysaja?


• Freedom Freedom Freedom


• Door to any house of worship open


• The Struggle for Merdeka: What the Malaysian History books do not tell us

Happy Independence Day everyone.

After mentioning about the Volkswagen Golf GTI Mk VI in my older post here and the new upcoming Volkswagen Golf 1.4 TSI here, I managed to find some interesting videos on YouTube about the Volkswagen Golf 1.4.


Thought the advert above was very interesting.


Some reviews of the Golf VI on Fifth Gear


This video shows the acceleration speed of the Golf 1.4 TSI with a 160hp. Only difference is that it is fitted with 19" rims instead of it's stock 16" rims.


The Golf VI 1.4 in action, tornado red. I like that colour a lot.


And a video reviewing the Golf but in a different language! Anyone can translate this for me?

Yes, I have finally gotten around to sorting through some of the images from my photo archives and yes, I have uploaded them to my Portfolio page. Here are some of the images which I have uploaded.



Capture the shot above while shooting Siva & Sumitha's wedding together with the Stories team.



This shot was taken during Eric & Debbie's wedding, also together with the Stories' team.



Took the shot of Mun Tzin quite recently :)

Head over to my portfolio page to view more!

I have known Nick for quite some time now ever since the Lowyat photography days and when he asked me to shoot his pre-wedding, I couldn't say "no" to him. Here are some of the photos from the session. Boy, did I really have so much fun shooting the couple. Both Nick and Sharon were very sporting and they were a really funny couple to photograph. A huge thanks to Mun Tzin as well for helping me out.



I really love capturing the bouquet especially when they are so nicely decorated such as the one above.



The head piece was from Pretty in White! I really love birdcage veils.



We started the shoot from inside the room which was themed after a middle eastern design.













After shooting for a while, we decided to try and capture the sunset. I really love sunset shots and I really love the warm colour tone!









All the best Nick and Sharon. Can't wait to shoot your wedding next month! Gosh, time really flies!