Here's My Story

Upon's my sister's suggestion, I purchased a number of items on Shopee for the my unit in Butterworth . All had no issue except for a couple of items from EKS EXPREZ: (1) 8th Sep: Purchased items. (2) 9th Sep: Status on Shopee showed that seller was preparing to ship the parcel and that the oder was being fulfilled by non-Shopee Supported Logistics. "Your order is likely to arrive in 3-4 days (except digital goods). Otherwise, you may choose to extend Shopee Guarantee or reach out to the seller to inquire about the parcel status." Incidentally, the option to extend the guarantee was not there even though it was supposed to be discontinued only from 12th Sep 2024 . (3) 13th Sep: This was the expected delivery date as shown by Shopee but my sister had yet to receive the items in Butterworth. Upon enquiry, the seller showed a screenshot of a logistic timeline that showed that the items were in transit from PJ to Penang. (4) 16th Sep: Received email from Shopee asking me ...

During the latest trip to Australia, my sister taught me how to use her blender to make smoothie and ever since then, I was hooked. Back home, I started to think about the benefits of having a blender: Making my own smoothie that's much healthier than outside. Having homemade smoothie greatly lessens the craving for one outside. Much cheaper to have homemade smoothie (than buying one outside). Can blend in the bland protein powder in the smoothie. Can blend in oat. I usually have oat with milk each night. Create my smoothies that aren't available outside. Recommendations from the internet were either not available on Shopee, had too many negative reviews or too expensive. A friend's mother recommended a good brand but too expensive and too huge for me. Then I came across Panasonic MX-XP103WSR Tumbler Blender. Its size is great for me, it was cheap (RM 127 after discount/vouchers, original price was RM 169) and it had mostly positive reviews. The only comment that concerned ...

This earphone , purchased back in 2020, didn't even last a month. So I returned it to Gadgeto for another one. This one, if I recall correctly, lasted for about 2 years. Both, like the previous one, stopped working on the left side. Consistently left side. So this time, I shopped around and bought Lenovo HE05X wireless corded earphones. It cost RM 23.50 (discounted from RM 68), before the cost of shipping was included. I loved the freedom of using wireless earphones. However, about 10 months later, sound from its left side was barely audible. Gah. I'm now considering accumulate enough Air Asia points (via my CIMB Air Asia Saver Award) to redeem the Sony WI-C100 wireless earphones, the same one which I redeemed for Ban (it's been good so far for him), unless someone strongly recommends me another. My sister did recommend Bose but it's that bulky type that covers the ears. Though I don't doubt her claim that it's comfortable, it's too bulky to be transported. ...

After my visa application was approved , I priotised buying tickets for the return trip as that would be more expensive than that for the domestic flight on the way to Canberra. Fortunately, the cheap(er) flight was still available. As a recap, that trip is split into two: Canberra to Melbourne flight operated by Qantas and the Melbourne to KL flight operated by MAS. Since both were day flights, the comfortable seat of business class (comfortable for sleeping, which is important for me on night flight) wasn't needed and so I targeted the economy class.  As usual, Ban preferred seats with extra leg room and that was where the problem started: after selecting such seats, the site informed me there was error in determing the seats's prices. Huh??? The prices were clearly stated before I selected them. The summary page indicated that those seats had been selected but payment was zero @@. I tried a few things to fix the error: restarted the purchasing process, clear browser cache/hi...

While waiting for the outcome of my 2nd attempt at getting an Australian ETA , I noticed that Malaysia Airlines's business class ticket was at about two third of its usual price. A bit of background for context: I used to travel to Australia via Air Asia X because it was significantly cheaper. During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, all airlines were basically grounded because people were not allowed to come to Malaysia and we could fly domestically only in certain cases (e.g. when I flew to Penang for my dad's funeral). However, when domestic travel was allowed, Air Asia proved to be unreliable for many people. For example, someone purchased ticket in the morning but later in the afternoon, they were informed that the flight was changed to another date! I can't fly with such capricious airline because any changes would involved me discussing with my sister about the suitability of the date and then changing the connecting flight ticket(s) (there's no direct flight ...

My first laptop, Dell Inspiron 15, lasted for more than 6 years. The second laptop, Alienware 14 (highest spec at that time) was already more than 8 years old: Attempt #1 to get new laptop (2013) Attempt #2 to get new laptop (2013) Alienware 14 (2013) 1st problem: keyboard (2014) Hard disk (2014) Layman taught expert (2014) Headache (2015) Yearly? (2016) Repeated incompetence (2016) GPU (2017) Charging issue (2017)   Repair caused problems (2017) Lousy sales team (2017)   Pre-empt (2019) Motherboard (2020)   Power adapter (2020) Keyboard, bluetooth, mouse (2021) 3rd keyboard (2021)   There was problem(s) every year except for 2018. Furthermore, these were the ones I bothered to blog about. That power adapter I got from Shopee in 2020 (couldn't get one from Dell because they no longer sells that): it worked for quite a while before it burst with sparks! In the end, I used Ban's old Alienware 15 power adapater. Lugging around a separate keyboard and microphone togethe...

Since the good new s, it's been bad news since. After some time of not receiving any news from the seller, I messaged them and they gave me the tracking number. Look at these:   ******************************************************************* It was much later that the seller told me that they had been checking up on this daily and even emailed Shopee about this problem. I don't know why they didn't tell me this earlier: I was enquiring every few days and yet there was hardly any initiative from them to update me. Lackadaisical. Then one day, they asked me to contact Shopee to expedite this. Not sure whether it was due to this or simply a combination of everyone's effort, it was finally delivered the next day. Took them 7 freaking days! Courier, my foot! Remember how Shopee said that the seller agreed to change the item for me? Turned out it was conditional upon their technicians confirming that the issue I reported was a manufacturing defect. Logical but oh boy, bum...

Unfortunately, there was a problem with this phone : at least once a day, after finished charging, it would say, "PIN is required when you restart your device" (I had activated facial recognition) even though I didn't restart the phone before or while charging it. I vaguely recall that this did happen to my old phone every now and then but not daily! I tried a different outlet for charging but it still occurred. Factory reset didn't work either. I was afraid that there was something wrong with the motherboard, one of the reasons given online. So I told the Shopee seller about this problem and asked whether I could get a replacement. They offered to check the phone. I was concerned about the timing: I had like about 3 days left of the "15 Days Return" period and so I reiterated by preference for replacement.  I proceeded with the Return/Refund request via Shopee and said, "It'll be great if I can get a replacement". Understandably they wanted me...

Until recently, I had owned only 4 mobile phones (chronologically): 1. Ericsson (not owned by Sony then), a secondhand phone dad gave me. Thereafter, I bought my own phones. 2. Nokia. Can't remember the model number but naturally it was a 'brick' phone :D 3. Nokia 5250. 4. Samsung J1 Ace (J111F), which was purchased nearly 4.5 years ago . Unfortunately, my entry-level smartphone fell victim to a side effect of the Covid-19 pandemic: it didn't have enough space for the running of necessary apps. Can't even consider any "nice to have" app. The death knell is probably the phasing out of hard OTP token by DBS and thus the necessity to install their digibank app even if it's just to use the digital OTP generator. That app takes up an incredibly memory space of nearly 0.9 GB! Henceforth, I had to skimp on apps. I couldn't even update apps without clearing cache so that my phone had at least 500 MB before Google Play allowed the update to be installed. So...

From this list , I narrowed it down to Samsung Galaxy J1 Ace or J2. Although Vivo Y25 is slightly smaller than J1 Ace, it's not availabel on Lazada or Lelong. Also, My sister and Ban had no problem with Samsung after-sales service at their service centres. Along the way, I did get sidetrack by even smaller phones such as Samsung mini series but the specs were too low for my liking. Initially, I was gunning for J2 because it was the lightest and had the largest screen-to-body ratio. What made me hesitate was the price difference: more than 70%. To make matter worse, it is no longer in production and so it was so difficult to find anyone selling it. Its Prime version was significantly bulkier and and about 22% heavier! Later I realised, and confirmed, that Ban's phone is the older version of J1 Ace. He has no problem playing games on it and its battery is ok for his usage. His only problem is memory space but that too it's only a small problem because he rarely takes ph...

I believed I was the only one in my family and among my friends still using a normal phone. There was simply no reasons for me to switch because I don't use internet on my phone. Ban would have continued using his normal phone if it wasn't spoiled. His current phone was a gift from a bank obtained by his mum. Over the last year or so, there were some problems with my normal phone. The manual locking didn't work. Hence, I needed to swipe to unlock and select "lock" from the menu to lock it. Then sometimes the swiping didn't work either. I had to get Ban to call me and then it would work again. Then there was that issue with my Singapore sim card , which means I definitely need at least a 3G phone. In the meantime, I discovered how useful Google Maps and Waze are on smartphones. Hence, with all these considerations, I decided to hunt for a suitable smartphone: one that allows me to call and text and occasionally use the navigation software. After some ...

It has become a routine that each time I go to Australia, I'll buy glucosamine for myself and sometimes for my father too. Supplement there is much cheaper than here in Malaysia especially at the discount pharmacy stores. This time, however, my sister ordered one via an online pharmacy. She had been using that portal for sometime now and had been quite pleased with it. The bottle had 180 tablets where each tablet was 1500mg of glucosamine. The recommended dosage was the standard 1500mg for each day, which meant that the bottle was supposed to supply for 180 days (about 6 months). However, we were shocked to discover that its expiry date, when it arrived, was in June 2014, which was about 3 months away! So my sister e-mailed the online pharmacy. She first received a call from a rather irritated customer service officer (CSO) who nevertheless told my sister to send back the supplement using a reply paid envelope and they would refund the money to her.  Upon my sister's qu...

I've watched the tv series a couple years ago and I like it so much that I've been hunting for its genuine DVDs in Singapore and Malaysia. I've finally found it at Animetech at Centrepoint, Bandar Utama. However, my joy was short-lived: there was problem playing it if chapter was selected (rather than "Play All"). It was the same for all 3 DVDs. What I was afraid most was that this problem was laptop specific i.e. it may be playing perfectly well on a DVD player. Fortunately, it was the same problem when tested using the shop's DVD player. Since they did not have another copy, they offered to try to get another one from another branch or to order a new one. Should that new copy also have the same problem, then I would be fully refunded. About 8 days later, I obtained its replacement and so far, it's working well :)

After pondering and asking about which Perodua to purchase, I have decided and just purchased a secondhand Myvi, 2006. Quite sometime ago, I already came to know of this particular car on sale by a relative. Its price (discounted quite heavily due to family ties) was reasonable and in fact considered to be attractive by some. I was at first apprehensive about its size but after surveying the prices of other Perodua, old and new, I decided to test drive this Myvi. The drive went smoothly, with quiet engine. Yes, it appears to be as wide as, say, Wira but certainly shorter in length. It didn't seem to suffer much wear and tear and I like its metalic colour (dark reddish orange). I'll probably be able to get the car before Chinese New Year. I'm nervous but excited. Next to get: GPS.