I'm still alive! / A new beginning (notebook version)...

Song of the day:
Stan Bush
"Dare"

Wow. 

Just realised that I haven't blogging for months since I graduated from UTM.

Hmm...

Just to update, I

1. am still jobless/unemployed
2. am still a lazy rascal. Refer to 1

I know some of you are like "what the f**k? Get up and get a f**king job!!!" or something like that.

At the moment, I'm still taking my time to find a suitable job.

I've interviews coming up but I'm not very desperate for jobs.

Anyway, certain things have changed in the past two months.

Basically, my mindset has changed a lot in various subjects, i.e. friendship, jobs, life.

I've also taken time out to reminisce about past memories, good and not so good ones, memorable and not so memorable ones.

In this pacy era, it's difficult to even stop for a moment and admire the things around us.

That's probably the reason why I wanna take all the time in the world to rest, realise and learn things around me, and also discover what I could really do with my life.

All the while, I haven't been really making decisions on my own.

I want to have a say in my life, and I don't have the chance to do that in my life, especially regarding my future.

Now I've stepped out of university, graduating as a First Class graduate from Electrical Engineering.

And it's also about time for me to put aside what I don't really enjoy doing in the past few years, and look forward to something outside the Electrical Engineering field.

Hence, I'm taking my own sweet time. Cheers!

I know a lot of people will "look down upon" me. I understand that.

But I "look down upon" them too as they're just slaves for money.

I don't want to be a slave for money. I want to enjoy what I do and obtain the reward/salary that I feel is compatible with what I achieve within my scope of work.

That's my view though.

Oh ya, just only last week that I damaged my Presario V1000 by accident. 

It was a nightmare when I accidentally kicked my Presario.

It died a horrible death as it fell to the ground from the top of my small little side table which I placed my notebook all the time.

The motherboard struggled to inhale her last breath. 

And within seconds of trying to revive her, she died. :(

My Presario V1000 has been a loyal servant to me for the past 4 years since the year 2004.

Unfortunately, she suffered various kinds of illnesses annually and nearly died after 2 years of usage.

The motherboard was changed and luckily she was determined to continue living.

She went on strong for the next two years until last week when the accident happened.

Well, I've bought a new babe just only yesterday.

It came out of a surprise that I bought my baby as I was looking for a suitable baby with several brands considered, including Acer, Dell, HP and others.

And most people knew that last weekend was PC Fair weekends in several major cities in Malaysia, including Johor Bahru.

I wasn't satisfied with most of the model sold in the fair at Persada as the specifications were just not good enough for the budget that I've set for my future baby.

The budget? Roughly 2k to 2.7k bucks. 

After loiterring around Persada on the first day of the fair in JB, I went back empty handed.

As I was a Lowyat Forum member, I searched through the "Mobile Computing" thread and discovered a new Acer notebook model which was being hotly discussed.

It was weird as there was no sign of the notebook during the fair at Persada.

As I continue reading the forum, I realise that the notebook has the following specs:

1. Processor: AMD Athlon (Turion) 64 X2 RM-70 / 2 GHz ( Dual-Core )
2. Cache Memory: 1 MB, L2 cache
3. RAM: 1 GB (installed) / 4 GB (max), DDR II SDRAM, 667 MHz ( 2 x 1 GB )
4. Card Reader: 5 in 1
5. Hard Drive: 160 GB
6. Optical Storage: DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM, integrated
7. Display: 14.1" TFT 1280 x 800 ( WXGA ), 24-bit (16.7 million colors), CrystalBrite
8. Graphics Controller: NVIDIA GeForce 9100M G
9. Networking: Network adapter, Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b,IEEE 802.11g 

And also, the price of this babe was approximately 2k bucks!!!

This babe is the Acer Aspire 4530. Picture is as follow:

(Taken from Expertester@Wordpress.com)

For such a price, the specs were more than satisfying.

Of course, my mom has hinted me of getting Acer as she knew an Acer dealer with excellent customer service.

Before I got any info on the Acer Aspire 4530, I thought of having Dell Inspiron 1420 which is priced at roughly 3k bucks, but even its specs were just a wee bit off the Acer Aspire 4530.

(Taken from notebookreview.com)

1. Bios A09 version
2. Intel® CoreTM 2 Duo Processor T7300 
3. Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic*
4. 2GHz, 4MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB
5. 14.1” WXGA Truelife Display with Integrated 2.0 mega pixel web cam
6. 160GB* Hard Drive
7. DVD Burner*
8. NVIDIA® GeForceTM Go 8400M GS with 128MB DDR3 dedicated graphic memory
   
9. Up to 384mb video memory share
10. Dell™ Wireless 1395 802.11g Wi-Fi Mini-card

My first question was: AMD or Intel?

AMD Turion 64 x2 and Intel Centrino 2 Duo were reviewed by several well-known computer sites as on par. 

Of course, the Turion has its strength and weaknesses. The same applies to the Centrino 2. 

But what I was curious about was that AMD could offer almost the same performance as Intel (in the Dual Core processor thingy) at a cheaper price.

Supporter of AMD might point towards the company's slogan, which is "The Smarter Choice".

So, one thing came to my mind: Are people prepared to support AMD in order to break the dominance of Intel?

Surely some of them were sceptical when I asked them to choose between AMD Turion 64 X2 and Intel Centrino 2 Duo Core.

Majority of them say the Centrino.

To me, it's like supporting Arsenal, not that f**king club from Manchester (not referring to Man City of course so you know which club I'm referring to) which had been a dominant force but not for long in my opinion.

Second question was always gonna be the budget.

But with the Aspire 4530 priced at 2k which is cheaper than Dell Inspiron 1420 by 1k bucks, it's easy to choose from.

Of course, prices can differ from one location to another, and possibly from one shop to another.

So I headed towards an Acer dealer (City Wise at Landmark) whom my bro got his Acer Aspire 5583 from.

I got all the necessary details and assurances from the branch manager. He promised to offer me PC Fair price too!

I left Landmark with absolute satisfaction after informing that fella I'll be returning within the next few days to purchase that babe. (Sounds like prostitution :( )

Back to the story. After all the considerations and tinkering, I decided to go for the Acer Aspire 4530, which received rave reviews from fellow Lowyat Forum members (even though most of them voted for Acer to be the worst brand of laptop).

Final price: 2199 inclusive of 3 Year International warranty, upgrade to 2GB RAM and a host of free gifts (mouse, headphones etc.)

Now, I'm updating my blog using my baby via the Windows Vista Home Basic. 

I'm still very new to this OS but honestly, the layout hasn't really been THAT different.

Still a lot to explore on Vista though :p

That's all for today guys! I'll be back to update my blog consistently.

See ya!