EUPA TSK-826B4 (Auto Espresso Machine Under MYR 500) -- In-depth Review

A few of months ago, I dived into the world of espresso brewing

Before anything else, I'm writing this post a couple of days after owning a more expensive machine,  which allowed me to offer a comparison of their capabilities and realize their shortcomings.

Like probably everybody else, I browsed through what was offered (back then) in my neighborhood electrical appliances shops -- with a fairly limited budget of MYR 600. Presented to me were a bunch of entry-level offerings from Philips and DeLonghi.

What held me back was their portafilter (the thing attached to a handle that holds your filter basket) assemblies have a common dodgy-looking rubber ring seal -- I just couldn't imagine pushing high-pressure hot water onto that seal repetitively.

On top of that, most of the entry-level machines have flimsy grouphead (the thing you attach -- i.e. twist -- your portafilter onto before brewing) that rattles even after securing the portafilter.

Then, I looked online

After searching through the online marketplace, this particular machine caught my attention -- EUPA TSK-826B4, a 15-bar (claimed) automatic espresso machine under MYR 500 without a dodgy-looking portafilter.

Note: not super-automatic (i.e. with built-in grinder)

Some quick specifications

• Single boiler
• "Italian" 15-bar water pump
• Single, double shot pre-programmed buttons
• Steam-wand with removable turbo frother attachment
• Removable water tank
• Pre-brew infusion
• Included accessories:
• Single shot filter basket (dual wall type)
• Double shot filter basket (dual wall type)
• Milk jug (100 ml maybe, just enough to steam 2 shots worth of milk)
• Plastic scoop-tamper combination tool
• Unclogging needles
• Manual with recipe for different espresso-based drinks

Build

Most of the parts are in plastic, including the portafilter, which is painted in chrome to look metallic, but is probably made out of a mix of plastic and silicone. Filter baskets are probably some kind of rust-proof alloy.

Onto brewing!

The brewing process is pretty much like what you'd expect from other machines -- load, level, tamp, twist, press, wait, voila. My dad and I were really amazed with the resulting cup of coffee -- it tastes so much better than what you would get from Starbucks, probably owing a lot to the freshly roasted beans I bought from Taiwan.

That's exactly how I dropped into this bottomless pit -- every pack of beans of different blends and origins gives you a different flavor. Goodbye, moolahs.

The resulting espresso has crema, which indicates you're not simply brewing an Americano, but the crema amount is probably half of what you would normally expect from a machine 6 times of the price tag.

I've spent each and every morning, almost religiously trying to perfect the extraction, staring at the color and flow of the espresso and tasting it.

How about latte?

Texturing milk is another story altogether. Ah, the countless nights practicing milk-texturing with soapy water -- and ranting how they made it seem so easy on YouTube (for a very good reason, explained later) -- just to get that latex-like consistency that's optimum for pouring latte art.

The turbo frother attachment is completely useless except if you want the result to be something like a super-automatic machine -- i.e. stiff, macro foam cap on top.

Once you got the specific-to-this-machine technique nailed down, you can indeed texture milk on this machine without issues.

Not too shabby 'lah', pardon the big bubbles, something was wrong with the crema

Trying a different method now (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧

A photo posted by Lance Chong (@corelance) on Dec 15, 2015 at 5:02pm PST

Drawbacks

You get what you paid for -- this entry-level machine is entry-level for many reasons. Here is a list of quirks I found out:

1. Single boiler -- you can't texture milk while brewing your espresso, because water for steam and espresso brewing are of different temperatures.
2. You can't steam milk without brewing something -- for reasons unknown, you must brew something beforehand or you'll get a very weak flow of steam.
3. You can't steam milk for too long -- related to the previous point, the steam pressure will drop after you steam your second jug of milk.
4. Inconsistent steam pressure -- steam pressure is inconsistent, requiring you to start steaming on the "sweet spot" time-window (explained later in tips).
5. Low steam pressure -- holy shit almost everything is related to steam! Yep, after using the more expensive machine, I now truly understand why it took me so long to learn how to texture milk -- simply because the pressure is lower than what they use in YouTube.
6. Fluctuating brewing temperature -- it's easy to get inconsistent brews because the boiler is controlled via on-off signals (not PID controlled), requiring you to purge a bit of water before actual brewing to get consistent temperature
7. Weaker and inconsistent brewing pressure -- if you're not careful with grind-size and tamping strength, nothing will come out, and brewing pressure will be inconsistent right after you use the steam wand, requiring you to (again) purge some water.

Tip and Tricks

I've gathered some techniques after using the machine for a few months, resulting from dropping into the pitfalls presented by this machine -- you can apply them should you decided to own this machine (it's still a great entry-level machine after all)

1. Purge 2 shots worth of water after warming up -- this is a rather universal tip applicable to all machines -- to get rid of stale water in the boiler from previous sessions, and specifically for this machine, to get ready for steaming.
2. Purge 1 shot of water right before brewing, every time -- before you load your filter basket with coffee grounds, purge 1 shot of water from the machine to stabilize the water temperature and pressure.
3. Pay attention to grind size -- grinding too fine will clog the filter and you'll get drip-coffee or nothing at all. Adjust grind-size according to flavor and crema output.
4. Two scoops of beans -- I found out in general you'll need only 2 scoop (the included scoop, full, leveled) of beans for double-shot.
5. Don't tamp like a gorilla -- tamping too hard will clog up the filter, especially if you use finer grind sizes, you'll get drip-coffee (again). 20 lbs of tamping pressure doesn't work well on this machine.
6. Position your cup slightly outward -- this is to let the espresso flow gently through the rim of the cup to prevent big bubbles from forming in your crema (yeah, that photo up there)
7. Remove the turbo frother -- seriously.
8. Pay attention to steam pressure -- the steam pressure is usually weak for the first use after warming up. If it's too weak, purge steam until the light blinks, then turn it off and wait until it stops blinking, then try again. Always texture milk after you make sure the steam pressure is okay.
9. Don't steam more than a jug of milk at once -- alternate between brewing and texturing milk to get a more consistent steam pressure.
10. Don't panic if your milk doesn't swirl -- it's perfectly normal, really. It takes a while for the swirling to occur on this machine, so don't move the steam wand around. Position your jug flat (base of jug parallel with ground), rest the wand on the spout, nozzle slightly below milk surface, angle towards rim of jug with nozzle almost touching the rim.
    
    Observe the sound:
• "bloop bloop bloop" - nozzle too high, position the nozzle down the surface of the milk (by moving your jug, along the wand, guided by the spout of the jug)
• hissing like some bomb charging before exploding with no bubbles seen (sorry, out of vocabularies to describe) - this is probably the correct position. Tilt the jug slightly to expose the nozzle, up and until you hear a high pitched hissing sound with small bubbles forming on the milk surface, then tilt back.
  
  How much bubbles to make depends on the milk, you'll need to go through trial and error. Don't worry about the big bubbles, this is perfectly normal for this machine -- once the milk start to swirl, stop producing more bubbles and concentrate on eliminating the bubbles. 
11. Base of jug must be flat -- or you'll get stiff foam on top and plain milk for the rest.

Conclusions

This is a great machine for curious people to start-out espresso brewing (and see what the bandwagon is about) with a hard-to-beat price (China powerrrrrr) -- it simply blows the competitions out of water with 1/2 the price. You'll never want to drink coffee from drip coffee machines (or Starbucks), or instant coffee, EVER.

If you have enough budget, then you might want to consider Welhome WPM-KD210S2 instead, which addresses all of the shortcomings listen here with its PID-controlled twin-pump-twin-thermoblock (TPTT) design and commercial-grade portafilter. I'm currently a happy owner of one :P

If your budget is even higher, I've heard good reviews of Breville BE920XL (cool LCD screen bruh).

Astro IPTV (Maxis FTTH) on OpenWRT

Updated on 5 July 2015:

The configuration still crashes the PPPoE on my router. With more research I’ve changed it to something that works (again).

Updated on 1 July 2015:

I’ve revisited the procedures and updated it with working configuration.

Due to the lack of (and misleading) information on the Internet, after hours of fiddling with my OpenWRT router (TM’s DIR-615 with OpenWRT flashed), I finally got Astro IPTV flawlessly working on my setup, and the Thompson router fully retired.

First thing’s first – if you have VoIP, it’s bad news for you – because my setup doesn’t have one – you’ll have to look elsewhere for your VoIP part.

Special Thanks

My success is partly due to the stumbling of this article related to configuring a Mikrotik router for Astro IPTV: https://rizvanrp.com/2014/09/re-implementing-astro-maxis-iptv/

To understand how everything works, refer to the above article.

Additional Packages

Go to the software section the your OpenWRT interface and install the following packages (if not already installed)

• igmpproxy
• kmod-bridge

Use this mirror if the one you’re using is down:

http://bo.mirror.garr.it/pub/1/openwrt/

Tip: How to obtain the packages if your OpenWRT is not even connected to the net – piggyback your Thompson router by temporarily setting your OpenWRT router’s WAN configuration to DHCP client, and connect a cable from any of Thompson’s port into your OpenWRT WAN port.

VLAN Configuration

On my router, Port 4 is the WAN port, yours might be Port 0 - VLANs are tagged on this,with your personal VLAN (usually ID 1) disabled.

As usual, CPU has all VLANs tagged, while normal ports have VLAN 1 untagged, other VLANs disabled.

Configuration summarizes to: 621 for PPPoE, 823 for IPTV.

 

PPPoE/WAN Configuration

Configure your WAN interface. Your username can be obtained from the Thompson router configuration page, the password is the number before the @, add ‘1’ at the back (e.g. 12345@public.maxis.com.my, password would be 123451)

Let the WAN interface sit on eth0.621

 

IPTV Configuration

Add a new interface, name it “IPTV” or something, set it as DHCP client sitting on eth0.823.

For the firewall configuration, create a new rule for this interface. Then head over to the created firewall configuration, set it to something like what’s shown below.

Additional firewall to accept IGMP multicasts from the VLAN 823 and forward UDP video data from VLAN 823 to our LAN.

Configuring IGMP Multicasting

Make sure IGMPProxy is disabled in the System > Startup section.

SSH login into your router (root account, your admin panel password), edit /etc/config/igmpproxy using vim.

Make sure it looks something like this:

   1:  config igmpproxy

   2:          option quickleave 1

   3:   

   4:  config phyint

   5:          option network eth0.823

   6:          option direction upstream

   7:          list altnet 172.17.90.1/32

   8:   

   9:  config phyint

  10:          option network br-lan

  11:          option direction downstream

  12:   

  13:  config phyint

  14:          option network pppoe-wan

  15:          option direction disabled

  16:   

  17:  config phyint

  18:          option network lo

  19:          option direction disabled

Check /sys/devices/virtual/net/br-lan/bridge/multicast_snooping make sure the file contains ‘1’ (without quotes) so that the traffic will not flood your wireless network if you’re using br-lan.

Enable snooping in your LAN network, edit /etc/config/network so the portion looks something like this:

   1:  config interface 'lan'

   2:          option ifname 'eth0.1'

   3:          option type 'bridge'

   4:          option proto 'static'

   5:          option netmask '255.255.255.0'

   6:          option macaddr 'xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx'

   7:          option ipaddr '192.168.0.1'

   8:          option gateway '192.168.0.1'

   9:          option igmp_snooping '1'

 

Finally, to fix the issue with powercycling the modem and router together causing igmpproxy to fail (because eth0.823 is up slower than igmpproxy) – we add a hotplug hook.

So ‘vim /etc/hotplug.d/iface/99-igmpproxy’ to create a script under the iface hotplug directory:

   1:  #!/bin/sh

   2:   

   3:  logger -t DEBUG "hotplug igmpproxy: device '$DEVICE' action '$ACTION'"

   4:   

   5:  [ "$DEVICE" = "eth0.823" ] && [ "$ACTION" = "ifdown" ] && /etc/init.d/igmpproxy stop

   6:  [ "$DEVICE" = "eth0.823" ] && [ "$ACTION" = "ifup" ] && /etc/init.d/igmpproxy start

Remember interface/device names corresponding to your own setup.

Finalize

Apply all settings and power cycle your router. Plug your IPTV cable into any port of your router (except WAN port, of course), and cable from Port 2 of your modem/DTU to the WAN port of your router.

Wait for it to fully boot and connected to the net, then power cycle your Astro STB.

Pray everything works (it should) on your STB – make sure program guides, time and all the features are available.

Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro VS PSB M4U-1

It was extremely hard to choose between DT770 Pro and M4U-1. For those interested in comparing these two great headphones – here are my thoughts, categorized into different aspects.

Aesthetics

The DT770 is designed like a professional studio gear – round and black plastic cups with velour earpads, though looked professional, they are certainly not designed to match your fashion apparel.

The M4U-1, on the other hand, sports different colors to choose from – among them are black, gray, white and red, all in glossy finishing with leather earpads. You could certainly get a hint of Beats as far as design is concerned, but with far superior sound quality, which will be discussed later. In a nutshell, it is designed to look trendy.

As far as looks is concerned, M4U-1 wins.

Accessories

The DT770 Pro comes with a 6.3 mm jack screw-on adapter; while our friends from PSB packed a lot more – cleaning micro-fibre cloth, extra pair of earpads, airline adapter, cable with inline mic for iPod and Blackberry, and a hard case to boot, aside from a 6.3 mm jack adapter.

Accessories wise, M4U-1 wins hands down.

Comfort

DT770 Pro has larger ear cups than M4U-1, which logically provides a better comfort. In reality, yes, DT770 Pro is much comfortable than M4U-1.

I felt the M4U-1’s earpads are a bit too small for my ears as my ears felt squished. Not very uncomfortable, but definitely not comfortable.

DT770 Pro wins this round.

Sound Quality – Highs

Both headphones are really well designed as far as sound quality is concerned. The highs are extends very well and very fine for both, except M4U-1 sounds a tad bit brighter than DT770, which might give a tiny problem when playing noisy rock tracks (e.g. Sister’s Noise by fripSide).

DT770 Pro gives a bit of an edge here.

Sound Quality – Mids (Vocals)

This is when it gets really interesting. DT770 Pro, has a bit of coloring in the mids. Though the mids are considered pretty well (the coloring is much lower than Sony MDR-1R), it gives off a very very subtle plastic-y sound. (resonance at around 2 kHz)

Mids in M4U-1 is engaging, it is almost “penetrating”. The album “Best Audiophile Voices III” and “Eternal Singing Endless Love”, or any vocal track, are best enjoyed with the M4U-1.

M4U-1 completely squashed DT770 in vocals.

Sound Quality – Lows

Though DT770 has a noticeable mid-bass hump, the lows in DT770 have a very nice timbre, felt completely natural and envelops the ears very nicely. Personally I feel the bass in DT770 Pro is a tiny bit too much, some might prefer a lighter bass,

The M4U-1, however, has more of an IEM styled bass – though equally as deep, they are highly controlled and dry. I guess the lack of adequately sized cavity didn’t allow the bass to give a nice and natural bass reverb on the ears.

New age music such as ones from the album “The Sound of Illusion” (by NuSound, the album a different name in different regions) felt very dry on the M4U-1 compared to DT770.

DT770 dominates M4U-1 here, no doubt.

Conclusions

It’s really, really hard to choose between DT770 Pro and M4U-1.

The M4U-1 while delivering impressive vocals, feels more like an IEM more than a pair of full-size headphones in the bass department.

The DT770 Pro’s only major drawback (though not very major if you don’t do ABX comparison) is the mids.

A tie, perhaps?

Windows 8 Network Profile Manager

Starting from Windows Vista, Microsoft has implemented Network Location Awareness (NLA) into Windows. To put it in simple terms, Windows will automatically identify and name the networks it joins.

The feature however is prone to create silly network names, especially if you tend to change network adapters often, such as MyHomeNetwork 2, MyHomeNetwork 3 … MyHomeNetwork 13.

To top that off, since Windows 8, Microsoft has removed the option to manage, that includes merging and renaming, of networks – users are forced to stick with the stupid names Windows give (e.g. Network, Network 65535 etc.)

Thankfully, it is still possible to rename the network names, but only through hacking your way into the Windows Registry.

Windows 8 Network Profile Manager

Enter Windows 8 Network Profile Manager (Win8NetMan). Win8NetMan is a small application written to manage the network profiles created by Windows in a intuitive way by abstracting all the Registry complications.

Here are the features in a glance:

• Display and changing of simple network profile properties (e.g. name, description) and advanced properties (e.g. default gateway MAC address, DNS suffix etc)
• Deletion of individual network profiles (e.g. for old network devices that are no longer used)
• Bulk deletion of all network profiles

Note: Changes may require reconnecting to the network to be applied.

If you like the application, please donate to support further development of useful applications!

 

 

Download (Hosted by 4Shared.com)

デフコン

This afternoon the Internet at my workplace went down. Since the rest of the network infrastructure was running fine, I thought it was one of those random pesky Unifi downtimes that happens once in a blue moon.

After a couple of hours I couldn’t take it anymore and decided to investigate and observed the primary gateway is slowly chugging along. Well, a quick hard reboot should fix it…

… Not.

Then I noticed my secondary gateway has high CPU usage as well – so a soft-reboot should do the trick…

… Nope.

Tried to run PING to Google (el classico!) and the response was quite odd – on-and-off responses.

I thought something was definitely wrong with the network, and boy I was pretty damn right.

A quick peek at the network monitoring tool shows 5 MBps activities on my network servers, it’s a magic number just enough to drown the Unifi link. Something is hogging the network.

So I disconnected my IP masquerade from the network – and Internet access (on the server) immediately restored.

Time to find the bad boy – DARKSTAT to the rescue. In a few seconds, the wolf among the sheep is found (more like a zombie, that fella was happily flooding the network with RDP requests). First thing that came across my mind is to immediately configure the firewall to drop all packets coming from the machine.

Yep, this time it fully restored the Internet access in our network.

ZENMAP showed our target as a Windows 2003 Server SP2 machine with a handful of opened ports. From the outside it doesn’t seem vulnerable.

… From the outside that is…

I saw RDP was opened so the most logical thing to do is to try to remote access that sonnovabeech with the most powerful account available and the most stupid password known on Earth.

Jackpot – Administrator privileges granted on the first try itself. As expected, I was greeted with loads of suspicious looking processes and a very nicely placed backdoor (LogMeIn) upon firing up the task manager.

Let’s kill this beach before it lays eggs.

Next time I’m going to audit each !@#$ server that is going to be placed on the network.

とある物語３

Imagine you are going to conduct a full day technical training to government officers. Imagine you have suited up with your best professional appearance.

Imagine you arrived on site on time. You took out a large box containing 21 pieces of equipment from your boot, your 5 kilo working backpack, your water bottle from the car.

Locked the car and proceed walking towards the traffic light junction between the car park and the government building.

Everything is cool and smooth. You felt your pants pockets and…

Shit happened - your car ignition key is missing (imagine the key is not kept together with the remote for security reasons).

You looked frantically around you and the key is no where in sight. You have to deliver the equipment on-time, there are issues requiring your on-time support, and top it all off it is your turn to present soon. You are afraid if the key is picked up by someone else. You are afraid you will not able to go home today.

You’re sweating profusely, your shirt is all wet, after all that trouble you took to look good. Time is ticking, make your choice.

This is not fiction.

I chose to deliver the equipment to my colleague (the current presenter) and fulfill my commitment to support the technician in the Personalization Centre. Apparently there was some unknown (to the technician, at least) error during personalization of test cards, and the issue was very urgent.

I requested the technician to open up the PIN file, but watching the clueless technician staring blankly at the monitor is excruciatingly difficult. Clock is ticking. Calm down, don’t let the personal stuff affect work.

After a good 5 minutes or so he gave up and asked if I could locate it. He should have done so in the first place. I made an educated guess and found the file I’m looking for. Looks like someone was lying, the machine is clearly not pre-configured for test card personalization.

After a few trips back-and-forth the meeting room (where my notebook was) and Personalization Centre, I found out the culprit was just a mistyped SAM PIN. Awesome.

Went back to the meeting room (where the training session was held) and troubleshooted a few participants’ code.

Finally got the chance to continue the search for the key after things have pretty much calmed down.

After searching the grasses, the pavement, the tar roads, under cars, in the boot, on the seat constantly rewinding my memory trying to recall the most possible place the key could have misplaced or dropped, hope was gradually lost. I was going to give up, the search area big and full of obstacles for such a small key.

I texted my family members saying I have lost my keys and might need to tow my car later.

“The Law of Attraction”, I recalled the words someone told me. It’s too early to give up. Kept my cool and restarted the search from my car, searching beneath nearby cars, under the scorching sun.

Underneath one black car a few lots away from my car, there was my key. And then I was like “ZOMG IT’S A MIRACLE I’M SAVEDZZZZ”

Started my car with that key just to double confirm.

End of story.

仕事の日々#3: VB.NET anonymous methods

What we lazy coders do in C# when dealing with a non-STA WinForm on another thread is usually:

Invoke((MethodInvoker) delegate
{
    txtSomeLabel.Text = "Foobar!";
});

Today I had to deal with a piece of code written in VB.NET, and here’s how it’s done:

Invoke(
   Sub()
      txtSomeLabel.Text = "Foobar!"
   End Sub
)

No casting is required as BASIC is not a strongly typed language.

It also works with anonymous methods with parameters, you just have to use Function in place of Sub.

仕事の日々#2: C# byte & Java byte

Although C# could be said a rip off from Java, I would understand why Microsoft made the choice to be different from Sun – because it’s downright confusing when doing low level processing if it’s done the Java way.

Aside from String/string, boolean/bool, endianness etc. beginner coders migrating from C# to Java or vice versa would most definitely make this mistake – C# byte and Java byte

In C#, a byte is an 8-bit unsigned integer (unsigned char for you C/C++ dinosaurs out there), while a byte in Java is an 8-bit signed integer (signed char).

What does that mean?

Well, it meant you’ll screw up your code if you ignore this difference.

C#

for(byte i = 10; --i >= 0; )
   Console.WriteLine("foo");

Java

for(byte i = 10; --i >= 0; )
   System.out.println("foo");

For a more hidden problem:

C#

short i = 0xFF;
byte j = (byte) 0xFF; // (byte) is optional
if(i == j) Console.WriteLine("Yay!");
else Console.WriteLine("Nay!");

Java

short i = 0xFF;
byte j = (byte) 0xFF; // (byte) is mandatory
if(i == j) System.out.println("Yay!");
else System.out.println("Nay!");

If you’re not aware of this problem, your program will most probably compile, probably pass all your tests but randomly fails after live deployment.

Captain Obvious says:
“The samples above behave differently for C# and Java.”

Oh, to make things worse, there’s no “unsigned” keyword in Java. Great. Static casting like a magus.

仕事の日々#1: OIC & ORACLE_HOME

Here’s the scenario: I’m writing a setup deployment (installer wizard) project that uses Oracle on a 64-bit system.

Naturally, the installed Oracle Client on the target system is 64-bit. Because Microsoft Installer Executive (MSIEXEC) by default runs in 32-bit mode, and building a dedicated 64-bit project is rather tedious, I’ve resorted to including the Oracle Instant Client into my setup project file.

During setup the wizard will invoke sqlplus to run various database installation scripts. When testing my freshly baked project on the test bed, sqlplus execution ended with code 1.

Well, the problem is: my scripts are configured to exit with code -1 if errors occur during execution. Out of sheer programmer instinct I inspected my setup logs and extracted the specific failed command line out to run it on the console.

The command worked fine.

For a few hours I’ve tried to find out the culprit – changing PATH, altering the script to use “connect”, changing executing user… It just wouldn’t work.

Then I tried redirecting the standard output and error streams (which are originally hidden) from the process into my log file as well.

Sqlplus said:

Error 6 initializing SQL*Plus
Message file sp1<lang>.msb not found
SP2-0750: You may need to set ORACLE_HOME to your Oracle software directory

The error message was very helpful, thank you.

I then checked my default environment variables using “echo %ORACLE_HOME%” – the values looked okay.

So what went wrong?

Apparently some bloody smart component written by a bloody smarty pants changed the ORACLE_HOME environment variable to the current execution directory, which is obviously not ORACLE_HOME.

I did not touch environment variables in my code – so that leaves Oracle Instant Client as the culprit.

Once I changed ORACLE_HOME to the values I find in registry right before launching sqlplus, everything worked like a charm. Bloody Oracle developers.

Yes, this affects imp.exe too.

２４歳まで

It is the time again, though this time around it is slightly earlier, before I get overwhelmed by other things.

This is the time I list down small milestones for the past biological-year.

I have to admit, it is quite difficult for me to recall…

 

November 2012: Distant Worlds Live in Malaysia

A very memorable orchestral concert, streams of memories filled with emotions gushing into your head. Distant Worlds is a definite must for Final Fantasy fans.

 

December 2012: Surviving the “Apocalypse”

Apparently we survived the so-called “apocalypse”. Yay.

 

2013

I couldn’t recall much about the events this year.

For this period of time, up until now, I am occupied by my career. Apart from sleeping and resting, most of my time is spent on work.

Most of my explorations this year are in fact circled around my field of work – virtualization, Java card, smart card OS reverse engineering, TWAIN, UX, MVC, ORM (Entity Framework), web services, web security, image processing, setup and deployment projects…

Though, I really hoped I could spend some time on other skills such as cooking, music instrument, language studies, electronics, interpersonal relationships…

I’m still struggling to squeeze them in, but my available time resources are frequently occupied by ad-hoc tasks until I somehow feel like a virtual resource pool that could be dynamically provisioned at any time.

To tell the truth, I would love to meet up with friends and listen to them talking about their lives, stroll around in malls, or watch the latest blockbuster in theatres, but what’s left of me is fatigue – social interaction became a stress to me (unless I’m only required to listen and don’t talk) and I rather coop inside my room to recharge myself, until the beginning of next business week arrives.

 

April 2013: Passing of Grandma

Witnessing the passing of grandma, whom has lived with us for the past 4 years, up to her final moments in life, had left an impression into my mind. The experience was as close as death itself.

It is not death (that scares me), it is the thought of death. It is probably not my death that I am afraid of, but the passing of people I care for, people that occupies the large part of my memories, people I depend on.

In the end our proof of existence is only the fragments of memories left in the living. If the memories are gone, so does the existence of the departed individual…

 

May 2013: Change

Putting Malaysian politics aside (don’t boo me please =w=), it is time for me to change my core principles.

I want to put emphasis on what I could do for people, and not what people should do, or could do. Death is a promise made to me from the moment I was born – my purpose of living is what I could do with the limited time given to me.

The world does not revolve around myself – I am a part of the world, I am a part of a whole, I am not the world, I am not everything.

I want to eliminate my inability to translate thoughts into actions; I want to wipe out shadows casted by my past that is preventing me from making a change.

 

May 2013: First Nendoroid

Seriously, it was a very huge surprise indeed :D

とある物語 III

Last week I met up with a product engineer for lunch. His company is producing Android phones, and somehow their latest product is suffering from the lack of public interest.

“People seem to prefer the sleeker iPhone over our product. How could we compete with the likes of iPhone with this product design? It’ll never get bought in stores,” he ranted.

Well, I’m not a fan of Apple products (my apologies Apple fanboys/fangirls), they may have good looks, but they just lack the features I’m looking for. To me, Apple over engineered the looks, in expense of features.

He then showed me a sample of their latest product. In all my honesty, indeed, the product designers could have done a better job. His concerns about the marketability of this product is real.

The phone’s firmware though, felt remarkably snappy; hardware is reasonably well equipped – NFC, dual-core SoC, 802.11n, SiRF III, 2GB RAM etc. He agreed, if not for the physical design, the product would sell very well in the market.

“Why not improve the product design?” I suggested.

The enclosure injection molds were already bought, changing the molds would be extremely costly to be practical. While the engineering team is currently trying to trim down the thickness of the phone, although it is definitely helpful, in my opinion is perhaps not enough to capture the hearts of consumers.

“We did a lot. We’ve fixed the occasional lock-ups in the kernel, zip-aligned the executables to conserve memory, and improved the UI architecture. But no, the response is still disappointing. Is this product not good enough? In the end consumers are all after the looks,” he replied.

In other words, they fixed the bugs and glitches.

“I’m pretty sure the situation will be worse if the lock-ups were not fixed. Have you tried adding magnesium finishing and companion accessories to make the phone look good? Man, even old cars could look good with the right body-kit and paint job.”

“It’s no use. Once they remove the accessories, they’ll be turned-off by the design. Even you are all about the looks, this phone will never sell,” he argued, as if the world, including me, had turned against him.

What he have yet to understand is the fact that in the market full of competitors, what does the product has to offer to stand out from the rest? I agree, the product indeed have competitive features – but to find a consumer that only looks for features is pretty rare; if the company plans to only sell their products to niche markets, that’s fine – but if they wanted to sell to the mass market, they have to change their strategy.

Little did he think about users bringing out their product and comparing with other products – will they be confident enough to state their phone is better than others? Is it worth an investment to buy a product from a company with no intention of putting all possible effort in improving the physical design of the product?

As a user, if he is given a chance to choose between a bunch of sleek phones, and his product as it is, will he choose his product? Reality is people almost definitely go for the looks first, with accessories or not, then understand the features; even if the phone doesn’t look anything special at all without the accessories, it has the potential to look good, as well as the features to keep the attention – it’s a keeper.

Perhaps not all consumers think this way, especially Apple fanboys (whoops!). But there are Android fans out there, this product has potential.

パンドラ箱の中には…

Many things going across the mind, and emotions beyond my linguistic capabilities to describe flooding the heart.

Disgust, hatred, disappointment, anger… The harsh reality thrown at me is too difficult to comprehend, with my thought process going into and endless limbo.

I am at loss of words trying to contain the explosion inside myself.

箱の中には…絶望

Check out my #ChallengeforChange idea and help me improve the lives of fellow Malaysians.

Check out my #ChallengeforChange idea and help me improve the lives of fellow Malaysians.

印象：遠い世界2012マレーシア

It all started when Yuki told me Distant Worlds is coming to Malaysia a couple of months back. WOW! Distant Worlds is coming to Malaysia? Hell yeah I'm going!

For those whom are in the dark, Distant Worlds is an orchestra concert series conducted by Arnie Roth, based on arrangements of music from Square-Enix's Final Fantasy series (mostly composed by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu). The concerts' music arrangement mostly follow the 20020220 concert held in Japan (that was conducted by Taizou Takemoto, performed by Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra).

In a nutshell, the current concert is a mix of arrangements from Distant Worlds I, II and Returning Home, performed by Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, Az Samad as guitar solo, Dithyrambic Singers for the choir, Stephanie van Driesen for the solo vocals (soprano), Ho Chi Mei, James Long and Mak Chi Hoe as the soprano, tenor, bass opera solos respectively.

The musical journey kicks of with the all-important Prelude (a variation of "The Final Fantasy Song") you usually hear in most of the title background music in the FF series. Listening to the brief harp solo entrance really gives me the goosebumps - the experience is nowhere comparable to listening to FLAC recordings (or maybe just my DAC sucks).

This is immediately followed by FF8's overture - Liberi Fatali, accompanied by a variation of the FF8 overture FMV, with the choir performing remarkably, though voice texture a bit thinner than recording. The arrangement is exactly the same as the previous Distant Worlds concerts, except with a very slight variation in tempo and attack (performed by humans after all).

After a brief introduction by the composer, "the most important song" must be played - the classic Victory Theme 9 seconds short (not in any particular FF variation).

After that came the Final Fantasy 2010 Medley, a collection of music from the classic series (FF1, 2 and 3). This is very similar to the Final Fantasy 2002 Medley, with a few song replacements, notably the removal of Chocobo tune and introduction of more music from FF3, and the others which I couldn't recall with just a single pass of listening in the live concert. 

To Zanarkand from FF10 was very beautifully performed. You could witness how well it was performed by the wet eyes of my friend sitting beside me. =w=d

Epic Memoro de la Stono - Distant Worlds from FF11 was epic, the entrance by the choir was superb, though I have no idea what Latin gibberish they were singing. The first movement of this piece is one of my favourites of the entire concert. Stephanie's voice is slightly different from the recording (of course, they're different people; recording is sung by Susan Calloway, silly me)

No Distant Worlds concert is complete without Mr Desperado - Laguna Loir's battle theme - Man with the Machine Gun. No surprises here - it sounds very similar to the recording I listened N-times, except a bit of variation in placement of instruments and difference of timbre in the jazz drums (first music with jazz drums in this concert by the way).

Another classic from FF5, used in the NDS remake as the introduction music - Theme of Love, slowing the excitement down with a bit of romance, with FMVs from the NDS remake as the final icing on the cake, portraying Cecil's path as a Dark Knight towards Warrior of Light.

An unusual appearance of You're not Alone, a piece never before performed on previously, in place of the usual A Place Called Home (which I prefer more), both from FF9, caught me completely off guard.

Roth said we seemed to have missed something before the interval - Chocobos (!) and gave us Chocobo Medley 2010 (a mix of Chocobo theme from FF14 and Swing de Chocobo, said to be both Roth and Uematsu's favorite), with a cute and amusing animation of chocobos across the entire FF series.

After the 20 minute interval, the original opening of FF7, along with live performance of Opening: Bombing Mission is performed. To be honest, the percussions and brass did slack a little bit in this one. If you like this piece, I recommend listening to the recordings.

Dear Friends from FF5 came right after a brief introduction to the solo guitarist, letting the audience catch some breaths. Unfortunately the usual guitar timbre you get from recordings goes unnoticed with the hall's set-up (naturally). Az Samad played it safe by following the recording's style of playing faithfully.

The real deal is finally here - Vamo alla Flamenco from FF9, whereby Zidane played a mock sword fight on stage in attempt to please the queen. There was a bit of confusion between the solo and the rest of the orchestra, leading to a bit of dissonance due to going out of synchronization. Az Samad yet again, played it safe by following faithfully to the previous Distant World's recording, too faithfully, which in my opinion, was an inferior one compared to 20020220 concert - a few technical bars of the piece was mysteriously slowed down for no apparent reason, which in my opinion, sticks out like a sore thumb.

The only non-Uematsu piece in this concert, Lightning's battle theme - Blinded by Light from FF13, composed by Masashi Hamauzu was greeted by a roar of applause. To a usually infinite-loop battle theme, he orchestra arrangement gave it a twist in the ending,

I'm surprised by the sudden silence, with Roth staring at the screen and sudden audio output from the usually-mute video. An excerpt from FF8 in Deling, during the evacuation, followed by a battle sequence... and the orchestra came into life with the de-facto battle theme - Don't be Afraid took the audience into a high trance. I would've yelled "YEAAAHHHH" if I was allowed to do so. There was one thing missing in the orchestra though... A bag of rice or something that was in the recording.

We were greeted by another battle theme - Clash on the Big Bridge of FF6. Personally I don't quite like this piece, maybe it's just me.

Things then slowed down with Aerith's Theme from FF7, with summary of how Cloud met Aerith, up to her final moments in the shrine praying for the ultimate white magic. Don't worry, the "bad" scene was somehow censored. The piano was a bit too bright for this piece though.

Initially I thought Opera: Maria and Darco from FF6 was boring. The vocalists trio exceed my expectations - they were many times better than the dull and old sounding voices in the recordings. Kudos! Now I feel like playing FF6 (using an SNES emulator of course) =P

El-classico credits (similar to the original FF6 introduction credits) rolled as Terra's Theme (Tina's Theme in Japanese version) played in the background - a very nice touch to the usually boring credits indeed. This final piece marked the end of the concert... or not.

Roth hinted us with an encore piece of Sephiroth, but he played us (one of my favourites in Distant Worlds) Suteki Da Ne from FF10 instead. If you've listened to the vocal entrance sung by Susan in the recordings before, you wouldn't settle for anything less. Though Stephanie's rendition was very good, Susan still has my vote for this one.

What could be a more epic finale than One Winged Angel from FF7? Roth even invited the audience to sing (more like yell) "Sephiroth"! HELLL YEAHHHHHHH! It was so epic some girl sitting behind me start chanting the entire lyrics of this piece loud enough for me to experience surround sound. =w=d

So that pretty much wraps up Distant Worlds 2012 Malaysia folks! RM122 well spent, but I'll get a seat 5 rows or so behind next time (next year maybe?). 

Final note:
Don't trust public transportation in Malaysia - they close earlier than what they've published. If it weren't for munchkin, I'll be camping in KLCC for the night =w=d

Vsonic GR07 MK-II

Now that I’ve lost my last surviving earphone (an unauthorized ownership transfer, if you get what I mean), I’m no longer accompanied by my Westone 3. Still, a portable pair of earphones is needed, as bringing full-sized headphones out is a no-no for me.

Designed and manufactured in the land where most of our stuffs are made, Vsonic’s GR07 has a surprisingly good reputation in the audiophile community. Those who seek this pair of IEMs are mostly looking for the best bang-per-buck ratio available in the market.

In a nutshell, the GR07 is a dynamic IEM (as opposed to balance armature, or BA drivers gaining popularity lately). What makes it stands out from the rest is the use of bio-cellulose diaphragm, for increased sound quality, as well as its (patented) variable angle adjustable nozzle, for a better fit.

The MK-II (usually pronounced as mark two) is the latest product revision for GR07 – spotting cabling made out of 40 strands of silver (yep, Argentum) core for each of L/R channels, and 82 strands for ground.

Packaging

The GR07 MK-II comes in a minimalist white box (ala Japanese products). What’s interesting is it came with a self-sealing synthetic leather carrying bag, in place of a zipper pouch in the previous version.

The bag is generally more preferred over a pouch due to its ability to fit inside any standard sized pocket, in exchange for lower protection of the contents inside.

The GR07 MK-II comes with a generous amount (15 pairs) of ear tips, which one of them is Comply foam, and 3 pairs of hybrid foam-filled silicone eartips (interesting…)

Build

The jack a standard L-shaped gold-plated 3.5 mm TRS jack with strain reliefs. One must be extra careful with L-shaped jacks as putting it inside your trousers would strain the cables.

The silver cables are insulated with soft silicone, which doesn’t seem to offer much protection against tugging and other kinds of physical torture. Extra care is advised when handling the earphones (bah, I broke even Kevlar wrapped cables last time, boo-hoo).

Sound

Now, to the interesting part of this review – the sound. At the time of writing, I have yet to complete the recommended 300 hour burn-in, so the following perceptions might vary with a pair of fully burnt-in GR07 MK-II.

The sound stage is kind of standard for an IEM, slightly bigger than Westone 3 in my opinion, but definitely a no-match to a pair of full-sized headphone.

Treble extension is surprisingly good for IEM of this price (less than 1/2 the price of Westone 3, just to let you know), I do not perceive any difference in extension when compared to (my memories of QwQ) Westone 3 -  the highest of highs are finely reproduced.

The only complaint I could give to the treble response is the instability when it comes to the sound of crashing cymbals – they are very harsh and grainy to my ears. “Sibilance” is perhaps the term that I should coin here.

The mids are very smooth with just the right amount of clarity, making this pair of earphones perform exceptionally well in vocal tracks. No complaints here!

Good extension is achieved in the bass, the GR07 MK-II is able to deliver the deepest of bass without a hitch. As for bass quality, “natural” is what I put it – not as tight as most BA drivers which lacks the timbre of good ‘ol bass, but all within good control.

Bass-heads will probably not be satisfied with the bass quantity, as this pair of earphones is designed with neutrality in mind, which is a good thing especially when listening to classical instruments. For a phatter bass response there is always an EQ away, anyways – as the GR07 MK-II will not fail to deliver if you really demand it.

Conclusions

“No surprises” is what I would give if you ask me for a verdict. It’s definitely a good pair of earphones – cheaper ones like Fischer Audio Silver Bullet would not even come close in terms sonic accuracy, but then again, they’re just around 1/3 of the price of GR07 MK-II =P

For a pair of IEMs at half the price of Westone 3, it came with only one drawback related to sibilance, I would say it really gave an awesome bang-per-buck ratio.

Recommended.

シフト！

No, it doesn’t necessarily go faster when you step harder on the gas pedal, unless you’re (a lucky kid) driving an automatic or simply afford a kick-ass engine.

On a 1.1 ton body equipped with a very modest 1.3 litre powerhouse, shifting technique could make it between totally un-drivable to a arguably fun-to-drive machine.

Driving an ICE requires gradual shifting, jumping queues (unless you know what you’re doing) will not get you anywhere and might even stall it.

Driving with the throttle wide open, unless in very specific conditions, will not go any much faster than an optimized throttle, but burns fuel like igniting a bucket of petrol.

There are two types of shifting techniques – early shift and power shift.

(all techniques are based on Mitsubishi 4G13 SOHC EFI on a 1.1 ton chassis)

Early Shift

This is the most economical way of shifting, suitable to be used in city driving conditions where it is unnecessary to accelerate rapidly. It exploits the low RPM torque of the ICE, right before the torque dip.

Basically has the following mappings on flat terrain:

1. 0 – moving slightly
2. moving slightly – 30 km/h
3. 30  – 40 km/h
4. 40  – 50 km/h
5. 50 km/h and beyond

In the case of congested traffic, reduce all numbers by 5 km/h.

Power Shift

This is to get you moving as fast as possible, suitable for sprinting from toll booth into the highway and overtaking. It is also the most fuel inefficient method (besides bad shifting).

Mapping on flat terrain:

1. 0 – 40 km/h
2. 40 – 60 km/h
3. 60 – 80 km/h
4. 80 – 100 km/h
5. 100 km/h and beyond

Throttle Levels

For congested traffic, keep your throttle at 10% or less. 20% throttle for city driving and normal highway acceleration. 50% throttle in highways if you don’t plan to burn your pocket. If you reach 80% throttle and you’re below 4000 rpm, you’re doing it wrong. 100% throttle when you’re doing it at near redline at 5th gear.

Increase throttle only when you feel the RPM is rising with the opening of throttle (responsive). If it doesn’t (sluggish), either keep your throttle that way (if you’re comfortable with the speed), or try downshifting (if you’re trying to accelerate).

Additional Notes

Shifting and throttling heavily depends on the vehicle. My numbers are based on everyday commuting of 100 km for a year while monitoring the fuel consumption.

Beyerdynamic DT 880 PRO

Once upon a time I ordered for a modified pair of Fostex T50RP (Thunderpants) from Smeggy. A year later it was still nowhere to be seen, and Smeggy vanished from the depths of the Internet.

To-date, all that is left in my earphone collection is my trusty Westone 3, which survived multiple cable breakages. It was time to search for a Thunderpants replacement, until it arrives (or not).

In the end, a good deal caught my eye - a brand new pair of Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pro (250 ohm version), with GoVibe Peak desktop amplifier selling cheaper than what I paid for my Westone 3 last time. A quick search on Google suggested this pair of earphone was once the top 3 gems before the era of Sennheiser HD800 series.

Packaging

The DT 880 PRO came with a soft padded case, a very long (3 metres) coiled cable, and convertible (3.5 mm <-> 6.35 mm) gold-plated TRS jacks. A "just-nice" package, nothing too fancy.

Build

The pads are made out of soft fabric, probably filled with some sort of soft sponge. Unlike leather, the pads are quite breathable, so wearing it for extended periods will not cause discomfort due to heat build-up.

The weight of the headphones leans slightly towards the heavy side - they can not be worn in a manner that will not mess up your hair. The (also padded) upper band must sit on top of your head; choice, there is not.

Sound

When paired with the GoVibe amplifier, the DT 880 PRO sounds strangely similar to Westone 3 in terms of brightness, resolution and bass extension, except the fact that being a pair of full-sized headphones, it has a wider and deeper sound stage.

The only complaint I have for Westone 3 regarding the highly congested sound, as if the sound of everything being forcibly pushed into your head, does not apply in the DT 880 PRO. Music sounds more relaxed, more spacious, more natural, leading to a more pleasing experience when listening to heavy rock music.

As I am used to the sound signature of the Westone 3, treble and mid-range on the DT 880 PRO are no stranger to me. The bass on the DT 880 PRO however, is not as tight as what is on the Westone 3 - but this does not mean it is loose - on the contrary, everything about it ranging from the extension, the speed, the impact feels just right, while bass on the Westone 3 could be a bit too dry and sterile sometimes.

For the bass configuration on the GoVibe, it is in my opinion not recommended to provide additional bass to the DT 880 PRO - unless your music is so badly recorded till you need boomy bass to drown the noise.

The use of amplifier is highly recommended for (shitty) sources like the iPod Touch - the infamous bass-shy signature of iPod touch is effectively eliminated with the GoVibe. As for portable devices with decent amplifiers such as the Samsung GT-I9000 (Galaxy S), the use of external amplifier is optional if you have the Voodoo Sound driver.

 

Being a semi-open headphone, the noise isolation capability of DT 880 PRO is negligible. Furthermore, sound would definitely leak out, giving a false impression you are listening to music at very high volumes (which might disturb people around you).

Conclusions

The Beyerdynamic DT 880 PRO is a good buy - definitely better than *cough* Beats Audio *cough* in terms of sound quality and value, but falls short in the fashion department. For me, I wear my IEMs when I'm on the move, while leaving the bulky headphones at home or office - so I have no problems wearing a pair of headphones even if it is designed after a toilet bowl.

23歳まで

Today marked the end of my 22nd year since I joined the ranks of the earthlings.

Throughout my 22nd year in this world, there were many little, yet important milestones made, and I figure now is the time I list them down permanently into the persistent fabric of the Net.

 

June 2011 – MDeC Undergraduate Training

This is a government-sponsored soft + technical skills training for undergraduates, which I think was very inspiring and somehow showed us a glimpse of what we’re capable of.

 

July 2011 – [First Time] Got Spoon-fed by a Girl :P

It was Bryan and Joseph’s idea. I’m innocent, really :3

 

August 2011 – [First Time] Road Trip with (only) Friends

Including the camera man (shown below), the lamest possible combination of friends you could possibly find. The result? Awesome time :D

 

August 2011 – [First Time] Hiking with Friends

And this is the origin of the awesome photo above. Met with two tan chi gui (shown below) that later on became a big chunk of my life.

 

September 2011 – [First Time] Officially Joined a Company

My first full-time job – as a software engineer. First time working in Cyberjaya too :3

Learned quite a lot during the course of working in this company, especially on smart card and government multi-purpose card as well as their related technologies.

 

October 2011 – Graduated with First Class Honours

Got selected to present a short speech in front of 2011 KBU-SHU graduates.

 

November 2011 – [First Time] Road Accident

Had my first accident during a heavy downpour between Putrajaya and Cyberjaya. Got fined RM 300. Moral of the story: drive slow when it’s raining – you’ll never know if there’s a pool of water right in front of you.

Well, that was the only moral of the story, before I got rammed from the back on the next day by another car while my (mom’s) car was perfectly stationary during a jam in LDP.

 

December 2012 – [First Time] Beijing Business Trip

Went on a business trip with boss to Beijing to finalize system designs with China counterpart. No time to go for sightseeing, yet still a very fruitful trip :D

 

December 2012 – [First Time] Wrote Software for the Government

Wrote MyKad initialization and personalization SDK for JPN. Besides that, setup and deployed the new MyKad KMS, and conducted my first UAT with JPN.

 

January 2012 – [First Time] Baked a Pizza

Though there were numerous attempts of baking something before this, this was one of the first attempts of baking unassisted (there was cookie, but I’m too lazy to post that) :P

 

January 2012 – [First-Time] Earning Bragging-Rights on the eGenting Programming Competition

Sweet, sweet victory… Finally.

 

February 2012 – Second Prize in IBM Smart Cloud Camp

Accidentally drank invisible potion on that day.

 

March 2012 – [First Time] Being on TV (Animax)

Attended Animax Carnival 2012 and got interviewed (along with Shi Hao) by Animax. I was told we made it on TV, but I didn’t get to watch it myself. Aaaand no, that’s not me inside the Beelzebub costume.

 

March 2012 – [(Might not be) First Time] Publicly Humiliated Myself

… by playing Microsoft Kinect in a shopping mall.

 

May 2012 – [First Time] Birthday Cards from Friends

I had fun on that day. The card and cake were super-awesome too :D

You guys are awesome ;’D

 

25th May 2012 – [First Time] Celebrated Birthday with Colleagues

And our admin lady’s birthday falls on the same day. Happy birthday Habibah!

Thanks guys :D