My NUS journey

I woke up early to the sound of the pouring rain . It was 7 am in the morning , and I was supposed to have breakfast provided by the compulsory meal plan here . The night before , after I have come to terms with my home sickness , I have decided to wake up early today and have the breakfast . But , it was raining . So , I did what most average people in their right mind would do : Go back to sleep . 

***

The next time I woke up , it's already 12 pm . It's amazing how fast time could pass by when you sleep . It's almost like a time-travelling tool , to the future . Just one nap and bang , 5 hours gone , just like that ! I raised the curtain up the window and looked outside .

The view from my window.

The view across my window is yet another condominium-like hostel , complete with balcony that was filled with a barbell set , a coffee table and other miscellaneous equipment . This wasn't the standard of living you would expect an university student would have , though my friends told me that it might be a professor's house or a married couple's apartment .Such is the luxury of accommodation that they offer here.  Of course , the price does not come cheap . I am staying in a single bedroom apartment that costs around $500 per month .. in that respect , one can only imagine what would the cost of the apartment , fully furnished , and come equipped with balcony would be . * $hudder$*

Since it was a weekend , and I haven't officially started my schooling term yet , I decided to explore nus by walking around the campus .The love of walking and exploring new places was ingrained in me since young . Since walking is the  most ancient means of transportation from one place to another , and also since it's the most cost effective one ( i.e FREE ) , I love it . It would be the best way to explore and get to know every nook and cranny of NUS. Though , life seems to always has a way of messing up with my schedules , and this time it did it by raining , again . Still I was obstinately persistent . So, I went out , with an umbrella and still by walking . 

Inevitably , the atmosphere was anything but comfortable , walking on a rainy day on a muddy road , where splashes of waters bouncing off the floor would hit your leg as you walk . In retrospect , it was my fault because I was wearing a short pants with a slipper rather than long pants and covered shoes . Oh well ...

***
Anyhow , here's a summary of what I have found out in NUS after a 2 days of exploring it.

First thing's first . Singapore is a super modern country . Seriously , the technology that the normal people are using here is way more advanced in Malaysia . However,  I got no complaints for that because it made my life a whole lot easier and convenient . 

Tap the room card to the little sensor device below the door knob to open your doors .  It's time to throw away your keys people !

 From top to bottom : Room Card , Student Card , Bus Card

Case in point : Access to nearly every facilities here is granted by using a card . Here , I don't even have to bring any keys out because the cards act as key to everything . You want to borrow a book in library ? Use the card . Want to get some food in the dining hall , use the card . Want to go in your room ? Use the card . In fact , this room door key replacement concept is so abstract to me that I have no idea how to go in my room the first time !

Next, the lighting system in my residential colleges uses a smart motion sensor to detect any movements of people. It will only light up if there are people nearby , otherwise it will always be switched off . Cool huh ?

Also , they have a vending machine for nearly everything that you could think of . Even electricity !

The Central Library .

Photo credit to Soon Vin

Equipped with nice , soft-tone lighting and state of the art facilities . This library in NUS here looks and feels comfortable . They provide a lot of books here ( obviously , duh ! ) as well as study rooms and computers with internet access . Kind of the same with the one in my home university , except that it just looks so much nicer and modern .

Photo Credit to Soon Vin.

I was amazed that even a non- graduating exchange student like me could borrow up to 20 books . And there's quite great amount of fictions , academics and non-fictions book which can never be found in my home university library I guess . I borrowed Steve Job's biography by Walter Isaacson ! :D






One of the convenient tool here is this Library Book Drop point . You can find this book drop point available in many place strategically placed around the campus as to ease the return of a borrowed library book . All you have to do is just place the books that you wanted to return to the nearest Book Drop point near you and that's it ! You don't have to purposely go to the Central Library every time to return books . Convenient huh ?

Food

Another thing I notice here is it will be hard to find any traditional hawker centers ( imagine sitting nearby a tree , in an open air environment, without the comfort of air-cond , replaced instead by only the breeze of natural wind , waiting for your hot steaming meals to be served by the waiter ) . In Singapore, they are increasingly being replaced by food courts, which are indoor, air conditioned versions of hawker centres located in shopping malls and other commercial venues. In NUS , you don't have to worry about food as there are many choices of food ranging from Western, Chinese , Indian, Japanese , Vietnamese , Korean , Japanese and many more type of cuisines . 

My Hostel's Dining Hall . 

I was lucky that the Residential College that I stayed in provide a compulsory meal plan that gives me the choice of meal between Western , Chinese , Muslim and Indian cuisines . Oh , these set meals also come with free flow of mango juices , coffee , milo or just plain water too ! :D And did I mention that the meals are quite nutritionally balanced too ? They provide the caloric values and other nutritional information of the meal for those who are more health conscious . Amazing . 

In the case that you get tired of eating the normal food over and over again , and you happen to have a bit more spending power , go ahead and indulge in Starbucks , Sakae Sushi , and many more restaurants and cafes which are conveniently located IN my residential college . Seriously , they are all just a stone's throw away from where I stay . Sometimes , it made me wonder if I am really in an university campus or a mall .

Transportation
The transport system in NUS is infinitely more efficient than that of my home universities . The bus comes on time and at a commendable frequency of every 10 minutes during schooling days . There's a MRT station inside NUS too so you could get outside through the MRT . ( MRT connects to nearly every places in Singapore ) . Then , there's still buses and taxi . Even if everything else fails , there's always your reliable legs to depend on :) 


*PS Thank you very much , Sheng Di for being my tour guide in nus , and for accompanying me despite the rain . ( P.s never knew you read my blog too lol . Hope you see this ! Haha ) Having a presence of a familiar Malaysian friend certainly did ease my home sickness more :) * 

That's all for now folks , there will be more to come in the future , hopefully ! :)

The Night before & The Night After

*This post will be a series of short posts mashed together as I wrote each individual posts in different time and place . Enjoy :) *

17/1/2013 - 10.00 pm

Ah.. it's finally here. This is it . The time , to move on to another chapter of my life . Every time I am going to somewhere far away or going back to my hometown , the night before it , I will usually be feeling nostalgic and start blogging . Tonight is no different  , save the fact that I am going somewhere that is further away from anywhere I have ever been before ( excluding where I went during my childhood time , because I don't have the slightest memory of it ) . Yes , tonight , or rather , a few more hours later, I will be in Singapore , the Lion City . 

I was fortunate enough to receive an exchange offer to go study at National University of Singapore ( NUS ) for a semester . It was a totally unexpected offer , as I have only applied for an exchange to Australia . Nevertheless , it was a good surprise and I would gladly take any opportunities that was given to me without any hesitation , simply because ,I wanted to go overseas . 

When I was given the offer , I thought long and hard . Do I really wanted to go ? What if the people there don't like me ? What if I have difficulties adapting there.. What if? There's so much what ifs questions that clouded my mind . But I knew I had to go , because I am growing too comfortable and in a way, complacent in UM .Complacency is disastrous . Here in UM for 1 and a half year , I am already quite well adapted to the environment and people , and have been quite comfortable in it . Do not get me wrong , UM , or rather KK7 , my hostel is great ! In fact , one of the best hostels in UM , with its nice people and bonding going on there . Yet , deep inside my heart , I feel a need to go out of my comfort zone , to keep on exploring more of the world and improving myself in every way possible . And NUS provides just the right avenue for me to do so . So , I took the offer. 


As I am writing this , I felt a great sense of urgency to bid everyone farewell , especially to my amazing roommate , who have been such a great companion to me for the past 1 and a half year . Yet , as my time and resources are limited , I can only do so much in these final few hours . I wrote a farewell letter to my roommate .




While writing that letter , a strong sense of nostalgia and poignant memories started flooding my mind . This past 1 and a half year have been nothing short of amazing . I have joined a lot of activities , met a lot of people and new friends . I have laughed , cried , experienced joy and happiness , also depression and sadness . And believe me when I say , the onslaught of emotions that came in , could reduce any toughest , baddest , most heartless guy in this world to mere tears easily . I was not spared .

Roommate

***
17/1/2013 - 4.00 am

Photo credit to my exchange mate , Vin .

I have finally arrived at KL LCCT Airport . This will be the first time I am going to ride the air plane , with conscious memories in it ( I rode one last time , but I was too small to remember it ) . Here's how my journey is supposed to go : my college in university of Malaya => KL Central => Feeder Bus to LCCT Airport => Air Asia to Singapore => Changi Airport => MRT to Bueno Vista => Bus no 95 to NUS . So , now me and my 2 other exchange mates are waiting for the plane.

As we are waiting , I reminisce back about the incidents that happened a few hours ago . 
I was so overwhelmed by the kindness and love I received when I was going out from the hostel . I met with a bunch of juniors and seniors who so coincidentally , happens to be there right when I am going to depart for what may possibly be the longest , toughest semester thus far . And they did a farewell celebration for me ( sort of ) , right there and then . I have some of the sweetest juniors and best , caring seniors in the world ! The events that happened these past few days have totally touched my heart , and further reaffirming two of my belief  :

1) Good people are everywhere . Even in the darkest , most dangerous place of the world , filled with all the criminals and evil doers, there are good people . You just have to look deep inside :)
2) Good people makes the world a better place . Their actions touched your heart , and you in turn , must touch other people's heart with your actions , subsequently creating a chain reaction that makes EVERYBODY Happy and good :D 

Thank Lord for Good People .

***
18/1/2013 - 10.00 pm

The first day in Singapore pass by just like a blur . Having a nearly one day sleep - deprivation , I was sleepy and lethargic as hell . Heck , I nearly slept when texting on the bus . That's how sleepy I was . Nevertheless , there are tons of things that must be done , on that very day itself , so we did it . Creating a bank account , buying various necessities , household items , and settling our registration in NUS , meeting new exchange mates and etc. It was one heck of a day .

Now that I finally have the time to sit down and reflect on it . The realization has finally set in . I am in NUS , Singapore now . This feeling is so surreal . Only yesterday , or perhaps should I say a few hours ago , I was there in my old , rustic hostel with floors without tiles , surrounded by familiar people that will greet me with a smiles in their faces , cracking stupid jokes and just being plain silly . Now , I am writing this in a condominium - lookalike hostel , their floors covered with nice looking tiles , and my window facing a nice view of... another hotel / condominium lookalike hostel , in a unfamiliar environment with complete strangers . 

Ironically , even though Singapore is just realistically an hour of plane flight away from Penang , it felt like I am million miles away from home now. 

I miss speaking Mandarin .
I miss seeing familiar people .
I miss having dinner in a close round table .
I miss having conversation that does not make sense with people I know .

Ah.. I miss home ;'( . 

My sleeping place in Cinnamon College , NUS 

How to root Ninetology Black Pearl 2 i940 ( Android ICS 4.0 )

Hello all , after a few frustrated efforts to root this phone , I've finally discovered the way to properly root ( can be restored ) it. It involves only 3 simple steps . 

1) Download and install Google USB drive from here ( http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/MOBILES/Google/Google-USB-Driver-Revision4.shtml )
[IMPORTANT : Follow the instructions found here : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1830108 to install the USB drive. ]
2) Download Root_with_Restore_by_Bin4ry_v18  from this link (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1886460). 
3) Run the files in the folder and follow the instructions ! 

And that's it folks ! Rooting complete ! All credit goes to Bin4ry and the person in the forum that posted the solution . I am just the middleman linking all of these posts together for easier reference :D . Happy Rooting ! ^^

Review of Ninetology Black Pearl 2 i940

With the likes of Samsung Galaxy S3 , Iphone 5 ,Sony Xperia Z dominating the much saturated smartphone markets now , the Ninetology Black Pearl 2 i940 seems to be unlikely underdog . In fact , if you ask people , most probably 9/10 of those people have never heard of this Ninetology brand of smartphone before . However , emphasizing on their affordable price tag and good value of money , this smartphone company from Sabah , Malaysia is slowly making its mark in the market.

Recently , thanks to the RM 200 rebate for smartphones by the government ( Pakej Komunikasi Belia ) and also RM 100 rebate by the manufacturer , I manage to get this beautiful , curvaceous Ninetology Black Pearl 2 i940 for a cool price tag of only RM 299 ( RRP : RM 599 ) . Today , I will be doing a review of this phone . Details of how and where I get this phone is at the end of the review.

Screenshot taken from my phone.

Build
The Black Pearl 2 have a 4in display screen that nearly rivals that S3’s 4.8in display . The size of the phone is in between iPhone 5 and S3 . Measuring a dimension of 127mm x 65.5mm x 9.9mm , one can hold it comfortably in one hand with ease .


Screen
With a resolution of 800 x 480 ( WXGA ) , obviously it cannot compete with the likes of Super AMOLED HD display of S3 , but then again , it is not so bad as unbearable , in fact , in my humble opinion , it processes the graphic quite well . Running on a Dual-core 1Ghz processor , its IPS Capacitive Screen detects motion quite well too . There’s no laggy or jerky delayed feeling when I was scrolling and browsing web .


Features

This is where Black Pearl 2 stands out , frankly , a lot of phones with that range of price tag ( RM500-800 ) are lacking in features , but not this phone . Black Pearl 2 uses the latest version of Android , 4.04 ( Ice Cream Sandwich ) , which makes it capable of a lot of customization and handling a lot of applications . The latest OS doesn’t just offer yet another tempting-sounding treat to get our mouths watering. It’s a whole new interface which is redesigned throughout in contrast to previous iterations which have felt like layer after layer glued on top of the previous code.

Screenshot from my phone's home screen.

As mentioned earlier , BP 2 runs on a 1GHz MT6577 Dual Core Cortex-A9 Processor + 512MB RAM , which makes it perfectly capable of handling multi-tasking and takes on whatever tasks that Android 4.04 can handle . Personally , I have tried playing music on the background while surfing graphic-intensive websites at the same time and it handles them perfectly well . In their official youtube channel , they have tested visually demanding game , Dead Trigger on the BP 2 , and the end result is quite fine , as you can see from the video below .

Although they officially market it as a 5MP camera, in their camera settings , it is shown that they can take up to 8MP quality pictures . Additionally , it also comes with a face detection , auto focus and LED flash features. . It supports video recording , MP4/3GP/AVI/MPEG video format as well as MP3/MIDI/AMR/WAV/AAC audio format.

As far as their connectivity goes , it supports WCDMA 900/2,100MHz radios , Wi-Fi , and Bluetooth .

Now ,despite all the good stuffs that I have mentioned above , BP2 is not without imperfection . For one thing , its resolution pales in comparison of most smartphones with 4in display .If you just put it side by side with let’s say Samsung S plus , the difference is prominent .Next , its battery life is quite short . In my personal experience , with just LINE messenger app and wi-fi running , it lasted me for just 2 hours or less . Even without any application that requires Internet connection , a fully charged battery lasted only 4 hours by just playing around with the applications . Of course , I could be wrong as I haven’t fully explored the applications and ways to save battery life , but as it is , without any tinkering or modification being done , its battery life is satisfactory at best .

Also , its GPS seems to be abit lacking in finding locations efficiently . With all the settings ticked ( including utilizing Google's location service , GPS satellites , using assisted GPS and Location & Google Search ) , it still fail to detect my location even after 30 minutes .
What a shame . I hope the developers will be doing something about this .  

Conclusion

All in all , Ninetology Black Pearl 2 i940 is a great phone considering its value of money . ( Seriously , RM 299 for a 4in display smartphone thats runs on a 1Ghz dual core processor with the latest Android ? Where else can you get such a deal ? )

Pros

-       Affordable price tag

-       Great Value of money ( even without the rebates, RM599 is still a good price for its features )

-       Feature packed

-       Runs the latest Android

-       Handles multi-tasking smoothly

Cons

-       Short Battery Life

-       Mediocre resolution
-       GPS seems to be taking forever to find my location

I got my Black Pearl 2 at Lot A23-24, Ground Floor ( MTECH ) in Prangin Mall , Penang island . The RRP for this phone is RM 599 , however with manufacturer’s RM 100 rebate and also the RM 200 rebate from the government ( Apply at skmm.gov.my , print the receipt and show it to certified dealer to get the rebate ) . Furthermore , if you buy it now , you will be entitled to receive a complementary Digi Smart Plan prepaid sim card worth RM 25 ( bundled together with the phone , the plan have 300 MB free internet , minutes of free voice call and free mms ) . Thanks to that , I am now a proud owner of a Malaysian brand smartphone . I dare say that in the entire campus , only a few have smartphones made by this local company .

sample of pics taken using BP2 's camera. 

Second picture taken under 8MP setting. 

The sad thing is , our local brands have always been stereotypically referred to as the more inferior products , as opposed to the more overpriced , yet offers much or less the same functionalities products sold by the more “branded” foreign companies . It is true that some of the products sold by local companies are slightly defective and inferior , however , just because of these few bad apples , we shouldn’t stereotype the rest and avoid them . I would urge you all , fellow Malaysians especially , to give this brand a try , and even if it doesn’t work out in the end ( touch woo ) , hey it’s just RM 299 . If you can afford to spend thousands of ringgits on a perfectly overpriced foreign brand , I am sure spending an extra RM 299 to get a new smartphone won’t hurt right ?

* Note that this message is intended for those people who are wealthy enough to spend a lot on overpriced foreign brands , and never tried a local product before , yet scorns those people who can only afford these affordable local brand . Personally , I think RM 299 is quite a big sum already , but it is a good value of money and I definitely needed a smartphone so I bought it ! :D *

That's all for now , will update if there's any other relevant information ! Thanks for reading :)

*UPDATE*
I went to the their service center in 4th Floor, Low Yat Plaza and updated my firmware to version 16 . Now, the Talk Time is improved to around 17 hours , which is roughly equivalent to that of an average smartphone . So far,  I am quite satisfied with its battery performance . Note that if you are interested in having a better performance , you can actually root it and personally customize the cpu processing speed and etc ( deleting useless system apps ) . I will post about how to root it in the next post . Stay Tuned ! :

Their service center