Now here’s an important tip for all Wordpress Bloggers out there. Be aware that Wordpress comes with Akismet plugin preloaded. Akismet is a plugin which identifies and blocks comment and trackback spam on blogs with integration to various blogging systems. What you’ll need to do is to activate plugin via the WP plugins section.

What happened was, I’ve just upgraded my Wordpress to the latest 2.5.1 with a handy tool called the Wordpress Automatic Upgrade plugin. After successfully upgrading my WP, the plugin requires me to reactivate all my plugins. You’ll need to do so or else your WP will not function properly. I’ve reactivated most of the needed plugins except for one. Yes, you guessed it, the AKISMET plugin.

So what happens if you do not reactivate your Akismet plugin? YOU GET SPAMMED!

For less than 24 hours, I got hit with 172 spams in my comment box!

So make sure you reactivate your Akismet plugin everytime you do a WP upgrade. And for those who are not using it, give it a try cause it helps … A LOT!

Every morning I’m rudely awakened by my idiotic neighbour with their house alarm system. Problem with them is their maid keeps forgetting to deactivate the alarm before unlocking the gate to go outside. The neighbourhood usually ignores the whining alarm and get back to bed.

Same thing with car alarms.

Do you remember when was the last time you step out of the house to check on screaming car alarm at 3 o’clock in the afternoon? Or have you ever bother to check the never ending whining of a car alarm in a parking lot? Guess not many of us are bothered as these car alarms are usually triggered by loud vibration from the exhaust pipes of some turbo cars (and sometimes, some cars are just loud).

How effective is a car alarm system nowadays? Will it actually prevent car thieves from breaking into your beloved car? What’s a loud alarm when nobody cares?

My old Proton Porsche Saga is still around and recently it almost got stolen again. It used to have an alarm installed but it’s no longer in working condition. I just recently installed a reasonably good alarm system that cost more than 1K for my V6. It’s fancy and comes with lots of cool function. But question is, will my car be safe even with the new alarm system installed? Technology gets better for car owners but technology is also with the car thieves. We have the tools to protect our cars and at the same time, they have to tools to disable our cars too. I can’t be running to my car whenever my 1K alarm keychain remote starts beeping. Even if I can get to my car, the thief would have gone away with my audio system or perhaps the whole car itself! Immobilizer is great but I’m sure some genius would have come up with an ingenious way to disable that too!

Unless the public plays a role in this crime fighting scene, nothing we own is actually safe.

Sad to say, people can be very selfish. At times, they can be quite a busybody too, checking out things that no longer needs their attention.

How? How do I get the public to play a role to fight car jacking?

Well, I just found the best solution and it involves sex! Goddamnit! LOL

This will definitely get people’s attention….for sure!! Somebody manufacture this freaking cool alarm please!!!!

Here’s a review on Magic-Sing Karaoke Microphone that I just bought recently. It’s a nifty little gadget with big surprises. The microphone itself is the karaoke system. Yes, there’s whole 2064 songs built-in into the microphone. Impressive huh? But before I proceed with the review, I wish to share a little bad experience I had not long ago.

My Experience
My last karaoke session with my younger friends have proven to be much of a humiliating moment. They make me feel really old every time I chose songs by Rick Price, MLTR and sometimes even good oldies by Air Supply. Usually everyone will be fighting over the mic whenever there’s a familiar song playing but not when I play the songs I chose. There’ll be a total silence in the room as I sang to my favourite karaoke song. Well, it’s quite hard if I’m not a hip person singing “All The Things She Said” by TaTu which is totally IMPOSSIBLE to sing along to at all! So I swore not to go karaoke with anyone else except peers of my age. Or else I can just sing in my own car just like how I always do.

My Discovery
2 weeks ago, I was introduced by a friend of this new little gadget that just got around to Malaysia. This little handy gadget is called the ‘Magic-Sing Karaoke Mic’. It’s an All-In-One Digital Karaoke microphone with 2,064 songs built-in. Yes, the mic itself is a karaoke system. No more bulky devices with lotsa cables and extensions. The karaoke system itself features other capability such as mic volume control, volume control, and tempo and echo control all within a press of a few buttons. Still don’t get the idea? Here, lemme show you.

This is how Magic-Sing karaoke mic looks like. The Mic also comes with an optional smaller Submic ( left).

Setting up the hardware is as simple as hooking up your VCD player to the TV. The only cables attached to the mic are the RCA cables (Red, White, Yellow) and a power cable which comes with an adapter.

Once the cables are all hooked up, power up your TV and select your Video Channel with your remote. Depending on types of TV, usually a Video Channel is set to AV1 and AV2. For my TV, it is set to AV2. Power up your Magic-Sing by pressing the ON button for about half a second (just like how you power up your mobile). Once the mic is on, you can see an intro screen playing.

To start singing, you need to choose your song. The karaoke set comes with a handy songbook. The very nice covered song book comes in a form of a ring-bind folder. In future if you wish to purchase more songs(chips), you can add the additional song list pages into the book.

Now that you know what song you wish to sing, get the code and punch it into the system with your mic. Since there’s no display screen on the mic, your TV will act as a display screen. Once you keyed in your code, hit the PLAY button and away you go… sing your heart out!

There’s a mode button on the mic that allows you to select volume, echo, tempo and key control. You can even have song reservations, view your singing score in real time and have a little contest among your family and friends. I tried singing one of my favourite song, “100 Years” by Five For Fighting and I did pretty well… hehe. Oh yes, the songs are quite updated. Don’t worry about not having any songs to sing. There’s a hefty 2,064 songs for you to choose from!

The Magic-Sing does come with an optional Submic, called the “Magic-Duet”. It’s a wireless, standard AA battery powered sub-microphone that need to be paired with it big brother, Magic-Sing mic. After pairing up with the main mic, you can have a back-up singer, a duet partner and even a little singing contest together. Now isn’t that cool?

If you find that 2.064 songs are not enough for you, you can always opt to add in additional songs by getting the optional Song Chips. Currently, there are only 5 song chip titles available. Chinese, Indonesian, Hymn, Pop-Vol 16 and Pop-Vol 17 song chips are sold separate from the Magic-Sing mic. More songs can be added into the mic by simply plugging the chip into the mic. There are 5 slots available in the mic so you can have up to 5 song chips inside the mic. Once inserted, your list of songs will be extended! Cool!

After a few songs on my own, my brother then joins me for a couple of his favourites. He sure liked it as he was really into it.

I just found out from the distributor that the set comes with an optional car adaptor. “What’s the car adaptor for?”, you may ask. Well, it’s to totally PIMP YOUR RIDE! For those having a LCD display panel hooked up in your ride, you can simply hook up this gadget to your existing car stereo system, get the car adaptor and you’ll be instantly popular among your friends. (Car adaptor and singing karaoke in the car is optional. We do not encourage the driver to sing along while driving :p)

Hooking up is easy, packing up is as easy too. The Magic-Sing karaoke mic, songbook and adaptor come with a nice and easy carrybag. Now your can bring your karaoke set to any party and be an instant super star singing to your favourite karaoke songs!

My Verdict
The mic is really really cool and easy to use. You have everything built-in into the mic so you can control everything with just one device. The mic is really sturdy and really comfortable to hold. There’s of course a few drawbacks but that is not gonna stop a superstar wannabe from his/her favourite song. I’ll give this gadget an 8/10. It could be slightly pricey for some but if you can afford it, you must get it.

My Recommendations

• To those who wants to join Malaysian Idol. This is a must-get gadget. Practice singing and grooving to your favourite tunes and who knows, you might get lucky.
• To those avid karaoke goers. This will save you alot of money in long run. Just gather your friends over your place and have a fun night fun singing together. Hey, you can even charge them if you want to.
• To pub, bar or even restaurant owners. Have this little gadget installed in your outlet and you will have more patrons coming over. Hopefully they order as much as they’ll sing. hehe
• As a gift. A great gift for house-warming party.

I’m sure there’s more that you can think of. But I only need one reason to own it… Singing relaxes me. Yes, it’s how I distress myself.

Here’s a little video on how singing and karaoke can save your marriage too

Technical Specifications
I gathered these informations from the distributor’s website (http://magicsing.voicecreations.net)ED-9000 Special Feature:

• Lyrics appear on TV screen
• Photgraphy scenery displayed on TV
• Echo, Key, Tempo and Volume Control
• Song reservation, Score in real time, Random play
• Music Contest, Musical Instrument, Voice Change
• Melody Guide On/Off

Optional Devices:
1) Magic-Sing Sub-Microphone - Wireless microphone for the duet/backup singer. Must have a Magic Sing microphone to operate.

Features:

• 900MHz Ultra high band
• Crystal clear sound by using a noise reduction circuit
• Great reception range of up to 20 ft.
• Controls speed, pitch, music volume and vocal volume.
• Makes use of the functions of the main microphone.
• 2 x AA Alkaline Batteries required (not included)

The Magic-Sing Karaoke Microphone is currently retailed at RM988. Since I’m one of the few first customer, the distributor agrees to give me a discount in my future purchase. So if you want one, email me at galvin@dawgbyte.com

Ok, as much I hate to say this, whenever something is famous, surely someone will come up with something to defame it. Here’s a video some moron came up with to defame the much talkabout Apple iPhone. I don’t care what people have to say, I still love iphone and I’ll definitely get one when it’s available here in Malaysia.

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Well, screw it with some moron who doesn’t know how to appreciate good stuff. I’m a true Mac lover and at least I will look cool with an iPhone, unlike those who people who most likely to be looking blue with their Microsoft smartphone… oh…sorry… looking more like a blue screen to me.

Oh yeah, there’s once people said that Windows 95 is actually Mac OS ‘82!

Rules!

It’s been months now the speculation on how the new Apple iPhone will look like. Well, speculate no more because the long anticipated Apple iPhone is finally revealed and I love it. The heck with Nokia and Sony Ericcson phones, I need to get my hands on this baby.

Apple totally reinvent the mobile phone by introducing the iPhone. iPhone is sort of like an iPod with phone and internet-working capabilities but with lotsa FUN in it… really. If you don’t believe me, you can go to www.apple.com to read more about it or else you can just read on to what I have to say as a Mac fan.

First of all, iPhone is like this mega-huge widescreen iPod for you to listen to your favourite MP3 files and watch TV shows and movies wherever you go. With it’s 3.5-inch widescreen display, Jurassic Park lives inside this baby. With it’s touch control screen, you can easily access any application with a tap on the screen.

Making phone call is much more fun with iPhone. You can browse through address book with just a point of a finger, NO stylus needed! It also automatically syncs all your contacts from a PC, Mac, or Internet service.. cool eh?

Well, if you think you’ve seen it all, think again. iPhone comes with Safari, the most advanced web browser on a portable device. You can also check and send email with this baby too via Wi-Fi or EDGE.

We now live in a mutimedia world and phones are getting smarter. Besides playing movie and music files, iPhone also allows you to take photos with it’s 2 megapixel built-in camera. And with its built-in advanced sensor, the iPhone’s accelerometer detects when you rotate the device from portrait to landscape, then automatically changes the contents of the display, so you immediately see the entire width of a web page or a photo in its proper landscape aspect ratio.

Ya ya… some of my friends told me you can get all the same features with a Dopod or even HP’s Ipaq but the question is… do they look as cool too? ….. NAHH!

The only downside to iPhone is the built-in camera. With a whopping 8GB built-in memory, I’m sure iPhone can afford a bigger resolution camera than the current 2 megapixel. I’m sure Apple will juice up the camera in no time. Nevertheless, iPhone may not be the smartest phone around, but it’s definitely the coolest!

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Here’s some of the iPhone features on YouTube