Premier Silver taxis are a bloody rip-off

Just yesterday we took a taxi hope after booking it through GrabCab. Now to be honest, I do not blame GrabCab, who got me my taxi pretty fast. I do not blame the taxi driver as he was nice and courteous. What I blame is the bloody Premier Silver taxi booking fees. $4.50?? Bloody hell! If you are reading this Premier Taxi, I am not going to flag one of your taxis down and I hope that people who read this will think twice about booking your overpriced taxis.

Marcus Rashford the man of the match as Manchester United beat Arsenal

He deserves it…every bit of it. He scored two goals last Thursday and today, he scores two goals once again! I tell you, the boy is still learning but this Manchester lad is going to go FAR! Remember the name Marcus Rashford!

USB sound-card installed in a client’s premises

I wrote an article some time back about my friend buying a sound-card for use with his controller, that did not have a sound card installed in it. When I was at a client’s place earlier this week, I saw that they had installed this very similar USB sound card in their premises. This was or rather is to facilitate their laptops to connect to the sound system in the board room. The reason is because some laptops do not have sound card outputs in the form of mini-jacks on their laptops.

But here lies the question. I have never installed one of these things on my system before so I do not know if Windows has the default drivers for this tiny USB sound card. Do they need the ASIO drivers for it? All I know is that when the client plugged in the USB cable that is connected to this little device, it worked…but how do I know if he had installed the software before hand? In any case, this looks pretty good and I might invest in one myself…

Changing projector lamps

Just the other day, maybe a couple of weeks ago, I was called down to a client’s lace to change the projector lamp. Now most of these DLP projectors have lamps like these. They look pretty expensive and they certainly are expensive. So when I went onsite, they gave me two boxes including the lamps, which were sealed in plastic bags. The reason is that this Mitsubishi projector used two lamps. However, I had to remove the old lamps. They were stuck and after forcing them out, one of the lamps shattered inside the projector. So I had to clean the glass from the bowels of the projector. After it was done, I replaced it with the new lamps and reset the amount of lamp hours in the projector and after that, it was good to go.

Remember. Best practices. Never touch the glass of the projector lamps. Always if possible, hold it with a soft, dry cloth. Always wipe off fingerprints with the same soft, lint-free cloth. When all precautions have been taken, you will be rewarded with a lovely picture that these beautiful DLP projectors can produce

ART Project Series USB Mix mini mixer

I am a very big fan of mini mixers and this Applied Research & Technology (ART for short) came up with one helluva nice and cute one. It basically is a three channel Microphone, Instrument, and Line Mixer. It also comes with a Computer Interface which can be a compact versatile audio interface for your computer that converts analog signals from a variety of audio sources plugged into this mixer, to a digital signal that your computer understands. It can also be used as a standalone mixer through the main mix outputs. The USB Mix, in my opinion, provides a great starting point for personal home studio recording or for anyone wanting to do mobile location recording. I personally would use it as the go-between literally between my controller and the main house mixer. As it is, my gig bag is pretty full with my computer and controller and this will help to take up less space. These are some of its features:

• USB powered, no external power supply needed when used with a computer
• Microphone (balanced XLR) input or instrument (unbalanced 1/4″ TS) input with switchable impedance
• Switchable low noise +48V phantom power for microphone
• Balanced 1/4″ TRS inputs for stereo or mono line-level sources
• 1/4″ TRS output jacks work with balanced or unbalanced lines
• Stereo 1/4″ TRS headphone jack with independent level control for output monitoring
• Independent controls for both sets of inputs, main output, and headphone monitor
• Green/Red LED signal/clip indicator
• Switchable assignment of USB playback to channels 2 and 3
• USB 2.0 compliant
• No special drivers needed with most modern versions of Windows, Mac OS, and Linux
• USB cable, AC adapter, and Audacity recording software included
• Rugged steel case

The plus-point for me is the sheer size of this tiny mixer. The only thing it does not have is the individual tone controls for the channels but I think it is forgivable in this case. In any case, I have always liked ART and the products that they make. In my opinion, they produce great stuff…stuff that really tempts me…like this tiny mixer.

Dried and preserved plums and prunes

When I was a kid, sweets were pretty expensive and most of the time, we used to buy preserved plums and prunes like these, affectionately called “buah kanah”. I remember my aunt had a stone jar filled with these and when my sisters and I used to visit her, we used to raid that stone jar, stuffing our faces with it. So when I saw this on sale in the local supermarket, my wife and I both agreed that buah kanah had made a big presence in our lives. Bought a packet of this on the spot!

An old photo of Jalan Sultan

Someone posted this picture on Facebook about a week ago and I was looking at it, wondering where the photographer stood when he took this picture. In the distance, I can see the flats that are next to the present V Hotel, which means that the photographer took this image, standing where The Concourse currently is. This is a slice of old Singapore which I look at and wistfully wish that I was still experiencing. I bet those makeshift houses and tents served some very appetizing food!

Plastic window “pivots”

I was at my wife’s cousin’s place during the Lunar New Year and I came across this broken window pivot that she had outside her room. Now I do not know about you all but this is a pretty expensive thing to replace. Check out the broken “pivot”. It is made of plastic and it looks like she cannot replace only one. She has to replace the whole thing. That sucks…and it is not going to be cheap. Can’t these people, the contractors that is, use better louvres than plastic ones? Granted, these are installed in older houses but the ones that are installed in mine are made of metal and they should last a lot longer than these ones. Look at the picture. She has to resort to using gaffer tape to fix it.

Industrial fan

Just the other day while visiting a friend of mine, I went up to the sound-control booth of his place. The weather was a little hot as the air conditioner (it was a central aircon system) had just started up. So he fires up this industrial fan. I have seen many of these installed in older churches on the walls, as well as older community centres and coffee shops. When these damn things start turning, man…the wind that is generated by it (I say wind, not breeze, because that is what it certainly feels like) is enough to almost blow you away. This is something that I think will suit my house fine…a monster fan. I think I feel the need to get one of them to tide me over those hot days!

Battery for my HP EliteBook 2560p

My office gave me this HP EliteBook 2560p and I am very happy with it. Ever since I changed to an SSD drive, I am even more happy with it. It does not matter that the size of the SSD is only 80Gb…it starts up in a flash (literally) and the battery lasts for quite some time. But there is a limit as to how long this battery lasts. So I am looking online for a battery to replace this one when it croaks. I have come across some compatible ones and indeed, I have bought some compatible batteries for my various mobile phones but batteries for laptops, they are a whole different story. I have heard some horror stories of batteries made in China that exploded and I cannot afford for that to happen. Just the other week, I had a power cable smoking and about to catch fire. I was lucky I spotted it in time or else I do not know what would happen. But the problem is that this notebook is an obsolete model so finding parts for it, in this case batteries, may be a bit of an uphill task.