Inside the box was a whole selection of beads you could choose from! The idea is to string it altogether with the chain that comes together and wear it as a funky yet whimsical charm bracelet of sorts!

You’ve seen many other charms, but have you seen a charm bracelet with various charm-like beads to be strung through? These remind me of lanterns by the way.

This is too cute!! A kitten with a whole through its body.

The dangly range would be great for those who still prefer their charm bracelets to swing with every move.

This is one of my favourite charm/bead from the whole box! A rocking horse! Ahh!!

Something more….post-modern?

These ones are nice too. Like what jewelry can escape some blings eh?

She gave me a silver chain for my little project here! Over at her blog, there are plenty more colours and materials to choose from! A pink leather strap caught my eyes.. >__>

After stringing through all the beads!

There is a hook-button-something for you to attach one end of the bracelet to the other. I don’t really know how to explain but when it is your hands, you will have a rough idea how it’ll work.

Since I was alone, I couldn’t ask anyone to do the clasp for me. Oh well, but you get the idea!

Love how the colours go together. Love how there is no set category for this piece of jewelry.

Poor horse!

If you would like to see more of her beads and bracelets, head on over to Colorsbeads! You don’t have to go OTT like me and maybe opt for something sweeter (pink leather strap, NOW!). Enjoy:)

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So now I shall focus all my energy on churning out this post. You all very bad one lah. I so susah payah do all the reviews yet hardly any comments. T_T Sakit hati tau! But it’s okay, DEMI MAXIS AND SAMSUNG! *fire in the background*

In today’s blog post of phone review monologues, I shall be showing you some of my favourite apps and also three instant messaging apps that I use on this phone.

Layar

Layar is a browser that shows you businesses and services around you in real time. The technology that they utilize is called Augmented Reality! You’ll see why.

Watch the video damnit:

If you are reading this as a note on facebook, you probably can’t see it. Don’t be so lazy, come to my blog directly lah!

Layar!

I am not quite sure what this list is but it greets me everytime I log in.

You have many layers to choose from. Each layer shows you a certain category of service. There are many to choose from. Car rentals, ATM machines, restaurants, shops..etc. When I was at the Penang Airport, I tried using the Car Rental layer and my screen was flooded with listings.

You can even adjust the range. So you can just limit it to like within 1km.

Upon clicking the layer, grids will be sent out to assess the area around you. I don’t know if it’s just for show or not lah because the app clearly utilizes the gps, camera and accelerometer (to be used as a compass). As a result, you get a cool effect when you see the icons float in front of you. See those gas stations on the screen? It means that within a few km as depicted in the blue box with words below, that particular gas station is XXkm away from me.

Your radar.

You can click on the blue screen to get more details about that particular business.

I think this is one of its coolest feature!

You can freaking call them!!! 0_()

I love Layar a lot though it can be quite freaky. Especially when I used the Tweeps layer in a huge crowd. There are bound to be people using twitter while having their gps turned on. With the tweep layar, you can see who just uploaded a tweet like, meters away from you. Yes, it can be that freaky.

While waiting for my flight at Changi, I showed Chee Kiang the Tweeps layer on Layar. We were scouting for twitter users around us.

Foursquare

Watch the video:

Most people are no stranger to this up and coming form of social networking. Foursquare is useful in the sense that it tells you about places around you that are interesting and when your friend checks-in to somewhere new, say a flashy bar, you’d be enticed to check it out yourself too!

When you check-in more than a number of times, you become the Mayor of that particular establishment. Upon receiving your mayorship, some establishments have even picked up on the craze and issued discounts to these so called mayors of their establishment.

Places near my house..anyway, no worries about revealing where I stay. There’s nothing left in my house to loot. Only valuable thing is well……me! *bows*

Upon clicking on a venue, you have to then check-in.

You can brag to your friends that you’re at like… say, on the Eiffel tower! If only I had this phone last August. Ahem, ahem, brag, brag.

When you click on maps, you can even see exactly where the establishment is located in.

You can even see what others have said about this particular venue. It is very useful for other users who would like to share what they like about their favourite cafe so that other users who drop by would know what’s the house specialty and if it sucks or not.

Google Sky Map

Watch the video:

This is like my bed time story. I need to stare at the sky via this map before I can fall asleep.

Here’s a video of me trying out the app beneath the twinkling sky:

It is actually very fun for those who enjoy stargazing. I’ll be doing some of that tomorrow in Langkawi. Hopefully I can put it to good use!

The gps detects your co-ordinates and then the compass starts working and so the phone will show you what you are supposed to see if you are looking in that particular direction. This is correct because where I am facing in this photo is the west and it was night time already. So the sun has already set in the west and is sort of underneath me.

You have the options of disabling and enabling what you want to see – constellations, planets..etc.

If you point it up, it would show you that the sky is already dark, which it was!

They even have a ‘toggle night’ view thing to ease your eyes.

My Days

Watch the video of all the fun application on this phone:

This is a strange but intriguing app.

It charts your menstrual cycle and even shows you when you are ovulating and stuff.

You can add these to your My Days calendar. Very interesting. But my period has not arrived yet since I got the phone, so no chance to try.

Very useful if I am trying to get pregnant.

FML

I’m a huge fan of the website so of course I had to download the application too!

It’s really great to kill time as you would just keep reading and reading.

You can even vote like in the website!

Healthy Recipes

One day….one day I will try this one. Promise!

It’s great that the recipes are divided into such organized categories.

I’m hungry already, damnit.

WordPress

Everything a blogger needs……..NOT!

Though it is nifty but I still prefer finishing up my blog posts on a computer. The flow of words are constantly coming and trying to write all that on a touch screen phone is a whole different ball game. Totally a buzzkill.

It’s actually very basic but better than nothing.

You can select a photo to be added to your post.

The Star Online

The Star even has their own Android app!

It’s actually done really nicely!

ROAR!!!!!

Instant Messaging on the Samsung Galaxy S is very very easy. It’s great that they have practically all instant messaging  platforms available in the Android Market! They even have ICQ and QQ!

Let’s start off with gTalk first.

gTalk

Watch the video:

Part 1

Part 2

It came preinstalled with the phone.

This is how the contact list appears.

Tried to kacau Liss but she didn’t reply immediately.

I like gTalk because whenever someone wants to chat, I get a notification. It’s almost like having Whats App. ALMOST.

MSN Talk (Msn Messenger)

MSN is so essential. But too bad it drains the battery quite a bit so I cannot leave it running in the background.

I love it because I get to customize it anyway I want!

I got my brother to layan me for my blog review.

Poor guy thought we were shooting a video.

LOL

Facebook Chat

It’s very impressive that Facebook Chat is even available in the Android Market!

You can download themes too!

Got my brother to layan again.

Swype Keyboard

Photos don’t do the Swype keyboard any justice so just watch the video:

Sorry if I sound brief in this post but I am really..really..really.. tired. I can’t blog from now till Sunday (the end of the review period) as I’ll be in Langkawi with my classmates!

Here’s some photos and videos from the phone as usual:

I’m sorry but I have to force another video of my bling bling carkeys on you. I worked so hard on it! I deserve some limelight!

Looking at the alphabets flip on the departures er…screen or board..is very addictive.

The panorama mode is actually pretty good!! Click on the photo to see it in its original size.

Vignette in mono mode.

Oooops Lie Yuen was closing her eyes. We were clearing our lockers that day.

As Brenda said, hope we don’t have to put anything back in!

Made a trip to Tesco to get some essentials to make shifting houses a whole lot easier. Shrink wrap your stacks of books and tie them with rafia strings so they won’t slide about!

Chin Kai and Aik Munn came to get my bed. It’s great that the boys are natural handymen.

Very sad. Just one week left in Sungai Petani and we are introduced to a freaking Steamboat Buffet!! FML x 10000000.

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For today’s review, I would like to show you the camera and video taking functions on the Samsung Galaxy S! Aside from that, I would also be taking you through how your photos and videos are shown on the phone. And as usual, you can either see how the functions are in my youtube review videos or just scroll down to look at all the pictures!

The Camera

Part 1 of the camera and video camera review.

Part 2 of the camera and video camera review.

The 5mp camera unfortunately does not come with flash, which is quite a downer for such a phone that has practically everything. Why are gadget makers so cruel!?! Why must they hold back on certain items?! I can’t and won’t buy another phone JUST because that new beautiful phone has a flash on it! I’m not going to fall for that marketing ploy! NEVAR!

Anyway, the maximum resolution is 2592 X 1944 pixels and best of all, the camera has touch screen autofocus. Nais. (insert facebook thumbs up)

The camera comes with Geo-tagging, face and smile detection and even has antishake!

Though the flashless situation is a bit of a downer, you have the option of changing your ISO and also the exposure which is quite unheard of for a camera phone. And no, there is no option to change the shutter speed you greedy bastard.

There’s a few shooting modes that you can use.

The self shot utilizes the front facing camera and takes really crap photos, with a maximum of 0.3mp, but good for sending that good morning photo to your boyfriend or girlfriend.

Beauty mode gives off a gaussian blur, makes the average girl (read: me) glow sweetly. I think I have mentioned this feature in a previous post.

The smile shot utilizes the smile detection technology. Works like a charm. Will show you more further down the post!

Continuous mode is your burst function, great for freezing those droplets of water. (but make sure your lighting is like sunlight or else you can’t get anything under lowlights)

Panorama…I thought it sucked while preparing the videos and photos for this post. But I took it out to town today when I had to go bang tables at the TNB headquarters for charging me RM500 for this month’s bill and… lo and behold! It takes really nice 180 degrees panorama shots! Shall upload the picture in the next review!

Oh vintage. *jizzes in pants* I love the vintage mode SO, so, so, so, much. It takes in four different modes: neutral (normal colour), warm (orangey colour), cool (bluish-greenish colour) and mono (black and white). All photos have a vignette effect to it. I’m pretty sure you’d be familiar with the vignette effect if you have been following my last few posts.

Add Me is ugly and pointless. Just randomly shoots one photo, and then you point and shoot another. It adds it together. I tried a few of myself kissing myself..etc.. but the effect is quite bleh. So you can skip that, no problem.

Action shot, I have yet to try that one out. But the maximum resolution is quite low, so skip that too.

Cartoon is quite cute! You can change almost everything to vector art! I have a bit of a cartoon mode demonstration in the video, so please layan and watch it too!

Here’s the smile detection technology I mentioned in the smile shot mode. I got a photo of myself and Chee Kiang at the Nuffnang blog awards and our smiles were actually detected! Damn cool right?!?

You then have scene modes.. which is like different hues… lightings…*insert camera jibberish*

More of the scene modes.

The last two. I have yet to try these out. IMHO, even in your normal Point-n-Shoot cameras, these scenes don’t do much for your photos. I just take everything in auto or manual mode.

Some settings that you can find within the camera application.

A little tip though. You may want to download some camera applications from the Android Market like the RetroCamera or FXCamera or something like that which is riding on the LOMO cam trend but it crashed my main camera a few times. I had to restart it a few times. So I think I am better off without those cool effects. Even if the effects are cool, the resolution is super poor. So…. yeah. Don’t bother.

The Video Camera

As we all know, and love, about the Samsung Galaxy S, is that it takes video in HIGH DEFINITION!

My damn tv doesn’t even have it yet, but my handphone already has it? Wtf?!

The video camera interface.

But it’s true. You can shoot videos in high definition (720p) and alternatively shoot in plain ol’ VGA mode which is great for your MMS videos.

But I can’t stand videos taken in VGA mode, i mean like why want to take any VIDEO at all with that kind of quality? I am always so annoyed when someone sends me some scandalous sex video and they are always, always, ALWAYS, shot in VGA mode. Can’t see nuts leh. Literally. It’s like rod…..then pixel. Like wtf!

So high definition is the way to go if you want the world to see everything.

But I am not advocating THAT okay, by everything I mean how green the grass are in the videos, how happy my boyfriend looked on his graduation day, how cute a little child is blowing bubbles from a bubble gun along Gurney Drive and all the sweet and innocent things in this world. *throws flowers and cotton candies everywhere*

La Galleria

Part 1 of viewing your media.

Part 2 of viewing your media. (this is actually a video clip of Glee’s Cover on Bad Romance..:D)

Part 3 of viewing your media.

All images saved in your phone can be found in the ‘gallery’ application. No matter where you save your photos on your sd card, it will be scavenged by some strange mechanism in the phone and be placed in the gallery for you.

Be it photos that you took with your camera, photos transferred from other devices via bluetooth (where can I get a bluetooth digital camera?! I long for the day~), print screens from your applications, photos saved from your computer..oh the list is endless.

A cool effect you can do with the gallery is that the albums tilt this way and that way when you move your phone about. I suppose the accelerometer is responsible for this.

You’ll see this when you click on the photo album. Oh, you can even see videos, yeah I forgot to mention that. By clicking on any individual picture, you’ll have the option to immediately upload it to any social media network you want, email it to anybody you want… I have mentioned all this in the previous post.

The Video Player

Now, the video player is a serious WIN on the Samsung Galaxy S.

The interface could be better lah.

But when the quality is nothing short of stunning, everything else just falls into place. This proved to be a good procrastination tool during my study week. *guilty*

Next, we have youtube! Compared to the youtube application on my Sony Ericsson Satio, this youtube application wins hands down because you have the option of playing it in high quality! After opting for high quality, videos are really nice and clear!

The interface is sleek.

Say hello to Nigahiga in low quality!

So much more handsome in high quality right?

Another way to watch video is via your browser.

So, you can only watch Xiaxue’s videos via the clicknetwork site. Quite mafan to find on youtube, don’t know why. I don’t think it’s on youtube anymore, or is it? I think she’s using vimeo or something like that.

So when you click on a video, this is what you will see.

Clicking on ‘Internet’ will initiate a download. Something like what your Realplayer can do to flv files.

If you click on video player, you can stream the video! Quality looks good, doesn’t it?

Looks a bit blur here, but it’s really clear.

The Music Player

Watch the video first!

Love..love..love..<3 I really like the music player. You know what’s the best part about this whole arrangement?

There’s a slot to insert your microSD and up to 32gb too! So, think about it. How about I slot in like 32gb worth of videos AND songs on top of the 16gbs already built into the phone? Too awesome right!! *squeals*

Didn’t manage to get the album art in. Not sure how. But here’s the list of songs I have on anyway.

*clears throat* Bathroomdiva is my syok sendiri name when I record myself singing my favourite song of the moment on Garageband. Oh right, by flipping the phone to its side, your playlist will look like that. Like a digital jukebox. The records swivel around as you choose a song.

The player interface.

You can change the sound quality too! Wide is really loud!

Some of the other things that you can tweak within the music player.

With the visualisation checked, you can have some of this.

FM Radio

Please watch the video!

The FM Radio, like all your FM radios on your phones would need you to plug your earphones in.

Not much photos, but you can check out the video. It is slightly more detailed. Scans all the available radio channels and lists it out for you. I thought that was pretty cool!

Aldiko eBook Reader

See the Aldiko eBook in action!

I’ve never had an eBook reader so this was rather new to me!

One of the reasons why I was drawn to the iPad was because I could read pdf journals with ease and also read books in a comfortable way, digitally!

You can even see the cover of the book and judge it.

The words are well sized. You can increase the fonts etc etc. About pdfs, you can download the Adobe Reader application and see your pdfs there. Very smooth, hardly laggy at all!

Ahh, we have come to the end of another review post. Sorry lah my blog is a little commercialized these days. Tahan lah k? Will write emo posts about graduating (hopefully. If cannot, will write emo posts about staying back for another year. Touch all the wood around you for me please.)

So here are some photos and videos that I have taken recently with the Samsung Galaxy S. Enjoy!

Some videos first:

A video of Chee Kiang going up to get his scroll!

Getting Chee Kiang and Adeline to say a little something about graduating!

A rusty drain pipe near where I had my dinner a few evenings ago.

I like photographing this kind of weed.

In vignette effect!

Vignette again! <3

Photo of Chee Kiang’s messy apartment.

With his mortar board that he did not quite get the hang of.

Edited this photo with the Android Photoshop Mobile application. Can do quite a lot of things with it!

The view from Chee Kiang’s kitchen.

My darling boy graduated as a pharmacist from NUS! What I did was risky… but it was a very important day and I had to be there even though I had another exam to sit for on Monday. I flew back to Penang (where I parked my car, I love how convenient flying from Penang airport has become) on Sunday and was studying again by 2pm, gearing up for my second last exam.

While walking around the shopping mall near his place, saw these colourful waterbottles. So cute somemore as they are very tiny. For babies I think! This is taken with the ‘beauty mode’. See the soft glow? <3

Chee Kiang’s classy room. *jelez*

If you managed to read up to here, drop a comment lah!

I used to wonder if humans in the past knew that there would come a day where the one thing that they need almost as much as food, water and oxygen would be the MOBILE PHONE.

Ever felt like you lost an appendage when you forgot to bring your phone out for the day?

I know I have.

From this revelation, I had wondered what would be the next big thing that people could not possibly live without! I think facebook comes pretty close to becoming a necessity these days.

The Samsung Galaxy S integrates all my social media needs extremely well! Almost every single thing in the phone comes with an ability to share on Facebook, Twitter and any other applications that you have downloaded like WordPress, Flickr, Picasa..etc.

Do have a look at the three videos below (split up into three parts because the file was too big for lousy youtube!) for a tour of the social media tools available on the Samsung Galaxy S! At the same time you can see how fast you can switch between screens. I really love the touchscreen, it’s extremely responsive. Granted, it responds mostly to the pads of your fingers, much like the iPhone. With my Satio, I grew accustomed to using my nails to tap. Not sure how they differ, technically, but oh well. Human beings are able to adapt to any strange new conditions.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The photos below might be similar to the video but you know, there are always those of you who are too lazy to click on videos! (Shame on you! All my effort to record, delete, edit, upload..ughh)

Since I have not done much of a tour around the interface, here’s the draggable notification bar. It has the wifi, bluetooth, silent and vibration options at the touch of a button. When a new email comes in, it will appear as a tiny logo at the upper left hand corner. If it’s a facebook notification, there’ll be the facebook logo instead and if it’s a new mention from twitter, then a little bird sits at the upper corner there. Just drag the bar down to access your latest email/message! I LOVE IT!

Boo. I’m unpopular like that. T_T

Alternatively, with the always-reliable options button on the lower left hand corner of the phone, away from the SUPER AMOLED (yeap just have to say it in caps) screen would allow you to also check your notifications (same functions) and edit your apps, search for something within your phone, change your wallpaper and go straight into settings. Side track: Going into settings to tweak your phone to function the way you want it is very much hassle-free. Doesn’t induce any headaches at all!

I have Facebook for Android installed but IMHO the interface is ugly like shit. I mean hellooo.. where’s the heart in this? In my old Xpera X1, there was a facebook app that opens to reveal floating profile pics in tiny balls, clumping together and bouncing off each other softly, slowly, sort of in a Brownian motion and almost like they belong in Avatar, you know those floating dandelions that is the life of the blue people yada yada yada – in short, it was very nice. But what sucked about that app was that it can take forever to open. Sometimes never.

So…. ugly application, fast loading time. Okay lah. Can lah.

It loads photos from my albums pretty fast too.

Alas I still prefer to use Facebook Mobile. The fonts are prettier on the android phone!

The touch site loads really fast too. The Samsung Galaxy S has a pretty awesome browser. Is it javascript when you have notifications popping up and stuff? If so, then well, the javascript thingamajig on this phone out performs any browsers that I havee ever used before. Even the Opera Mobile which I have tried on WinMo and Symbian. Meh. Doesn’t cut it for me.

And we have the Full Site! Somehow the full site disappeared from my Satio after a month or two. God knows where it went to. Even when I could somehow access it, I can’t tag people. It’s so important to tag people in photos you know! What’s the point of going mobile when you have to go home and turn your computer on just to tag some faces? Boooo.

But the browser on this one allows me to load the full site completely AND tag photos immediately. HEARTS!!

It does however freeze up when I try to tag people within wall posts or status updates. Can’t have everything. Sigh.

Zooming in at a rather comfortable magnification level with double taps.

Back to the facebook app, the profile page is quite okay! Can even upload photos immediately. Click on the camera icon to either snap a picture or upload something from the gallery.

Don’t you just love the media interface? *Drool*

As you can see from some of my pictures from within the phone, I have become quite a fan of the phone camera’s vignette function.

So let’s say we want to upload this emo shot of a rainy day, as seen through my side view mirror.

See the options you have? I am like literally spoilt with choices!! In my old phone, I forgave it for all its shortcomings because it was touted as the best cameraphone available in the market. I had to email all my photos to my facebook mobile email address or twitpic email address, but that was okay. It was fine. BUT NOW, now.. I have all these options. How can life ever be the same again!?

After choosing, say, facebook, this is the screen you’ll see immediately. Nifty huh?

Or wordpress, instant blogging! The tiny icon you see at the bottom of the ‘add’ button would be the photograph that we would be adding to your wordpress blog. I have yet to find out if I can put in more photos at a go.

And to twitter…! It generates a twitpic.com address for you. You have to select the option of either using twitpic, yfrog or tweetphoto when tweaking with your twitter application’s settings.

Now, a quick look at twitter. I was initially using Twitter for Android but since it sucks some serious balls by not having the option of replying all, I jumped onto the bandwagon which was Touiteur, which is appararently pronounced as Twitter in French. *shrugs*

The Twitter for Android application however does send notifications faster than this Touiteur and Touiteur takes quite a while to load. But it has very good features!

By clicking on a random tweet, this is what you’ll see.

You have the option of replying to everyone or be selective with your replies too.

Not quite a good example of links, but clicking on any of the twitter usernames will bring you to their profiles. If there’s a url within that particular tweet, it will appear here as an option for you to click on.

There is a bar at the top for you to drag down if you wanna tweet something or attach a photo or share a website.

Oh look I have an email! *feels popular*

YAYY.

On the second page of my homescreen, I have this thing called Feeds and Updates. I was messing about with the phone, removed the Daily Briefing thingie where there’s a weather report on my area (sungai petani – 5 years here, I should know the weather by hard now. It never changes much.) and accidentally activated this Feeds and Updates thingie. I initially thought it was the social hub thingie because my friends’ tweets and facebook updates are published in a steady stream.

I’ve still yet to figure out how to access the social hub like how it is advertised on the samsung website. By clicking on Facebook and twitter, I’m brought to the mobile versions of both my accounts.

Here’s a pre-installed application that I tend to use a lot. Since I’m too lazy to open my facebook or twitter app, the Write and Go application is really useful!

It looks like some notepad but it is more than that.

Here’s a short demo of the swype keyboard. I wanna do a video blog and a post on the swype function later!! Not yet though. Just some teaser here first.

I don’t know la, just simply typing.

Satisfied with your witty status/tweet, you hit “Update Status” and this pops up. Check those that you want updated. Convenient right?!!

Though it’s my study week but I still have to come in for a few more clinical sessions to issue a crown and a cast partial denture to two of my patients. Some of my classmates were hovering around my phone because they have seen me raving about it on facebook far too much that they decided to punish me by kidnapping my phone. They had a good time playing some puzzle game where you have to fit blocks in together to match a certain number or something. Most of the boys were very impressed with the Swype keyboard. It is seriously a breakthrough in technology! I also showed them the Google Sky application, which is really beautiful. I’ll show it here later. Need to study for two more exam components in the coming week. Sigh. So, will have to take things slow.

All right, now that I’m done raving about the integration of social media tools on the Samsung Galaxy S, here are the photos I have taken with the phone since my last review:

Vignette in Mono colour. These are decodens, which are available on The Sticker Monster (for those who are visiting for the first time, it is my blog shop where I sell stickers, bling blings and decoden. Basically scrapbooking materials and cute things girls use to decorate their phones) and  I was half way packing an order for a customer and thought, “Hey, wouldn’t it make a lovely picture!” It sure as hell did!

I think this is prettier. Vignette in Warm tones.

My outdated Santa Claus decoration which glitters and swings when I take sharp corners. <3

Taken with Sush who came up to Penang to visit her family. This was in Top Shop, Gurney Plaza and apparently she is not used to seeing such big denominations as the prices in Pounds don’t look that daunting.

Back in Sungai Petani, Kedah, a meh sunset at the traffic lights.

Vignette in normal mode. That’s Brenda!

Thank god my crown is ready!! My patient would be very upset if her crown was not ready in time. Happy to report that she was very pleased with the colour of the tooth as it matched her adjacent teeth very well!

These are articulators. We use it to replicate the bite of the patient so that we can set the false teeth accurately when making dentures.

A view from the dental technology lab.

That’s Cze-Yin checking on some of her lab work.

Me, in full dental regalia presenting to you an empty dental chair in our polyclinic. We have 36 bays there and patients come from all over for the free dental treatments at our dental hospital.

Cze-Yin looking so decent.

Got bored while waiting for my patient to come. This is Vignette in Mono.

You get to do some comparison. Vignette in warm mode.

Vignette in cool mode.

Vignette in normal mode.

It’s quite cold here in Sungai Petani these days with the constant rain. I love it when the mist envelopes the surrounding hills behind my university.

Another wet day at AIMST.

Just a random shot. Yeap, I bought a car charger for the phone.

I meant to take a picture of my dinner which was Chicken Cordon Bleu at Secret Recipe..

Artsy fartsy shot of Brenda’s arm and what’s left of her Tom Yam Kung.

Porridge at my favourite cafe near my rented house here in Kedah! Century egg porridge with bits of oysters, spring onions and chicken slices. DELISH!

Another day at the clinics. Sigh. Last day in fact. My patient’s cast partial dentures are ready. Yay.

Hurriedly flagged everyone over from all corners of the clinic to pose for this photo. For most of us, (unless the poor sod has to come in tomorrow to continue with some left over treatment, sucks to be him/her) it was our last day in the clinics, tying up loose ends. In the month before our study week, we were rushing against time to fill up our quotas and so here we are, on a Thursday, when we should be at home sleeping studying, issuing our finished bridges, crowns, cast partial dentures, acrylic partial dentures, completing the final stages of our root canal treatments etc.

Came home at 4 something to study some orthodontics before dinner and felt quite down (no reason, I think I might have bipolar disorder), out came the chocolates of hypocrisy to cheer me up:D

Testing out the so called Beauty function on the camera. It makes your skin looks softer and I think it gives a teeny weeny bit of gaussian blur to the picture. I am not being perasan about the Beauty function k. I also wish it wasn’t called beauty. I had some battering to my self esteem the day before. Anyone heard of this stupid forum called my kopitiam or summat? They took my creating fake double eyelids post and laughed at my photos. Oh well. Not like it’s the first time it has happened for that post. Some forums in other countries have expressed horror at how I ‘mutilate’ my eyelids to make them appear to be double eyelids, but it’s really not a big deal. I didn’t even bother because I thought it was in a country far far away, it won’t matter. But then when it’s somewhere closer to home, I had to do something. I’ve made that post private already… I won’t allow my reputation to be ruined in the hands of stupid shallow males who type with intentional spelling errors only to get hurt again. Especially when my concentration should be elsewhere like exams…and.. eheh, reviewing a phone…….. among other things.

If you must know, yes, I did stand up for myself by telling them that I was insulted etc. The people at the forum didn’t believe it was me. Some even asked me to fuck off. Luckily the moderator was kind enough to remove my link and my photos from that particular thread. The forum makes very mean comments regarding everything else under the sun. For some dark humour that does not involve you, I guess it makes for great entertainment.

EH WAIT. This is supposed to be a Samsung Galaxy S review!! Sorry, sorry. Back to the phone.

A picture of Lie Yuen’s dinner. Banana Leaf Set! Vegetarian somemore!

My sinful Briyani Chicken dinner set. Mmmm!

Oh and here’s a HD video treat!

A tiny tour around my dental tech lab at uni:

That’s all for the second part of my Samsung Galaxy S Maxis 10 review. More to come!

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One was when Kel Li was asking about ulcers and after giving her some *cough* expert advice *cough*, that particular question came out for my final exams the following day!!

And another one was when I saw a tweet about a bloggers’ phone review program organized by Maxis. Bloggers/twitter users were invited to send in audition videos to convince the good people at Maxis why they should be chosen to review the latest Android phone to join the Maxis family – THE SAMSUNG GALAXY S! It retails at RM2599 but if you get a contract with Maxis, you save RM900 and only pay RM1699. More details can be found here.

Here’s my audition video:

I was never a huge fan of Samsung. If you’re a tv, you’re a tv. Like for LG, if you’re a refrigerator, you’re a refrigerator. So when they branched out to the mobile phone market, I was a little wary.

But after spending two days with the phone, I just.can’t.seem.to.put.it.down!!!

My mum and brother (who found the office to collect the phone from, on google maps, no less) were kind enough to drive down to Damansara to get the phone for me as I am still stuck in Sungai Petani, trying to wrap up my final exams. I have 10 days in between my theory paper and my ..er.. something like a practical paper, so I pretty much have some time on my hands to explore this gorgeous Android phone thoroughly!

10 participants have been chosen and the review program will last for two weeks, so hopefully I can keep up with Maxis’ expectations and do a good job with the reviews.

The Samsung Galaxy S is packed away in a classy black box, totally befitting of its nature.

The Samsung Galaxy S as you probably know already, is running on the Android platform. The Android platform was created by Google and have been adopted by more recent smartphones. Like the HTC Desire and the Xperia 10 are both running on the android platform.

I’ve only ever used the Sony Ericsson Experia which was running on Windows Mobile (which I can’t stand. It can’t be customized to my liking AT ALL) and when I got my Sony Ericsson Satio, the symbian platform. The symbian platform is mostly associated with Nokia phones, don’t know why Sony so itchy backside go and use symbian. As a result, there were many many many applications that I could not use because it was a Sony and most Symbian apps are made for Nokia.

Using these two platforms only made me hungry for all those lovely applications that my smartphone toting friends have been raving about. “Did you know that you can play Cooking Mama on the iPhone?” “OMG my phone can detect the nearest speedtraps!!” “Let me check-in at this joint first.” Gahhh.. I wanted in on it too.

Enter the Android Market.

The android market is relatively newer than the itunes store but the list of free applications are ENDLESS. Can’t stop scrolling one.

Indirectly camwhoring with the Samsung Galaxy S prior to my unboxing video. I tell you, my unboxing video is super fail. I totally forgot to record the part where I lift the lid of the box up. :\

Unboxing Video FAIL and a short introduction on the Samsung Galaxy S:

The phone settled cozily in its padded packaging.

Inside the box are the usuals – phone charger, earphones, usb cable, battery pack, manuals and warranty forms.

There’s a sticker on the front of the phone bragging about its awesome awesome features!

Camwhoring with the Samsung Galaxy S before turning it on for the first tieme!

This was the moment when I fell in love with the Super AMOLED screen. I finally found the power button and the gorgeous screen came to life.

The photo does the phone no justice as the glow just emanated from the phone, spilling out within that small space in my dark hotel room.

One thing to really really love about the phone is how easily it downloads the internet settings for you upon insertion of the SIM card.

My experiences with my previous two smartphones made the internet settings thingie quite a hassle, to the point that I even fear resetting my phone to factory settings.

After many many research and consideration, I have decided that it would be most cost efficient to have two separate sim cards on two different phones.

I have been using the Maxis Value Plus 80 plan for a couple of years now. Using data on a normal talk plan can be very hefty. Even with the bundled data packages available, I don’t find them to be very cost worthy.

I was ecstatic when I managed to get the Maxis Broadband Package for Rm48! I already had my own USB modem, so I just took the sim card and stuck it in my smart phone. When I am away from my streamyx connection and would love to kill time with my laptop, I’ll just stick the simcard into the USB modem and voila, instant high speed internet! (as I am on broadband)

One thing I have never been sure about is if there are any differences between the speeds of both broadband and normal talk plan data speeds. My Maxis broadband can be faster than my streamyx connection at times.

ANYWAY, back to the Samsung Galaxy S.

When I stuck my maxis broadband SIM card into the phone, the settings just fell into place immediately at the click of a button. No username asked, no passwords, no need to go into the settings etc. They then prompted me to add my google account and after that I was signed in to all my google stuff!!

Here’s the right side of the phone where the power button is located. (couldn’t find it at first)

The back of the phone, with its 5.0mp camera and the speaker. I’ve read some reviews about how they would rather the phone have a more matt finishing than its current plasticky back but I think with it being plastic, scratches will be less. It looks rather promising in the scratch resistant department.

To the left of the phone would be the volume control which doubles as your camera ..er.. zoomer.

At the top of the phone would be the 3.5mm jack and the USB port.

I like the fact that you have to slide the entire screen down to unlock it. Locking the phone is done by pressing once on the power button.

There is a home button (too dark, cannot see, but I assure you, it’s there), a left button to change settings for applications and etc, a right button to go back, back, back.

As I have mentioned in the video, the most awesome technology to come from the Samsung Galaxy S would be the Swype keyboard. The idea is to trace the alphabets of a word that you wanna write, and tada, it appears in your message/tweet/status/email whatever that you’re writing. I’ll do another detail on the Swype function over the next few days!

The best thing about it is that it doesn’t even have to be alphabets specific. More on that later.

Just a sneak peek into one of the apps… I love it that I can customize my MSN! Ahhh! It’s almost as pink as my adium contact list.

Oh, right. Here’s a photo of the phone without the battery cover. There’s a slot to insert a microSD and the phone itself already has an internal storage space of 16gb. So that’s a whole lot to go before cranking up the old lelong.com.my or forum.lowyat.com.

Before I end my introductory post on the Samsung Galaxy S, here are some random photos and HD videos taken with my latest baby (for two weeks though, sigh):

At Kek Lok Si

Along Gurney Drive

My blinged up car keys shimmering under the lights at Kenny Rogers while waiting for Lie Yuen’s flight to touchdown at the Penang Airport.

Just checking out how the camera fares when capturing my laptop screen.

My favourite shot!! The food seem to have an ethereal glow about them.

Told Mun Teng on gTalk that I was at Kek Lok Si and if she wanted me to tell Guan Yin anything, complete with photos and all.

Sorry lah I can’t get over my beautiful car keys.

Yea I know I look quite messy here. I was testing the front-facing camera. Not too bad eh?

With so much noise in the morning though. Yeap, having a smartphone means you don’t have to roll out of bed to check your email, facebook and twitter.

With the normal 5.0mp camera. My exposure was set too low actually, but it would really be nice if there was a flash.

Bwahahhaa… slapped on some make-up before doing the video above. Pai seh, pai seh.

Was looking around my room for random things to snap, so here you go!

I’ll be back with more videos and blog posts about the Samsung Galaxy S!

In the mean time, find these other users on twitter to follow their journey with the Samsung Galaxy S:
@ariffshah @Marc_ky @tekong @galvintan @runningandrew @atreyustrange @sapiensbryan @minishorts @keemanxp

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I am quite blessed because I have never experienced any major acne problems but I have never been particularly happy with my lack of a glow. I long to be one of those girls who look just a little pink in the face, a natural blush. I’ve been to a few beauticians and every time I get my skin assessed, I would be told that my skin is actually very dry and that my pores are big. Big pores run in my family and when I apply my foundation, it can be a little gross up close because tiny little opaque dots can be seen where the foundation is more concentrated. I have some blackheads splattered across my T-zone too and back in A-levels, I would squirt out whiteheads from my nose to gross Chien out. She calls it my Medusa nose.

So yes, as you probably expect, this is a product review! One that I am very very happy to do because I got free products from Cellnique to try!! Yay!! I even have some 50 samples to give away. Scroll all the way down for details – read the post first la though, please.

I have long heard of the brand from my friends who frequent beauticians and also my mum who advocates Cellnique. My brother who had a little bit of an acne problem going on a couple of years back, had his skin all cleared up after a few treatments. And what with his one year in the Uk, sure damn nice lah his skin. *jealous*

Selina from Cellnique has approached me with a range of products from B•liv by Cellnique that would suit my skin condition. B•liv was originally known as ‘Cellnique Pro Series’ but it has been rebranded to keep up with young people like… ahem, us. To..ahem, match our on-the-go, stylish and confident lifestyle. I know some days I might think I’m a little too old for certain things but sometimes when you have nice products to try out, you’ll take pride being in the young adults age group. Very happy actually to be on the nubile side of my 20s.

Myself and my exciting box of beauty products from B•liv Cellnique!

Due to my very very packed schedule attempting to finish up with my final year clinical management report and clinic quotas in the past few weeks (tears were shed, hairs were pulled out, nightmares were dreamed, weight was lost (YAY), heart attacks given by ffk patients etc), I finally had time to do the review. Despite my heavy schedule, I was using the products everyday diligently. In all honestly, I have very poor compliance with beauty products. I buy them, use it once or twice and forget about it. But since I had to do a review, I kept at the regime.

I never really believed that beauty products can do wonders for me (sort of jaded about myself already) but even before doing the review or telling anyone that I was using a new range of products, I have been getting compliments on my skin! True story!! I was also pleasantly surprised because no one ever told me that I looked radiant before, so I guess it is really happening now!

Here’s a before photo taken during my ADSALympics event, an annual sports week at my dental faculty that drains us of all energy and soul.

I know there’s no obvious flaws (skin I mean, the rest you just pretend you never notice anything, don’t have to make it obvious ya) but you can see I’m not actually glowing. That’s the reflection of the sun. I just look…….yellow.

One more artsy shot with my camwhoring shadow behind me.

So here’s what was inside the goodie box:

L-r: Shrink and Tighten, Shrink and Tighten + and Off With Those Heads

L-r: Leach Me, A sample of Got Me Covered

Off With Those Heads is to do away with the blackheads and whiteheads.

It is a sebum gel that you can spread across your T-zone, massaging it into your skin until the wet feeling is gone. The gel just absorbs into your skin! It also feels fresh because there is a nice minty smell.

According to the description given, your clogged pores get soften thus extractions of the blackheads become easier. WIth the tea tree oil and witch hazel extract, they keep acne and comedones at bay plus aloe vera to keep the skin hydrated.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take any before and after photos of my blackheads. I know I should have..sigh. I do think that my blackheads are getting less.. at least new ones don’t crop up. I just need to get some extractions done on the existing ones now that they are easier to remove.

For my craters, we have Shrink and Tighten which is to be used together with Shrink and Tighten +. The consistency is more fluid than Off With Those Heads with a slight yellow tinge to the gel .the smell is also more fruity than Off With Those Heads!

I have to say I am quite impressed with its functions. Shrink and Tighten pump collagen into your open pores to seal it, sort of a barrier protection from future big pores! It has Vitamin B3 which helps to hydrate the skin, Vitamin C for healing and as an antioxidant and Oleanolic Acid which has anti-inflammatory properties.

Shrink and Tighten + is the one to thank to give your skin that glow you’ll get after using these products, imho.

Fresh from the bottle, the formula is quite oily and when you rub it all over your face, you might feel a little irritated at first because you’ll be like, “Great, just what I need. More grease on my face, ughh.” But if you keep rubbing, rubbing and rubbing it in, you’ll realize that it gets absorbed into your skin leaving your skin to feel supple and hydrated without any greasy feeling at all! Even your fingers don’t feel greasy, just moisturized! z

Use it at night so that collagen production can work overtime and help to reduce those pores. The L-ascorbic acid helps with skin lightening, Witch Hazel extract for prevention of acne and comedones and Vitamin B5 for hydration.

See how oily it looks in the bottle?

About two weeks into using the product. At the sides of my nose, it is quite ugly lah with all the pores coalescing together forming unsightly holes. Applying foundation to the sides of my nose can be quite a bitch.

About a month after using. It looks smoother over all! No one’s gonna stretch the sides of my nose when they see me right. So, this is good enough for a clear base to put your make-up. Even the pores look more evened out.

Then we have Leach Me which is a moisturizing mask that does deep moisturizing, brightening and age preventing. Brace yourself ya, I’m gonna throw some complicated chemical names at you.

Sodium 1-Pyrollidonecarboxylate helps with water retention, it helps the skin to better hold moisture. Acetyl Hexapeptide – 8 is for reducing wrinkles (score!!), Acerola Fruit extract to prevent aging and is used as an antioxidant and other fruit acids complex which are used for exfoliation, skin hydrating and help simulate new cell regeneration.

The entire packet is soaked with the formula. Upon removing the mask, it is actually dripping with the formula!

As you can see, it is very very very wet. Formula was dribbling down my chin which I rubbed into my neck. No use having a young face and a wrinkly old neck right? So better to make the most out of it! The mask can be used once or twice a week.

Cannot smile when having the mask on or else formula will get into my mouth!

Got Me Covered is a sunblock + foundation formula for everyday use. It has a nice sheen to it upon applying, nothing too obvious. Sometimes foundation makes us look overly made up for our day-to-day activities, so this is ideal and it also allows the skin to breathe properly.

It comes with UV protector which helps in anti-aging, used as an anti-oxidant and suncreen. Salicylic Acid  helps with exfoliation and the formula has a natural foundation colour that matches your skin tone.

The thin sheen that I was talking about. Nothing too cakey.

After applying the foundation. Looks very natural right?

So that pretty much sums up my experience with B•liv after using it for one whole month!

I’m not tooting my own horn, but the pink glow that I have always wanted is there!!

A happier photo to show off the pinkness on the apples of the cheek!

To further accentuate the glow.

Cellnique has been so kind to offer 50 free samples of Off With Those Heads! So all you blackhead clogged girls (and boys!) can send your full name and mailing address to fbfreesample@blivskin.com with the subject “jayelleenelial.com“. Be quick though, the offer ends 1 week from now! This means…you have until 19th of June 2010! Hurry!

If you are keen to buy their products, head on over to  the B•liv by Cellnique website! Should your purchases be above USD60, you can opt for their free exclusive B•liv recycle bag instead of the usual packaging box. Head on over to their microsite, Cellnique Earth Campaign to support their No Paper. No Bag initiative!

As if trying to get a place in an Australian university wasn’t hard enough, students then would have to think long and hard about places to stay and if those places met their budget or not. Most of these students were leaving the country and their parents for the first time in their lives! Not every parent is rich enough to accompany their child on their first big adventure and thus the student is thrown into the wilderness that is Australia to fend for him/herself in looking for an accommodation and basically understanding how the city works. I’ve never heard of trams until Abby told me about how she takes the tram to Melbourne Uni every other day. 

It’s always better if there’s already a local who knows what you’re coming in for and can prepare you for all these formalities and details. A friend of mine in Australia (actually Amanda’s boyfriend, Josh whom I have yet to meet) came up with this ingenious idea with his partners to aid such students. They understand that when one moves to a whole new world, it can get pretty stressful so they will be there to help you iron out the kinks!

According to them it takes about 2-3 weeks for a student to find a place to stay in Australia (if you did not opt for the super expensive campus accommodation) and so those couple of weeks could be put to better use with their help. Like going on a longer vacation before you start that all important first year at uni! Better to spend more time with your parents too as half of you will probably not stay at home permanently anymore from then on. 

Here is their list of services
• Location of rental property
• Application for rental property
• Securing of rental property
• Furniture procurement
• Limo pick up service from airport
• Connection of utilities
• Peace of mind 

Yeah! Even a limo pick up service from the airport! I mean it’s no Thailand, but still, no worries about getting kidnapped by any conmen upon your arrival down under. 

Picture from one of their recent roadshows.

If there are any parents or students out there up to their heads in Australian uni applications or even expatriates hoping to start a new life, do check out Ease Abroad!

I know I wouldn’t mind paying a small fee if it can sort out all the headaches for me and even helping me to secure better deals to fit my (would have been) poor student budget.

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As I have mentioned before, nothing beats good ol’ smsing with your fingers on an old school dial pad. This way, I can easily upload anything to my facebook be it notes or statuses, even while I’m driving. Shhh.

Oh, and if you wanna be stalking that certain someone, you can even subscribe to his or her updates! Totally convenient way of stalking, no need to be googling them or refreshing their facebook profiles to see what’s going on in their lives that you are not a part of. You now have the liberty to live your own life too! This also applies to parents who want to keep an eye on their wild children.  

I don’t know about you but whenever I see that there’s a new notification on the lower right hand corner of my facebook page, I feel happy and immediately click it. So I am definitely one to enjoy the notifications that are sent straight to my phone! Also, I get to be the first to tell my friends who is now in a relationship/who just broke up. No more “Yah I saw it on Facebook” because they didn’t have time to go home to their browsers! Ne ne ni bu bu. 

Channel X Unlimited Facebook via SMS is totally perfect for the kepochi me.

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We would line up in the canteen and wait patiently as the Cikgu calls out your name from the sticker which they stuck onto the back of your phone. We’d grab it with two hands like hungry deprived children in poverty stricken nations and fumble as we plug our chargers into it. Some girls fought over the power socket but savvy people like yours truly (ahem) bought a multiple power sockets thingie to share with the other girls. I had every right to ALWAYS have one socket to myself because I was the one who bought it.

The phones were our only source to the outside world. My friends would sms me to enquire if I was still alive, my family would call me to reassure me that three months would be over soon enough and I would talk to Chee Kiang until late at night asking him how he survived his national service a year ago, sitting next to the charger looking out at the dark dorm room which I shared with 24 girls. No one spoke English by the way, all the more reason I was depressed.

What I would GIVE to have the internet with me, I thought. Blogging was at its prime at that time in 2005. But this was the era BEFORE Facebook. I did actually keep a journal with me and sent entries home for my brother to upload for me onto my blog.

But just imagine if I had Facebook that time AND the Channel X Unlimited Facebook Via Sms I’d be able to tell the world how sad I was and all the stupid things I saw happening around me. I mean National Service did get better but there were so many things that I just *had* to tell the world immediately. With Channel X Unlimited Facebook Via SMS, I could even get the notifications back to me immediately.

Like say if I saw my Cikgu punish two boys found smoking in the toilet with the “Push Ups Tahan” (to be in push up position but to hold it midway for as long as the Cikgu wanted them to), it’d be awesome if I could update my FB status straight away. Why why didn’t Channel X Unlimited Facebook Via SMS come earlier?

Hopefully the kids these days at National Service can utilize this awesome service. Only RM1 per week for unlimited FB usage. Even the burger at the burger stall in NS costs more than that. Burger Special was RM2 I remember! So Burger Special or to whine to your friends whenever and wherever? Your choice!

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I love the Xpax’s envelope. Feels very solid.

All I had to do was type ‘F’ and send it to 32665 and there it was, one whole week worth of Facebooking right from my mobile phone only for RM1 a week. 

Sending out my virgin FB status update! It appears immediately. Like faster than I can check my profile.

And so I wanted to send a message to someone who would layan me… obviously I chose Chee Kiang.

To leave a wall post, just type “wall (FB username) and then your message.

I typed Lam Chee Kiang, but the Xpax Facebook SMS was smart enough to detect that I’ve got a few Lams in my list.

My guilty pleasure is to constantly check for notifications. And these get sent RIGHT to your phone for FREE! So when I turned my phone on, the notifications were pouring in. 

Another one of my notifications. It even updates you about photo comments, messages to your inbox, notes and so forth. 

Aside from receiving, you can also write on your friends’ walls, poke them, write notes, send messages, request for a certain profile, add friends and more. 

Here’s an example of the statuses I updated:

If you’re keen to test it out yourself, I highly recommend it. Go check it out!

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