Deluxe Class Blazemaster

Yet another Transformers Collection Update. This time, Deluxe Class Blazemaster. Don't worry. You did not miss him in the movie, as he is not a movie character. I got him coz I had too. Deluxe class Ice Cream Truck Twins was released and the shopkeepers were smart enought not to release the units seperately. Instead, they bundled with other less famous deluxes. Anyway, turns out I actually liked him. Except for his chicken feet. I loved his face. Check him out. More after the jump.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Voyager Class Long Haul

Hey all.. At last, I managed to find the time to snap photos of my unrevealed transformers toys that I have obtained whilst I was doing my internship. There are three of them. Let me start with my favourite – Voyager Class Long Haul. Let’s be honest. I’m not really a fan of Green Transformers, especially the G1’s. But there’s something about Long Haul that I couldn’t restrain myself from getting him. He’s all mean and mighty and brutal. He looks awesome. He is easily one of my favorite in my collection. Enough said, enjoy the pictures. More after the jump.

Malacca Planetarium Review

Finally, southern original flavor. Since we live so near to this place, we felt naturally guilty having not visited it even once. So the other day, 3 speakers went to the above mentioned center to check it out. Our initial expectations were sky high. Of course, what else would you expect from a 20 Million Ringgit project? Moreover, the design of the building is so eye-catching, having established in the center of MITC roundabout, probably the largest roundabout in Melaka.

To top that, The Star (local newspaper) reported few facts about this place, among other things:

• Seating capacity of 210, making it largest planetarium in Malaysia. KL Planetarium could only accommodate 170 people.
• Equipped with 15m wide projection dome gallery, performance space, exhibition areas, an astronomy museum and restaurants.
• screening of films on space science and documentaries

Having visited Singapore Science Center before, our review here might be comparatively biased. Okay, back to the review. Where do we begin? The tickets. Yeah. The ticket prices range from RM5 to RM20. RM5 for kids, RM10 for adults and RM20 for international tourists. If you are a student, you could get student price for RM5. Early on, we spotted a FailBlog material. 2st Floor. Great.

We went to the ‘2st’ floor straight away so that we would not miss the screening. There is a screening every hour. The dome is impressive for Malaysian standard. Then again, it is just a pathetic duplicated version of Singapore Science Centre’s Omnitheatre. We waited 15 minutes watching some random pattern on the dome while waiting for the screening to begin. Then another 20-30 minutes watching their trailers. By the time the screening begins, some already left the theatre due to boredom. The screening, titled Universe, displayed about some fish that wanted to get to the surface of the water.. Oh wait, that was a clip from one the trailers. I could not remember what the screening was actually about. Pathetic isn’t it?

Moving on, we disappointingly went downstairs to check the rest of the stuffs out, trying to find redemption so that we could actually suggest this place to someone. But it was even worse. All there is to see is nothing but posters and reading materials which you could easily find in the internet. It’s ridiculous to pay RM5 to read something that you wouldn’t even read it if it’s free, right? There were few objects which did not attract me, like a shiny new telescope, which might not even be functional, and some other stuffs in the glass box, which I couldn’t care less about. There were two simulator-machines. One simulates how the Earth would look like from space (like we don't already know), and another one on how to crash a plane. And of course, there were hanging objects on the ceiling like any other planetariums would have.

They even closed few paths, I guess those paths lead to more exhibition areas. There was no restaurant or no souvenir shop. You can't even go to the ground floor. I guess the glass box things are what they call as astronomy museums. Oh ya, did I mention that cameras are not allowed?

It is sad to learn that the largest planetarium in the country comes with the largest disappointment as well. Conclusively, I can think of many places where my RM5 would be better-spent.

How to Boot from USB Disk

Lots of people have been wondering if there is an easier way to reformat their computers without going through any hassle. If you're anything like me, you'd most probably have a CD album full of important CDs, which you'd leave at home and won’t carry with you all the time. And when you want to give your computer a full system format, you'd be searching your CDs again. Either that, or you'd most probably clear 7GB off of your C drive (assuming you gonna install Windows Vista), and mount an ISO image that consists Windows Setup files using a third party software like Daemon Tools or PowerISO and go for a non-clean format.

I used to do this before finding out an easier method. Why not use your USB instead? Just plug in your flash drive / thumb drive / pen drive / whatever you call your USB drive into your USB port, re-boot your computer and reformat your PC on the go. Better yet, keep the device as Windows Installation Drive. Whenever you feel like reformatting your system, just plug it in and reformat your computer. Easy uh? I’m going to show a step by step tutorial on how to do this. It can be done for Windows Vista or Windows 7, since it has guaranteed positive results so far. I have not tried this for Windows XP yet, so don’t come complaining to me.




Requirements:

• A USB Drive: Thumb Drive, or External Hard Disk, which is more than 3GB.
• Windows Vista/Windows 7 Installation CD or Equivalent Image files (ISO, DAA, etc)
• USB Port
• A system that actually does support either one of the OS

Step 1:
Connect your USB Device to the system


Step 2: Download and extract USB Disk Storage Format

You’ll have to run this in administrator mode. Right click and choose Run as Administrator.


Step 3:

1. Choose the appropriate device from ‘Device’ label.
2. Leave the ‘File System’ label as FAT32
3. Click Start
4. Close when done

Step 4:
Download and extract Grub4Dos. It is very important for you to extract the entire folder instead of running the file straight away. Again, you have to run this in administrator mode.


Step 5:

1. Check the ‘Disk’ Label. And choose the appropriate USB drive.
2. Leave ‘File’ Label unchecked.
3. At the far end of the label ‘Part List’, click Refresh.
4. Choose ‘Whole Disk (MBR)’ under this title.
5. Click Install.

It won’t take long till you get a confirmation message in command prompt. Click ‘Quit’ when you are done.

Note: If at the beginning of step 5 the Label Disk shows no entries, that means you are not running in administrator mode.


Step 6:
Remember the folder that you had to extract for Grub4Dos archive in step 4? Open that folder, find for two files named ‘grldr’ and ‘menu.lst’. Copy these two files and paste it in your USB drive. You are almost there now.

Step 7:
Now, insert your Windows Installation CD for the very last time into the CD Rom. If you have ISO image of Windows Installer, this is the time for you to mount it. As for me, I normally keep image files of my important CDs. Load/Mount it, open the installation folder/CD Rom drive, and copy every single file there, and paste them into your USBb drive.

 The final state of your USB drive should look something like this:

Easy, right? Oh, of course you need to change your Boot Priorities. Set the system so that it’d boot from the USB drive. There is no definitive manner, as setting up the Boot Priorities is machine dependant. But to give you a clue, when you a restarting your computer, press the button that you need to press in order to enter into the setup screen. This key is normally displayed on the first screen when you are rebooting your computer. It goes something like: “Press F2 to configure Setup Menu” or something like that.

When you are in there, find for Boot Sequence or Boot Menu or Boot Priority or anything that has the word ‘Boot’ in it. There, you will see a small list, which has entries like CD Rom, Hard Disk, Floppy and things like that. Find for USB drive and press the necessary keys to bring this particular entry to top. It would be a good idea to have the USB drive connected before you go into this setup. Also, it is advisable for you to disconnect all the other USB storage devices when you are doing this.

If you do this right, the setup will bring you into a blank screen, in which you can choose a list of Windows to install. Just Choose Windows 7, and go with the flow. You can unplug the USB Device after the system reboots for the first time (or before).

I hope this tutorial will help you to setup you own bootable USB drive. With the physical size of USB disks nowadays, imagine the possibility. You could keep an entire Windows 7 in a small USB Drive, and keep it in your wallet or something. Cool huh?

WARNING: This tutorial is meant for those who have experience in re-formatting computers beforehand. It shows only the ways to use a USB drive to reformat a computer, not the actual process of reformatting the system. It would be a good start for the beginners to learn from here, provided that you have nothing to lose. If you have valuable information or data in your computer, things can get terribly wrong if they don’t get backed up. So, try it at your own risk. Make sure you know what you are doing. And, Good luck.