Archive for December, 2008

My internet connection went from bad to nothing. So I made….

Telephone calls to call centre. (Several days). Went to shop to have modem checked. (1 day) They checked inside the house. (1 day) They went back to change the port. (1 day) They came back to check the cables outside the house. (1 day) And then they came back to check the cables inside the house (1 day) and said “Its your modem, ma’am.” You can imagine how long this process took. They cannot simply check everything in one day right?

And in between all that checking by the technicians, I had to make several calls to the call centre. One call lasted more than 45 minutes with the girl saying the same thing over and over again and asking me to hold the line over and over again for long periods of time as if I have nothing else to do. In the end, I got so fed up, I hung up while holding the line again with no resolution in sight and answering the same questions over and over again.

My internet connection started having problems on 5th December. It finally got resolved on Saturday, the 13th December. Earlier on they had suspected the modem so I had taken it to the shop to have a check. The man at the shop said it was working fine. Then the technician came over and he didn’t think it was the modem as well. So we went one full circle changing everything before coming back to the modem again. Everyone said that if the modem goes it goes right away. It will mati (die) right away and not act half dead the way mine acted, they all insisted.

So on a wet Saturday morning we went to Digital Mall in PJ to search for another modem. We wanted the same one since we were used to it. The first shop we went to had run out of stock. The second one had one at RM99 so we took that. We wanted to check it out but the busy salesman said “No worries, bring it back in 3 days if you have problems.”

We took the modem home, plugged it on and the power light did not come on. So we changed the power adapter but still no light. I called up the shop and asked if they had another one in stock and they said “Yes, bring it here and we will change it for you.”

When I got there in the heavy rain, they had run out of stock so they refunded me the money instead. The guy accidentally gave me a RM100 so I returned RM1 to him. When I got back, I saw that one of the RM5 bill was burnt in one corner where the serial number was. Bleargh. Should have kept that extra RM1. *Grumble. Grumble. Grumble.*

I then went to the first shop and asked for another more expensive modem model which I had saw earlier but the guy said they had sold that and was out of stock. Oh bother! I held it in my hands just that very morning.

So in the afternoon, I called up Low Yat and found that one of the shops there had the stock at RM70. We drove there in the evening and I went to the shop to get it while hubby drove around with the kids since it was so crowded and jammed up with cars on the roads.

The shops at Low Yat was equally crowded and jammed up with people. I went to the shop that we called but the salesperson ignored me because he was so busy. Finally, I found it myself and told him “I want that box”. I requested him to test it out for me because I didn’t want to have a faulty one again. He told me that I had to pay first then go to the service centre to have it tested.

The “service centre” was further in. A long narrow path filled with people and supplies led to it. I found it at last after asking around. The technicians were in a room with a door made of bars like a jail. Anyway, I squeezed my way through several big sized men and manage to get my box to one of the technicians and told him to “Test this, please.”

Then I had to wait outside the door made of bars together with the several big sized men. I tried to peer my head inside to have a look at what the technician was doing. He requested for my username and password and I gave it to him reluctantly, not trusting them. I couldn’t see what he was doing but at least I saw the power light of the modem light up from where I was peering.

Finally he came out and said, its ok. I couldn’t see him testing him and I was just to take his word that it was ok. Sigh. So I checked the box to make sure that he hadn’t left anything behind. I saw that the a cable and a stand was missing so I asked him for it. He said “I’m sorry, its not included.” The stand was listed as optional and a piece of white paper was stuck over the place where the word “cable” used to be on the place where they listed the items included with the package. “If you want the cable you have to buy separately.” said the technician. When I asked for the stand and the instruction booklets, he got tired of me and asked me to ask the salesman, the busy salesman who ignored me earlier.

Hubby called to ask me to hurry up as the kids were restless and he had been waiting a long time at the side of the road. So I packed the rest of the things back into the box and left. In the car, I told hubby, “No, wonder its so cheap lah. They took out a few things!”

We drove off and hubby then asked me whether the installation CD was there. It wasn’t! Fortunately I have one at home so I didn’t have to turn around and drive back there in the Saturday night jam. Later at home when we tried to install it, I found that there was no guarantee card, nothing. Geez. I won’t go to Low Yat to get my supplies again unless I can’t find it anywhere else like in this case. Sigh!

So I finally installed the new modem and here I am online again after more than a week of bad and no internet connection. Hopefully the modem that I got from Low Yat was not an imitation and won’t die again soon. Sigh.

Right, finished ranting. If you finished reading up to here, thank you for listening to my rant. lol. I had wanted to blog about Christmas shopping and post up pictures of the malls but here I am ranting instead. One week of no connection sure gets to me but hubby said “You know hon, when you are not online, I noticed you can get many things around the house done, the way it should be.”

Peek-A-Boo! Just testing my online connection. My internet connection has been giving me problems since the 5th of December. Its driving me crazy!

Have called up the call centre so many times. Have you checked your cables? It must be your modem. Maybe its the splitter. Aarrrgh! I even brought the modem to the shop to have it checked but they said it was fine so will you just get your technician down here prompto instead of asking me the same questions each time I call?

Have you checked  your cables Miss? Did you try to connect direct? Can you press Start, Accessories then go to Command Prompt. Blah blah blah. Well, it can’t be my modem  or cables or splitter right or not, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to get online now. The man at the shop told me that if my modem is about to go it will die right away and won’t act half dead so its not the modem.

My phone line was out before but its working fine now. But that darned internet connection…. So better quickly reply to all my comments, answer my email etc etc before it goes off again. So now  you see me but next  you won’t.

Oh, btw, this contest closes on 20th December. So hurry up, support and join lah. There is only one contestant at the moment, so the chances of winning is very high. Less man, more chances. Thats the way with contests.

Right, better publish this before I lose my internet connection again. The internet light is blinking weakly again.

I’m thinking of getting a trilingual Electronic Dictionary to help me help my girl. I want to use it mainly for learning Chinese words but of course the Malay and English parts would be useful too.

At the moment I am helping my girl read her preschool Chinese Books. I read them BEFORE she does. I learn the words and check up the meanings and then I teach her. Its a little bit like the blind leading the blind. Its a laborious task. It takes me ages to search and understand the characters using a traditional Printed Dictionary.

I am told that an Electronic Dictionary might help. However it costs around RM1,500. Thats a heavy investment. So I’m not going to jump in and purchase an Electronic Dictionary without first doing some research on how useful it is.

What I would like to know is just how useful is an Electronic Dictionary? Is it much easier to use than the traditional printed Dictionary? Can I find the Chinese characters easily and learn them without taking so much time searching for the words?

Can anyone out there help me? If you have an Electronic Dictionary, can you explain to me how it differs from a Printed Dictionary? (apart from the price difference of course)

I love contests. I think the best part about a contest is the anticipation of winning. This usually happens immediately after I submit my contest entry. I guess that allowing myself to dream about winning is a nice feeling because it makes me hope for something, silly though this may sound. Dreaming about my “winnings” is fun but of course winning is even better.

To maximise my chance of winning, I don’t enter sms contests (which is usually expensive and can be a scam). I don’t enter contests which require a lot of work (eg a different entry each week or as many entries as you can types) and those which require a lucky chance among millions because I don’t ever seem to win any lucky draws.

I usually enter contests which require some writing because I think some people would be lazy to write in so it increases my chance and I enter those which I think has less contestants so that increases my chance. Using these “strategies” I have won quite a few items.

Jewellery, Expensive face creams (which I wouldn’t buy myself if I didn’t win them ), a watch worth RM1,000 which I eventually sold to Cash Converters for RM100 a few years later after the batteries ran out. And each time I won I was on cloud nine. I remembered the first time I won a string of pearls, I was so excited when I called hubby he was wondering what it was all about.

Hubby used to shake his head when I entered yet another contest but he stopped shaking it after I won something rather useful. Now, he helps me look out for contests and helps me to send out my entry forms.

Well, if you’re like me and you like contests, here’s a chance for you to win something. Now, we have contests on blogs. Thats a new and good medium for contests because it increases your chance of winning, IMO. The prize for this contest is a cash voucher worth RM88 for a clothing line which is exclusively for boys only, boys aged 1 to 14. So, if you have a son, a newphew, a brother or a friend’s son who is this age, go check out this Blogger’s Contest on my Parenting Times Blog.

Psst: Hope that all the blogger kakis out there can help to spread the word about the contest around. Thanks.