Well anyway, for those who actually visit my blog to check out the status of my pathtic life, I wish all of you a great Eid-ul-Fitri!

Eid Mubarak!

Until my next post, take care!

Deen Yusoff

My family just bought me another gift. A new pair of shoes for the festive season. It’s comfy and I think it looks great.

“The new Hush Puppies Countdown is a handsome oxford with Bounce Air™ outsoles feature our energy-producing patented Bounce® pad technology with air construction in the heel and forepart to create additional compression and shock absorption for exceptional comfort. Leather footbed cover and moisture wicking mesh lining.”

This is what I got in the box. Details on what Bounce is all about.

Bouncing my way to Eid-ulFitri!

Deen Yusoff

This comes a little late. My sister just bought me the smallest colour laser printer in the market, the Samsung CLP-310, at the Comex on 31st August 2008. It was so hard to walk around but it came with a great deal. For just S$268/- it comes with a trolley (if they didn’t give this I wouldn’t have bought it of course!), 3 years warranty and a 1gb small and cute necklace style MP3 player.

Well, I needed a laser printer as I’ve been doing lots of prints for both school and work.  I also need a small printer. Something that won’t take up the whole desk. So yeah, the Samsung CLP-310 sounds like a good deal. Small, quiet and the colour looks good too. The promoters were also confident that I could print close to 3000 pages on monochrome! Well, I’ll tell you a few months later if I hit that target but yeah it sounds great doesn’t it?

It took me less than 15 mins to set it up. Unboxing, pluggin in and installing the software. Thats it done. Did a test print as well I am rather happy with the results. Finally I could do mock ups for brochures that could be a little more impressive.

So if you are looking for a colour laser printer, maybe you should get Samsung CLP-310 for yourself too.

Happy with my prints,

Deen Yusoff

That includes trying to fully utilize what you “thought” you paid for. So I decided to once and for all let those who believe that Unlimited Plans are a dream come true understand that it is Too Good To Be True! I randomly chose one of the Top 10 hostings sites, StartLogic and had a short chat with their live sales.

You are now chatting with ‘James C’

deen: hi

James C: How can I help you?

deen: i am looking at the prologic plan

deen: are there any restrictions to the plan?

deen: like how many emails am i allowed to send out a day?

James C: 2000

deen: since it is an unlimited plan, am i allowed to use it as a file hosting site?

James C: No.  You would need a Virtual Private Server.

deen: oh..

deen: so what are the bandwidth restrictions? how would i be violating it?

James C: We do not allow file hosting on our shared plans

deen: icic

deen: if i am to receive a lot of incoming traffic it is ok rite?

James C: Traffic is okay, we just don’t allow for file storage sites. It uses too much space

deen: so what is the cap for the disk space and bandwidth?..

James C: It is listed as unlimited, but we do have that as one of the limitations.

deen: ok..

deen: thanks james.

James C: My pleasure

Chat session has been terminated by the site operator.

As you can see from the above conversation, they have limitations though it is Unlimited. It is really up to them to decide if they wanna tear down your site if they “feel” that you are abusing their account. So choose your plans wisely. Get a VPS or a Dedicated Server from them and you can do whatever you want. Almost no restrictions except that you don’t get to touch and feel the actual server.

So stop asking me to provide unlimited space, it’s not gonna happen.

Deen Yusoff

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Just bought a new portable hard disk drive yesterday unplanned. I guess I need a dedicated HDD since my IPod Video got fried right after replacing its LCD screen which had a dead line in between the screen. Thank you Apple for making your products so easy to part with.

Well so far so good. I was contemplating whether to get the 250GB or 160 GB but Khazam made sense when he reminded me of my big ass 3.5″ 320GB external HDD which is attached to my Desktop PC and still having more than 200GB free. 160GB is more than enough since my notebook itself seems to be sufficient with just 80GB.

To top that off, I received a free pouch worth S$20 with the purchase of the HDD at Challenger, IMM. Spent approximately S$110/- on the HDD. The HDD comes with a 3 year warranty and a nice red body with pinkish white sides. Nice colour combination to me.

It also comes with a sync software by WD and is able to even back up my Outlook emails with just one click. In fact it could save the whole image of the main drive in my PC or Laptop. Well worth my money. No regrets buying it. I could easily sync it with my project folders as well.

Happy with my new toy ,

Deen Yusoff

Finally got the time to post about my Tioman Trip. Had lots of fun. Made lots of friends. A little disappointed with the Ferry service at Mersing, hours of wasted waiting waiting. Both on the departure and the arrival date.

(Khazam preparing his cam)

(Arif, my decade old friend, and my police buddies.)

Well anyway, the 5 of us (Arif, Khazam, Irman and Irwan and Myself) met up at Kranji MRT station at 9am on Saturday right after my last night shift of my vacation Job and left for Tioman Island, Malaysia. We decided to go by the cheapest traveling means but a traded off time for money. We reached Salang Beach resort at Tioman Island in the evening…

Tioman Island is beautiful. Clear blue waters with nice soft sand on the beach. Lots of nice people too. We didn’t go trekking but we went snorkeling and kayaked for a few hours. Enjoyed the sun and had lots of seafood. Oh yes, I like the Sambal Sotong dish too. Ariffian taught us verbally how to make the Sambal (Chilli Paste) though nothing registered in my head.

We visited the Beach Bar for a “Beach Party” since it was like the talk of the night. Somehow, the beach party wasn’t really what I expected but yet fun. Arif and I kinda bonded with Nick and Mas at the bar. We were just having small talks and yeah it was a fun night.

All in all, it was an unforgettable experience with my friends and I felt like the trip was too short. We managed to give Irman a blanket party. Made lots of noise in the room playing Taboo till our next door neighbor knocked on our room’s door to tell us to shut up! Lol! Wished I could have stayed longer. Got to know 2 Vietnamese-German sisters and an English teacher from Australia and got in touch with the aquatic world.

Too bad Khairil and Iswandi couldn’t join us.

Click here to see more photos at the Gallery.

Want more details of our trip? Visit KhazamPC.com

Can’t wait for my next vacation…Europe here I come!

Deen Yusoff

There is an abnormal level of a type of bacteria that exists in human crap in the beach water. So if you accidentally swallowed the water you can think of it as swallowing shit water. =x Maybe they poured out too much of NeWater’s processed water at Pasir Ris.

Do take note that since Feb 2003, NEWater has been supplied to wafer fabrication plants at Woodlands and Tampines/Pasir Ris and other industries for non-potable use. This was not mentioned by the Media of course.

So if you wanna swim in Singapore, do it at Sentosa or East Coast Park.

Thinking of Investigating…

Deen Yusoff

 I couldn’t agree more with him that most orthodox Muslims will say that as long as you are not a Muslim, you will go to hell. Topping on to that, even if you are a Muslim and you don’t practice Islam the way those guys in the Mosques do so, you will still go to hell!

So just what gets you an express ticket to heaven in Islam?

The answer that my parents drilled in my mind since I was young is….Nothing.

There is a funny twist to what I learn in the Madrasah who claims that if people don’t do their formal prayers, their prayers won’t be heard.

I remember this story that my parents used to tell me during the days where I would believe anything an adult would say and I would like to share it with the world. The story took place in the time of our beloved Prophet Mohammed and it goes something like this…

There was a village in the time of Prophet Mohammed that that had accepted Islam after all that was fought for. In the village, there was a couple of brothers that had embraced Islam just like any other villager. 

The elder brother camps in the village Mosque all day long, praying for redemption and for God’s acceptance for his entry into heaven. While his younger brother, doesn’t even know how to do a proper prayer and toils all day long to feed and maintain a roof on top of his elder brother and his family. The younger brother is willing to go to hell and is cursed by his fellow villagers as a bad, non practicing Muslim, just to get his elder brother a ticket to heaven. 

One fine day, Prophet Mohammed paid a visit to the village. (Do take note that Islam spreaded to all parts of Arab land without having Prophet Mohammed preaching on a stage to each of them. So this village didn’t know who is Prophet Mohammed and how he looks like.) Prophet Mohammed walked about the village and came upon the village Mosque. Did his daily afternoon prayers in the Mosque and stepped out of it.

Prophet Mohammed noticed of the man that is camping in the Mosque, approached nearby villagers and sparked a conversation. “Who is the man that has been praying in the Mosque for hours?” 

The village man replied, “Oh, he is a very holy man in this village. He prays in the mosque all day long and does nothing else. Surely he is man of heaven.”

Prophet Mohammed then asked, “Doesn’t he eat? What does he do for food?” The village man then replied, “His younger brother will come and provide him his meals daily. It is a shame, unlike that man, his younger brother doesn’t even know how to pray. All he does is work all day which will bring him no where. The only good he does is providing his holy brother food and a shelter. And there he is, coming with lunch for his elder brother.”

Prophet Mohammed was quick to reply to the added comments of the village man and replied loud enough for everyone around them to hear. “That is the man that is made for heaven’s ground. The younger brother! He toils hard to take care of his family without thinking of his own well being! Unlike the elder brother who is selfish and only cares about himself and enjoys the holy praises about him even in the House Of God (Mosque)!”

The villagers around the mosque was shocked. The villagers started shouting and questioning Prophet Mohammed assuming that he is a senile and disrespectful old man.

And some of the questions were as such, “Who are you? How dare you you say such things of a Holy man and compares him to his hell bound brother?!”

Prophet Mohammed humbly replied, “I am Mohammed.”

And a villager that had seen Prophet Mohammed at another village before shouted with fear and respect, “Yes! Yes he is our beloved Prophet Mohammed!” 

Through this story, I believe Islam is easy somehow if the preachers and those that teach Islam do not force Muslims to live in a cage and bans us from thinking out of the box.

Generally, I understand from this story that everyone will have a place in heaven as long as they are good people.

Additional information to make my stand stronger, with support from the Holy Quran. I quote three incidents in the Quran that confirms my beliefs and faith that as long as you are a good person, you shall not have a thing to worry in your after life. I am also almost certain that only Islam tells you that everyone will go to heaven as long as they are good people.

Al-Hajj (The Pilgrimage)

2:62 VERILY, those who have attained to faith [in this divine writ], as well as those who follow the Jewish faith, and the Christians, and the sabians -all who believe in God and the Last Day and do righteous deeds-shall have their reward with their Sustainer; and no fear need they have, and neither shall they grieve.  

Al-Ma’idah (The Table Spread)

5:69 for, verily, those who have attained to faith [in this divine writ], as well as those who follow the Jewish faith, and the sabians, and the Christians - all who believe in God and the Last Day and do righteous deeds - no fear need they have, and neither shall they grieve.

Please take note:

1. Sabians are followers of John the Baptist.

2. Magians are Zoroasters or Persians/Pharsis. (The religious group not the people of the state.)

And with this I would like to end leaving you to think through about good and bad. And my dear Arif, I know you as a person and you are a good person. So not to worry about your after life. As long as you don’t die of a heart attack humping a prostitute, I am sure you’ll be judged well by God.

Peace be upon you,

Deen Yusoff

On top of that, I didn’t even log into Antblogz to post this. All with the courtesy of Flock’s blog editor! Well it is a simple blog editor and not customized with Antblogz’s extra features so you won’t be able to post photos from your database in Antblogz or link it to the Flickr account like how you would do on Antblogz’s post writer. But its great to create a draft with and save on Antblogz so that you just have to come online to insert your uploaded pictures into position. This will help you avoid losing the long written post due to an expired session.

Now my Flock is linked to my Flickr, Facebook, Antblogz, YouTube, Gmail and Yahoo! Mail. Perfect. Anticipating more exciting features in Flock. :)  I also have lots of blogs that I like to read on the RSS on Flock, so whenever they are updated, so will I!

Happy to have a fast performing browser on my Vista.

Deen Yusoff

• Windows Vista Business (32 bit)
• Pentium D 2.8GHz
• 2GB Ram (DDR2)
• 250GB Hdd

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Hope I didn’t miss anything out and is useful to some people as it is to me.

**This list is updated on the 15th of July 2008.**

So there you go. After making this list, I still don’t know why Google is making more money than Yahoo!. I see Yahoo! as an entertainment/leisure or an “everyday” portal. You have all the services that you would need for a home user.

While Google on the other hand is like a place for Geeks (No offense to anyone. Coz I consider myself a Geek too!) Google has all the out of the box applications which most people hardly use. Like Google Earth for example, how often do you use that? Maybe some “pervs” are waiting for the application to be powerful enough to peep into the bedroom window of the girl next block! Or how about sketching a 3D model online…I don’t know when that would come in handy for me…but yeah maybe you could use it to make yourself a 3D avatar for your IM.

I’ve bolded the applications/services that I might use and somehow Yahoo! won in terms of day to day applications.

What I use in Google?

The other things that I bolded and did not mention in either Yahoo! or Google means I patronize other sites for their services. Like ….

Well, Google must have played their cards right I guess. Wondering if Yahoo! could survive much longer…

Want to create the next IN site…

Deen Yusoff