This is one of the insane activity that I put myself and my poor wife through just for the fun of it.  We woke up at 4 something am and I check lowyat forum on the situation at Gardens iphone pickup.  There are still people picking up phones at that time, so, if I were to go down, I have to leave now. After reading my friends facebook that Digi Penang iphone soldout, I decided then and there we have to go.  My wife was already up and she went to wake her sister up.  We left the house at 5am and the journey to pickup the iPhone 4 begins.

Traffic was to the minimal, there are still quite a number of cars on the road at this hour, but less than day time.  Dawn arrives when we almost reach Ipoh, my wife ask to go for Dim Sum, I had promise her earlier that we would.  Not wanting to queue too long to pick up phone, I took a rain check on the dim sum and whiz pass Ipoh.  As we enjoy dawn and the beautiful scenery, the whole world lighted up and the sun came.

We arrived at the Gardens at 8.30am and started to queue up.  There was more than a hundred people in front of us.  We queue up to the car park and I was drench with sweat by 10am when they started to give out numbers.  We receive 3130, not sure if we were the 130 customer for the day.  Once we got the number, we get to go into the foyer to play around with demo sets, have apples and drinks and wait for our number to be called.

At 11 something am, our number were up and we proceeded to the registration counter, once that done, we go to another payment and phone collection counter and finally that done, there is the activation counter.  Plenty of Maxis staff helping along the way, they try to make this as painless as possible and try to accommodate as many patrons as fast as possible as the previous day, they went home after 4am.

There were 25% discounts on the phone covers, and we got a nice leather flip cover and went straight for lunch.  I tried to restore the 3GS backup to the iphone 4, but itunes need to download the latest OS4.1 to do it.  The download speed was so slow that I cancel the restoration and finish up lunch and head back.

We reach Tapah at about 5pm and went to have Curry Chicken Bread.  One huge bread shared by 3, stuff with carbohydrate and loads of curry chicken, we continue our journey home. We arrived at home at 8pm and the day is yet to be concluded.

I am currently restoring the 3GS backup onto iPhone4, and it is taking forever…

There and Back Again for iPhone 4….

Its only a month out and I have to upgrade the Iphone twice.  Fist with Iphone 3.01 to fix a damaging SMS hole, and now Iphone 3.1 for additional functionalities.  I for one am most intrigue with the new Apps function where I can save Apps on the Itunes and drag to the phone when I want to use them.  In the past, I have to delete Apps so that I can keep my pages clean, but now, I dont have to anymore, I can just store them in my Itunes and drag them to the phone when I want to use them. 

Jailbreaking, I have been wanting to jailbreak the phone mostly because of the GPS function.  I am going to Hatyai, which does not have 3G coverage, this makes the phone google maps useless.  A lot of the phone functions that requires high speed internet like the google maps are useless without 3G.  So, for me to use the GPS function on the phone, I have to either purchase an App for USD79 to safe maps onto the phone, or jailbreak it.  Guess what, I choose the jailbreak option.  If the apps are much cheaper, like say USD19.99, I would have purchase them.  I recently purchase the Farm Frenzy for USD0.99.  A worth while purchase, we have spent hours on the game, and currently still not finish yet. 

Then again, the risk of jailbreaking, so I have been putting it off, maybe till the lastday before I go to Hatyai.  I now have other priorities, rather than spending time to understand how to jailbreak and how to restore. ..

First, Maxis Called me, telling me the iPhone 3Gs I’ve ordered will be delayed till Tuesday next week.  I was suppose to pick up the phone at launch tomorrow.  They did not have enough units for all the subscribers, and so they decided to give what they have to the people in KL.  Folks like me from the north will have to wait till next Tuesday.  I thought it would be better to give based on who ordered first.  Those buggers from KL who ordered on the last day would get first than me… does not sounds fair to me.

Ok, someone screw up somewhere, those who pre-ordered from the north will not get the phones tomorrow.  If like this, why get people to pre-order and promise to deliver on 31st July? Now, its been delay, only ‘I’m Sorry’ from someone who was not responsible does not seam to be comforting enough.

Fine, the unit got delayed, what can we do rite, so that’s that.

Then, at dinner time, I got another call, oh, its been delayed to Wednesday, instead of Tuesday… wow, seams like this is getting worst by the minute.  Ok, this time, the Maxis guy  said they are working some ‘Mystery Gift’ out.  Oh, if you are giving me some merchandize with your logo on it, I am not interested.  An original iPhone accessory would only do justice.

So, ok lor, delay already, another day push out, what can we do at our end.. I was already starting to be depress…

Then, when I check my mail just now, I got a mail from Maxis.  I thought they were nice to send me a mail of apology of the delay.  Oh wait, my name ain’t Ng It Cheng… Another screw up.

They can’t get the date right, now they can’t even get my name right, well, they mix up me and other customer.  That’s Maxis for you… And they are going for IPO?

Oh by the way, Maxis says, it is worldwide shortage, so it is because of Apple late delivery…

I still thought Maxis should have handled the ‘crisis’ better.  Firstly, offer apology and offer something nice to the customer for the mixup.  Secondly, if you are going to commit a new date, make sure it is right, and not to push out again a couple of hours later.  Finally, get your customer name right.

Update:

Finally on Aug 2nd, I got a call from the collection center to come collect.  Got my unit, got yellowish tint as reported by many Low Yat forumers and no crack on the white body.  The collection process was about 45 minutes without hassle, just need to wait for the guy to do his thing behind the counter.  Confirm the package, the unit, confirm the Imei number, lock it in and unbox the unit.

Maxis finally release their pricing plans for IPhone 3GS.  I must say that my first impression on the pricing are rather attractive.  Firstly, looking at the prepaid plan, the pricing are consistent with Hong Kong and Australia, which works out to RM29xx for the 32G model.  The plans rate are the same with an addition of the 8G & 16G revised phone price.  The 32G model replace the old 16G price.

Initially, I got my friend to buy from HK for me, then the price in the US was also attractive, but then the phone from US needs to be unlocked, which is troublesome and the state my friend was has a 9% tax, so it worked out to be just a little cheaper than HK, so I decided to get from HK.  Now, no need already, cause the price here are also comparable and I can have the option to get with a plan.. Now, the big question… when can we get the phone once we ordered…??

This recipe is simple, Just two Green Apple, 5 Yellow Lemon and 1kg (700ml) of honey.  Keep for 45 days, and you will get a smooth and sweet enzyme.  I was very excited on my first enzyme, which was the Dragon Fruit Enzyme, and waiting for it to mature was really excruciating.  And so, we started to make more enzyme, mainly to ensure we are not short of them since we consume quite a lot on daily basis.  We decided to make the Apple Lemon Enzyme again as the ones that my wife’s mom made was super delicious, and only took us 2 weeks to finish up the entire liter of it. 

Making the Apple Lemon Enzyme was dead simple, just 3 ingredients, and loads of time, and you will have a very smooth and sweet Enzyme.  Before making you will have to ensure that everything is dry, including your hands and utensils.  This is to avoid contamination that would lead to fungus or molds, which I have read to be bad.  Cut the Apples up, my mother inlaw cut them up into 4 pieces per apple, we just slice them up.  Then Slice up the lemons.  Layer the lemons and apples into the bottle and pour in the honey.  I am not sure why honeys are sold in kilograms or grams as they are liquid, nevertheless, a scan across the supermarket counter on all the honey sold there, they are all in grams.  For this batch, we are making two bottles, one with a cheap honey, and another with a more expensive honey.  Both honey taste different, and we are eager to taste the outcome in 45 days time.