Category Archives: Reviews

Reviews of websites and products

Plan B Paradigm Mall

Last month Poey Chin and I had a rare opportunity to hang out at the mall because we both had a day off. We would usually try to catch a movie but there wasn’t anything good in the cinema.

Nowadays we visit Paradigm Mall quite a lot. At least once a week, but frequently twice a week. What to do? It’s so near our home haha.

At the beginning I was not so keen to go there. When it first opened there were so many problems such as missing signage, sewage smell, lack of rest areas and confusing elevators. Thankfully all that has been fixed.

There’s so much improvement now and so many restaurants have opened there.

One of the restaurants we wanted to try was Plan B because we saw a lot of interesting photos on Facebook.

We sat down at one of the middle tables near the counter and ordered our food. The servers were rather efficient. We were seated and attended to immediately.

They even brought us a (free) bottle of water. That’s a very nice gesture. Just for that alone, I would go back there.

We ordered a cup of coffee and it was nicely decorated with a heart and came with a biscoti at the side.

I ordered a club sandwich which was really good. The sandwich is a piece of grilled chicken with bacon and vegetables between slices of toast. The sides are deep fried potato / yam and a salad.

The chicken was juicy and moist and the portion was enough for a big eater like me.

Poey Chin ordered a soft shell crab pasta. The pasta and sauce was good and the highlight was the crab, It was deep fried, spicy and salty which made the dish really appetizing.

Oh God it was so long ago (and I admit I’m forgetful) so I can’t remember the prices, but it’s quite reasonable. The bill for our lunch was probably under RM50.

I enjoyed our dining experience though the servers could improve their communication and table-side skills. Our server wouldn’t make eye contact with us at all, and I saw another server actually fidgeting impatiently with his pen when another table was ordering. Maybe instead of fidgeting he could suggest some items for them to try.

But no big deal, because the food was delicious and reasonably priced.

Huggies Dry Pants: Change for Better Convenience (ADV)

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My two sons, Daryl and Caleb are both still wearing diapers. We go through packs of diapers every month so we’re always on the look out for the latest when it comes to diapers.

There are so many options out there. Just go to any hypermarket and there’s an entire aisle dedicated to diapers. They come in different types and have different prices from store-brands all the way to premium brands.

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Recently we had the chance to try Huggies Dry Pants for the first time.

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The unique selling points of Huggies Dry Pants are:

Keeps skin drier and healthier
100% breathable cover to help keep skin dry
Quick lock system to lock fluids to an absorbent core

All these features come together to help prevent diaper rash.

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Before I had kids, I always thought the worst thing about changing diapers is the smell and the yucky factor.

Now that I’ve changed thousands of diapers, I can tell you the worst thing is actually having an active child who keeps squirming around.

A simple diaper change that should take less than 30 seconds can drag on to minutes when you have an active baby. Sometimes I wish I had four arms when changing diapers.

Both Poey Chin and myself love the convenience of Huggies Dry Pants. It’s easier to get the diaper in place even when Caleb is twisting and turning.

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It’s usually even harder to change diapers for Daryl who can’t stay still. But this time we managed to get the diaper changed even with his constant movement.

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What I really appreciate about Huggies Dry Pants is how you can wear them at the front or back.

With other brands of diaper pants, we usually have to waste precious seconds hunting for the “back” label, then try to remember the correct side while baby is twisting around. Imagine trying to find the label in the dim night light or when we don’t have our glasses on.

Thankfully with Huggies Dry Pants we can avoid this hassle. The end result is a relieved parent and a happy child.

Caleb looks pretty comfortable in Huggies Dry Pants. The waist band fits snugly but isn’t too tight, so it doesn’t leave red marks on his skin.

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We can tell that he feels comfortable with the material because we don’t see him scratching or trying to pull off the diaper.

He just went around with his normal activities. Playing iPad.

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Playing and running around with Rachel and Daryl.

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Changing the diaper is pretty easy as well. All you need to do is the tear, change and release (koyak, salin dan lepas).

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It’s pretty easy to tear off the diaper. Just a quick tug is enough.

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Overall, we’re pretty happy with Huggies Dry Pants. It’s one of the easiest diapers to put on and change.

The diaper can easily hold more than 4 hours without any leakage. It’s not too tight and the diaper is comfortable. Caleb is pretty happy wearing Huggies Dry Pants.

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The special value pack is a pretty good deal. The price of one value pack is comparable to the price of a pack of non-pants diapers from other brands.

You can request some free diaper samples at the Huggies website.

Check out the Huggies Facebook page for the latest updates, events and contests.

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This blog post is sponsored by Huggies.

Wonderful Showers with Kinder Soaps

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In the past few days, I’ve been having the most luxurious showers. In fact I’ve been looking forward to showers since I’ve purchased a few bars of home made, all-natural, chemical free soaps from the Kinder Soap Company.

kindersoaps clarity and sampler packs

I first heard of Kinder Soaps a couple of years back, in an interview on BFM. I checked out the online store and was interested, but we’d just bought a whole batch of body soaps and shampoos so it wasn’t a high priority.

Last week I came home to see Poey Chin checking out the Kinder Soaps website and we decided to order some.

My wife chose the DreamTime soap while I chose Clarity. Just reading the description on the label makes me want to jump in the shower haha.

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We also decided to order a soap sampler pack where we could choose three different soaps samples to try out.

Total for our order was RM60.

After placing my order last Wednesday evening and paying via PayPal, Michelle (the founder of Kinder Soaps) emailed me to inform me that she delivered the package on Thursday.

To our surprise, the package arrived on Friday morning!

Here’s a picture of the package (with addresses blurred out). When we opened the envelope… the scent and fragrance of the soaps were heavenly.

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When we took out all the soap, out dropped this nice little surprise. A little sampler and a hand-written note! Nice personal touch that will keep us coming back.

kindersoaps spiced coffee and a note

At first it seemed a little extravagant to pay RM20 for a bar of soap.

But we have always been looking for chemical-free soaps at the supermarkets (and even some direct sellling companies) but have not found many choices.

We’ve tried getting some of those off-the-shelf products (that are not cheap!) but they still feel too soapy to me. In fact, one of those products caused eczema on my fingers because I could not wash the soap off.

Plus, these soaps are handmade so they just have a different feel.

kindersoaps dreamtime soap bar

We’re so happy with our purchase.

We love the soaps because of the wonderful scents, and we have the assurance that we are not exposing our skin to chemicals. Since I started using Kinder Soaps to bathe my children, the itching and peeling on my fingers have gone away.

Every shower now feels like a spa experience, and I’m never going back to other soap brands.

As I was taking photos of the soap, Rachel was so attracted by the nice smell, she came over and invaded my ‘set’. I decided to recruit her as a model.

This is the Clarity soap bar. It has eucalyptus essential oils to help clear my frequent colds.

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Finally, I’m happy that we’re reducing pollution because we’re not adding more chemicals down the drain.

You can check out the products from the Kinder Soaps website.

I think they offer a money back guarantee but I seriously doubt anyone has taken up that offer.

One Month Of Using Samsung Galaxy S

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It has been a month since I bought my Samsung Galaxy S Android phone, and I thought I’d share some real world experiences with you.

Those of you looking to buy this phone may be wondering how the phone works in real life. What is the truth behind all the marketing?

Performance

First of all, I’m going to talk about speed and performance. I have not been disappointed so far.

It really runs any app I can throw at it smoothly and seamlessly.

However.

The browser is slow. I don’t think this problem happens to just the Samsung Galaxy S. I think this is a common problem for all Webkit phone browsers. You click on the link and have to wait a few seconds for the page to load. Even on Wifi.

If you are used to browsing the web on computers, then you will find the wait a little frustrating. I tried using the Opera Mini Browser and it does help a bit, but still not up to computers speed.

The phone does not hang, but some of the applications I installed have memory leaks. Memory leaks happen when an application does not release memory that it does not use any more. So after a while, the available memory drops and you have to reboot your phone.

Update: I rooted my phone and installed a lag fix using RyanZA 1-Click Lag Fix app (you can get it from the Market) and now it’s blazing fast!

Camera

Although the camera is 5MP, I still find that there is a difference between the phone 5MP and my Nikon 5MP.

I read somewhere before that mega pixels alone do not determine the quality of the image. It also depends on the sensor size and the lens.

So when it comes to taking casual photos, the phone is fine. But for other photos I prefer to stick with a DSLR.

Videos have turned out fine though. The speaker is really sensitive, so the audio captured is really clear and loud.

Somehow I get the feeling that the camera is optimized for video rather than still photos. You can see a sample of food photos taken indoors.

GPS and Gyroscope

This is the first time I had a GPS on my phone, so I didn’t know what to expect.

As with other GPS, you need to be outdoors (or at least see the sky) before it can work. I really don’t know how to evaluate if the GPS is good or bad, but it does a good job tracking your exact location.

The best thing are the apps that use GPS.

First of all, I use Foursquare to check in to the different places I go to.

Then there are map software like Google Maps, MapDroyd and a nice one called Waze. Waze is like a live traffic report. You see the map and can inform other drivers when there’s a traffic jam.

I usually scan this app before I go home, to see which roads have traffic jam. You can even chat with other drivers that are nearby.

There are also many cool AR (augmented reality) applications like Layar, which allows you to scan your camera around you to see any nearby places of interest. You can choose restaurants, ATMs, petrol stations or even houses for sale.

Then there is Google Sky. You can point your phone at the sky and it shows you the exact position of constellations.

And I also tried Celeste (Lite), which tells you the position of the sun, moon, and planets with their orbit path!

Applications

I mentioned in my first review that you can’t buy apps from the Android Market at this moment. Google Checkout is not available to Malaysians yet, so we only have access to free apps.

Many nice (free) applications are also unavailable to us Malaysians.

Some of these are:

Google Voice (allows you to make free calls)
Skype
Amazon Kindle

I am seriously thinking about rooting my phone so I can install an app (Market Enabler) that spoofs your location so you can have full access to the market.

How are the free applications then?

You can find a lot of good ones in the Android Market, but you need time to browse. You can get the standard ones like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, EverNote and WordPress.

But when you can’t buy apps, you are restricted to trial or lite versions of applications. One warning though, a lot of ‘naughty’ apps are in the Android Market too.

You can find Android versions (or imitations) of most popular iPhone apps.

Android phones are really integrated with Google applications, so it’s great if you are a GMail, Picasa, and Google Tasks/Calendar user.

I can even search Google using my voice (but it doesn’t understand Malaysian accent so I have to speak. proper. English).

One final thing to mention about apps: you are not restricted to a single channel to install applications (like iTunes). You can install any app as long as you can find the proper installation file. This gives you the freedom of buying applications from third party websites or even download pirated applications if you choose.

Phone and Messaging

I almost forget that my Samsung Galaxy S is a phone. Honestly I don’t make or get many phone calls, so I hardly use the phone and messaging functions.

But so far, I don’t have any problems with call reception or call quality.

Even though the Samsung Galaxy S has signal attenuation when you apply the ‘death grip’ on it, it doesn’t drop the call. The reception drops two bars when you hold the bottom part of the phone.

Things I Enjoy Doing

I really like how the phone allows me to do the things I used to do with my Dell PDA, and much much more. I primarily use my Samsung Galaxy S to:

Tweet and Facebook while stuck in traffic jams
Take photos and videos of my kids and post online immediately
Navigate my way home and avoid traffic jams (using Waze)
Read e-books
Play games (right now playing Galaxia. Army code 559ED. Add me)
Have instant access to the Internet

Things I Can’t Do

Some of the things that I can’t do are:

Check my email. Reading a few emails is fine, but the screen is too small to scan through lots of email quickly.
Blog. The WordPress app is fine for approving comments and creating drafts, but somehow I can’t get images to appear in posts. Plus, it’s too tiring trying to type a thousand word post (even using the amazing Swype input method) using just my fingers. I still need to use a keyboard because I’m frequently selecting text, cutting and pasting.
Get paid applications. I’d really like to get the Kindle app because I love reading and want to stop buying physical books. Please do something quickly Amazon!

Looking Forward

In summary, I still have no regrets. Its okay that most people don’t have a clue about Android phones or what they are capable of.

I’m looking forward to the Froyo update for my phone, especially with the speed improvements and tighter integration with desktop Chrome.

I *heart* my Samsung Galaxy S.

Samsung is also coming out with a Samsung Galaxy tablet soon, so it’s going to be interesting to see how it compares with the iPad.

Bounty Chocolate Candy Bar – My Favourite British Candy

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Last month my aunt came to visit from England and she bought a packet of my favourite chocolate candy bar, the Bounty chocolate bar.

I love Bounty chocolate because I like coconuts. I like coconut ice cream, coconut juice, coconut milk. Even my hair looks like coconut.

This was my last Bounty bar. I ate most of them before I remembered that I was supposed to blog about it.

This is how it looks like once you peeled off the wrapper and placed it on a nice plate. The rounded oval shape and triple three arrow design of this chocolate candy bar is actually patented.

This is how it looks like inside. I broke it in half rather un-professionally. See the sweet coconut filling just bursting out of the chocolate!

So far I’ve only had the opportunity to eat Bounty chocolate candy bars when someone buys them back from the UK or Australia. There is a dark chocolate version in a red wrapper, but I still prefer the blue milk chocolate version.

I have found some Bounty chocolates being sold in Malaysia, but the taste is different. The chocolate doesn’t taste as smooth and rich.

Rachel saw me taking photos of my last piece of Bounty chocolate and came over to see what the fuss was about.

She grabbed a piece from the plate and took a bite. She likes it!

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Don’t touch my chocolate daddy.

Ok, I share share with you daddy…

I don’t indulge too often. I’ll have a packet every couple of years and it’s really a treat.

Have you tried Bounty chocolate? What is your favourite chocolate candy bar?