Day +1384 : Electronics and I (3)

I am fine today. Continue from yesterday…

I was exposed to computer during my university life and I shifted my focus to computer, doing data communication and programming until now.

However, I still like electronics very much. Unlike in the kampong, the electronics components are so readily available here. We have two electronics shops in Puchong alone, and the electronics street of Malaysia, Jalan Pasar, is also not too far away from Puchong.

After almost 20 years didn’t play with electronics components, I forgot almost everything. I was able to remember the entire colour coding that represents the value of resister even before I started my university learning but I have forgotten all of them now.

However, with the vast amount of information online, refreshing my memory on the subject should not be a problem :-)

I will share with you if I manage to build something interesting and if you would like to join me in this hobby, please let me know :-)

The LEDs that I purchased when I was studying electronics course
Electronic "Head" and "Tail" game. Selling at half price only - RM5 :-)
A flip-flop project
The flip-flop in action

See you next post :-)

Day +1383 : Electronics and I (2)

I am fine. Continue from yesterday…

The projects required some kind of soldering which needs a 240V AC power supply but there was no electricity supply in the kampong. The solution was to use a 12V battery with a DC-AC transformer. The transformer would be able to transform the 12V DC to 240V AC supply that we could use for soldering and also watching television :-) We sent the battery to somewhere else to charge with a fee.

We purchased a generator not long after and with that, we would be able to charge the battery during the few hours at night when we turned on the generator. We were still using the transformer with the 12V DC battery during day time.

Projects that I built with Richard includes FM transmitter, sound activated switch, light sensitive switch and running lights.

Richard was even more adventurous, he wired up the switch to the light and commanded the light to turn on and off with a shout or a clap. He also made use of the light sensitive switch for a science project competition in the school and won the first price :-)

I like electronics very much but I never thought of studying electronics in the university as I didn’t have confident to gain a place in the local university to do this course. But my STPM (Malaysia Higher School Certificate) exam result turned out to be something beyond my expectation that I applied successfully to do electronics in UPM (University Pertanian Malaysia or Agricultural University of Malaysia) :-)

UPM was an agricultural based university in the beginning and it was certainly not a prestigious university for engineering course at that time. However, I don't really mind. In fact, I am very thankful to God to be able to study electronics :-) The university was renamed to Universiti Putra Malaysia later.

To be continued and see you next post :-)

Day +1382 : Electronics and I (1)

I am fine today.

When I was studying form 4, I stumbled across some electronics magazines in a bookshop in the small town of Bintangor. I was fascinated by those electronics projects that were described in the magazine. I intended to build some of the projects but there was no way for me to get the necessary components in the small town.

The magazine was published in Hong Kong. I wrote to the supplier and eventually ordered many electronic project kits from Hong Kong. I already forgot how I actually paid them but one thing I remembered very clearly was that, when I was collecting the parcels from the post office, the custom officer asked me what stuffs were in the parcel.

“Are they camera parts?” they asked.

“No. They are electronics parts,” I told them.

I was asked to pay import tax after that. The custom officer told me that camera parts were exempted from tax. If I told them they were camera parts, I would not be asked to pay tax.

There was no computer, no internet, no electric supply and no telephone in the kampong. I had to correspond with the Hong Kong supplier through snail mail; asking about the ordering process and payment options, and then placde an order. So an order normally took weeks to arrive.

To be continued and see you next post :-)

Day +1381 : Happy birthday to mother-in-law!

I am fine today.

My mother-in-law celebrated her 75 year old birthday today. As usual, we had a family dinner at Cheong Wah Seafood Restaurant, Pusat Bandar Puchong.

My mother-in-law has been staying with us for almost 13 years. He came over from Sarikei, Sarawak to take care of Daniel in 1997 and she stayed back since then until now. It is a blessing to have her with us.

Celebrating with us tonight were 4 of my nephews – Soon Hui, Min Hui, Heng Chiek and Heng Yew.

May God bless my mother-in-law!

The dishes





Blueberry Cheese Cake - very delicous
Group photo
My mother-in-law
The restaurant played happy birthday song and we all sung together
Cutting the cake


See you next post :-)

Day +1380 : Electronics goes open source too!

I am fine today.

I believe all of us are very familiar with open source software where we are not only granted the right to use the software free of charge, the source code of the software is also available for us to study, to modify or to improve. Linux and OpenOffice are two good examples.

There is also open source film such as Big Buck Bunny which was created with the Blender Open Source Software. The film is short but the effect is stunning :-) You can grab a copy at here. If you are curious enough and also have plenty of time, you can even download the entire source file, and then spend days and nights to study how the film was made.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across a book called Practical Arduino: Cool Projects for Open Source Hardware, and I only realize that there is such thing as open source hardware.

What is exactly Arduino? Arduino official website gives the following description:

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

Basically, Arduino comes with the necessary programmable hardware together with the programming tool. We just need to hook up the hardware to the computer through a USB printer cable and then download whatever program that we have written to the hardware. The program contains instructions to hardware on what it should do.

I found a local supplier of the hardware at http://www.myduino.com and mail ordered the Roboduino Romeo board (hardware) at a cost of RM150 including the postage.

The board is especially designed for robotic application as it comes with 2 way DC motor driver and wireless socket.

There are plenty of projects available online that we can build. I have completed a simple LED chaser project with Daniel. We will experiment with other projects and we hope that we are able to build a robot eventually :-)

Roboduino Romeo
The LED Chaser
See you next post :-)

Day +1379 : Wild boar meat from William

I am fine today.

William is one of our church members. He likes to go to some rural area in Semenyih to fish. I had been invited to enjoy his catch a few times.

William bought a whole wild boar this time while fishing and he gave a big piece of wild boar meat to me. The meat was so heavy that my electronic kitchen scale returned “error” due to overloading. I asked the maid to divide the meat into halves and found out that its total weight was about 5.5kg.

Thinking William, thinking river fishes; and now, thinking William, thinking wild boar meat :-)

William

The wild boar meat that William gave me
Zoom in view - very lean, should be healthy :-)
See you next post :-)

Day +1378 : The Chinese Medicine is quite effective :-)

I am fine today.

I completed the last dose of Chinese Medicine this morning. It is quite effective. The cough is gone and now I am having minor flu only.

I am very glad that no antibiotic is needed to contain the infection this time :-)

A dose of the Chinese Medicine
See you next post :-)

Day +1377 : AirAsia thanks for your Excess Baggage

I am fine today.

AirAsia collected RM91 million from 660,000 passengers due to Excess Baggage last year. This is certainly a lucrative income for the airline!

Malaysia Airlines says that travelling with AirAsia is more expensive if we consider all the side charges that AirAsia imposed on its passengers. I believe this is quite true.

A passenger needs to pay RM20 for a checked baggage up to 15kg and this price is for online booking. If you don't pre-book online, then you have to pay RM30.

AirAsia is good in squeezing money from its passengers. It would charge even 1kg of excess baggage.

Cheap air tickets, many side charges, one might end up paying more.

AirAsia tells you how it makes money

The cost of checked baggage through online booking. It charged RM5 per baggage initially but charges RM20 now :-(

Even charge more if we don't book online
See you next post :-)

Day +1376 : Eat all you can at Rasa Me Roaster Restaurant

I am fine today.

I fetch the STM team members to visit Setia Alam two weeks ago and stumbled across this Rasa Me Roaster Restaurant that offered "Eat All You Can" on every Wednesday 6:00pm to 9:00pm. You just need to pay RM8.90 and you get unlimited refill privilege under the promotion.

If you need to eat a lot of roasted chicken, then you must go for this incredible offer. The restaurant should be easy to find as it is inside the TESCO, Setia Alam.

The poster about the offer - Click to have a larger view
The roasted chicken
The restaurant
I had my first ever Pearl Milk Tea (珍珠奶茶) in my life in TESCO, Setia Alam

See you next post :-)

Day +1375 : Attending a wedding dinner

I am fine today.

My wife and I attended a wedding dinner of my friend, Lih Reng, at Thai Thong Imperial Palace Restaurant. He is a veterinarian (animal doctor) who likes to play classical guitar very much.

He came to my house to play classical guitar quite often while I was in isolation post bone marrow transplant. He taught me quite a lot of technique and in return, I shared with him the large classical guitar materials that I had collected over the past.

He went to New Zealand in 2007 for working holiday and met his wife, Evelyn, who migrates there from Sandakan, Sabah. Their relationship blossomed and got married on 27 March, 2010 in New Zealand.

Lih Reng is going to settle down in New Zealand and to be a full time professional classical guitar teacher other there.

We wish him all the best!

Were were greeted by this poster at the entrance of the restuarant
The dining table
Tea and red wine
Broad beans
We reached there at 7:00pm and the firs dish was served at 8:30pm. Two of us finished the whole plate of the broad beans before others arrive.
Chocolate
Menu
First dish - Four Hot & Cold Combination
Second dish - Double-boiled Chicken Soup with Seafood Treasures
Third dish - Roasted Suckling Piglet & Roasted Chicken Combinations
The head is mine
Fourth dish - Home Style Steamed Mandarin Fish
Fifth dish - Salad Prawns with Mixed Fruits
Sixth dish - Braised Fish aMaws with Mushrooms & Bean Curd Skin
Seventh dish - Fried Rice with Anchovies
Eight dish - Sweetened Red Bean Paste with Ginko & Lily Bulbs
Final one - Sweet Fancy Duets
Take a photo with the bride and bridegroom
See you next post :-)