I went to the Apple Store in the morning just to look at the crowd in front of the store. As expected there were plenty of people queuing up waiting for the store to be opened. Since it was a working day, I could not join the people queuing up to collect the iPhone 4.

People waiting eagerly to enter the store

After work, I had a quick dinner and visited the Apple Store to check out the iPhone 4. There were plenty of demo units for customers to try out. First impression was that the 3.5″ retina display is really amazing. The clarity is superb thanks to the 960 x 640 pixels display. It feels more solid than the 3GS in my hand. iOS 4 seems great with iBook and multitasking ability.

I spent about half an hour checking out the new features and admiring the new design of the phone. I tested most of the features like FaceTime, 5M camera and iBooks. Everything loads quite instantly without any noticeable lag. It must be the A4 processor doing the job very well.

Well, I wish I can write more but unfortunately time does not permit me to do so. I have to rest early. Check out the picture taken by the iPhone 4 (sent via Email)!

Apple iPhone 4

Apple iPhone 4

Retina Display

It's thin!

Photo captured by iPhone 4

I reserved one!

Chinese Characters Support in Web

Who would need this guide?
If you bought your phone from oversea (countries such as United Kingdom or United States) or you bought an AP-set phone, then most probably your phone is not running on APAC firmware. You will notice it when Chinese characters are displayed as “squares” on your phone.

What if I need both read and write Chinese characters support?
The easiest solution is to change the product code of your phone to APAC code and then update it with Nokia Software Updater (NSU). This will trick NSU that your phone is from APAC region and it will install the firmware with Chinese language support into your phone. After the firmware update/reinstall, your phone will support Chinese language natively.

However, by changing the product code you void the warranty of your phone. Personally I am not sure how true this is but if Nokia finds out you have changed your product code before (even if you change back to the original code after updating with NSU) you will still lose the warranty.

How do I do it?
Goal: You need to add 4 files (for my case: S60SNR.TTF, S60SSB.TTF, S60TSB.TTF and S60ZDIGI.TTF) to resource\Fonts folder in your phone memory, mass storage OR memory card. The 4 files are identical, just with different file names.

1. Download the necessary files here. (I will remove this link if I am not supposed to share these files.)

2. Connect your phone to the computer via USB in Mass Storage mode or use a card reader.

3. Extract the 4 files to “E:\resource\Fonts”, where E is the drive letter of the memory card. You might need to create a new folder named “Fonts” under “resources” if you can’t find it. Beware that the file name should be “Fonts” and not “font”.

I copied them to C:\ instead of E:\

4. Now, unplug the phone from computer.

5. Then, reboot the phone and your phone can now display Chinese characters.

First thing you will notice is the system font of your phone has changed. The Chinese font is less bold compared to the font in EURO firmwares.

Thick versus thinner font

Chinese Characters in Music Player

Chinese Characters in the Homescreen

Will it slow down my phone?
You will notice your phone is slowed down by half a second if the font files are stored in the memory card. Hence, I copied the files to the internal memory of the phone instead. However, you must have write permission to your C:\. (Not part of this tutorial!)

What if my phone still display “squares”?
- Make sure that you have followed the steps above correctly.
- Your phone might be using different file names for fonts. Use a file manager such as Xplore to access to Z:\resource\Fonts. Rename the files in E:\resource\Fonts to match the file names in Z:\.

Note: Do it at your own risk. I take no responsibility for data lost or phone crash during the process.

First of all, I am all good and healthy. Thanks to whoever that is concerned about me. =D Currently I am in the mid of exam period. My last paper falls on the 1st of June and I will be ‘flying’ back to Malaysia a few days after that. If you look at the calender it is actually less than two weeks away. I am really looking forward to meet my family members and fellow friends in Malaysia. =D

So hot!

The weather in the UK is getting warmer from day to day. The highest temperature used to be about 10+ degree celsius last month but it is now 20+. Frankly, it is very hot in the afternoon. (I think I am too used to the cold weather. =/) Most people in the street are wearing short sleeves and short trousers. However the temperature drops below 10 degree celsius at night.

Day time

At the same time, the daylight is getting longer too. The sky only gets dark at 10pm and sunrise is at 4am. Some of my friends are not used to seeing bright sky at 9pm. Neither do I. =/

Can’t remember if it was 10 or 11pm

I have been a member of the Newcastle Malaysian Society since I came here. I participated actively in almost all the activities like Deeparaya celebrations, Nottingham Games, Malaysian Night and the weekly badminton sessions. During the recent AGM I was lucky enough to be part of the committee member. As usual I am the guy in charge of computer stuff like videos and websites (Not again!). Hope everything goes well for the new batch of committee members. =)

Newcastle Malsoc

Till then. Cheers! =P

For Users Having Difficulty Getting A Satellite Lock With Their Nokia Symbian Phones (Eg. N96, N95, E90, N82, E71….):

1. Make Sure That A-GPS Is Enabled..

Menu -> Tools -> Settings -> General -> Positioning -> Positioning Methods -> Everything Except Bluetooth GPS Should Be Enabled..

Why Use A-GPS?
a) It Only Costs About RM 0.06 To Use A-GPS Each Time You Activate GPS. (Assuming It’s 1kB/1sen)
b) It Speeds Up The Satellite Locking Process By A Lot (Less Than 10 Seconds Versus 5 Minutes With A-GPS Off)

2. Check The Positioning Server Address And Access Point..

Menu -> Tools -> Settings -> General -> Positioning -> Positioning Server

Access Point: Maxis 3G WAP (If You Are On Maxis)
Server Address: supl.nokia.com

3. Test The Access Point

Menu -> Web

Go To Web And Try To Visit A Site (Let’s Say google.com) With The Access Point You Chose Back In Step 2. If You Cannot Load Any Site:

a) Check That You Have 3G Service Activated With Your Provider
b) Ask Your Provider To Send The Web Configurations To You
c) Choose The Correct Access Point (It’s WAP, Not MMS)

4. Getting A Satellite Lock With GPS Data

Menu -> Tools -> Connectivity -> GPS Data -> Position

You Should See Waiting For GPS And Your Phone Will Try To Establish A Data Connection (Arrows Under The Network Signals)

In Just A Few Seconds, You Should See Your Current Coordinates On The Screen.

Usually I Will Just Leave GPS Data In The Background And Launch Garmin Mobile XT.. The GPS Signal Bar In Garmin Should Turn Green Since Your Phone Has Obtained Satellite Lock.. At Any Point Of Time, You Can Switch Back To GPS Data By Holding Down The Menu Key. This Is Useful To Check If You Have Lost Satellite Signal..

5. Looking Through Logs

Menu -> Tools -> Log -> Press Right Arrow Key

You Should See An Outgoing Packet Connection In The List With The Total Send And Receive About 6 kB.. If It Shows 0 kB For Both Send And Receive, Please Go To Step 2 And Check That You Have All The Settings Right..

Other Useful Tips:
- Consult The User Manual Of Your Mobile Phone To Locate The GPS Antenna (Eg. N95 Has It Under The Numeric Keypad)
- Do Not Cover The GPS Antenna With Your Fingers
- Disable A-GPS When You Are Traveling Aboard Or Choose Automatic In Home Network Under “Positioning Server Use”.. Saw It On My N96, Not Available In N95
(Menu -> Tools -> Settings -> General -> Positioning -> Positioning Server)

Hope This Helps!
yaosiang

Bruges was a very nice place. It has most of its medieval architecture intact. We left Bruges in the morning after breakfast, back to Brussels city.

Next destination in the list was Mini Europe. We took the train from the city center and walked a short distance to Mini Europe. The Atonium was located next to Mini Europe.

There were many “mini” buildings along the path way. All of us were busy taking pictures of the buildings without knowing the origins. The label was all that we read!

After visiting Mini Europe, we headed back to city center. It was already evening by that time. Since we will be back to Manchester the next day, we went shopping for souvenirs. I bought some chocolates (ridiculously expensive ones) from Chocopolis. Each customer was entitled for 1 try only.

We went back to our hotel to take a rest. The initial plan was to have a good dinner (something like Day 2) but most of us ran out of Euros. We had no choice but to take something cheaper. After walking around the city, we ended up in a kebab shop. The kebab tastes good, enough to fill my grumbling stomach and it costs €4.50 only (if I can remember well).

A quick search in google showed that it is possible to install Windows 7 via Boot Camp on a Macbook Pro. I downloaded the 64-bit version of Windows 7 and burnt it into a DVD with Disk Utility. Basically, the installation process resembles Windows Vista a lot and the operating system itself is an improved version of Vista.

In this post, I will write how to get Windows 7 installed and fully working on a Macbook Pro.

UPDATED: You CAN use the normal Boot Camp installer located on the Leopard DVD. Trying to do that directly will probably give you error 2229 BUT you can just copy the “Boot Camp” folder on your hard drive and replace the BootCamp.msi and BootCamp64.msi packages with the ones from here (big thanks to limo79 for this!): http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=6908029&postcount=216
Credits to Atheos

1. Download and burn the ISO image into DVD.

2. Run Boot Camp Assistance (Applications -> Utilities).

(a) Follow the wizard to create a partition for installation of windows. At the end of the wizard, you will be asked to insert the Windows DVD and restart your Mac.

(b) If you have an existing copy of Windows installed via Boot Camp, you will either need to remove it and follow step 2(a), or choose “Start the Windows installer” and format the Windows partition later in the installation process.

3. Your Mac will restart and you will see “Press any key to boot from DVD…”. Press any key and the setup will load all the necessary files. You should see the Install Windows screen after the process.

4. Follow the Install Windows wizard. Choose “Custom (advanced)” and that will lead you to the partition screen.

5. In the partition table, there will be a list of partitions of your HDD. Select the “BOOT CAMP” partition, click on “Drive options (advanced)” and then “Format”.

6. Make sure that the Boot Camp partition is selected before clicking next.

7. The installation process will start.

8. You computer will restart several times during the installation. Remember not to hit any key when you are prompted to boot from the DVD.

9. After the installation is done, you will see the “Set up windows screen”. Again, follow the set up wizard till the end.

10. If everything is fine, you will be in the desktop screen now.

11. You will need to install the drivers now. Put in the Mac OS X Install Disc 1 and run the Boot Camp Utility setup.

12. Download the Boot Camp Update 2.1 for Windows Vista 64-bit here and install it. (You might want to set the compatibility under properties to Windows Vista and run as administrator.)

13. After all the installations, the custom F1 to F12 keys (eg. F10 to mute) and the eject key will work.

14. However, video and audio drivers need some update. For the video driver (nVidia 8600M), you can find it in the Mac OS X Install Disc 1 under Boot Camp -> Drivers -> NVidia -> NVidiaMobileSetup64.exe

15. As for the audio driver, you can download Vista_R209.zip here and run the setup.exe as admin and in Windows Vista compatibility mode. (credits to shannon here)

16. Run Windows Update and install all the updates.

17. You should have a fully working Windows 7 OS on your MacBook Pro! =)

Windows Media Player 12

Note: I take no responsibility for data lost or machine failure during the process. It is always wise to read through all the steps and download all the necessary files before starting the installations. Also, do not install Norton 360 Beta as it freezes up my Macbook Pro randomly!

After lunch, we went for horse carriage ride to tour the city. I cannot remember the cost of it but overall the ride lasted for about half an hour.

We stopped at Begijnhof for 5 minutes to snap photographs.

We rented bicycles for €7 (RM34.20) each person. Cycling around the city was definitely better than walking! =D

We had spaghetti for dinner. It was really big portion and I only manage to finish half of it. After dinner, we visited a few souvenir shops before walking back to our hostel.

The end of Day 3!

In conjunction with the New Year Day, we at OurCoffeestops! also celebrates our 1st year anniversary!

Looking back into the past, we started off this site with the free domain name (Our.Coffeestops.net) hosted by myself with my own server. The site officially went online on the 1st of January 2008. After 3 months, we upgraded this site to a paid web host and had a domain name of our own (OurCoffeestops.com).

Up to the time this post was written, there was a total of 407 posts with 2443 comments. Out of the 407 posts, below is the breakdown of posts by author:

Christopher (167)
Nicholas (86)
Yao Siang (40)
Jian Wei (36)
Kok Kuan (35)
Irna (15)
Wei Ling (11)
Sarven (6)
Ying Wei (6)
Kunil (3)
Adeline (2)

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the authors for their contributions. For those who has been inactive for very long, I guess it is high time for you to come back and report yourself. xD Besides that, OurCoffeestops.com would also like to thank all the visitors that support this site. Based on statistics, we have more than 150 visitors per day in average. We hope to see more visitors in future. =)

Stats provided by statcounter.com

Lastly, I hope you will enjoy your visit at Ourcoffeestops.com and best of luck for year 2009. Cheers!

We travelled from Brussels city to another place called Bruges via train. The journey was about 45 minutes and return ticket costs €13 (RM63.51). The train was quite new and the ride was really smooth. I can hardly hear any noise generated by the train. I guess the noise insulation of the train was really good.

We reached the station and headed to the information counter for tourist maps. Ah Yew paid €0,50 (RM2.44) for the map. Based on the map, we need to walk quite a distance to our hostel.

We reserved a room for 6 people and each person contributed about €18 (RM87.93) in average for 1 night. There were 3 double deckers and a single bed. Showers and WCs were located outside of the room. We took a rest while looking through the local map for tourist attractions.

It was lunch time already by then. We went to the christmas market for lunch. There were many stores there selling food and souvenirs. The food was expensive though. I had a fish fillet, chocolate waffle and fries. That sum up to almost €10 (RM48.85).

To be continued in Part 2

Pictures were taken at Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. Enjoy the pics~

A view out of the window from my room

One of my favourite shots!

Thick snow

Snow falling from the sky.

Ice on the walking path. It was extremely slippery. You don’t want to end up sitting down there, do you? xD

Aftermath!