LeoCW

Speed Up Facebook access

2011-04-28T14:27:00.000+08:00

Every time here,in Malaysia, when the internet users having slow access to Facebook or any other sites that are hosted in the US, the word "submarine cables" would popped up. It seems that the submarine cables that carry the broadband signals are so fragile, as we have lot and lot of submarine cables disruption.

I found out from HeHeHunterthat one can speed up the connection whenever one experiences slowness in accessing Facebook.

Look for the hosts file located in C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\ folder. Then use Notepad to add the following line into the file and then save the file after you do the modification.

static.ak.fbcdn.net www.facebook.com

Now, open Facebook with your favorite browser and enjoy the speed up access.

Drink Liquid Chlorophyll for health and bad breath

2011-04-21T10:24:00.002+08:00

Drink chlorophyll? My, my. Most of us know know that chlorophyll is the green pigments found in the green plants and now I am asking you to drink those green pigments. No, no. I am not out of my mind.

In fact, the beneficial function of chlorophyll can be absorbed by our body. It can promote our blood circulation, cleanse our system and in the process can clear our body of toxins, improve circulations and digestion systems. Chlorophyll consumption helps our body increases oxygen delivery to our cells and tissues.

Anyway, I drink liquid chlorophyll when I feel that I suffer from heatiness. This happens when my body is full of toxins. I feel that the toxins in my body gives me a hot and boiling sensation. It is also during this time, lots of other ailments come visit my visit, such as fever, and sore throat.

To alleviate my heatiness, I squeeze the liquid chlorophyll bottle so that a few drops of liquid can be immersed to a room temperature glass of water.(never use hot water as chlorophyll will be destroyed by heat - now you know why raw veggies are more beneficial than cooked vegetables) In a few seconds, the clear glass of water will turn to green color. I know it is definitely not a pretty sight (dark green is definitely not a color that you want to put into your mouth especially when it come in liquid) but surprisingly, drinking this glass of diluted liquid chlorophyll is as though you are drinking plain drinking water. The chlorophyll introduces no additional taste or smell to the plain water that it is mixed with.

Oh, did I mention that it is also useful to treat bad breath? Earlier on, I did mention that it improves our digestive system. And do you know that bad breath is an effect that occur due to bad poor digestive tract system?

Some scientific studies also points out the chlorophyll protects our body from many carcinogenic agents. It prevents our cells from binding with these carcinogens, meaning lessen the chances of getting cancer.

Do you know that why we get sick? It is because of a buildup of high acidity in our body. Chlorophyll contains magnesium, which is highly alkalizing, and when consumed, will neutralize and restore the pH level of our body. That's why we often heard that to keep our health in tip top condition, drink 8 glasses of water a day. Doing so will keep our body in the 7.26 Ph level which will ensure our well being.

Blue capsules are not the ultimate solution to cough but ...

2011-04-20T10:11:00.000+08:00

Well, I guess the blue capsules that contains Chinese herbs powder aren't the ultimate solution for curing my persistent whooping cough but it did alleviate my severe cough significantly. It did its job in treating the cough but not curing it. After a 2 day course, I cough less often in comparison to two days ago. I would say it is effective in alleviating my cough but not curing it. And that's still a remarkable improvement for me as I had tried many cough medicines out there which proved to be totally useless against the whopping cough.

The strange thing about my cough session this time is I didn't generate any phlegm. So it is a bit difficult to know whether I suffer from "cold" or "hot" cough. Meaning my cough stems from cold or heatiness.

Anyway, there are a few precautions that I have taken during the course of this period in order to get myself in better shape (getting rid of the cough, I mean).

During this time, I drink more water. Definitely more than 1.5 l a day. Stay away from those spicy food. One more thing which I feel is a very important point in accelerating one recovery towards a cough free life (also shared by the Chinese herbal shopkeeper that sold me the blue capsules) is to stay away from the constant air fan. Yup, if you can't stand the current heat spell due to the hazy condition that we currently experience, let the table fan turned. Don't let it fixed in facing you and blowing on your face. That's definitely not going to put your cough away.

For those working in the office, I guess the air cond will carry the same damaging effect if not worse. If that is the case, try not sit in the direction of the air vent of the air cond and also lower the air cond temperature (possible if you can persuade your colleagues).

Cure the persistent cough!

2011-04-17T22:07:00.000+08:00

Man, do all of us know the difficulty of getting rid of the persistent cough? Cough, is indeed, one tough ailment to cure. As the days linger by, it can only get worse and make its sufferers experiencing more excruciating pain around the throat. The longer we get stuck with cough, the more difficult for us to get rid of the cough.

When the unconventional method of treating cough with coke and lemon failed, I am really at loss what to try next. Most modern prescriptions from the doctors and those available on the shelf from the pharmacies around my place failed in its purpose to alleviate my worsening cough. Seem like the western medicines available here nowadays have very low power or strength to fight the cough virus. I know the Government does this for a certain purpose but what good is a coughing medicine if it didn't do its job?

Well, if western medicines didn't work, it's time to cast my attention to the chinese medicine. So that means it is time to pay a visit to my favorite chinese medicine shop in Pandan Perdana. Why favorite? Because the shop owner there did recommend a herbal chinese mixture that put away my undying marathon hiccups for good. Hope this time, I would get some miraculous solution to my stubborn cough that have stuck with me for the past week from him.

Indeed, my trusted "doctor" there did recommend something. It comes in a blue capsules, consists of mixture of chinese medicine aimed to alleviate one persistent cough. "For ordinary cough, one day take 2 times. One times take 2 capsules", he said. "How about severe case",I asked. "Well, take the same dosage 3 times a day", he promptly answered. He further added,"It normally takes two days to do its wonder"

Well, let hope these blue capsules can really do its wonder to put my stubborn cough away. And for my Chinese readers here, this cough capsules can be taken whether you have hot or cold cough!

What to look for in a showerhead?

2010-11-16T17:32:00.000+08:00

Taking a shower must be one of man's life greatest enjoyment. The sprinkling of warm water jet on one's skin brings out the meaning of the word "comfort". Since taking a shower usually gives immense satisfaction to oneself, why not check out the stuff that we should look into a .... what else..... showerhead!

Are all showerheads created equal? If you think the answer is yes, then you should read on. I would like to point out the case when we use warm water during shower time. When warm water strike our skin, our pores will open up due to the heat that fall onto our skin. As these pores open up during the whole showering process, our skin are open up to maximum absorption of water molecules including its residue minerals.

And one of the not so welcome minerals is chlorine. Every time you take a warm shower, your system intakes an immense amount of chlorine into your body. Doy ou think chlorine is good for your body? Definitely not!

So the next question should be, "How do we remove chlorine from the shower water?" Well, actually, chlorine can be easily removed by using a water filter with a ceramic element in it. However, after doing so, your water flow will be greatly reduced and you might not get the warm or hot water coming out from your showerhead due to a drop in the incoming water pressure to the shower unit. Aside from that, adding a filter unit to a bathroom certainly makes the setup not a pretty sight to behold.

Thank God, with man's intelligence, we don't have to resort to such a troublesome practice. Just get some showerheads that have features similar to the one in the picture below.

The π water AromaC Spa Shower head contains a cartridge that can remove chlorine.This cartridge is further imbued with Vitamin C oil to give an aromatic fruity smell during shower time. Notice the fine outlet holes in the shower head unit? These fine triangular holes, which increases the water pressure by a factor of 1.5 times, produces streams of hair-like jet water that not only gives one a refreshing spa like shower experience but also trim the household monthly water bill.

It is said that the triangular hole spray plate can also generates 400,000 negative ions per cc of water but I just don't know whether it is true or not. However, if some of you have such knowledge, you are welcome to share it here.

The addition of FIR energy beads in the unit promotes better absorption of the aromatherapeutic essential oil by the skin. Well, at least now you don't have to worry about the toxic chlorine absorption into your body as it has been removed by the unit.

Of course, you don't have to get the AromaC Spa Shower head but at the price that it is selling, I would say it is a steal to enjoy better health!

Bamboo Vine Mint Soap

2010-11-10T12:20:00.000+08:00

I know what you are thinking. It might look yummy but it is definitely not jelly nor something that is edible.

Actually, it is a soap. It is a natural soap made from bamboo, vinegar, peppermint and organic olive oil. This handmade natural ingredients soap look different from the typical soaps (in fact, it possesses a translucent jelly-like look) as at least one quarter of its contents is made up of glycerin. Most common bar soap makes our skin feel dry after using them as glycerin is removed in the manufacturing process. This glycerin is then used to make skin creams and pricier soaps.

Now, you might ask, "What's so good about glycerin?". Well, glycerin is a humectant. It simply means that it draws moisture to our skin, making it soft and hydrated. (Do you know that our skin gets the "old look" due to dehydration? ). Aside from that, it also a good treatment for fungal and yeast infection such as eczema and psoriasis.

Okay, this natural soap is good for keeping the skin moist. What else? Hmmm, let see. It is good for many skin diseases such as pimples, acne, acne scars, pigmentation, blackhead, alleviate skin allergy and itchiness, pore clogging and reducing pore size. Not only that, if you suffer from body odor, you can give it a try too. Dandruff problem? This "magical soap" claims that it can treat that as well.

Now, let get to the part how to use it effectively. After lather it on your skin, leave it for a minute or two. Best effect if you leave it on throughout your karaoke singing session in the bathroom! if you skin or hair still feel oily after that, then repeat the above step.

There is a high tendency for one to feel skin itchiness during initial usage as the skin detoxification is taking place. However, if this problem still persists after a few sessions, then you skin might be allergy to it.

LED Bulb Light saves electricity but. .......

2010-10-31T18:06:00.003+08:00

I guess it is common knowledge that using a fluorescent lamp saves lots of electricity in comparison to an incandescent lamp bulb. A 2 feet fluorescent lamp with 18 W power rating can emit 1,000++ lumens which is enough to keep a decent size bathroom bright enough to carry your "chores" in there.

Put a 50 W incandescent lamp there and you would only get around 50 lumen which is barely enough to lit the same place. 50 W against 18 W and most of the electricity consumed by a light bulb is wasted through heat generation. No wonder the fluorescent lamps are so ubiquitous around any household.

And to light a decent size hall room in a house, you only need a 4 feet fluorescent lamp with a 36 W power rating. I can bet that no matter how high a rating you use for a incandescent lamp, you won't get the intended brightness exhibited by the fluorescent lamp.

Of course, in terms of energy saving, we could step things up by going for those light bulbs that make use of LED. It is a well known fact that LED consumes very small current (in the range of tens of milliamp). Not only that, LEDs can lasts a very long time; with typical lifetime from 30,000 to 50,000 hours.Now, do you notice the similarity of the lifetime of a LED backlit LCD monitor?

Super bright or high intensity LED does consumes more electricity but still, its current consumption is only in the hundredth of an amp. And please don't forget that LED operates in a few volts only. Therefore, power consumption (that is voltage x amp) of an LED is really miniscule when compared to a fluorescent lamp.Let us take a look at the 84 LEDs side mounted light bulb lamp. This LED bulb lamp consumes 6 W and output 600 Lumen.

Compared this to a 18 W fluorescent lamp that outputs 1,000 plus Lumens. Well, a picture .... actually two pictures are worth a thousand words!!!This is the bathroom lighting brightness illuminated by the 84 LED lamp bulb.

Now, compare the above condition with the lighting condition illuminated by a 18 W fluorescent lamp tube. See the difference?

So this simply means that even though LEDs lamp really saves electricity but in terms of brightness illumination that is required to lit a room, it fails miserably. Maybe, in the above example, we could use 3 pieces of the super bright LED lamp bulbs to get the required brightness, but then again, the electricity consumption would be the same as a typical 2 feet fluorescent lamp tube.

And don't forget one thing. LED bulb lamp is still way too expensive in comparison to a normal fluorescent lamp tube. That must be the reason why we don't see many LED lamps being used. Until the price and brightness issue of the LED lamp improve, I guess we will be sticking to the fluorescent tube for quite a while.
However, the concerned LED light lamp can still be used as a night lamp ( a light source to illuminate the stairway or corridor when the dwellings are asleep) or simply as a flood lamp.

On a side note, LEDs are immensely suitable to be used in a flash light. Due to its small viewing angle and deep penetration range, LED flash light is quite prolific in the flash light market.

Get rid of those stubborn coughs !

2010-10-23T09:37:00.000+08:00

One of the most common diseases that is most difficult to get rid is cough. Once it get hold of me, these stubborn coughs seemed like they want to stick for ages with me.

As days passed by, they seemed to occupy more of my activities. For me, doctor prescriptions, be it from the western or chinese practitioners, or even some cough medications from my local chinese herbal shops, failed to put them away. How I wish there is a magic potion to put those coughs away. For good, that is.

Indeed, there is. It is a home made mixture which can prepared in minutes!

All you need are a few slices of lemon and a glass of Coca Cola. Yup, you heard me right! Put the 2 or 3 slices of lemon into a pan and pour a glass of Coca Cola into it. Then, boil the home made cough mixture for a few minutes.Ta da... now you just need to gulp down the magic cough formula. Drink the same preparation for another 3 to 4 times and then you can bid adios to your unfriendly cough friend! Not only it is easy to prepare, it is also cheap, and taste nicely. But the most important thing is it works. At least it works on me! Hope it also do its wonder on you.

Excel (.XLS) file type association problem

2010-10-20T21:57:00.000+08:00

After you install Microsoft Office Excel 2007, any .XLS file you have on your pc will run with EXCEL 2007.

However, should you decide to run a certain XLS file by the named of SAMPLE.XLS with EXCEL 2003 version due to certain incompatibility problems, you got to install Microsoft Office 2003. Then when you click the icon for the concerned EXCEL file, your pc will launch EXCEL 2003 program to open the file.

Good! Good! Everything works as expected. However, there is a small problem with file association after you do so. After you install EXCEL 2003, you would find that any XLS files (not only the SAMPLE.XLS) that you click on your pc will launch EXCEL 2003 to open the file. Of course, you can still open the XLS files with EXCEL 2007 by typing the following in the Start Run command line

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE12\EXCEL.EXE

Then, after the application is launched, click on the Office logo on the top left hand corner, follow by Open and navigate to the place where you .XLS file is located.

Alternatively, you can place a shortcut for the EXCEL 2003 icon on the desktop and then click on it. After it is launched, repeat the same procedure as the above, that is, click the Office logo and then Open and select the file that you want to run when the pop up appears.

Real troublesome, isn't it? Have you considered how to revert to the original condition before you install EXCEL 2003? If you are thinking of using the file association method by clicking

My Computer icon
Tools
Folder options
File types
Navigate to the XLS file extension in the File types windows and then click Change

It just won't work!

So how do you do the switch? Associate the XLS file with EXCEL 2007 instead of EXCEL 2003?Well, just key in the following in the Start- Run command line and everything will switch back to normal!

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE12\EXCEL.EXE" /regserver

What this command line do is it will change the registry file setting for program association with .XLS files.

Another health product from the morning market : Organic Salt Soap

2010-10-17T09:56:00.000+08:00

Making my way through the morning market today, I found another health gem stuck within the endless row of veggies and meat stalls. It is a soap that can rejuvenate the human skin. Perfect for putting those pimples, acne, pigmentation, freckles or any other skin related diseases at bay. Well, I believe you get the picture. I haven't seen these soaps for quite some time, guess it is a passing fad.

Yup, it is a natural organic salt soap which brings immense health benefits to our skin if use often. It might look like a stone, feel like a stone but it is in fact a block of salt. It carries the brand Nature Plus from Poland weighing about 400 g. The best thing about this soap is it does not contain any chemical, hence if you do swallow some of it accidentally while using it during shower, rest assured you won't get any intoxication because it composes of organic salt (as implied by its name).

As I mentioned in my earlier post regarding this organic salt soap that new users might be let down by the missing of a main ingredient of what we most expected from a soap : foam. Yup, no foam ever produced from this soap no matter how you rub and wet it on your skin because it contains salt. Then again, do not do that as it will severely scratching and wounding your skin.

So how to use it? The seller suggested to soak the soap in a glass of water over night. Then apply the water immersed with soap to your skin. If you have sensitive and itchy skin, you might get some tingling as well as stinging sensation due to the wounds coming into contacts with the water soap. He also recommended I chose the darker color soap.

Then again, if you find the above method too troublesome, just wet the soap during your shower time, and then rub your palm against the wet salt soap surface and then rub your hand onto the parts of your body. To enjoy the best effect of the healing properties of the soap, leave the soap solution on your skin for 3 minutes.

Well, if you can't wait so long, at least wait for ten to twenty seconds. It is the same reason when we use shampoo on our hair. If you immediately rinse your hair after applying shampoo to your hair, do you think that the shampoo effects would have a chance to work on your hair? Hmm, maybe that's why most of us blame the shampoo for its ineffectiveness in removing dandruff, scalp itchiness, split hair etc.

Talking about shampooing, that gives me an idea. Why not after applying the salt soap to your skin, you do shampooing on your hair? In that case, you can avoid the boredom of waiting for the soap to do its wonders to your skin and also giving your hair a healthier glow? You know, killing two birds with one stone can also take place in the bathroom!

Home cure for rheumatism

2010-10-03T17:26:00.001+08:00

My-my! Have you been to a wet market? Too dirty for your liking? Well, if that applies to you, I must tell you that you miss out a lot of things that can be found there.

If you think that you can only find veggies, meat, fishes, groceries etc. in a wet market, then you need to expand your horizon by paying a visit to it. How if I were to tell you that you can find something that is beneficial to your health? Something that can treats your rheumatic, soothe your sored bones, muscle tingling or numbness?

Well, you might say," I don't suffer any of the above symptoms; my body condition is perfect!" So, you don't need something that keep the rheumatism problem at bay. You would only need it when you got it. Hmmm, what happen to preventive maintenance? Why must one wait for such a disease to enter one life and then only start treating it?

Anyway, the thing I am talking today come in the shape of a metal roller, sort of. It is made entirely of chromed silver metal. It mimics a mini hand driver except that it is of bigger size and its tip can be rolled.

Well, actually it acts like a massager with its rolling head cylinder. So how do you the health device? First, light up the one end of the "incense" (which is made from multiple number of chinese herbs, in Cantonese we called it "Ngai Cou"). Then, insert the flaming incense into the hollow end of the metal pen massager.

Press one or two times (like when you use a mechanical pencil to make the lead come out) and then start rolling the cylindrical netting around your body. I mean hold the massager handle and touch the caged netting and roll it to your arm, palm, face, back of your neck, sole, leg etc. Well, you get the picture. After some rolling moment passes, hit the pen massager against a bowl or container so that its burned ashes could fall out and drop to the container.

Perhaps, a video on how to use the pen massager would make your understanding easier.

During the process, you will feel very soothing and comfortable. This is more so when you roll in at the back of your neck. The warm metal netting (heated by the burning herbal incense inside it) provides the heat which is transfer to the body part that is in contact. This promotes blood circulation around the body and you would feel very refreshing after doing so. Not only that, you would sleep soundly as a baby at night!

One herbal incense can last for 45 minutes.In my initial "blood circulation promotion exercise", I found that the herbal incense kept going off. How do I know that? Because the white flame emitting from the holes in the netting had vanished! Ahem, you don't need a mouse to operate the health device. OK?

I was told that the incense would keep on burning if I keep on rolling its tubular netting as such a process can generate wind to continuously lighting up the incense inside it. However, the incense stop burning after a minute or so. maybe, this upkeeping of incense burning need some skill to it.

Anyhow, I found out that by keeping a fan switched on near me, the incense burnt continuously. Well, maybe letting the incences get some sunlight for a couple of minutes will also make it burn better as such an act would dry out the humidity in it.

UPDATE 9 Oct 10

This morning the seller informed me that in order to keep the "King of Herbs" (Pat Cou Chi Wong) stick burning, dry it in the sun. Or if you cannot wait for the sunlight to come out, put it in the microwave oven for a minute to get the moisture out of it.

Want to sleep as soundly as a baby at night? Just roll the gadget onto the sole of your foot. If you experience pain at a certain part of your body, just massage that particular area on your body to promote blood flow on that area and finally you would be able to get rid of the pain. These are the tips given by the seller.

Malam Gemilang 1 Pandan 1 Malaysia

2010-09-29T23:45:00.001+08:00

Huh? What's that? Oh, Malam Gemilang 1 Pandan 1 Malaysia was an event held in Pandan Lake Car Park tonight starting from 7:30 pm. It featured cultural dances and also a lantern walk. So what can you expect there?

For one thing, you would get to meet Dato Seri Ong Tee Keat , the MP for Pandan. See? Not only people seemed waiting for him despite the rain (me included!), but also the "lions"!

At last, the wait was over. Dato' made his appearance despite the drizzle. Hmmm, look like Dato' only had his eyes on the golden lion on his right. Want to share the captivating part with us?

His first stop is at the "A Word of Blessing for Malaysia" booth. Guess what he wrote. Well, well, see the picture below.

It's the word PEACE ! Yes, in this age and time, peace is of utmost important. Guess whatever Dato had done and will do in the future revolve around this word. And what's your word for Malaysia?

What next? What else? Eating time! If you are not in the VIP or VVIP club, then you have to get the food the buffet style way! Line up and wait for the food, please!

Otherwise, if you are a member of the VIP club, the curry chicken, veggies, fried "prawns", fish balls, curry meat and our staple food, rice were waiting for you in the gigantic stainless steel container bowl right in front of you.

Of course, while enjoying your food, we have live entertainment. Let us watch the drum beating video below.

Hope the drum beating sound lift up your spirit and provoke you to generate idea for PEACE! And no entertainment would be complete without speech. So below we have Dato' delivering his speech in Bahasa and Chinese.

If you are a senior citizen, not only you got to ate at the Malam Gemilang night, you would also get some windfall in terms of RM100. Hmmm, something like what is happening in Penang but here, you must be the chosen one! No, no, don't get me wrong, all the three main races in Malaysia got the chance to receive the monetary gift in the form of white packets but it seemed that they are pre selected. Others who came just won't do. Maybe, the organizer can let us know how the rest of the senior citizen would be qualified for such scheme so that they could apply for it next year.

Despite the drizzle, kids were dying to get those animals created with air balloon from the clown. Not only that, when the balloons ran out of stock, they would get some snacks. That was sure a good way to keep the kids happy!

If you stayed long enough, you would got a chance to see the kids performed. Organised by Green net, these performances added another layer of entertainment to the night!

Here 're some close ups.

With that, we shall call it a night. Dato' Ong is also very sporty, as he got up the stage and danced. And just after the night event, it is raining dogs and cats.

Hot Springs Sungai Klah (Sungkai), Perak

2010-09-12T23:34:00.008+08:00

Built at a cost of RM6 million in 2003, Felda Residence Hot Springs Sungai Klah provides natural hot springs to its visitors. This is a natural alternative to spa centres which can detoxify our body.

Our tour guide for the day, Wai Wai, introduces us to the Hot Springs Sungai Klah (Sungkai). But before we can delve into the place, let take a look at the ticket price. Yah, we need to pay to get in even though it is natural. I did mention it was built at a cost of 6 million, didn't I?

Adult, kiss goodbye to RM10, while children RM8, senior citizen RM7 and disabled RM2 to gain access. Once you paid for the entrance fee, you can drive your car into the Felda Residence Hot Springs parking area. Parking is FREE regardless of how many hours you decide to dump your car there. Opening time of the Sungai Klah resort is from 8 am to 7 pm.

We didn't get any map brochure or pamphlet like those you got when you visit Sunway Lagoon or Lost World of Tambun. Therefore, we have to refer to the map board erected in the park. But then again, even without looking at the map, there is no chance for one to get lost!

The first pool that will greet us is the Hot Springs Pool.

I know we all cannot wait to get ourselves in the hot pool ( don't worry, actually it's warm not HOT!). But before that, could you see the shoe shelf and the two big water urns? Good, now we know where to put our shoes and how to clean our feet!

Need I say more?

Our tour guide "babysat" the youngest participant in the group. Good job, good job!

Hmmm, I guess the thermometer here is for those who still worry about the "hotness" of the springs pool.

By now, I guess you already had an idea what's next in stored for us.

Yes, this is for REAL! You can surely boil eggs in the hot springs water below.

I know you would share the looks as these people. Enticed to try? You just need to fork out RM2 for 5 eggs. Too expensive for you? Well, you can always bring your own eggs. Just make sure you pack them nicely for them to survive the journey to the park.

In around 8 minutes, those eggs that were dipped into the boiling hot spring pool would turn into hard boiled eggs. People say kopitiam boiled eggs are good and I say you don't know what is good boiled eggs till you try it here. They are so natural, so soft, so ........................ Enough said. Come and try.

While waiting for the eggs to get boiled, we (almost ALL) decided to get our feet (or rather our legs) wet and hot. And after a couple of minutes, some of us felt like we took a walk in the Sahara desert!

So, the logical choice for our next stop would be the cool and refreshing natural mountain spring pool.

Well, let get wet! Could you imagine the feeling of getting cool natural water from a hot springs park after drenched in hot sweat? Not only that, the streams of water jets from various parts of the pool provide a very good "massage service" to our bodies. There is a life guard here as the deepest part of the mountain springs pool measured 4 feet.

After a refreshing cool swim and dip, wouldn't it be nice to enjoy a nice cup of hot coffee or tea? Yes, it's indeed possible with RM2 only.

Some of us have been quite familiar with walking barefooted alone a lane covered with small stones. But over here, in Sungai Klah Hot Springs park, we got to walk on top of small stones that are located in a stream of warm natural flowing water. It must be another health therapeutic in the form of foot reflexology with a twist!

Various therapy hot spring pools such as the one below, are available to provide healing effects to one's body. Great time for a family or group of friends to get together while getting one's feet drenching hot!

For those who don't mind forking out extra, jacuzzi style hot spring pools are available for booking. If my memory didn't fail me,it costs around RM90 for an hour drip. Each pool can accommodate around 7 to 8 persons.

You can find durian tree in the park. No, no, I 'm not kidding. Take a look for yourself. Of course, the durians are all taken!

Hmmm, where is the water in Cascading Hot Water attraction? Must be all dried up by the hot weather and the hot rock! Come to think of it, maybe we could ask our tour guide!

Now you might be asking how to get there. Sungai Klah Hot Springs or TRAPS (Taman Rekreasi Air Panas) can be reached by turning into the Sungkai Exit along the Plus Highway. After paying tol at the exit, take the right turn at the T- junction. Then drive along this road and watch out for the sign board for the hot springs on your left. Once you see the sign board, make a turning to your left to turn into the Felda settlement. This turning is quite sharp, so drive slowly. The tarred road from here to the Hot Springs Park will run for more than 10 km. Don't worry about getting yourself lost here, as along the way, there are many signboard to keep you on track.

The Natural Mosquito Buster : Catnip Oil

2010-06-14T13:25:00.000+08:00

Don't we hope to repel mosquitoes as two same magnetic poles do? I believe the answer to that question is a resounding yes. If not, there won't be so many mosquito repellents in the market. These mosquito busters come in so many forms and shapes.

Mosquito sprays and coils are chemically human developed mosquito busting tools used to combat the mosquitoes which seem to have an undying craving for our blood. A more recent buster known as mosquito trap which attracts and dehydrate the mosquitoes after they are trapped found its place in many residential as well as commercial dwellings.

There's even a plant known as mosquito plant which repels mosquito the nature way. However, these plants, if placed inside the buildings, well wither very soon. Even though the pungent citronella smell emitted by the mosquito plant is disliked by the blood thirsting insects, it won't keep those itchy insect bites imparted by those persistent attackers.

Catnip is another perennial herbal plant that can be used to repel mosquito. Grow a bunch of them in the garden and you would find the number of mosquitoes that frequent your home reduces drastically. However, you would startled to find a growing number of cats visiting your garden. Yah, cats love catnip a lot. Now, you know where the plant get its name from.

Due to its effectiveness, some people have developed catnip oil from the plants. There was even a research carried out in Iowa State University that found that catnip oil is 10 times more effective than DEET in repelling Aedes aegypti mosquito. And thinking of DEET which is proven very toxic especially to children, I would go for catnip oil any time of the day to keep those blood suckers away.

Catnip oil, which possess a rich golden color, is often mixed with other aromatic essential oils such as Cornmint oil, Rosemary oil, lemon grass and peppermint to get the maximum effect on its repellent function. Instead buying those commercial available catnip oil, that is if you don't mind the hassle, you can prepare a bottle of homemade mosquito repellent using it.

All you have to do is to mix a teaspoon of catnip oil with a cup of alcohol and water. It is better to apply the mixture on your clothing instead on your skin as some of us might have allergy to the potion and also it will stay there longer as it won't get washed away by sweat. This mixture can be sprayed to your clothing after some shaking.

Aside from that, catnip oil also works on termites. Compared to the harmful insect pesticide normally used to get rid of termites that infected our home, catnip oil, acts as a natural ant killers, is safe for the whole family.

Pandan Perdana's Family Day

2010-06-06T11:45:00.002+08:00

Today is the Family Day for Pandan Perdana folks. As usual, it is held at the area surrounding the Pandan Perdana Lake, from 7:30 am till 11:00 am. This year event saw the number of attendees much less than the previous year. It might be due to less events being held this year.

As with previous year, the Family Day event is graced by YB Dato' Sri Ong Tee Keat, our just ex- Transport Minister cum Pandan MP. Ong started his speech at 9:00 am. Lasting about an hour, he spoke in English, Mandarin and perhaps Malay ( I guess so 'cos last year I also caught him speaking in Malaysia's three mainstream language) in the same spot as last year.

A cup of Milo plus a nicely pack of snack await you beside the Pandan Perdana Lake's playground. It serves as an excellent breakfast goodies for those who just wake up.

Don't forget to throw the Milo cup into the provided bin after you emptied the cooling content.

Bread, mineral water and some cakes to fill your empty stomach!

In line with healthy lifestyle, these participants was getting ready for the jogathon event that supposed to start at 10 am.

And for those who have some doubt about their heath, they can get free checkups of diabetes and high blood pressure.

You can even consult the handsome doctor on board the mobile clinic should you find your medical result unsatisfactory.

Oops. Almost missed the art competition being held there for the kids who are 12 years old and below.

Hard at work! The future artist?

Copper for a water free mosquito larvae

2010-05-17T17:23:00.001+08:00

Those mosquito bites really sting, isn't it? Guess there must be a nearby stagnant water pocket with lots of mosquito larva. Hmm, how do you keep a water area free of mosquito larva? I mean not residing to using oil, pesticide or rearing fish in it.

Well, maybe this is the answer. Found this article recently.

Subject: How to prevent mosquitoes lay eggs, cheapest way of preventing survival of mosquitoes.

We cannot stop mosquitoes laying eggs at any stagnant water in drains/ponds or water collected in waste pails, tanks, tins, used tyres etc. etc. Of course if you have fish inside the tanks/containers then there should be no problem.

Do you know that there is a very simple and very economical way to destroy the mosquitoes' eggs and not let them hatch into larvae. Very very simple, just put in few 1 cent copper coins into the tanks/containers then it will solve all your problems.. Because in accordance to Japanese Research Scientists, they found the mosquitoes eggs will be destroyed by a kind of mineral discharge from the copper.

DON’T BELIEVE? Try it by yourself and even the small snails also will not visit the containers (with copper coins) collected with stagnant water. You will observe the water collected in the containers will be very clean and clear..

Now, it strikes my mind that those wells and small water catchment area in the tourist attraction spots I have visited is actually free of mosquito larva. Due to the Malaysia's and Singapore's 1 cent copper coins thrown into the water areas, the mosquitoes can't breed and lay eggs there.That also means copper kills mosquito larva!

Never have it occurred to me this is the wonder of the copper coins in them. Maybe the reaction of water and copper that produces hydrogen and oxygen keeps the water containment unsuitable for living mechanism to live and thrive in them.

Not only does it works but it is also the cheapest and environmental friendly way of keeping a pool of mosquito free water catchment area. By the way, I can finally make use of those untradeable one cent copper coins that I still have in possession to keep the mosquitoes away in the bathroom water container and rain harvesting container in the garden!

Look Out Point in Ampang

2010-05-12T11:07:00.002+08:00

A perfect getaway for those KL folks who only have a few hours to spare. Yup, that's how I would describe Look Out Point along the Ulu Langat Expressway in Ampang.

Situated atop the Langat Hill, a few restaurants occupy the top of the hill. Man, even the Look Out Point tower has been converted to a restaurant! People really know how to catch hold of a money making opportunity when they see one!

If you are reach the place after 6:30 pm, be prepared to park your car at the Langat Hill foot. Come in later and you would have to park along the roadside beside the Expressway. Then your 10 minutes stair walking journey starts ( see inset picture) amidst the row of trees and shrubs along the climb to the hill top. Man, it is a perfect walk for those who go there in pair!

The first restaurant that greets you at the top is Gasoline. No, you can't get any gasoline for your car here!

What can you get here? Hmmm, Gasoline has many branches in Klang Valley and I heard that the one in Sg Wang serves very good food and service.

Sad to say that the service in Look Out Point's Gasoline sucked.One of us want to order a vegetarian dish which is not in the menu. This is how the waiter answered us."I can't guarantee that you would get your dish!""The last time someone ordered such custom dish, the "chef" complained and refused to prepare it." They also employed many foreigners as their waiters and I think that's the reason we have a bit of communication breakdown.

Even so the service is terrible, the place is fully packed when the sun is set. Must be the work of the location! When night fall, the captivating night scene of KL is all for your taking. Do you notice the Twin Towers in the picture below?

No? It's the two spikes on the left. Well, children are always happy even if they have to wait for a long time for the meals to arrive. Guess we, grown ups, should learn something from them!

This is why we went there. Enjoy the breathtaking enchanting KL night view!

An Ever Prolific Bloomer : Mexican False Heather

2010-05-10T09:38:00.001+08:00

The Mexican False Heather is an ever prolific bloomer which makes me ponder whether it is a weed. It is just so easy to grow as with its non-stop blooming, you would soon be rewarded with an evergreen sub shrub with captivating small purplish flowers.

So there is no need to propagate the plants as self-sowing happens all the time with its ever presence flowers. Take care of the foliage by regular watering and you'll have an ever expanding foliage shrub. The lack of watering in addition to direct exposure to the bright sun would render the plant leaves become dry and brown in color and finally makes the foliage become leggy.

If you are the lazy type of gardeners like me, then you could put the foliage near a water fountain. Not only your worry on the Cuphea hyssopifolia being "burned out" would be wiped out but also stuffy healthy looking green leaves will greet you without fail. Isn't that an ingenious way to grow your foliage?

The part of the foliage that is near to the water source would also start to crawl to the watery area and produce long leggy roots to tap the water rich source. Also known as the Hawaiian Heather, some parts of the foliage would even submerged underwater. Yes, the part of the foliage which not only being able to survive immersed under the water seems to be a lot of healthier.

I can't really miss this Joyweed!

2010-05-09T20:05:00.001+08:00

Passing by the roadside, this attractive foliage shrub which stashed among the tall green grasses and other greenery captured my attention due to its outstanding purple (or is it maroon?) color. I guess it must be a hardy since being able to perpetuate in such an adverse environment which is so sunny and dry!

Known as Alternanthera Royal Tapestry or Joyweed, its dry deep colored purple leaves hints that it needs more water.

I came across this foliage again in the local wet market. A stall there which usually sells medicinal herbs had the many deep purple stems of joyweed tied in a bundle. It really surprises me as I though it was a weed (after all, I did find it on a roadside!).

Hmm, maybe it worth a place in my garden and the next time I visit the market, I'll surely ask what the healing properties of the plant to us!

Update 18 June 2010 :

Found out that the medicinal value of joyweed is to the heart. It has the property regulate heart beat; so if your heart beat is irregular, get the plant and boil it with some water.

Purple Color Flower Plant : Katie Dwarf Ruellia

2010-05-05T09:24:00.000+08:00

It seems that I have a liking for purple color for plants; be it the whole plants or only the flower. Unlike many people who think it must be red or orange when it comes to flowers, for me, purple is the color I adore.

I have this lonely but lovely Katie Dwarf Ruellia (origin : Mexico) in the unshaded part of my garden. Initially I thought it is a purple flower color Hibiscus but seeing its deep green sword shaped leaves, it can't be one. As far as I concerned, hibiscus leaves are more rounded.

Though this foliage can grow to 6 inches tall, my miserable Ruellia is only two to three inches tall. It has been there for three weeks now after I removed it from another pot full of purple color flower plants. Guess that variety of foliage was denying the Ruellia from growing and propagation as it was only an inch tall and with no blooming at all at that time.

If you are the busy type, Katie Ruellia is the type of foliage to your liking. It doesn't require much care, not much water is needed and can tolerate strong sunlight. Give it more sunlight and it'll give you more purple trumpet-shaped blooms. However, the petunia-like flowers do not last long (a day) and will easily fall off their stems once the Ruellia brittoniana foliage is being watered.

Nevertheless, my joy of admiring the Dwarf Mexican Petunia won't be short lived as the next one or two day, a new bloom will never fail to appear. And this prolific booming takes place without me adding in any fertilizers to the plant!

Nature's Black Soap is Better Than Organic Salt Soap

2010-05-03T17:02:00.001+08:00

The organic salt soap benefits kept me using it for a few days but the fact that it does not have any foam and much dilute much despite wetting with water made it very difficult to bath with. Add in to the fact that it stung endless every time I bath with it ( you see, I normally have some open wounds or cuts due to persistence scratching) really deters me from continuing using it.Therefore, I had to find another alternative.

It was also at the same morning market I manage to get hold of a bar of black soap. Funny, isn't it? Never come across one's mind that these sort of thing can be found there. Anyway, getting back to the black facial cleansing soap, it is actually called Nature's Black Soap.

"It's made from bamboo charcoal", the seller proudly announced. Hefurther said that it was also sold by Cosway. "Buy 3 pieces and try itfor a month. You won't regret as it'll heal your acne and skinirritation", he added. Well, since it costs only around USD3, I said tomyself, "Why not give it a try. The most I'll lose is the small amountof money".

Compare to organic salt soap which is smellless, the bamboo charcoal black facial soap is quite fragrance. Thesoap cleansing properties is quite good and produce lots of fume. Theonly problem using it seems to be the black patches that it leaves onthe bathroom wall tiles. This patches make the wall looks dirty and Inormally rinse it with splashing water to remove it.

Afterusing it for a month daily, I found that my skin condition has improveda lot. Less skin irritation and itchiness means less open wounds for me.

It must be the wonder of the bamboo charcoal. Google it and foundthe following benefits of it in a website. Will continue using it dailyeven though it makes my bathing routine involves "extra work" ie cleanthe bathroom tiles!

Bamboocharcoal can purify water by absorbing chlorine and acts as anantiseptic. The bamboo charcoal soap can clean and whiten skin, preventand cure skin diseases,and surplus oil. In short, it can improve skincondition.

Mosquito trap really works !

2010-05-02T21:58:00.000+08:00

Still remember my post on using mosquito trap to ward off those hungry blood sucking mosquitoes? 3 months has passed since then and I must say that the REX mosquito trap I am using really works.

To check for the mosquitoes that I have netted, the unit has to be powered off. Then holding the upper portion of the unit that houses the UV lamps with one hand, turn the lower portion clockwise and thereafter apply downward pressure to it. And then you would get the netting with the funnel separated from the UV lamp and fan housing.

Next, removing the funnel by hand and this was what I discovered after letting the unit ran for several days.

Lots and lots of dead dehydrated mosquitoes in it. Now, bear in mind, I have netted my house partially and most of the dehydrated mosquitoes were very tiny that has escaped my killer palms.

If you want to try to use such a unit to get rid of the mosquito in your house, you have to on it for a few days over night. Get this thing clear. Even though the unit is running, and when a mosquito is near you, it still prefers your hot bloody fluid over the simulation "human system". But that does not mean it is not working.

And when you peep through the netting and see some mosquitoes there, do not power off the unit. Keep the unit running so that the fan rotation can keep the mosquito inside the netting and dehydrate them. After a day, check on them again. You'll notice that they have dehydrated and become very brittle.

Remember one thing though. The mosquito trap is not going to totally eliminate the mosquito in your house but it does minimize the surrounding mosquito (actually not only mosquito but also other insects : actually I did catch a bee in it) in your place. For me, it worth the money I paid for it and REX didn't pay me for saying this!!!

An extremely easy to grow purple plant

2010-04-28T09:26:00.000+08:00

Purple heart is an extremely easy to grow plant. It's a tropical purple colored foliage. I never imagine that these purple foliage can fully fill up my two garden pots with hardly any fertilizers. I just water them only once a day despite exposing them to the hot and bright sun without any shade. My observation concludes that bugs don't like them as I can hardly see any damage done by them on the purple plants.

During the winter season, put the purple plant inside the house as it cannot tolerate cold weather. Heard that it will turn to green and purple inside the house. It is also a drought resistant plant that can get by with very little watering.

It is quite a "brittle" plant. Just bending the stem by a small degree will snap it. But wait. Don't throw the broken stem parts away. Just stick the stem into another garden pot or the garden ground soil.Very soon, you will find that the plants turn the whole area into a purple scene sprinkled with pinkish spots. That's the reason why some people categorised it as a weed (it just grows too quick and seems invasive to other plants in the garden!).

Also known as Tradescantiapallida ‘Purpurea’, its dark purple leaves and lovely pink blossom flowers is a sight that will surely draw the eyes. I just don't understand why some people want to kill this "purplish beau" by using all sort of stuff (include dog urine!). Not to mention getting rid of them won't be an easy task as pulling the plant will break off its stems easily and its deep root will remain in the soil.

By the way, I did show you a picture of my miserable Purple Leaf Shamrock plant a few days ago. Never imagine that shifting the plant pot to a shadier location brings tons of health to the purple plant. Hmm, those decay leaves must be the work of the small bug that sticks onto one of the leaves.

Well, not in the best of health but nevertheless, its state of health is much better than before. And I must stop myself from watering it too much!

Adding a center channel speaker to an audio system

2010-04-27T10:13:00.000+08:00

If you follow my previous post on connecting surround sound to an audio system, I'm sure that you will find that it totally changes your home entertainment experience in watching movies as well as listening to your favorite tunes with the modification.

Now, you can take that one step further by adding in a center channel speaker to your audio system setup. All you need to do is to get a speaker and then simply follow the wiring in the diagram below.

You got to short the negative terminals of the main unit (receiver) together. Please check the user manual of your stereo system as some system does not favor such connection to be made. Then connect only the negative terminal of the center channel speaker ( do not connect the negative terminals of both the left and right channel speakers) to the shorted output negative sockets of the receiver unit.After that, connect the positive terminal of the center speaker to the negative terminals of both the left and right channel speakers.That's it. You can now turn on your audio system and experience a new dimension in your listening experience.

This is the center speaker unit that I connected for my mini Hi-Fi unit. It's a Pioneer S-L99C 2 ways 3 speakers box.With such a connection, I am getting left and right channel (stereo) coming out from this unit.

How to connect surround sound speakers to audio system without such outputs

2010-04-26T21:47:00.004+08:00

It was real easy for me to connect my two Pioneer SSP-02 surround sound speakers to my Aiwa NXS-990 mini hi-fi.. Since the main unit comes with two surround sound sockets, what I need to do is simply connect the speaker male connector to them. And the volume of the surround sound can be adjusted together with the left and right speakers by turning the unit volume knob.

But what happen if your audio system doesn't come with a pair of surround sound outputs? Don't despair as I'm going to show you how to turn your system into a decent basic surround sound system with very minimal cost.

Your home stereo system would probably have one left and right speakers connected to the rear of the main receiver unit. To setup a surround sound system, you need to connect the positive ("+") terminal of both the left and right surround speakers to the positive ("+") left and right output channel of the receiver unit. Then, connect the negative ("-") terminal of the left and right surround speakers to each other. This complete the current loop of the surround speakers circuit. Note that your system won't output any surround sound if one of the surround speakers is not connected or if you are modifying a monoaural output system.

If you want to adjust the volume of the surround sound, add in a potentiometer with a range of 25 to 200 ohm and a power rating of 3 W anywhere along the surround speaker circuit.

Now, you have a surround sound audio system in which you can add more "umph" to your movie watching and music listening experience.

If you are interested to further enhance your audio system performance, take a look on how to add a center channel speaker to your stereo system. This center speaker is normally placed between the two left and right channel speakers.

Is this Purple Leaf Shamrock?

2010-04-21T16:02:00.003+08:00

I have quite a number of plants with purple leaves in my hot and sunny garden. Yah, the leaves come in purple and not the usual green color that come with most of our garden plants.

It does make an interesting and attractive specimen for adding uniqueness and variety to my otherwise all green garden. I have this particular tiny foliage with purple leaves. It can't take very strong sunlight and you just got to water it a lot. In contrast to its purple leaves, the blooming flower is white in color.

If you get the above two things right, it would be very easy for the clump to flourish. Best place to put the foliage pot is under some kind of shade so that it won't get much direct sunshine. Under such location, you can water it sparingly one of two times a day as the shade will keep the soil moist all day long. Do note that I plant the triangular purple leaves plant in a small pot under a shade. As the leaves hang from the slender fragile stems, it's best to sprinkle water to the foliage or simply water the rhizomes or bulbs where the stems originate.

One interesting feature about this plant is its leaves will "open" and "close" with accordance to the intensity of sun light that fall onto its leaves. Note that the leaf in the shaded area sort of "close" (folded just like an umbrella when not in used) and "open" or expands when the bright sunlight fall onto it.

Initially, when I had this captivating foliage, I thought it did not have enough water when I saw the leaves folded. How wrong was I as too much water would make the plant which grows from a clump decayed and perished.

Just wondering whether this plant of mine is called the Purple Leaf Shamrock? Any plant lovers here?

How to cure sore throat

2010-04-21T14:23:00.001+08:00

Do you feel discomfort in your throat whenever you take some food? Or simply whenever you swallow saliva? My friend, your throat is beginning to show the initial sign of sore throat.

There's a way to cure such a problem with your throat if you simply don't want to take those western drugs. Or when those solutions didn't do any good to your throat.

There's a natural way to cure sore throat. It is by using the plant below. It is known as "snake tongue plant" in chinese. It's not one of those plants that you see when you google snake tongue plant.

What you have to do is pluck 5 to 6 pieces of the plant leaves and rinse it with water. Then put it in a glass and fill it with hot boiling water. Next, put a cover to the top of the glass and wait till the water cool down.

After a few hours, pour the water out (minus the leaves) and drink the potion. "My god! It's really bitter!" If that is what you utter when you try to gulp the potion, add in some honey.

With such a powerful bitter potent cure, I'm sure your sore throat'll disappear very soon.

Why is my hard disk access speed so slow?

2010-03-14T23:39:00.000+08:00

Would you believe it? The chart below shows my ST3500320AS 500 GB Seagate hard disk transfer rate. It hovers around 4 MB/s. The slow operation of my pc for the past few days was what prompted me to check out the hard disk speed using HDTune.

My suspicion that something was wrong with the Seagate hard disk performance was confirmed when I ran the Benchmark test with the application.

So I started to crack my head to get it to run at its standard speed (100 MB/s). It couldn't be the firmware problem as I have already updated the ST3500320AS through Seagate firmware updating page. I didn't touch the CMOS setting. The device manager reported the Seagate driver is flawless.

I guess I should shift my attention to the hardware side instead of immersing myself in the software side. What could possibly cause the hard disk to access data so slowly and yet show no sign of error and problem being reported by Windows? A check on the USB cable proves the cable was tightly fitted on both sides ( motherboard and hard disk).

Maybe something's wrong with the conductivity of the cable. So I used the other USB cable but the drive still seem so slow. Anyway, that's eliminate the cable potential problem. I guess what's left to try was to plug the hard disk to another USB port on the Intel mobo.

Bingo! When I tested the rig hard disk again with HDTune, I manage to speed it up to its standard specified speed. Hmm, that's would mean that the mobo USB port is causing the slow access speed to the Seagate drive. What could possibly cause it? I think it might be due to the rearrangement of the USB cable as I did rearrange the wire to make the PC wire arrangement neater without powering off the rig.

Read your Gmail mails in Thunderbird

2010-03-12T21:39:00.000+08:00

Since my last post touches on setting Thunderbird to read Yahoo mails, I guess the next thing I would be looking is to integrate my Gmail mails into Thunderbird. That would integrate all my emails checking into one place and from now onwards, it would be a breeze to check on all my emails in the Thunderbird email client.

Initially I thought of using the POP server to set up my Gmail access as I did use it in setting up my Yahoo mail. But after some research, I should use the IMAP server instead as IMAP server access enable the email client (Outlook Express, Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007, Windows Mail, Thunderbird 2) to be automatically synced with Gmail. That would mean there is no necessity to click certain button to get the latest emails.

Unlike Yahoo webmail setup, IMAP access involve two steps; enabling IMAP in Gmail setting and configure Thunderbird. Sign in to your Gmail account and click Settings on the upper right hand corner. Click the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab. Click the radio button next to enable IMAP and Save Changes button.

Next, to configure Gmail for Thunderbird, open Thunderbird and click Tools, Account Settings and Add Account. Enter an account name and gmail email address to Your Name and Email address in Account Wizard windows.

After clicking Next button, choose IMAP as the incoming server and enter imap.gmail.com into the Incoming Server box. Key in your gmail address as Incoming User Name after clicking Next and then hit Next again. Finally key in an account name for this profile.

Under Server setting of this account (click Tools, Account Settings and Server setting on the left pane), set IMAP server port to 993. Use SSL secure setting.

Proceed to Outgoing Server (SMTP) setting. Enter smtp.gmail.com to Server Name and 587 to Port in SMTP server tab.Click OK and it's DONE!

View Yahoo Mail in Thunderbird

2010-03-12T17:50:00.002+08:00

Are you using one of those free email client such as Thunderbird to view and read your emails? Wouldn't it be nice if you could also use it to do the same thing for your mails in Yahoo mail?

All you need to do is to add in some plugins to your Thunderbird and do some configuration to it. And presto! You can now receive and reply your yahoo mails through Thunderbird.

You'll need to download Webmail and Yahoo plugin from Webmail site. For Firefox user, don't click directly on the link as we don't want to install and integrate it to our browser. Instead, right click it and select "Save link as ..." when the popup appears.

Next, open your Thunderbird application and select Tools, Add-ons and press the Install tab to point your installation to the Webmail xpi link that you have save. As at this writing, the link name is web-mail-1-3-5.xpi. Click Install Now when the software installation pops up.When you're done, close and restart Thunderbird.

Now, do the same steps as you have done in installing Webmail with the Yahoo mail plugin. For me, the Yahoo mail plugin link is titled yahoo-1-4-6.xpi.

With both the plugins installed, you would be able to see Web Mail option in the Create New Account tab when you press Tool, Account Setting... and Add Account. Select the Web Mail option and key in an account name and your Yahoo email address in the email address box. (For example: leo@yahoo.com). For username, key in your yahoo email address. (if you key in the username without the domain, it won't won't).

Now, we need to configure the incoming server to receive and download our Yahoo mails. Set localhost to server name as the pop mail server. For secure connection, select never. If you only want to receive your yahoo mails in Thunderbird, we're done.

However, for those who wish to send and reply mail with their yahoo email address, they need to configure their outgoing (SMTP) server. Click Tools, Account setting..., and on the left pane, scroll to the end to select the Outgoing Server (SMTP) option. Click Add tab on the right and put localhost in the server name, tick the box for use name and password (key in your username which is your yahoo email address) and finally click no for use secure connection.

If everything goes right, not only you should be able to download your emails from Yahoo mail but also send mails using your yahoo email address. If you still fail to get your yahoo mails into Thunderbird despite doing everything correctly, check the Yahoo mail page that you log in. Is it titled Yahoo Classic? If yes, then switch it to Yahoo Mail Beta. This should do the job!!!

UPDATE 15.04.11

Due to recent Yahoo mail update, please update the webmail plugin to version 1.3.12 to enable the continuance of loading and sending emails from your email client.

How To Open Any Files !

2010-03-02T20:30:00.000+08:00

Ever find yourself in a situation where you don't know how to open a file that you have downloaded? For example, what program you should use to open a file with an VOB extension ?

Stop scratching your head as the solution is very simple. Just pay OpenWith visit and key in the file extension into the box on the upper left hand corner followed by clicking the Search button. OpenWith will then come up with a page describing the file extension and what kinda of free program that you can use to run it. Pretty simple, isn't it?

Increase Hard Disk Space (if you are using Thunderbird)

2010-03-02T12:22:00.000+08:00

One day when you turn on your computer, you find a Low Disk Space Warning popping up in the lower right side of your monitor screen. This situation is bound to happen to all of us one day as we keep on downloading and installing programs to our computer.

If you use Thunderbird as your email software and keep receiving and sending lots of emails daily, you will find that the Thunderbird email folder (ie. C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\xz7srzap.default\Mail\Local Folders) will gobble lots of hard disk space. NB: will be the name you log into your pc.

Do you know that by deleting the Inbox mails, your hard disk space occupied by the incoming emails still stay the same? The same thing also happens even if you delete the files in the Trash box.

So how do you decrease the space occupied by the mail messages in the Thunderbird related folders? You got to compact the folders to reduce the Thunderbird mails footprint in the hard disk. Simply click on the File tab, and then Compact Folders tab when the pop down menu appear. Then wait for the message "Compacting Folder Inbox ..." to disappear from the lower side of the screen and you are all done.

What Do You Think Of the BenQ G922HDL?

2010-02-08T16:36:00.001+08:00

Browsing through an online catalogue, the BenQ G922HDL caught my attention. This LED backlit LCD monitor is the world's first 18.5" LCD display lighted by LED instead of the conventional fluorescent tube.

Why do I want to get a LCD display with an LED backlight?Aside from the space it saves plus "zero radion" emission, the flicker free display attracts me. We all think that once we switch from a bulky CRT monitor to a LCD monitor, the flicker on the screen is gone for good as there is no refresh rate in the LCD monitor.

But do you know that the cold cathode fluorescent light (CCFL) fitted behind the LCD panel is flickering all the time. This might cause discomfort such as slight headache and eye fatigue to some people but can be minimized by making the surrounding lightings brighter than the monitor brightness.

The fluorescent light technology in the LCD monitor is exactly the same as those used in the fluorescent light used in the office. How would you feel if you stared at the fluorescent lights for hours? I think you get the picture.In comparison to the CRT monitor, the LCD panel display is not flickering but the fluorescent backlight is.

It is refreshed at less than 100 Hz and even if you don't perceive the flickering (as in a CRT monitor when you set the refresh rate to at least 75 HZ), you will feel eye fatigue after a long day staring at the screen.

Hopefully too, with the G922HDL, I'll have better luck when reading as lately I do find it difficult to read a book.I found the text a bit blur. Guess it must be the emf radiation emitted from the CRT screen that I currently staring for endless hours a day.

Aside from that, I am sure gonna have further saving on my electricity bill. Its power consumption is only17 W, less than half of those fluorescent backlight one and even less than a table fan!

And with less power utilization also means the surrounding area around the monitor will be cooler. Currently, I can feel the heat when I put my hand on top of the back portion of my CRT monitor. With my monitor placed in a small room, I do really feel the room temperature going up!

Why Drink 8 Glasses Of Water? To Keep Slim?

2010-02-08T10:14:00.001+08:00

Don't think I'm nut when I tell you that drinking 8 glasses of water a day can keep you slim. Yah, that's what I mentioned in my previous how much water to drink daily post. I know what you're thinking. If something so simple as drinking water can keep one slim, those slimming centers can't possibly "mushrooming" and would be out of business very soon.

If you're still with me, let find out how drinking water can keep you slim. First, we need an optimum amount of water daily to keep our body fully hydrated 'cos we lose lots of water daily too. And it approximates 8 glasses of water a day.

When you don't have that amount of water intake, your body will be in dehydration state. And in this state, lots of acid that are being generated (due to the type of food intake you normally consume) would have a hard time being flushed out of your body.

Acid is detrimental to your health if it remain in your blood stream. Therefore, your body will store this acid into your fat cells to keep you in existence. So as long as you remain dehydrated, no amount of exercises would get you thin and slander. In contrast, more acid is produced when you experience more stress when you see the weighing scale needle isn't tilting to the direction that you expect.

Now, since I let you know the secret of staying slim and healthy for free, aren't you going to start gulping down enough water a day? And when you do, and if you feel sick after doing it for a few days, let me know!

Ever Wonder How Much Water To Drink A Day?

2010-02-06T11:08:00.001+08:00

Have this question ever pop up in your mind? "How much water should I drink a day?" Or you already know that one should take 8 glasses of water a day. But don't gulp that amount of water all at one time or else you would find yourself hating doing it as another chore.

I don't want to sound like your parents nagging you to drink more water ( as I believe most of us don't drink that much of water daily) but drinking enough water will make you disease free. Yah, you hear me loud and clear and I'm not saying that to encourage you to take more water into your system.

Do many of you feel hungry most of the time? Yes? Then, you're suffering from dehydration. Actually, your body has adjusted to the chronic dehydration that you have conditioned it and you are giving it more food even though it's yelling out for more water!!!

How can drinking water makes us disease free? Protect us from illness? Well, read on if you really want to find out!!!

To remain in a healthy state, your body need to stay in a certain pH level. That level is pH 7.26, which is slightly alkaline. And your blood is the part that plays the role in keeping your body slightly alkaline. When your body becomes more acidic, it tries to restore the balance by getting the alkaline from the food you eat through the blood.

Since a large percentage of your blood is made up of water, it will be very tough for it to rebalance the acidity and alkalinity state in your body when you have water deficit. Your blood cells will clump together and the transfer of oxygen and re-balancing process will be slow down. Now, you have discovered a secret of how to boost up your energy level and keeping illness at bay. Simply drinking at least 8 glasses of water a day will energize your life and it can even keep you slim!!!

So get yourself a glass of water now and let me know the good news you are bound to get in the near future.

How to Live Without Fear and Worry

2010-01-26T12:36:00.006+08:00

Contrary to most of the people who live around my place, I like to read. Perhaps, this is something I picked up from the Japanese while working in a Japanese MNC. During my working visit to Japan, I can see many people there took the opportunity to read; be it at the bus stops, train stations, train etc. No wonder the Japanese are so full of knowledge 'cos they feed lots of book foods to their brains endlessly!

How to Live Without Fear and Worry is a book I picked up recently. I don't blame you if you think that it is a book for Buddhists when taking an initial look at the book. However, further page flipping surprisingly reveal otherwise. My thought of its explanation of life without fear and worry in a reasonable and logical manner leads me to the conclusion that it caters for all human beings.
We all have fear and worry not only when things go wrong but also when things proceed smoothly. We fear that the current spate of happiness might not last when good times are here. So why do we all worry? It's due to the concept of me!

The fear of not being able to meet our needs and desires causes each and everyone of us to have worries. It's the fear of losing our worldly attachment. And even if we are able to meet our current need, we will develop a yearning for a new need that is bound to spring up. As a result, we suffer due to our selfish cling to the worldly desires. Hmmm, now I sound like a Buddhist guru out there!

On second thought, the points presented really makes sense to me. It's logical and can be accepted by my "scientific" mind. Let me show you why do I think so.

It goes on saying that the only certainty in this uncertain world is things must come to an end. How true it is! If you fully understand that, then why must you have worry and fear? It will only affect your health and shorten the time to reach your life's final destination (death)? Yah, it's sounds solemn and crude but that's the ringing truth!

Another point which is very crudely put is life is full of problems and suffering. And it is the manner of how your mind deals with this problem that you will be free yourself from such troubles. After all, (heard of this one before?) we are what we think.

If the above sounds palatable as a mind food to you, grab a copy of the book to read more about the rich gems in it. At least, that's how I value the book!

Mosquito Trap : my current trial to ward off the mosquito in the house!

2010-01-26T10:13:00.000+08:00

Warding off mosquito naturally is perhaps the best way to keep those hot blooded female species from having a sip at your precious blood as it is eco friendly and also does not emit any toxins into your system. However, I find that it is quite difficult to keep those mosquito plants alive in the house.

So I have been searching high and low for my next solution. I did try Antimos which is an environment friendly product promised to repel not only the mosquitoes but all the cockroaches in the house.It is made of lemon grass and other natural plant oil extract. It does indeed a pungent odor but alas, the mosquitoes seem to tolerate the strong smell at all cost to get a taste of my sweet blood.

Next, I got myself one of those high frequency ultrasonic sounddevice in my combat against the mosquitoes. It did emit an audiblesound ( hey, I thought only the mosquitoes could hear the sound and not human!) butinstead of driving the mosquitoes away, it drove me crazy with itsirritating high pitch tone!

The item on my next list is the mosquito trap. This gadget emits carbon dioxide, heat, moisture and UV light which are said to be the factors how the mosquitoes locate their defenseless prey. Once the mosquito comes near the gadget, it will be sucked into the prison net by the strong suction created by the fan unit. And then, the mosquitoes are imprisoned there and would die due to dehydration. Sound familiar? The desert?

I put the mosquito trap at a dark corner of my house and my plan is to switch it on 24 x 7. It can also be hung with the provided chain, a meter from the floor. Just hope this environmentally friendly device can live up to its promise.

Easy Way To Add A Horizontal Menu To Your Blogger blog

2010-01-21T23:14:00.004+08:00

This is an easy and simple way to add horizontal menu or a navigation bar to blog hosted in Blogger. You don't have to worry about messing up the template html code as there isn't any code to modify.

You should be able to get the above windows after :
1. logging into your blogger account and click the Layout link, and
2. in the Page Elements tab, click the Add a Gadget link, and
3. when the Add A Gadget window pops up, click the + sign of the HTML/JavaScript option.

Check the code format in the above image.

<div id="menu" style="float:left;"><b>

This code aligns the horizontal menu to the left and <b> makes your text links bold.

<a href="http://leocw.blogspot.com">Home</a> |
<a href="http://leocw.blogspot.com/2009/04/contact-me.html">Contact Me</a> |
<a href="http://leocw.blogspot.com/2009/01/privacy-policy.html">Privacy Policy </a>

You need to modify this part of the html code. Basically, it follows this format:
<a href= "http://your-site-name.blogspot.com/pagename">Display Text Link</a> | with the exception of the last html link code (no | ).

</b></div>

Closing tags for bold text and div.

When you are done, press the Save button and then drag the HTML/JaveScript box to the position below the Header. Don't forget to press the Save button when you' re finished positioning it.

Now, visit your blog and you'll get something similar as mine.

How To Create A Favicon

2010-01-20T09:15:00.009+08:00

Have you ever noticed the small icon shown on the browser address bar, the title of the browser tab or on the Bookmarks tab? This icon is known as favicon (favorite icon) which is actually a 16 x 16 pixels icon with a filename as favicon.ico.
Since the icon is so small, you can only go for simple image in the frame. If the reduced pixels size of your site logo looks unfavorable after it is converted into a 16 x 16 pixels frame, then you should go with alphabet with coloring that reflects the coloring of your website.

Before you create your favicon with Fireworks 8 or higher, download this ExportAsFavicon file. Then doubleclick the file and click accept tab to agree to the Extension Disclaimer. Mow you are ready to save the favicon file in Fireworks.

Run Fireworks and set the canvas to 32 x 32. If you still have trouble creating the image you want, you can magnify the image by clicking on the lower right hand corner of the image window. When you are done, resize the image by go to the tab Modify, Canvas and then Image Size. Change both the width and height pixels dimension to 16. Ensure Resample Image box is ticked before you click the OK button..

To save the image with .ico extension, click the Commands tab, followed by Favicon tab and then Export as Favicon and finally the folder to save the favicon file.

If you have some image files in your computer or you have created an image file from Paint, you can convert
the file to favicon file with online converter such as FavIcon From Pics . Or you can simply do everything online by visiting DeGraeve Favicon Editor or Favicon.cc Editor.

For those who find too much hassle in creating the favicon image, the web really makes our lives easier. Just pay a visit to the free favicon websites that are online.

Now what you want to do is to upload the favicon file to your website root public directory. Most root directory would look like this ( hope yours the same too!) :

/home/username/public_html

The final step is to insert the code below to within the <head> and </head> tags.

<link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/ico" href="/favicon.ico" />

And presto, the new favicon for your site will appear when you refresh or visit your website.

Make Your Picture Unclickable In Blogger

2010-01-17T19:13:00.004+08:00

If you want to make the images or pictures in your blogger post not clickable, host your images in an external image storing site such as Photobucket.or ImageShack.The problem with Photobucket is once you exceed the allocated bandwidth, you will get the Allocated Bandwidth exceeded image instead of your uploaded image.

Now, since the limit of the images that you uploaded to blogger is 1 GB, why not use it? Moreover, you can check the amount of space used for your images by logging into your Google account and then click Picasa Web Albums link on the right. However, these images will be clickable in your post but if you want to make them unclickable, here's the way.

As an example, if you click on the image in the image in this organic soap post, you will find that the image is unclickable.

Locate the part of the image code in your blogger post with image by pressing the Edit HTML tab in the post editor. It will look something like this:

<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nAdgCVIjuI4/S1GMnki1SiI/AAAAAAAAAe4/cvPn4aiHKyQ/s1600-h/hiccup+relief+point.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nAdgCVIjuI4/S1GMnki1SiI/AAAAAAAAAe4/cvPn4aiHKyQ/s320/hiccup+relief+point.jpg" /></a>

Note the following format that is being used in the IMG html code:

<a href=....><img src=..../></a>

What you have to do to make the picture unclickable is to remove everything except the <img src=.../>. The red part of the code is what you have to delete. Thereafter, the final code turned out to be :

<img border="0"src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nAdgCVIjuI4/S1GMnki1SiI/AAAAAAAAAe4/cvPn4aiHKyQ/s320/hiccup+relief+point.jpg"/>

And if you want to prevent people from copying a post image, simply add in the following img tag code (in orange) to your image code.

<img tag: oncontextmenu='alert("Please Respect Copyright!"); return false;'
border="0"src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nAdgCVIjuI4/S1GMnki1SiI/AAAAAAAAAe4/cvPn4aiHKyQ/s320/hiccup+relief+point.jpg"/>

When others try to copy your image by right clicking their mouse, they will get the following message in the window menu tab : Please Respect Copyright!. You can try it by right clicking the above mentioned organic soap image.

Split Those One Page PDF to Two Pages

2010-01-17T18:18:00.015+08:00

Hmmm, why would anyone want to split one page PDF to two pages? Well, if you are someone who has some pdf files originated from books which are being scanned two pages at a time, surely you want to split those books.

Converting the scanned two book pages at one time to a single book page in each pdf page will make readability a lot easier. And all you need to do is use the feature available in Adobe Acrobat.

Go to the Print option under the File tab. Under Page Handling in the Print window, set:

Page scaling to Tile large page
Tile Scale to 100%
Overlap to 0

If you don't want to split the whole book, you can't simply select the Pages from option and set the corresponding page range.

Before hitting the OK button in the Print window, you can confirm the output by clicking on the image in the Preview section. Click on the image portion on the left hand side of the dotted line and you will have the first splitted page of the PDF page. The second page is viewable by clicking on the right side of the line. Below if the image of the two splitted pages.

If you don't have Adobe Acrobat, you can try out A-PDF Page Cut program to achieve the same function.

A Few Tricks to Stop Hiccups!

2010-01-16T17:54:00.000+08:00

Life is indeed wonderful without suffering from hiccups all day long. During my acid reflux syndrome condition which pinned me to bed most of the waking time, I did find out a few tricks to stop those terrible and digusting hiccups.

The first one is to massage a position on my forearm. This position lies two thumb width from the base of my left palm. Massage it in circular motion for 30 seconds and after a minute or two, you might feel get yourself out of hiccups. The blue circle shows the position I mentioned above.

If this didn't work for you.then try holding your breath for as long as possible. I know it is difficult to do when you are having hiccups but there is a method to do it. Suck in as much breath as possible with your mouth. Close your mouth and if you feel that the air inside your body is still leaking through your nose, stuck your fingers to your nostrils.Each time you hiccup, you are bound to open your mouth and when occur, suck in more breath. Continue sucking in air through your mouth till you feel that you cannot take in anymore. This normally works under a minute.

If you are still hiccuping when lying on the bed, clasp your fist and place it at the space right below your ribcage. Then press it against your skin and rotate it clockwise. Also, try to sleep on your left side.

Hopefully these tricks will relieve you of the hiccups that you are having.

Couldn't Sleep? Light Therapy Lamp is What You Need!

2010-01-16T17:36:00.000+08:00

I know how it feel to toss and turn endless times in bed just trying to get to sleep. And when you do fall asleep, you still wake up feeling tired.At times, I ponder what happened to those occasions when I can easily slip into my sleep and dream after closing my eyes for a few minutes.

If you want to sleep better and get rid of insomnia, get a light therapy lamp. Yes, I am not joking. You might have heard that it is best for one to sleep in complete darkness to get a good night sleep. That is true and you start to wonder why I ask you to get a light therapy lamp to help you have a quality sleep?

Before you scratch you head, hear me out. One of the main factors that most of us having trouble sleeping at night is the we don't have enough sunshine. Yes, we need sunlight to keep our sleep hormone down in the daytime and also to promote the secretion of sleep hormone during the night when we are sleeping. Having enough sunlight exposure will definitely give us a deep sleep that makes us feeling refresh and full of energy when you wake up.

Not only that, it also lets us sleep less and yet we will feel our body full of energy. Is that isn't productive to our time management, I don't know what is.

With the modern lifestyles we are having, except those of us who work directly under the sun, we really have very low level of sunlight exposure. Most of us drive to work, wear sunglasses and normally work in the office.

So what should you do? Change job and get one that is on the go? No, no. Move your desk to some place near the office window and if that is not possible, persuade your boss to get you a light therapy lamp. This lamp will outputs high brightness light which will definitely make you enjoying sweet dreams during your sleep and wake up full of energy.

Show html code in blogger post

2010-01-14T21:25:00.001+08:00

To show the html code below, you have two choices.

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>

The first option which is the hard way is to convert the following characters in html to its corresponding notation.
< replaced with <
> replaced with > and
to display " in the blogger post, you must key in &quot;

Now, what you should type if you want to show <? Easy, just type &lt;
Therefore, the entry below is what you should post to get the above html displayed in your blog post.

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>

Pretty difficult to type in the above code, isn't it? Of course, you can click this link to get the parsed html code but what if I tell you that there is a much easier way to do it? Follow the step below after logging into your blogger account.

Select the Compose mode while in the New Post tab.
Click on the Post Option and then look for the Compose Settings.
The default selection is Interpret typed HTML.
Change this option to Show HTML literally.
Now, click on the SAVE NOW button to make the changes.

You are all done. Now you can key in the exact html code that you want to show in your post in the editor window and the html code will appear as what you have keyed in. Easy, isn't it? Try it out and let me know the result!

Lots of Fun in the Lost World Of Tambun

2010-01-14T10:11:00.001+08:00

Unlike most typical water theme parks, Lost World of Tambun is a water theme park with ancient gigantic ruins. Stashed away in the quiet Jalan Tambun of Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia, this theme park offers more than meets the eye.

There are many attractions waiting to be discovered in this place. Its water park presents one with the thrilling wavy and bumpy wading river experience in the Adventure River that one never going to forget. Along the ride, you will encountered giant frogs spitting out stream of water jets, gigantic gorillas staring viciously at you, and water splashing over your heads.

Talk about heart-stopping excitement, the Cliff Racer and Tube Raider are the places that you should head for.These two attractions are definitely not for the weak-hearted. However, if you are one with such a condition can still enjoy the fun by joining the kids in the Kid's Explorabay. Be prepared for lots of cool water splashing here amidst the hot weather in Malaysia. No, thanks? Then I think the hot springs with streams of hot boiling water can wake up your nerves.

Hmm, for those of you who have water phobia, all are not lost even in the Lost World. You can still experience terrifying and exciting ride in a boat swing (Storm Rider). If the thought of swinging freely in midst air appeals to you, try out the Dragon Flights and Adventure Express.

Even though I had paid a visit to the petting zoo, I am still trying to discover the tigers in the valley. Guess I am really lost here, or is it the tigers that are lost?

For die-hard adventurers, you can go for caves trekking and lake wading where awesome stalactites and stalagmites and flying bats will greet you there.

Don't let your excitement to visit the park turn sour by picking a normal working Tuesday as the place is "lost" in such a day. I guess the place should be renamed Discoverable Lost World of Tambun with the ever increasingly number of people putting their footmarks there. With the map below, I hope you won't be lost in finding your way to Lost World of Tambun.

Heard of Zen Alarm Clocks?

2010-01-13T21:57:00.000+08:00

Don't they sounds mystical? What's the first thing that come to your mind when I said zen alarm clock? A piece of timepiece used by those spiritual Zen practitioners? Or something ancient that used by Buddhists for meditation?

Actually, zen alarm clock is some device that is very modern. If you are expecting it to be spring wound, you are in for a disappointment. It is actually powered by battery! It is the same as any other clocks in its time keeping function. The distinct difference lies in its Tibetan style bell-like chimes. Unlike those intrusive typical alarm clocks buzz,the ever progressive chime will bring tranquil and peace in waking you up in the morning.

Other than the alarm function, it is also used for meditation. As its chime is so natural, it won't intrude one meditation session when it comes to the end. Instead, with such a natural bell sound that greets one at the end of a meditation process, further tranquility and spiritual experience will be enhanced and elevated by one mind.

The zen alarm clocks normally come in triangular shape for the desktop version with analog hands movement. With such an outlook, I can say that at least it does look ancient and mystical here.For those who are always on the move, there are even some portable travel versions in which you could close them as though you are closing a pencil box.

Show Post Summary With Thumbnails Automatically in Blogger

2010-01-13T11:38:00.006+08:00

Notice the layout of posts with thumbnails when you click on my homepage URL? Nice, isn't it? This layout of post summaries with thumbnails is achieved automatically with some changes of the html code of the blogger template. For those posts without picture, no thumbnail will be shown and the post summary will automatically shift to the left hand side of the page.

Here's how it is done.

Log in to your blogger account. Click on the Layout tab, followed by Edit HTML tab and then click on the square beside Expand Widget Templates.

Search for this code:

</head>

and replace it with :

<script type='text/javascript'>
var thumbnail_mode = "float" ;
summary_noimg = 240;
summary_img = 150;
img_thumb_height = 100;
img_thumb_width = 100;
</script>
<script src='http://blogergadgets.googlecode.com/files/excerpt.js'
type='text/javascript'/>
</head>

Next, look for this code:

<data:post.body/>

And copy the following code in its place:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<data:post.body/>
<b:else/>
<div expr:id='"summary" + data:post.id'>
<data:post.body/>
</div>
<script type='text/javascript'>
createSummaryAndThumb("summary<data:post.id/>");
</script>
<div style='clear: both;'/>
<span style='padding-top:5px;;float:right;text-align:right;'>
<a expr:href='data:post.url'
rel='bookmark'><b>Read more >></b></a></span>
</b:if>

Save it and you will have the post summaries with thumbnails appear automatically in your homepage,label pages, archive and search results.

You can also make further customization to the first part of the code.

1. thumbnail_mode var = “float”; - Thumbnail will appear above post summary
2. summary_noimg = 240; - No of characters to be shown in summary when there is no picture.
3. summary_img = 150; - No of characters to be shown in the summaries with pictures
4. img_thumb_height = 100; - Post thumbnail height adjustment.
5. img_thumb_width = 100; - Post with thumbnail width adjustment.

Organic Salt Soap

2010-01-12T18:07:00.004+08:00

This salt soap really takes me by surprise. Made from the same material as the crystal salt lamp, the organic salt soap which I purchased for less than USD5 is said to possessed healing properties for skin diseases. I guess there is no harm trying as something organic and yet so cheap won't do any harm to my skin.

According to the seller, the soap is imported from Poland where it is harvested from the endless blocks of salt mountains there. I guess it really consists of salt, though different from the normal table salt that we consumed, as I did feel the salty taste in my mouth while cleansing and bathing with it.

Unlike normal bath soap, it does not produce any foams at all. I bet many of you must be disappointed as most of us are so use of foam. Some of you might even think that: No foam, no cleanliness.

Anyway, it is important to pay attention on how to use the soap. Don't ever rub it directly to your skin. Doing so will scratch your skin and as a result you will feel extremely stingy when the salt content penetrates your skin. So how do you use it? First, wet your skin and the bar soap. Then use your palm to "sweep" the wetted salt soap content and transfer it to your skin.Leave it for 3 minutes before washing it off with plain water.

If you do feel stung even with such a usage, that means the concerned location on your skin is exposed or wounded.Or it could be you have some boils and skin inflammation. I suppose the 3 minutes leave on time will let the organic salt to kill the bacteria, and germs.

Try it and see whether it will get rid of your ring worms, pimples, bad complexions, white spots, itchy skin, or even to reduce wrinkles and cracked heels. No worry on whether the soap can last or not as after using it for a month, its size almost stay the same as when I bought it.

Free from hiccups!

2010-01-10T20:17:00.000+08:00

Whew! It's good to be back. Back to good health. The acid reflux syndrome ailment had been hogging me for the past two weeks and what a relief. Finally I'm able to get rid of it but not without going through the worst suffering in my health.

Do you know what it liked having to hiccup almost 80% of your wake up time? Believed me, you wouldn't want to have had such an experience. Doing some post mortem and recall what might have caused the GERD that I was having, I guessed age has caught up with me. It seems that I can't afford to have the "luxury" of drinking a glass of cold milk tea everyday. My aged stomach gave me the signal that it no longer able to tolerate such a strong cleansing drink. I also found out that caffeinated beveraged drinks such as tea and coffee is one of the causes of getting acid reflux syndromes such as heartburn, sore throat, hiccups and chest pain. Others include eating at irregular time, eating too much, smoking and drinking alcohol.

During these past few days, I did eat porridge which smoothen the flow of food into my stomach. I don't know whether it applied to me only or to others as well that I can't take garlic during these times. The garlic that was added in to my porridge produced a burning sensation in my stomach and further encourage more hiccups. And also during these times, I only ate half of what I normally eat. If not, those extra food would be channeled out through my mouth by burping.

The chinese mixture medicine which I took in the past three days did its job in stopping my hiccups. Together with the food intake practices I mentioned above, I have completely stopped vomiting food out of my mouth today. No more hiccups, what's a joy. No more tiny bits of undigested food appearing from my mouth. Disgusting? Yes, but I would say the torturing effect is what I concerned.

I guess the chinese medicine provides some healing properties to my "injured" stomach while the western medicines (mostly antacids) provide fast relief in putting my hiccups problems away. From now onwards, I would also take on less cold and iced drinks and also my one glass of iced milk tea a day would be a thing of the past. Maybe a glass of milk tea a week wouldn't do any harm!

Acid Reflux Syndrome

2010-01-06T15:55:00.003+08:00

I was and still is bogged down with a not so common ailment known as acid reflux syndrome. This disease, also known as Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease (GERD), sends acid and other materials in the stomach back to the 10 inches long tube that is connecting the stomach and the throat (esophagus).

The reflux or flow back of the materials to the throat produces a burning sensation in my throat, not to mention tiny bits of undigested soften food that I intake earlier on. Aside from that, heartburn and nausea haunt my life during these few days. So you can imagine how life is for me for the past few days. It's like going through hell, every passing moment is torturing!

The western medication (which mostly consists of antacids and gastric tablets and capsules) that I took did alleviate the symptoms of the acid reflux disease but only for a couple of hours. After a few hours when the effects of the medication has waned, hiccups seem to occupy most of my waking life. I guess that I can't do anything at all! Not even sleep! Imagine getting involuntarily burp every few seconds!

Due to these constant visiting burps or hiccups, I now feel that my throat is sore. Stuff that I eat (for the past few days, I took porridge, meat and vegetables), vomited out of my mouth in the form of tiny bite size of soft food. When this happens, I quickly take my antacid medication which manage to put the vomiting and hiccups away, at least for some time.

Guess I'll try some chinese medication to restore some vigour and health to my stomach.

Feng Shui Elements Based On Birthday

2009-05-01T20:29:00.005+08:00

Knowing the feng shui elements based on birthday will enable you to have a better understanding of your personal traits, character, behaviour and potential.

Feng shui elements based on birthday is also known as BaZi which is a literal translation of the Eight Characters in Chinese. As these eight characters are arranged in 4 columns with each column consists of 2 characters, it is also known as Four Pillars.

The 4 pairs of chinese characters are derived from your birth information; starting from the left, your Hour, Day, Month And Year of birth. These characters are made up of the five basic feng shui elements such as Wood, Water, Metal, Fire and Earth. Each element will have its Yin and Yang representation.

You can bet that BaZi is a lot more precise than your newspaper horoscopes prediction as there are thousands of possible combination that one can come up with. From the analysis of one's BaZi, a person's character and nature can be determined as one progresses through life. Knowing these traits will make you more well prepared in making decisions at certain juncture in your life. You will be able to strengthen your relationships, improve your potential and fully utilize your talents and also overcome your inherent weakness.

As I mentioned earlier, the Yin and Yang of feng shui elements are decoded from your birthday. Therefore, there are four pillars with each column consists of two characters; one on top of the other. The top character is known as Heavenly Stem while the one on the bottom is known as Earthly Branch.

The most important character in BaZi is the Heavenly Stem character in the Day Pillar which represents oneself. The character in the picture is Metal and therefore it signifies that the person with his birth date decoded belongs to the Metal element with the Yin variation.

A person with the Yin Metal as his self element is usually someone who like to be under the spotlight, be it due to his look or intellect. As Yin Metal people are attention getter, "face value" or reputation are very important to them. Why are Yin Metal people like to be under the spotlight? Well, in feng shui or more specifically BaZi analysis, Yin Metal is associated with fine jewelry and beautifully engraved metal which are usually worn to steal the limelight.

Unlike Yin Metal, Yang Metal people are very tough people who can endure hardship and sufferings. There are simply no short cut to success for Yang Metal people as they really have to sweat it all out to be successful. As they are so tough, this group of people will make perfect leaders. By now I bet you can guess that Yang Metal is associated with swords and axes.

Do you the element that represent wisdom in feng shui? Yes, it is water as water is formless and can take any shape and moving endlessly even if it might look like that it is staying still. Therefore Yang Water people are intelligent and adventurous. It is very hard for them to follow rules as routines are never part of their lives and really have their own wills.

In contrast to Yang Water, Yin Water people are creative and good at nurturing talents and imparting knowledge which makes them perfect candidate for teachers. However, they don't have much will power and determination in completing hard tasks.

If you have a Yang Earth friend, then you have a very dependable person there as Yang Earth people are trustworthiness and loyal. Possessing traits like the boulders, Yang Earth people are very stubborn and inflexible in their dealings.

As the Yang Earth people, Yin Earth people are also dependable and also tolerable towards other shortcomings and weakness.

Yang Fire people are noble and generous people. Check out the feng shui element of most philanthropists birthdays. Who know? They might belong to the Yang Fire group.

Imagine the flicker of the candle light and you would get Yin Fire people traits. Well, for one, these people are often fickle minded. They are very good at motivating people and natural leaders as with light, it guides one out of darkness.

As for Yang Wood people, they are quite conservative and "fixed" in their thinking. As with those tall trees in the forest, they are quite determined and strive to improve their lives albeit slowly.

In contrast to Yang Wood, Yin Wood people are flexible and adaptive in their endeavors. These two traits makes them very good in surviving in the "rough jungle" out there.

So much information on oneself has been revealed by just analyzing one of the characters of the feng shui elements based on your birthday. Have you ever imagined how much more information can we get by completely decodes the entire BaZi or Four Pillars chart?

Energize Your Desk!

2009-04-22T16:53:00.000+08:00

Most of us will spend endless hours daily in our desks in the office. So what better way to energize your career or business by practicing some feng shui tips on the place that you are spending more than half your waking time daily?

It is best to select a desk that faces your sheng chi direction to tap the auspicious chi that is coming your way. Next, never place any piles of papers or files directly in front of the part of the desk that you are sitting. This is consistent with the feng shui practice of having a bright hall in one's house.

As the left side of the desk corresponds to the green dragon, make sure that this area will be higher than the right side of the desk that is associated with white tiger. You can put more stack up more files or put a desktop file cabinet here. Your telephone should be placed in a direction that is auspicious to your personal KUA direction.

Have you seen some of your colleagues placed some small plants on their desks? Well, they might know a thing or two about feng shui as placing a small plant on the Southeast corner of a desk will attract good income and a good career growth.

Your pc desktop should be located on the right hand side of the desk but make sure the left hand side of the desk is higher after doing so as you wouldn't want to awake the white tiger there. If you have the privilege, place the pc on a separate table in the west or northwest of your main desk as pc is categorized under metal element.

Feng Shui Color For Your Home

2009-04-22T14:16:00.000+08:00

In feng shui, we can have a wide variety of colors for our home to create a favorable environment there. Black can also be used but of course most of us rather won't use it as it looks so dull and dark.

First, use a compass to determine the South sector of your house and apply then use the following feng shui tips on color as the color of your house.

For the North sector, you can use red, orange, yellow, green or even a combination of all these colors. Black or blue is a no no.

Black, white or blue should be used for the North sector while yellow and beige should be avoided.

For the east sector, go for green, brown, black or blue while white is out of the question.

White, gray or yellow fit perfectly in the west sector and red and orange should not be painted here.

For the southeast sector, light green and light blue would look nice here but gray and white should be located elsewhere.

Go for yellow, beige, orange or red in the southwest and northwest sectors. Don't ever consider green and brown in these two sectors.

Finally for northwest, white, gray and yellow would be appropriate here but you should never consider using red and orange.

As a rule of thumb, it is always a good idea to use light color to provide a bright and yan surrounding in the house. As feng shui is about balance, never make your place to Yan by having metallic or striking color all round the place.

Best Feng Shui Position For Kitchen

2009-04-22T13:51:00.000+08:00

According to feng shui tip, kitchens, the place where we cook, is not a place where good luck can be created. However, they are very useful in its usage to countering bad luck.

Hence, the kitchen can be located in your not auspicious sector according to your GUA number. It is better to locate your kitchen in the inner half of your home and placing the kitchen near the main door should be avoided at all cost as surely you won't want something where good luck could not be created to be located in one of the most important area in your house.

As white tiger normally reside on the right side of a house (the right side when you are inside of the house facing outwards), it is best to have your kitchen positioned in the inner right side to control the white tiger influence.

Since kitchen is not a very auspicious place in feng shui, putting mirrors or even using mirror tiles in the kitchen is not a good idea to go about. Doing so means that you are extending this inauspicious area in your house and might to great misfortune to your family members.

When it comes to the stove and oven placement, it should never be located in the northwest part of the kitchen. As the northwest is known as heaven's gate, cooking in this sector will symbolically putting fire to heaven's gate. This might lead to incur severe financial loss or your house ends up in smoke!

As common sense dictates, feng shui also suggests that kitchen should at least one window to channel out all the cooking smokes out of the house.

Feng Shui Tips For Bedrooms

2009-04-21T21:25:00.000+08:00

Getting a good night sleep is paramount to our success; be it in career or business. Hencefore, it would be wise to check out one's sheng chi direction in his sleep to tap his auspicious sleeping direction.

Bedrooms are best located in the higher storey of a house, that is if you have a two or three-storey house. The bedroom door should not directly face anything sharp such as the edge of a wall, a staircase, a toilet or another room door. Common sense will denote that we will only invite trouble and injury when the door is facing such a structure. If your bedroom door faces another room door, try hanging wind chimes at the upper part of the door frame as a feng shui cure. This feng shui remedy will lessen the confrontation that you have with the occupants of the other room.

If the bedroom contains overexposed beam, locate your bed way out of the beam. Under no circumstances should anyone sleep under the exposed beam as the beam will symbolically 'sit" on top of one's body. No wonder we can't sleep soundly with the negative bad energy directed by the beam hitting us throughout our sleeps.

The best location to place your bed is diagonally opposite the bedroom door. Even though it is not a good thing to place your bed directly behind a window, in situation where you want to tap your best sleeping direction and have to sleep with the window directly above your bed, keep your curtain drawn to lessen the bad effect of such practice. And never ever place your bedroom between the toilet door and the bedroom door.

When choosing the bed, go for one with a headboard as the headboard will provide a solid foundation to get a good night rest.

Feng Shui Cures: Wind Chime

2009-04-21T20:02:00.000+08:00

Many people think that hanging wind chime in one's home can attract bad spirit to one's house. These people believe that the sound generating by the wind chimes will invite malevolent spirits to the its surrounding. Hmm, where did they get this perception? Hmm, maybe from those Chinese horror movies that associated the tingling sound of the wind chime to the appearance of bad spirit in one place.

Actually, wind chime can be used as a very potent feng shui cure in channeling and dispersing bad energy flow in one house. In contrast to attracting bad spirits, the tingling sound generated will scare off bad spirits that may be lurking around the place. You wouldn't think that something that sounds so melodius and pleasant to our ears could invite bad spirits to our place, would you?

In feng shui, wind chime can be used to overcome bad luck as well as enhance good luck. Feng shui wind chime that is used to overcome bad luck usually contains five rods which may be solid or hollow and come with a pagoda structure on the top of the rods. This type of wind chime is especially useful to be placed under an overhead beam, a straight row of doors or sharp overhang wall. However, for those beams in the bedroom, it is best not to go for such an option as the wind chime might make the room too YAN. It is much better to cover the exposed beam or move your bed out of the position under the beam.

To enhance good luck, place hollow metal rod wind chimes made of metal in the west and northwest sections of the house. These sections belong to the metal sector of a house.
Use wind chime that has 6 rods for the northwest to activate the luck of the breadwinner of the house and 7 rods if you intend to place it in the west to energize good health being and longevity of the family.

Feng Shui Tips: Bedroom Design And Layout

2009-04-21T09:43:00.000+08:00

It is really convenient to have a bathroom attached to your bedroom, isn't it? But from the aspect of feng shui , a good feng shui bedroom design is one that comes in a regular shape such as a rectangle or square. Having a bathroom attached will change your bedroom shape to a L-shape, looking similar to a chopping knife and also the space occupied by the bathroom might sit on the favorable sector of the owners, which bring further ill effect to its occupants that sleep there.

So how do we rectify the situation? Surely we won't ask you to hack the curtain as a simple remedy such as putting a beads curtain (as shown by the dotted line) will change the bedroom design back to a regular shape. It is also a good feng shui idea to have your bedroom structures free of protruding or square corners, overhead beams and over sized doors. If not, feng shui cures would have to implemented to ward off the effects of these inauspicious features that present negative chi to the bedroom occupants.

On the bed layout in the room, never sleep with the door locating at your back. It is also a feng shui taboo to sleep with your head pointing directly to the door as well as the window. Surely you would be shocked if someone suddenly "intrudes" you when your back is facing the door or window. This applies as well to your sitting position as well.

Even though mirror is a great feng shui enhancing tool, it can cause great misfortune if it is put incorrectly in the bedroom. How would you feel if you suddenly wake up on the bed in the middle of the night or in the morning seeing a reflection of yourself in the mirror? I know you always check yourself in the mirror but such a sudden reflection of image might startle you.

As a general rule, it is never a good idea to put a plant in your Yin bedroom as a plant is always growing.

A good sleeping position will ensure that you have a good night sleep and goes a long way in enhancing your career and business prospects.

Feng Shui: A Word About Yin and Yang

2009-04-20T21:10:00.000+08:00

I guess you must have seen this symbol in some Chinese martial arts practicing hall. It is the symbol of Yin and Yang. Being the negative and positive principles that govern the universe, the Yin Yang symbol represents perfect harmony and balance.

Being the negative force, Yin is dark, passive, female while Yang is bright, active and male. By now, you must have notice that they are opposite of each other and they will continue to interact with each other to achieve a harmonious surroundings. In one environment, we need both of them in balance in order to harness the good nature of feng shui.

Don't ever think that we only need Yang in our lives as surely Yang cannot exist without Yin as without hot, there is no cold. That's why we have night and day and darkness and light and when applied to man, bad luck will be replaced by good luck in times to come. The TAO of mankind as conveyed in the I Ching clearly points out that man luck will always fluctuates and therefore one's luck never stays the same the whole life.

Applying Yin and Yang to feng shui, the best landscape one could have in his surrounding is a gentle undulating one as a flat landcape would be too Yin while a completely hilly contour would by too Yan. And don't forget about the water features of the landscape as without rivers or lakes, the concerned landscape would not have a balance yin yang power and leads to a poor feng shui area.

As you have noticed by now, feng shui is all about balance to achieve a harmonious existence with the environment. As the environment is always changing such as when a new building is coming up or a small tree has grown into an oversize one that blocks one's view, we need to be constantly alert of these changes if we want to maintain a goodfeng shui in our lives.

What Is Feng Shui?

2009-04-20T20:27:00.000+08:00

Feng Shui, which is the pronunciation of the words wind and water in Chinese, is the art of man living harmoniously with its environments. There is a saying that goes by this. "Feng shui is the wind, which one cannot comprehend, and water is the element that you cannot grasp".

As these two nature's flowing elements shape the landscape of the land surfaces, one therefore need to live in harmony with these elements in order to reap the positive energy flow in his surrounding.

The term "chi" or "qi" is usually used to describe the invisible energy flow created by "wind" and "water" and by harnessing the positive energy force or sheng chi that exists with proper placement of buildings as well as furnitures and structures, one can have good fortune, relationship and well being in his life. This cosmic chi is believed to be the breath of the Green Dragon, an important Chinese celestial creature and when it is tapped and accumulated, wealth and health will befall on its occupants. The emphasis study of time (heaven chi) and space (earth chi) in feng shui will provide us to change the way we see things to a more holistic view.

Rest assured that the practice of feng shui does not involve any spiritual ritual, charm or black magic and thus, it won't contradict to one's religious belief. The practice of feng shui can actually be explained by logic even though at times, one might think that it is superstitious to go along such practice. As feng shui originates from China, I must admit that certain feng shui practices will involve a bit of Chinese's cultures and customs.

In the Form School feng shui, the land contours and terrains play a significant role in determining the good feng shui of a place. In this regard, celestial creatures such as Dragon, turtle, phoenix and white tiger will pop up.

The Compass School emphasizes on the influence of the planets on a place feng shui through the usage of Ba Gua, the eight trigrams of the I Ching and the four pillars. Therefore, it is often considered more difficult to learn as it involves complicated calculations and formulas.

Do you know that feng shui is a closedly guarded secret in ancient China ? At that times, only the emperor in the Forbidden City can practice it. And that was how the Ming Dynasty can maintain its rulership for hundreds of years in China. Nowadays, even Trump Towers and Las Vegas's Mirage Resorts have features of feng shui.

So do you think it is still some hocus pocus? Brush aside your doubt and fulfill your need in "wanting" to try your hand at feng shui. Take action now and your wealth, health and relationship will be greatly enhanced.

Putting Broken Glass On Walls

2009-04-17T09:07:00.000+08:00

People, especially the Chinese who live on landed properties such as terrace houses or bungalows often put some form of "harmful objects" that emit bad negative chi to ward off intruders. One such object is broken bits of glass.

These tiny but sharp broken bit of glass may be able to play its role in deterring any ill intention intruders from breaking in to one's house but in feng shui, the broken pieces of glass create extremely bad energy to the surrounding. Not only the image of these sharp protruding broken glass is not pleasant to one's eyes but they too are harmful to the house residents if their younger kids get a mischief idea to play on top of it.

The poison arrows emitted from these sharp pieces of glass will not only hurt your neighbors or passerby but also to the house residents. So it is best to have them removed from the wall surrounding your house to restore good feng shui to your neighborhood as well as your family.

After all, feng shui is not about all about bringing good well being to one self at the expense of the people around us.

Feng Shui : Mirror, Mirror On The Wall!

2009-04-17T08:36:00.000+08:00

"Mirror, mirror on the wall! Who is the fairest of them all?" guess you would have read this to your children in one of those bedtime stories fairy tales. "What feng shui have to do with mirror?", you might ask.

For a start, mirrors has profound effects in feng shui. In feng shui practiced by the Chinese which carries a bit of the Taoism belief, Pa Kua that contains glass at its center is placed in the main door of the home to ward off evil spirits!

Mirrors can offer protection and abundance flow of wealth OR create disaster such as a divorce or a broken relationship in feng shui. The key here lies in their placements.

Placing a mirror in the dining area will "double" the food served during meal times as the reflection of the food in the mirror will symbolize an abundance food to the family. Placing mirrors in the North part of the house will ensure the sustainability of the well being of the family members. Bear in mind that I am talking about a full size wall mirror and not those small face mirrors that you use to check out your beauty.

Even though we all have mirrors in the bedroom, it has never be a good idea in feng shui to have them there. Misplacing mirrors in the house most intimate room can bring wreckage to a couple's marriage and love life as a third party may bring havoc to an otherwise happy relationship.

So what to do if you have mirrors that face directly to your bed in the bedroom? Throw them away? Of course not! If moving the mirror position is not possible, simply cover them during sleeping time with a cloth as you wouldn't want to get the shock of your life when you wake up and see the reflection on yourself in the mirror. No offence here!

And for those mirrors that attached to the clothes cabinets, keep the doors close when they are not in use. Some of us think that it is cool to have mirrors in the bedroom ceiling but this is definitely a disaster to one's relationship.

The same go for a TV set in the bedroom. If you have one that facing your bed, cover them with a cloth before you go to sleep. In feng shui, the screen of the TV set has the same detrimental effect of a mirror in the bedroom which can put lots of strain in your relationship.

Growing Plants, Good Feng Shui Practice?

2009-04-16T17:50:00.000+08:00

In general, it is good to grow plants in your house or office. Having those green plant pots around your working or living place and place them in strategic position will ward off those bad energy or chi emitted by bad feng shui structures such as protruding beams, sharp angle columns or corners of the buildings.

The plants will absorb the bad energy or more widely known as shar chi in Chinese radiated by these unfavorable feng shui structure elements. You will find that you might need to change these plants when they withered as a result of absorbing those negative energy radiated. Remember that having dead plants in your place will bring bad energy to your environment and instead of blocking those negative energy emitted, they will NOW make your place more bad in terms of having unfavorable chi!

Even though growing plants is good as a feng shui practice, never ever place cactus plants inside your building no matter how adoring or tempting the beautiful cactus blooms may be. The deadly thorns on these plants create lots of tiny bad posionous energy that will surely bring harm to your health and fortunes in the long term.

If you must really have these blooming cactus plants, you could place them outside the building. Only then they will protect your home or office from the bad energy or also known as bad arrows.

Another plant that is definitely a no no to be used as a feng shui tool is the bonsai plant. The bonsai plant may look very beautiful with its miniature bents and curves but these artificially stunted growth over many years is not good from a feng shui perspective as they signifiy blockage to one's growth, be it in career or business.

If you really insist to have these bonsai plants around especially after spending so much money on them, you could place them in the North corner of your place but never ever in the East or Southeast sector.

How To Disperse The Bad Energy Under A Beam?

2009-04-16T14:18:00.000+08:00

From a feng shui perspective, beam is definitely a structure that is not welcome in any home or office. The bad energy or "chi"generated by the exposed beam especially when one sit or sleep under the beams will cause one to have problems in health and problems.

Therefore it is best not to place beds, chairs or tables under the beam. To neutralize the effect of bad chi generated by the beam, it is best to conceal it. However, if that is not possible, we can place two bamboo flutes with red ribbons tied to them and and hang them as an angle facing each other. Remember to place the mouth piece end of the flutes as the lower end.

Such a placement of the hollow bamboo flutes will simulate the top half of the Pa Kua and channels the bad energy created by the beam to the top instead of lurking below the beam and harm its occupants.

You might ask, " Why use bamboo?" or "Could a plastic bamboo be used?" Bamboo plants are known to be able to weather harsh weathers and look sturdy in their long life. Hence, they are a symbol of longevity and good health and are used as sign of good fortune as a feng shui tool.

Bamboo stems are also used to enhance the business of a shop by providing the shop with good protective chi. They are placed either at the inside of the entrance to the shop or on the wall that faces opposite the shop entrance. That's one way to ensure your business pull through the bad times and flourish in the good times.

Other than bamboo flutes, wind chime can also be used as a feng shui tool to ward off the bad chi emitted by the beam.

Man Eating Goonch Catfish!

2009-04-13T21:38:00.000+08:00

Don't ever think that this mutated goonch catfish is a FAKE! Lucky for the locals, the fish is dead after caught by biologist Jeremy Wade. This river monster lurked in an Indian river bordering India and Nepal and is a type of species belong to the catfish family.

The goonch develops a taste for human flesh after feeding on corpses that are thrown into the river after funeral ceremonies.

Wade (yah, that's him in the picture) said that the locals told him that the fish grow extra large after feeding on partially burnt human bodies.

The goonch caught by Wade weighed 161 lb and was 6 feet in length.

If the goonch get hold of you, you would be history! And that exactly what has happened to two Nepalese boys who suddenly dragged underwater while enjoying themselves at the river.

So watch out for this goonch the next time you are near a river located in Nepal as I am pretty sure that the goonch caught by Wade won't be the last one that we'll see!

Keep Mosquito Away - The Natural Way!

2009-04-06T20:43:00.000+08:00

Every hot blooded male will try his best to attract attractive looking females. But there is just one type of female that they want to keep at bay at all cost. It is the female mosquito which somehow will find their ways to their delicious hot blooded skin !

There are, of course, many ways to keep these mosquitoes away. You could always apply insect repellent creams on your skin, spray your house with insecticide aerosol or even lit a mosquito coil and let it burnt for hours.

However, there is a way to ward off the mosquito naturally. By planting a mosquito plant, you can keep the mosquito off your house compound. Even though it might not kill the mosquito, they will avoid it as they don't like the citronella scent emitted by the plants when it is disturbed.

You can also crush a few pieces of the mosquito plant leaves and rub the solution on your skin. The pungent citronella scent will surely keep the mosquito off your skin. Want to use them as a spray? Just crush some leaves and soak them overnight in an alcohol solution.

Mosquito plants can be easily grown in pots and if you give them plenty of water, they can even reach a height of up to 3 feet. Yup, they grow high and wide. So leave plenty of spaces for them to grow sideway too. If you decide to treat them with lots of sunlight, don't forget about the water part. Even though they love sunlight, they will perish very quickly without watering in a hot summer day.

If you want to grow them in your house or bring them in during the winter, just select a location that is well litted such as near the windows or under some form of lighting.

Aside from mosquito plants, you can also plant marigold, catnip, basil and rosemary plants around your house as all these plants emit unpleasant smell to mosquitoes. It is ALWAYS better to grow plants rather to SPRAY your kids or surroundings in trying to keep the mosquitoes away. And you also do your share in keeping the planet GREEN!

Are You A Decision Maker?

2009-04-02T20:41:00.000+08:00

Let find out whether you are someone who can make quick decision with a little of help from palmistry.

The Head Line, which is also called the Line of Mentality has nothing to do with the head condition . It shows a person's intellect and the quality of his thinking. However we should not assess a person's general intelligence and mentality solely based on this line. But that is not with what I want to talk about in this post.

So let move to the Life Line. Most hand analysis experts will refer to this line as the Vitality Line. The Life Line normally encircles the thumb, starting from the edge of the palm on the side of the first finger. Being the first line that is being established in one palm while still in the womb, the Life Line indicates a person's energy and strength, and interest in life.

Now take a look at the figure. You can see the Head Line and the BLACK Life Line join at the edge of the side of the palm. People with this type of palm lines can make decisions very quickly. They are the type of person who are suitable to play the stock markets, forex and also in business that requires one to make almost instaneous decisions.

If you are someone with the RED life Line that joined the Head Life at some distance from the edge of the palm, your decision making speed will be slower. The further away the Life Line joins the Head Line from the side of the palm, the longer the time it takes for one to reach a decision.

So are you a stock market player or someone who follow the crowd mentality?

How To Seal Your Car Thermostat Housing

2009-04-01T20:26:00.000+08:00

Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to use gasket to seal your car thermostat housing. And the bad thing about gasket is it will leak after some times and you might also stamp out the thermostat housing footprint on the gasket sheet that you buy.

Have you come across a tube of high temperature red silicone gasket ? This sealant works wonderfully in providing INSTANT sealing to your car thermostat housing as well as the water pump. Even though it will fully cured in 24 hours, you can pour water into your car system right after you have tightened the corresponding screws of the thermostat housing. That means yo will know instantly whether water is leaking from your car engine cooling system.

This maroon color sealant can withstand temperature up to 650 deg F and is oil resistant and oxygen sensor safe. Just apply a an even bead of the sealant around the part of the thermostat housing that joins to the engine side.

How To Make Your Car HeadLight As Good As New!

2009-03-28T17:27:00.001+08:00

Gone are the days where car headlights are made of glass. With such a material, all you got to do to make it clear and look as new is to wipe them with some shampoo solution.

Nowadays car headlights is made of transparent plastic. With frequent exposures to the sunlight, the headlights plastic surface will become faded after some times. It might slowly turn yellowish without proper maintenance and care.

Some of you might send your cars to have its headlights restored to its new condition when you first bought your cars. Well, before you do so, why not get yourself a tube of Autosol Plastic Cleaner?

After removing the dirt on your car headlights, rub the plastic cleaner to your car headlights with a soft cloth. You will find that your car headlights will gradually turn clear as you continue to rub the Autosol onto its surface. The Autosol emulsion looks a bit yellowish and it will restore the shine to your car headlights in no time at all!

The Best Earth Hour Promotion That I Come Acrossed!

2009-03-23T22:19:00.001+08:00

As Earth Hour 2009 is nearing, I found the video below to be the best and most effective promotion stuff for such an event so far. Started in 2007, an estimated 50 million participated in the event.

This year, the target is to reach 1 billion people in 1,000 cities in the fight against climate change as world's leaders will meet in Copenhagen to formulate a climate agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.

I Make Hundreds With Adsense Daily!

2009-03-23T21:27:00.000+08:00

Hey folks, I am earning hundreds with Adsense daily. Just take a look at the screen shot . I earned $500 yesterday and today my earning is $300. If this is the rate of my earning with Adsense, you can call me a millionaire very soon.

Before you want to ask me on how to use adsense to earn a living, I have to let you down as the screen shot is just a screen shot which is meant to be entertaining. Everyone can create any figures they want by visiting Google Adsense Generator.

How To Clear Dandruff!

2009-03-22T21:03:00.000+08:00

Do you have a kid? Does your kid has dandruff? I am not talking about the normal type but those that accompanied by patches of skin peeling off his scalp? Have you tried almost everything that is out there in the market to clear his dandruff? Given up hope on anti dandruff shampoo as you have tried them all on your child hair and yet fail to show any favorable result?

Are you thinking of bringing your child to a hair treatment center? Before you do that, why not you give a try on Polytar Liquid? It is a concentrated antiseptic tar medicated scalp cleanser. It is stated on the bottle that it can treat seborrhoea, psoriasis, dandruff and itching scalp.

Wet your child hair and apply Polytar Liquid till it produces an abundant lather. Continue massaging his scalp till it covers the whole scalp. Then rinse off with water. And remember to use it every day on your child's scalp. You can expect improvement in his dandruff condition after a few days. The dandruff on your child hair is actually the dead skin that come off from his scalp due to your child persistence scratching on his scalp due to itchiness.

As this liquid stops your child scalp itchiness, he will stop scratching his scalp and thus, the dandruff will become a thing of the past.

As your child grow older, the scalp problem will disappear as her scalp will begin to produce more sebum and hence the dry patches of skin (dandruff) will occur less frequently on her scalp. Hopefully you don't have to bring your child to visit those expensive hair treatment centers out there with this tip!

How To Release Stress!

2009-03-20T18:49:00.000+08:00

In this dire economic downturn, some of us might choose to release stress as shown in the video. Just make sure that you don't hurt yourself or others in the process!

Make Your Laptop Battery Power Last Longer!

2009-03-12T17:05:00.000+08:00

Today laptops are features rich which enable you to practically do anything with it. But such advanced features can quickly drain your laptop battery life to make mobile computing pretty useless in a matter of hours.

However, with the tips below, you can get more juice from your laptop battery to make your computing a wonderful experience.

1. The laptop screen is one of the most power hungry components of your pc. By simply turning its brightness down, you will be able to save a lot of power. The screen brightness button is being identified as a sun symbol function button which you can easily use to dim your screen brightness.

2. Another major battery power gobbler is the wireless network function built into the laptop. If you are not using any network capabilities, disable your Wi-Fi feature by pressing the Wi-Fi function button.

3. Eject your disc before you switch to your laptop battery power can add a few extra minutes to your laptop battery life as disc spinning can severely drain your battery power.

4. Getting an eight or even twelve-cell battery can double your battery life as most laptop come with a six cells pack. Another option is to get a Philips Portable Power Pack which can give you extra working time on your laptop. This power pack has suitable adaptors for most cellphones and laptops and can provide up to 60 hours of portable power.

5. Generating sound is another way where your laptop battery power can be drained very fast. Even if you don't listen to loud music with your laptop, those emails beeping as well as the tune you get during Windows startup can cost you valuable portable computing power. Therefore, if sound is not a requirement for you, you can mute it.

6. If you really want to go the extra mile in getting all you can from the laptop battery power, be sure to visit the Power Option in the Control Panel of Windows XP or Vista. Aside from setting the Power scheme to Portable/Laptop option, you can minimize the inactivity time for turning off the monitor and hard disk.

7. Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to have a complete battery discharged before you charge your lithium ion battery. However, if you have a spare unit, you should use it once you have charged it.

8. Getting more RAMs can save you a lot of power if you are always performing intensive operations with your laptop. Even though more RAMs might use more power, it still uses less power if compared to those intensive disc spinning operations during virtual memory usage.

Keeping Crystal Salt Lamp Damp Free!

2009-03-10T16:46:00.000+08:00

Salt crystal lamp can act as a natural ionizer and air purifier if placed in our home or workplace. Aside from that, the color of the crystal salt stone also has a threapeutic health effect to our skin.

As the salt crystal molecular structure contains more negative chloride ions than positive sodium ions, negative ions will be emitted during the natural ionization process.

A higher concentration of negative ions in our surroundings can make us feel relax and reduce our fatigue. This is the reason why our well being is being enhanced when we are near a waterfall, seashore, fountain or after a thunderstorm.

Bear in mind that the ionization process will still take place even if the crystal lamp is not turn on.

If you have a salt crystal lamp and rarely turn the lamp on, you will notice that the salt crystal lamp surface is very damp as the salt crystal has a tendency to attract moisture to its surface. There are two ways to keep the lamp damp free:

1. Keep your room air conditioned all the time
2. Turn on the lamp of the salt crystal lamp unit. You will notice that the dampness beginning to dry up and traces of hard white salt. The lamp unit also amplifies the process of ionization by providing gentle warmth to the crystal.

Forwarding Thunderbird emails!

2009-03-05T16:58:00.000+08:00

There are times when we would like to share the interesting emails that we received with our friends. Hence, we will forward them with a few clicks of the mouse button.

However, for Thunderbird email users, clicking the Forward Button in the Thunderbird program will bring you to a screen that shows your forward message as an eml extension file attachment. This might pose a problem to your friends who open the file.

An easy way to get around this problem is to do the following.
1. Select Tools, Options in the Thunderbird Menu.
2. Click on the Composition Tab.
3. Choose the Inline option in the Forward messages combo box.

Click OK and you are all done!

Contact Me

2009-01-02T22:18:00.042+08:00

Just fill in the form below to drop me a message or there is something that you would like to share.

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Privacy Policy

2009-01-01T18:03:00.000+08:00

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You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information on their practices as well as for instructions about how to opt-out of certain practices. www.leocw.blogspot.com's privacy policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other advertisers or web sites.

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If you require any more information or have any questions about our privacy policy, please feel free to contact us by email at leochoo@streamyx.com

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2009-01-01T17:12:00.003+08:00

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Link List

2009-01-01T11:17:00.001+08:00

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