Selle Italia Flite Flow (Black)

Upgraded my saddle to the Selle Italia Flite Flow (Black) after taking my butt, thigh and hip measurements at Hup Leong.

Here is a video for it:

99 useful tips

http://dedalvs.tumblr.com/post/48998678919/99-life-hacks-to-make-your-life-easier

Manage Favourites/Home/Office locations on Garmin Nuvi 40LM

Garmin Nuvi GPS allows the saving of favourite locations into memory so that there is no need to re-key in the same set of addresses over and over again if you need to go to such places frequently. For example you could save Home and Office locations into the GPS and you could quickly activate it to navigate to those locations from wherever you are on the road.

There was one day which I accidentally saved a wrong address as my Home location and I had a hard time figuring out how to change it on my Garmin Nuvi 40LM. I used to be able to able to do it easily on the Nuvi 2465, which often had menu options within the navigation screen. This is not the case for the Garmin Nuvi 40LM.

I managed to find out how to do that one day. As below are the steps required.

	Start from the home screen. Tap on Where To?
	Tap on Favourites. (You may need to scroll up or down the menu to locate that option)
	Tap on Home (or any other favourite locations that you want to remove) Note: I do not live in Teban Gardens, this is just a bogus address.
	A map of the selected location will be presented. Tap on the white speech balloon that is surrounding the address field.
	You will be presented with some options that you can use for that location. Tap on Delete.
	Confirm the deletion by tapping on Yes.

That location should then be gone from Favourites.

Unstable Wireless Connectivity

A few weeks ago I have started to experience unstable wireless connectivity within my home network, which is connected to the SingTel Fibre 100Mbps.

First of all just to give a brief overview of my home network:

I am using the ASUS RT N56U as the main wireless router to connect to the Optical Network Terminal (ONT) in the living room. To extend the wireless coverage in my study room, I deployed the ASUS RT N15U running on Wireless Repeater mode (The N15U also has the Router mode as well as the Access Point mode). 2 PCs are connected to N15U's gigabit ethernet ports, the printer is connected to the USB port and my other work laptop is connected to the wireless network extended by the N15U.

Initially I was thinking that the ASUS router and repeater must have been acting up to give me weird connectivity issues (the 2 PCs and the laptop start to have intermittent Internet connectivity at around the same time in the evenings). Could it be due to the extra load in the evening caused by the 2 PCs, 1 laptop, various mobile phones and tablets that are connected to the home network, thus causing the strain to the equipment?

I even bought the Linksys E2500 as the replacement for the main router.. but the problem persisted.

...until I read that such wireless connectivity issue could be related to the fact that more and more wireless base stations/routers are springing up among my neighbours - This could cause interference to the wireless signal and effectively lower the connection speed or even cause disruptions.

Immediately I tried changing the N56U's control channel (to a channel that is less used - 13. I found that out by performing a wireless network scan via the N15U) and narrowing the channel bandwidth from 20/40MHz to only 20MHz. Voila! the wireless network speed improved tremendously and the network bandwidth test (for my laptop) at speedtest.net yielded up to 20Mbps upload speed, which I am quite happy with (considering that the laptop is at the other end of the apartment away from the main router and is also connected via wireless).

Now I have to scratch my head to think of what to do with the Linksys E2500 router.

Garmin Nuvi 40LM

Recently I have upgraded to the Garmin Nuvi 40LM for my GPS needs. "LM" stands for lifetime map updates, so I should not have to worry about having to pay to update the maps from now onwards. There are free maps out there that could be downloaded onto the device, but in my opinion they are not as useful as the official Garmin maps.

The Compass and Bluetooth functions (can answer phone with the GPS unit once they are paired up) on my previous Garmin Nuvi 2465 were not very often used. As for the voice command, it was only accurate when dictating numbers and not words (maybe it was my diction that was causing the problem) but anyway it did not prove to be useful under most circumstances.

(picture credit: Garmin)

Just another photo of tikit

Just a photo of tikit

Convenience of a folding bicycle

If you ask me what is it so great about folding bicycles as compared to normal bicycles, here it is:

In fact, two of such bicycles can be folded and stored within the boot of a mid-size sedan (not even MPV or SUV), one on each side of the boot.

What I practically do is to store my bicycle and also squeeze in my son's 14-inch kid bicycle, and we can go to a park to ride our bicycles. This is done without installing any bicycle rack at the back of my car.

Gear Inches

Most people would have the presumption that riding on a bicycle with smaller wheels equates to a "slower" riding experience as compared to one with larger wheels - with the same number of strides when pedaling, the distance travelled on a bicycle with smaller wheels would be less than that on a bicycle that has larger wheels.

This is not entirely true. A bicycle with a smaller 20-inch wheel size may not necessary be slower (or will travel less distance) than a bicycle that has a 26-inch wheel. Wheel size is certainly one of the important factors for cadence, but not the only factor.

What could be the other factor? The answer is gear inches.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gear_inches, gear inches can be expressed in terms of the following equation:

where

gi = gear inches

dwd = drive wheel diameter

fct = number of front chainring teeth

rct = number of rear cassette teeth

As you can see from the equation, the gear inches (gi) can be increased by using any one or all of the below:

1. using a rear cassette with lower teeth count (or decrease rct)
2. using a front chain ring with higher teeth count (or increase fct)
3. using a larger drive wheel (or increase dwd)

The modifications done to my Bike Friday tikit are item (2) and (3) and these make its "vital statistics" to become as follows:

1. the rear cassette has between 11 to 28 teeth (stock, unmodified)
2. the front chain ring has 60 teeth (upgraded from the previous 52 teeth)
3. the drive wheel is 18 inches (upgraded from the previous 16 inches)

My highest gear inch is therefore 18*60/11 = 98.2 and my lowest gear inch is therefore 18*60/28 = 38.6, which is pretty decent and comparable to a fast Tern Verge X20 or Tern Link P9, both having 20-inch wheels. I will have a tougher time climbing up steep slopes when riding at the lowest gear inches though, which I do not anticipate as a reality anyway.

Depending on the material cost that you need to incur, you may opt to use different combination of the above method to modify your gear inches.

MKS Promenade Ezy Pedals

I am using the MKS Promenade Ezy pedals on my Bike Friday tikit and I am loving it! These pedals can be dismantled and kept separately, making the folded bike look more compact. There is however a small issue which is the yellow plastic rings (shown here in the images) that are supposed to prevent the pedals from being dislodged/released accidentally. My bike is primarily black in color and having yellow rings is somewhat a mismatch.

What I have done is simply to remove the rings altogether and I did not have to worry about the pedals getting dislodged when riding (after 3 trips by now); the quick release design is "smart" enough to prevent the normal riding action from dislodging the pedals.

The rings are as shown here

A video showing how the quick release works (you will also appreciate how the yellow rings keep the quick release in check):

Bike Friday tikit

Have been wanting to blog about my Bike Friday tikit ever since I bought it from MyBikeShop in early Mar 2013. Here is a picture of it (click to enlarge) and below is the list of modifications that have been done to it.

1. Upgraded from the stock 16-inch rims with Schwalbe Marathon tyres to the 18-inch WheelSport Magic 355 rims with Schwalbe Kojak tyres.

2. Replaced the stock handle bar (plain old cylindrical) with the ergonomic Biologic - Arx™ Grips with T-Tool as well as replaced the grip shifter with the SRAM trigger-shifter.

3. Zixtro pouch under the bike saddle. (Can be used to keep accessories, including the bike pedals mentioned below) Note that Model-T tikit does not come with a saddle by default, so I got a simple one separately.

4. Upgraded the chain-ring from the stock 53T to the Vuelta 60T, together with a somewhat ugly chain-ring guard (chain-ring guard for 60T is pretty hard to find, so cannnot complain - according to the folks at MyBikeShop)

5. The MKS EZY bike pedal can be dismantled via quick release and then kept inside the saddle pouch - so cool! Bike pedals that are folded are like sore-thumbs sticking out of the folded bike. Having bike pedals that can be dismantled is definitely advantageous. Note that Model-T tikit does not ship with bike pedals by default.

6. Model-T tikit does not come with a kick-stand by default, as such I got a plain and simple one.

Dear Ayken

Holding and looking at you does not let me forget my troubles.
Instead, in quite a profound way,
I would wishfully think, of becoming a better daddy, by overcoming all the troubles that I have,
At work or in life, each and every day.

The serenity in your breath, while you are in your dreams, is all that matters
Before I go to sleep.

It is no longer the same, where I could simply turn in to bed,
right after a day of work fatigue.

The extra night duties that your mummy had to voluntarily do (she is more kan-jiong whenever you cry, you see?)
The hours she had to deliberate on the brand of your drinking cup.
Worst of all, she never had to compromise her choice by discussing every little thing with another man (a.k.a. your daddy) in her life.
You had better be nice to her when you grow up!

Each and every day, you surprise me with the new things you learnt.
Sometimes I feel ashamed of not achieving anything useful that day.
But you are the source of my joy, my inspiration and hope.
There is nothing in this world that is too hard to cope!

May you be truly happy when you grow up.
When you date your first girlfriend, scored your life goals and have children of your own.
With such astounding speed that you are growing up,
I am starting to dread the day when I can no longer be there with you.

It is not going to be long before you grow to your teens,
Mushy gestures would then become a no-no for you!
And so I want to start appreciating you now,
by piggy-backing, hugging and kissing you whenever the chance is due.

Nikon D90

(picture credit: Nikon)

Bought the Nikon D90 which is a great upgrade over the old D80. Some others even forego the D300 to use the cheaper D90. Personally for me, the advantages of the upgade (in order of importance): CMOS sensor Large LCD Live View Video

Vibration Reduction (VR)

Vibration Reduction (VR) is an important technology developed by Nikon for its lenses to somewhat counteract for camera shake when a photographer takes a picture. It is analogous to anti-shake in compact cameras that we see in the market.

Naming the technology differently, Sony has its super steady-shot built into its alpha series dSLR and not in the lenses. There is certainly room for debate whether anti-shake should be built into the lens or into the camera body.

See here for an introduction to vibration reduction by Nikon.

dSLR part 4

gotten two more addition to my lens collection.


the nikkor 105mm f/2.8 vr micro suitable for shooting macro.


the bright nikkor 50mm f/1.8 lens suitable for shooting portraits.