The Stig has been revealed!

At long last, The Stig's identity has been revealed and it's none other than Michael Schumacher, my 2nd most favorite driver. All these years I believed it was Damon Hill. Most Top Gear fans thought it was Damon Hill too.

Here he is being unveiled









Anyway, the BBC is pretty smart. They've said that Michael is only The Stig in the 1st episode of the new season hence the big publicity stunt to reveal him as The Stig. He promptly went on to smash the lap record in the Ferrrari FSX by a massive 7 seconds!






I've read that they have other people on standby coz they're all racing drivers and have pretty full schedules. So they use whoever is free at the time. The list includes some famous drivers including former F1 drivers too.

Here's the list of people rumoured to have been The Stig.
1. Heikki Kovalainen- current F1 driver for McLaren Mercedes
2. Chris Goodwin- former F1 driver and current F1 commentator
3. Julain Bailey- former F1 driver
4.Ben Collins- America Speedway driver and James Bond stuntman
5.Terry Grant- stunt driver
6.Dan Lang- Swedish Snow mobile champion
7.Russ Swift- If you can remember, this fella has done lots of stunts for the local car companies like Proton and Suzuki if I remember correctly

So.............. the mystery behind The Stig continues as Top Gear fans all around the globe continue guessing who's the guy in the white overalls in each episode. I'm glad that they've only revealed 1 person coz if they revealed all of them, there would be no more aura surrounding the one and only awesome Stig.


All pics were taken from BBC.

Nokia 8850

Wow! Look what I found in the storeroom today. It's a top of the line Nokia 8850 GOLD edition from 10 years back. The 8850 cost me about $1000 at the time. Here's some pictures I just took of it.















It still works perfectly too. Hehe. Howzabout that for nostalgia eh? This is how technology was 1o years ago. They already managed to cram all that stuff into a tiny lil package that's only 10cm long and 2cm thick.






I remember chatting with my friends about how our mobile phones will look like 10 years later as in 2009. We were predicting that the phone can't possibly get smaller so the only way forward is to pack more features in. Stuff like a full color LCD, music player, video player, word processing, built in camera, voice recorder and everything but the kitchen sink. Well, we guessed right and I'm using an iPhone now which practically does everything my home PC does. Anyone care to guess how our mobile phones will look like in another 10 years?



I still remember using this phone as a modem for my Sony VAIO PCG C1 notebook PC all those years ago. It was so nice being able to be totally wireless waaaaaaaaaay back before WiFi. The modem hooks up to the VAIO using the infra red ports. Modem speed was a paltry 9.6kbps but hey......... that was 10 years ago. The speed was more than enough for a pleasant experience surfing the internet back then. Anyone remember the superb Sony VAIO PCG-C1? Here's a picture of it.




It was cutting edge tech 10 years ago. I can't understand why people are so fascinated about how small the netbooks are. My VAIO PCG-C1 was smaller than most of the netbooks available today. The C1 I had is smaller than the Hewlett Packard Mini 2133 and about the same size as the Asus EeePC 4G I have today. Just imagine, this was 10 years ago! People used to ask me why on earth I paid USD3000+ for such a ridiculously small computer. Funny thing is most people thought I bought a small computer coz I couldn't afford a bigger laptop! They almost fainted when I told them the VAIO PCG-C1 cost about 3 times more than their normal size laptops. LOL.

Best camera shop in Shanghai

I was just running through the pictures of my trip to Shanghai and remembered something I should share with everyone. It's about the best place to get cameras in Shanghai, China. I went on that trip with just my Canon EOS 40D and all my fast lenses like 17-50mm f2.8, 50mm f1.8, 70-200mm f2.8. After carrying that stuff around for a few days, I realised it was a mistake as I was going around with my wife and 3 kids. It's not funny lugging an SLR around on a family holiday. So.......... I decided to go get myself the newly launched Leica D-Lux4. However, it's pretty difficult to find a good camera shop in Shanghai as I soon found out. Even those I found by walking around the main shopping areas in Shanghai were really lame. They carry basic stuff like basic point n shoot cameras and memory cards and that's about it.

I Googled around for a Leica shop in China and all I got was results for Beijing which is like a million miles away from Shanghai. I practically gave up on finding a good camera shop in Shanghai as I repeatedly found the lame type of basic camera shops in the malls. Then.............. I bumped into this awesome place called Xinguan Photography on 1 of the days I went out with my wife to explore Shanghai by foot. This place is pretty far off in a corner of Shanghai City and there's just no way you will find it unless you specifically look for it. I was just plain lucky to find it while exploring Shanghai coz I was there for 30 days and had plenty of time to explore every nook and cranny of the city. Anyway, if any of you guys go to Shanghai, China, you really MUST go to Xinguan Photography. It is undoubtedly the most AWESOME place for photographers.

Xinguan Photography is a big huge building filled to the brim with all types of cameras. The first 2 floors are filled with shops selling new equipment. The 3rd and 4th floor sells used equipment from all types of brands and eras. I loved the used equipment section. I spent a whole day in that section exploring and looking at all those lovely cameras. There were lotsa old ancient Leicas, russian cameras, Canons, Nikons, basically everything. It was like a camera museum with lotsa things we can buy. They also have the latest 2nd hand equipment like all the current generation Canon and Nikon SLR lenses, bodies n stuff. The upper floors provide services like printing, wedding photography and stuff. There's also a few bookshops selling all types of photography books. I spent a whole day in there and even went back there on another day. I just couldn't get enough of this place. I really wish there was a shop like this back home. It's like Disneyland for photographers!

Anyway, here's how the building looks like from the outside.





Now just imagine that whole building is filled with camera stuff and nothing else! It's located at the intersection of Lu Ban Road and Xietu Road. You can take a taxi there by telling him Lu Ban and Xietu Road intersection as taxis are very cheap in Shanghai. You can also take the train there. You come out at Lu Ban Road Station which looks like this.



Just as you step out of the station, look left and you will see Xinguan on the left. It's just a short walk, about 20 meters away. Hope this helps you guys find this awesome place whenever you visit Shanghai. It's definitely a MUST see place if you're a photographer.

If you liked this article or found it helpful, please check out the advertisements ya? Your support is much appreciated. :) :) :)

SAVE a life with just a click

Here's something good we can do for charity guys. It only takes a few clicks to change somebody's life. You get to pick the organisation you would like to donate to and DiGi donates rm5 to them. We don't even need to give any money, just a few clicks of the mouse, so come on guys, let's all make DiGi pay out handsomely and change somebody's life. It's time for the fat yellow man to do some good for society. :)

VooDoo Omen: OMFGBBQSAUCE

I've always liked VooDoo and love how it's the only mass produced PC with proper wire management. They always manage to give it a super clean wireless look. The only way we can do that is by building our own PCs and even then only the top case modders manage to do nice clean interiors with the wireless look.

I've loved the VooDoo cases from the time it was made by Lian Li right up to the Blackbird case. They have really done it now. Just look at this beauty. It's the new Omen. For some reason I've missed out on it coz it's not listed in the VooDoo site. Here's some pictures I managed to find after digging around.







Isn't that just pure beauty? I absolutely looooooooooooooooooove it. The top of the line configuration supposedly sets you back about $20,000!!!!!! The special thing about it is the cooling system which features a quad radiator with integrated copper cooling pipes and a 90 degree rotated motherboard tray just like my Silverstone RV01 Raven.

You know what? I really don't care what's inside that case. If I had the case, I'd just display it in my play room as a piece of art instead of PC hardware. LOL.

Vista SP2 issues with keyboard & mouse

The almighty Microsoft has done it again. My PC used to go to Sleep and resume flawlessly while it was on SP1. After I upgraded to SP2, my keyboard & mouse have stopped working after resume. The keyboard does wake the PC up when I tap it, but it's as if Windows can't see my keyboard and mouse after that. If I wait a while longer like 1-2 minutes, it sometimes detects my keyboard & mouse. Sometimes it doesn't and I have to reboot. This just absolutely sucks.

I'm reading up on it and will try to get my keyboard & mouse working again. Hopefully I can get it sorted out soon coz my rig consumes a whole lot of power as it's a Quad core, 3 way SLI set up. I hate having to shutdown and reboot throughout the day and currently have my PC turned on all day long. :( Having the PC on all day long is just killing me during this current heat wave. It's also gonna kill my wallet with all that electricity being consumed needlessly. I'll be sure to share the solution IF I manage to sort it out.

FREE Thermalright thermal paste!!!!

Here's a lil something for my Malaysian readers I will be giving away 2 tubes every month for the next 3 months.


Here are the rules-

1. All you have to do is answer a simple question and the first 2 people to get it right will be the winner. All answers can be found in my blog.

2.Just answer at the bottom of this post by putting it in the Comments. All answers will not appear until the end of the month when I make them visible. If you're not using a Blogger account then please include your email address with your answer or else I will have no way to contact you.

3. That's it. Just check back at the end of the month to see who won. I will post up the winners names in a new posting at the beginning of next month.If you're listed as a winner, email me your mailing address and I will send the items straight to you. Please remember that this is specially for my Malaysian readers only, due to postage considerations.


The question for this month(June) is- What is the size of the SD card I used in the memory card reader test?