7th Perak Mental Health Convention

The 7th Perak Mental Health Convention was held recently at Impiana Casuarina Hotel. A hotel with a 4-star rating, Impiana Casuarina Hotel is a premier hotel centrally located in Ipoh.




Unlike the Johor Mental Health Convention that I went few months back (please refer here), most of the delegates came from my hospital. There were none of my ex coursemates around this time. This convention was launched by our Sultan and accompanied by our beloved Perak Menteri Besar, Nizar (this was the first time I saw him in real person)

Note our Sultan (in the middle yellow chair) and our MB seated next to him. Our hospital director was giving the opening speech.

Since accommodation and breakfast was only provided to those coming from other states, I have no chance of doing a review about that. The convention hall inside Casuarina was quite small and it was a little cramped as almost all the seats was occupied by the delegates. There were also no bottles of drinking water provided to the delegates (some sort of cost saving?). The lunch was also typical Malay dishes and nothing special.

Performances at the dinner

The dinner was a halal Chinese fare and the food was surprisingly good. One of the organizing committee member told us that it costs RM 525 per table which is quite reasonable. It certainly beats the dinner I recently had at a top hotel nearby. Then, there were many entertaining and funny shows for us such as dance and singing performed by our hospital staff and charity society.

Sigh..have to back to work on Monday :(

Is it fair?

With the current oil price dropping to about USD 80 per barrel, why our petrol price is still so high?




When the oil price is USD 140 per barrel, we pay RM 2.70 per litre
Now oil price is USD 80 per barrel, lets do the math.. 2.7/140 x 80 = Rm 1.54 per litre!
How come we are still paying RM 2.45 per litre?
Looks like we are being robbed in broad daylight!

WOT (Web of Trust)

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Do you trust this website? Is it safe to use? Does it deliver what it promises?A poor rating may indicate identity theft potential, Internet scams, credit card fraud, phishing, lottery scams, viruses, adware, or spyware. An unsatisfactory rating indicates that the site may contain annoying advertisements, excessive pop-ups, or content that makes your browser crash.

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World in Conflict (Review)

World in Conflict is set in an alternate-history version of 1989. Instead of the Berlin Wall falling and communism collapsing, the Soviet Union launches an assault on Western Europe, and the United States rushes its forces in to aid its Western allies. Four months into the conflict, after the US Navy has been battered down, the USSR launches a surprise invasion in Seattle and pushes inland. In the 14 levels of single player campaign, you will play as the US faction trying to stop the advancement of USSR and some battles in Europe as well.

This isn't the standard RTS game, as World in Conflict doesn't follow the familiar model of resource gathering, base building, and swarming armies. Instead it almost feel like an action game in RTS form. This game is all about action. From the moment each level starts, you were straight away given objectives to capture and defend some strategic points in the map. Sometimes, you were given time limits to accomplish failing which you have to restart it all over.

Small group of units marching to the objectives

Since there is no resource gathering, after each of your units die, resource point will slowly accumulate back to the original level where you can then choose which unit to deploy. In this case, you have to be smart enough to deploy the most critical unit to your survival since the deployment takes time.

There were basically 3 types of units which you can use throughout the game: infantry (anti-tank, sniper etc), vehicles ( tank, repair, anti-air etc) and air(choppers). Each has its own strength and weaknesses which perfectly complement each other. The game is also smart enough to limit the number of units you can control. Instead of commanding the entire battlefield, you'll have only a relative handful of units. This makes managing your units a lot easier.

Beautifully rendered environment-realistically looking smokes

The highlight feature of this game is the tactical aids. After you kill certain number of enemy units, your tactical aids point will increase which lets you to use some devastating weapons such as napalm strike, tank busters, artillery, carpet bombing and ultimately the nuke strike. It is wise to plan ahead before you deploy any tactical aids on the map because the deployment takes time. So, you have to predict and anticipate the movement of enemy units. If the enemy is hiding infantry in woods and buildings, making them hard to root out, call in napalm and just burn down the trees or use artillery or smart bombs to blow up the structures. Everything blows up so beautifully!

The unleashing of napalm strike(tactical aid) on the map

In term of graphics, it is the best looking RTS game I've ever played so far. Using my old PC, it really stretched it to the limits where in some heavy battles, my frame rates have been reduced to only a single digit. It renders the environment beautifully, from the billowing smoke, the explosion, the collapse of buildings to the sky reflection on the ocean. The game engine uses Havok physics and you can see the tanks burst into metal scraps beautifully and choppers swinging wildly before plunging down to destruction.

Great narrative

The excellent storytelling, which is spearheaded by pitch-perfect narrator Alec Baldwin. He's backed up by a great voice acting cast that brings the principle and secondary characters to life, along with a story that offers up emotional and sometimes humorous vignettes from a world at war. For instance, you'll hear a soldier's futile battle against Army bureaucracy, the phone conversation of a husband and wife, and the deliberations of the president and his top military advisors. The voice acting is top notch!

and ultimately the aftermath of a nuclear strike

Everything about this game is great, from the addicting gameplay to the amazing visuals. More importantly, World in Conflict offers up a refreshingly new approach to strategy gaming.

Image courtesy of gamespot

The good: Great graphics, new ideas in RTS gaming, great narrative
The bad: A bit too rush, no time to enjoy the beautifully rendered environment, no nuke in single player

Four Season House @ Taman Pertanian Malaysia

Actually before we went to the Skytrex Adventure (please scroll down for the post), we took some time and have a quick tour around Taman Pertanian Malaysia.

Located in Shah Alam, Malaysia's first agriculture park was opened to the public since 1986. The 1,295 hectare of tropical rain forest and agriculture park is one of the largest in the world. Visitors come here to explore the many agricultural plants that are grown here. Paddy field is found here, so are cocoa trees, oil palm, rubber trees, coffee, coconut and other fruit trees.

There are many gardens in this park amongst which are the Spice Garden, Ornamental Garden, Orchid Garden, Cactus Garden, Bamboo Garden and Mushroom Garden. Bicycles are available for rent at the park while free bus service is provided to ferry visitors to various spots within the park.

Heaven for joggers

Immerse yourself in tranquility here

Beautiful nature reflections

Lush scenery good for de-stress

Since our motive is Skytrex, we only visited the Four Season House and walked around the surrounding area.

The four season house at the Shah Alam Agriculture Park is one of the top attraction here. The entrance fee is RM3 per adult (12 years and above) and RM1 per child (4 to 11 years old). We took the coach provided by the park and ask the driver to drop us at the entrance to the four season house.

We thought the house got 4 seasons scenery inside at one go but only realized at the entrance that it occurs as follow:
Winter season garden is exhibited from December to February.
Spring season garden is exhibited from March to May.
Summer season garden is exhibited from June to August.
Autumn season garden is exhibited from September to November.

Autumn sonata!

This cottage setting almost like a painting

The season where leaves fall

Spendid!

The right side is the cage like room for taking photos

Colourful surroundings

Flowers everywhere!

The temperature inside was 7-12° C and inside was a tube like tunnel where there was 3 entrance to the exhibition. It was interconnected and quite small. We only spend around 15 minutes there because it was quite small. Although the scenery was nice, it was spoilt by the lighting which I think is too yellowish. I have to manually adjust the photos' colour balance using ACDSee to get the most acceptable finishing.

So, how to get to Taman Pertanian Malaysia?

Please click here for the quick map

Skytrex Adventures

Last weekend went to Taman Pertanian Malaysia at Bukit Cahaya Seri Alam, Shah Alam to participate in Skytrex Adventures. Skytrex Adventure have created an unusual high ropes adventure located in Shah Alam.


This brand new activity revitalises the park's long forgotten attraction as the Malaysia's first agricultural park (built 1986) and quite possibly the world's largest at 1290 hectares. This adventure will have you standing, climbing, walking, swinging and zipping as high as 22meters off the ground!

Tropical rainforest provides the ideal place for the challenge

The entrance fee to Taman Pertanian Malaysia is RM3 and then we boarded a free bus ride to the Skytrex site. Before we proceed to the adventure, we were given a indemnity form to fill in our particulars and we have to agree to the term and conditions stated. One of the most important is the organiser will not be responsible for any injuries and death sustained by participants.. sounds scary huh?

The registration and equipment site

The hook and pulley that your life depends on

Bring a pair of gloves to protect your hands or it can be rented there

Then we each got our equipments and the instructor briefed us the correct way to use it and kept on scaring us that we will be dead meat if do not follow instructions properly. First, we went some training 1st which is a bit lower to the ground to learn the basic handling of equipment.

Training site

Thinking of Spiderman?

There are 23 challenges with names like 'Bermuda Triangle', 'Happy Hopper', 'Wobble Trouble' and 'Wild Revenge' which you may find humorous, that is, until you stand before them!

Now, the real challenge begins! Its about 22 metres above the ground!

Climbing it makes me dizzy..I don't dare to look down

The most annoying part is when those instructors stationed there will yelled at you to go faster even when you are half dying hanging up there. And there is no turning back.

The rope for the Flying Fox

Whee...Its the most enjoyable challenge..A bit scary at first, but once you try it, you will become addicted

This is the most challenging part where you have to grab those ropes hanging in the middle there and swing to the next platform and repeat it. Its not cool being a Tarzan!

The chicken hole exit for those who gave up!

Easy challenge

Walking inside a net is pretty hard

Its tiring to become a Spiderman

One of the hard challenges

There are a few challenges that's very hard to complete and I just glide through using the ropes.
I only took a few photos on top of the trees because it is difficult to hold a camera with the equipment in such a high place. And my previous incident with my camera also remind me to be careful with it.

Sore hands after completed the challenges

Finally, I completed all the challenges with full body ache after that. It reminds me to exercise regularly.

The fees is RM 35 per person while a group with 10 people and above will get a 10% discount.
For more info, please log on to Skytrex

How to Install Creative Sound Card

Steps

• Before starting, uninstall the default audio driver in your PC, it should be Realtek if you are using motherboard sound card.
• After that depending on your motherboard manufacturer, go to the BIOS (press DEL when your PC boot up) and deactivate the sound hardware. Please read your motherboard's manual.
• Touch the computer case to remove static electricity before continuing.
• Power down PC and remove the AC power cord.
• Open the computer case.
• Locate the PCI slot in your motherboard. It is used to connect the old 56k dial-up internal modem. It is usually on the bottom left hand corner. Some may have more than 2 slots, use either 1. (refer to diagram)

See my new Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer sound card at the bottom left hand corner of my PC. Above it is my Nvidia Geforce 7600GT graphic card.

A close-up view

Insert the new Creative sound card to the PCI slot as shown above

• Remove the 56k modem (if any) from the PCI slot on the motherboard by pulling it straight out and unscrewing it.
• It may be easier to rock the card back and forth a little to pry it loose. Use caution when removing so you don't damage the motherboard.
• Insert the new sound card in the same slot. Make sure it connects at the right connector. Use some pressure to slot in the card but do not damage the motherboard.
• Snugly, screw the sound card to the computer frame, but do not over tighten.
• Connect the speakers and all other peripheral cables to the appropriate slot depending on your speaker setup.
• Close the computer case.
• Plug your computer in and power it up. Your computer should recognize the new card.
• The Windows will ask whether you want to obtain the suitable drivers. Click Cancel.
• Insert the provided driver CD. The new driver should install from it. Restart when it prompts.