lecca - Starting Line

Panda Bear Bear loves this track. It's a super catchy tune by Dancehall Japanese singer, lecca (her artist name apparently starts with a small letter 'L'). The song title is Starting Line from her album Otaku Girls no Utage. Click on the play button below to move to the catchy tune with Panda Bear Bear!

Se7en - Hikari

Gosh... my Jpop fever is back! After having that raving sort of feeling over the weekend.. I'm currently going through the JPop craze once again. Today, I'm sharing a particular video clip which is quite interesting. It's by Se7en, a very popular Korean male artist which not only acts, but sings and dance very well as well (Yes, although he is Korean, apparently, he can sing Japanese songs as well and this video is taken from his 1st Japanese album). The title is Hikari. Don't ask me what it means as I don't know. That's why I find Japanese songs so interesting. I have no idea what they are singing but in the same time I'm moving my bear bear head to the rhythm and loving it. Panda Bear Bear is going Jpop!

Nokia 810 Internet Tablet

Panda Bear Bear is every excited today cos Nokia have recently just introduced the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet. To me, this signified a new phase in portable Internet communication OR put it simply, I don't need to bring my laptop whenever I go to Starbucks :-)

Before I continue, let me just emphasize the following facts:

1. It is the only NSeries mobile device not to use the Symbian OS. It uses the Linux operating system and an open source platform called Maemo
2. Although it bears the Nokia Nseries designation, it is NOT a PHONE but an Internet appliance
3. Since it is not a phone, it won't have cellular radio connectivity features such as 3G/HSDPA/EDGE/GPRS/WiMAX (the WiMAX version will be coming next year) but would instead rely on Wi-Fi 802.11b/g for data packet connectivity
4. But it do support the Bluetooth v.2.0 DUN profile (Dial-Up Networking) of which you can pair up with your 3G/HSDPA/EDGE/GPRS/WiMAX phone to suft the Internet if you can't find any hotspot [talk about working around limitation ;-) .... Ha ha ha!]
5. What? No calling features? No worries, it support SIP communication for VOIP calls and supports both Skype (comes installed by default) and Gizmo Project (my favourite and it support Video Calling)
6. Remember how Symbian OS mobile phones always seems to have this Out of Memory error whenever surfing the web, well, the Nokia N810 comes with a 128MB DDR RAM and 256MB Flash ROM + support up to 8GB SDHC cards
7. Built-in GPS
8. It weighs 226g
9. This device cost approx. USD$ 479 (which is approx. MYR$ 1615)
   

I guess the trump card for this device will be Web 2.0. Nokia is also making a big deal out of how the Nokia N810 is very Web 2.0-friendly. The included browser is based on Mozilla technology with Adobe Flash 9 plug-in, and can be used to access all your favorite Web 2.0 sites like Google Docs, Flickr, Facebook, and so forth. This also coincides very nicely with Nokia's own Web portal, Ovi, which provides a "gateway" to these services plus Nokia's own Music Store.

A built-in media player supports 3GP, AVI, WMV, MP4, H263, H.264, MPEG-1, MPEG-4 and RV (RealVideo) video formats, as well as MP3, WMA, AAC, AMR, AWB, M4A, MP2, RA (RealAudio) and WAV audio formats. The media player provides direct access to shared media over Universal Plug and Play (UPnP). Nokia claims a music playback time of 10 hours; continuous usage (display on, wireless LAN active) of up to 4 hours; always online time of up to 5 days; and standby time of up to 14 days.

Sporting a 65K colors 4.1" display with a resolution of 800 by 480 pixels, the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet is expected to start shipping mid November

Overall, I felt that the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet would indeed be a very good tool for bloggers. I can't wait to get my bear bear paws on one!

Emmalina @ YouTube

Ok. Today I'm bringing to all my readers something I come across by mistake over at YouTube. Trust me, I was simply just curious by the title "About Emo" Wouldn't you?

And honestly, curiosity gets the better of me and YES YES, I click on the link and here I am sharing this particular clip with you all (it's been viewed 306,392 times and counting)



To my male readers? During the first half of the video clip, are you really paying attention? ;-) Come on... what might be the distracting factor? Well, Emma seems to know and here's her message to you titled "One day you might even get to see a pair NUDE!"



By the time I finished it, I can't help but laughed at how shallow most guys are (especially when you see most of the responses she gets from YouTube are actually asking her to show her assets). Ha ha ha! I know I wasn't concentrating first half as well ;-) Nevertheless, I gotta give it to her for her sense of humor and below are some info on our lady friend.

Emmalina is our featured female Vlogger (short for Video Blogger.. if there's such word) from Oz, the Land Down Under and she's only 19. You can find more of the above videos on her featured YouTube site. She even have her own private journal here. I gathered she's from Sydney and from the above videos, I believes she pretty pissed off because majority of her 26,678 subscribers are actually more interested on her assets than anything else. Oh... poor thing.

Well, she'll be next month's Panda Bear Bear's Girl of the Month! and that's provided I still have the interest by next month >-<

A reminder to married couples

I would like to share this piece of email that travels the globe via the Net several times and over. I remember receiving this email few year backs and somehow, it found its way back to my inbox. I can't help but get touched by the message. It is both heart felt moving as well as thought provoking. Read on.

When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said; I've got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes. Suddenly I didn't know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. I want a divorce. I raised the topic calmly.

She didn't seem to be annoyed by my words, instead she asked me softly, Why? I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, you are not a man! That night, we didn't talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost my heart to a lovely girl called Dew. I didn’t love her anymore... I just pitied her!

With a deep sense of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement which stated that she could own our house, our car, and 30% stake of my company. She glanced at it and then tore it into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but I could not take back what I had said for I loved Dew so dearly. Finally she cried loudly in front of me, which was what I had expected to see. To me her cry was actually a kind of release. The idea of divorce which had obsessed me for several weeks seemed to be firmer and clearer now.

The next day, I came back home very late and found her writing something at the table. I didn’t have supper but went straight to sleep and fell asleep very fast because I was tired after an eventful day with Dew. When I woke up, she was still there at the table writing. I just did not care so I turned over and was asleep again.

In the morning she presented her divorce conditions: she didn't want anything from me, but needed a month's notice before the divorce. She requested that in that one month if we both struggle to live as normal a life as possible. Her reasons were simple: our son had his exams in a month’s time and she didn’t want to disrupt him with our broken marriage.

This was agreeable to me. But she had something more, she asked me to recall how I had carried her into out bridal room on our wedding day. She requested that everyday for the month's duration I carry her out of our bedroom to the front door ever morning. I thought she was going crazy. Just to make our last days together bearable I accepted her odd request.

I told Dew about my wife s divorce conditions. She laughed loudly and thought it was absurd. No matter what tricks she applies, she has to face the divorce, she said scornfully.

My wife and I hadn't had any body contact since my divorce intention was explicitly expressed. So when I carried her out on the first day, we both appeared clumsy. Our son clapped behind us, daddy is holding mummy in his arms. His words brought me a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, I walked over ten meters with her in my arms. She closed her eyes and said softly; don't tell our son about the divorce. I nodded, feeling somewhat upset. I put her down outside the door. She went to wait for the bus to work. I drove alone to the office.

On the second day, both of us acted much more easily. She leaned on my chest. I could smell the fragrance of her blouse. I realized that I hadn't looked at this woman carefully for a long time. I realised she was not young any more. There were fine wrinkles on her face, her hair was graying! Our marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute I wondered what I had done to her.

On the fourth day, when I lifted her up, I felt a sense of intimacy returning. This was the woman who had given ten years of her life to me.

On the fifth and sixth day, I realized that our sense of intimacy was growing again. I didn't tell Dew about this. It became easier to carry her as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made me stronger.

She was choosing what to wear one morning. She tried on quite a few dresses but could not find a suitable one. Then she sighed, all my dresses have grown bigger. I suddenly realized that she had grown so thin, that was the reason why I could carry her more easily. Suddenly it hit me; she had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart. Subconsciously I reached out and touched her head.

Our son came in at the moment and said, Dad, it's time to carry mum out. To him, seeing his father carrying his mother out had become an essential part of his life. My wife gestured to our son to come closer and hugged him tightly. I turned my face away because I was afraid I might change my mind at this last minute.

I then held her in my arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, to the hallway. Her hand surrounded my neck softly and naturally. I held her body tightly; it was just like our wedding day. But her much lighter weight made me sad. On the last day, when I held her in my arms I could hardly move a step. Our son had gone to school. I held her tightly and said, I hadn’t noticed that our life lacked intimacy.

I drove to office... jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. I was afraid any delay would make me change my mind... I walked upstairs. Dew opened the door and I said to her, Sorry, Dew, I do not want the divorce anymore.

She looked at me, astonished and then touched my forehead. Do you have a fever? She said. I moved her hand off my head. Sorry, Dew, I said, I won't divorce. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I didn't value the details of our lives, not because we didn't love each other any more. Now I realise that since I carried her into my home on our wedding day I am supposed to hold her until death do us apart. Dew seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave me a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. I walked downstairs and drove away.

At the floral shop on the way, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my wife. The salesgirl asked me what to write on the card. I smiled and wrote: I'll carry you out every morning until deaths do us apart.

The small details of our lives are what really matter in a relationship. It is not the mansion, the car, property, the money in the bank. These create an environment conducive for happiness but cannot give happiness in themselves. So find time to be your spouse's friend and do those little things for each other that build intimacy.

Regards,
Anonymous


I believed after reading this, the message the author of this email is trying to convey might differs from people to people. But one thing for sure, if Panda Bear Bear could understand and applies it in my life, I'm sure the rest of my readers would not have any problems comprehending and applying this message in their life too. I wish you all a Happy, Healthy and Long Lasting Lives together with your mate. ;-)

2007 F1 Drivers World Championship title

Tonight (eerr.. more like tomorrow morning) at approx. 12:00 am, will be the last F1 race for the year of 2007. I am normally not a avid F1 spectator but seeing that Malaysia play host to one of F1 races in Sepang International Circuit, it is hard not to be swallowed into this whole F1 frenzy especially since there's so many controversies to spice things up. My sentiments is echoed by Grand Prix veteran David Coulthard who most probably is one of the oldest driver in F1 or perhaps even win the title of one of the longest driver who are still in F1 ;-)

Side raves and rants: If my memory serve me correctly, David Coulthard spent most of his tenure in F1 with the West Mclaren Mercedes team and was team mate to World Champion Mika Hakkinen (why all the Finland driver got name ending with "nen" ie. Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari team), Heikki Kovalainen (Renault team). I guess I will never know. Maybe some visitor from Finland could drop their 2 cents on my comments blog. :-p

Ok back to my topic. I love side tracking. Muahahaha.

The Brazilian GP is tonight and would be held at Sao Paola, Brazil. What make this particular race so interesting is the fact that tonight we might be seeing any one of these 3 drivers walk away with the 2007 F1 Drivers World Championship title.

1. Lewis Hamilton (most likely BUT I certainly HOPE NOT)
2. Fernando Alonso (need a miracle that Lewis Hamilton suffer the same ill super bad luck at Chinese GP to win)
3. Kimi Raikkonen (need both No. 1 and No. 2 to be super last or super unlucky or be at 7th place and 3rd place respectively which is highly unlikely seeing how good No. 1 actually is even though he is a rookie)
   

The three challengers for the world champion title - (from left) Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso

Usually 2 or 3 races before the end of the F1 season, the Driver World Championship title would be known but thanks to Lewis Hamilton's unforeseen blunder at the 2007 Chinese GP, audiences all over the world have something to look forward too tonight ;-)

Why is that so? Because of the current World Rankings for these 3 drivers.

1. Lewis Hamilton (107 points)
2. Fernando Alonso (103 points)
3. Kimi Raikkonen (100 points)

Do you see how close they are to each other. If Lewis Hamilton suffers the same bad luck like the 2007 Chinese GP, and Alonso and Kimi maintained their current form, either one could be the next World Champion with Alonso being the one that have more to lose since he have to fight hard to maintained his World Champion title for the 3rd consecutive year. But seeing his latest results from qualifying which places him on 4th place behind Kimi (3rd place), his rival team mate, Hamilton (2nd place) and Massa (1st place), the chances is highly unlikely because knowing all F1 drivers who are in the Top 3, they will fight very hard to maintained their position or even overtake the pole leader which will be Massa now. And did I mentioned that Massa was the last year winner of the Brazilian GP which coincidentally is his home ground.

So tonight, I really gotta stay up until wee hour of the morning to watch the last race for the F1 season and hope very strongly that, Alonso will beats all odds and have miraculous abundance of luck to win the World Championship title (it is always good to see such fight for the top). If that is not logically possible, at least Panda Bear Bear still hopes that Kimi will be the next one in line. Kimi seems to be a favourite with lots of people in winning this Championship by seeing all those votes around the Net. Although one have to admit that if Massa sees no chance that Kimi will ever overtake Hamilton, he will do his best to win the Brazilian GP, otherwise, as promise to his team Ferarri, he will help Kimi to secure the World Championship title if the Fin are in the opportunity zone.

Nevertheless, let's hope for the possibly Panda Bear Bear's best that Alonso will once again be the F1 Drivers World Champion :-p

Latest update as of 1:38 AM

Kimi did the impossible and snatch the F1 Drivers World Championship title by 1 point from both Alonso and Hamilton. Both Alonso and Hamilton finished with 109 points whereas the new World Champion finished with 110 points :-)

This is indeed a joy for all Ferrari fans out there!

ps: By the way, Hamilton did suffer super bad luck once again or else Kimi would not have won. What a day for Ferrari!

Waitless.org

Waitless.org... a very interesting website that I would like to recommend to my fellow readers. Why? Cos it teaches us via their selections of short video clips on how to perform certain things which we do everyday in a more efficient manner. Trust me, I'm impressed by the Tangle-Free Cord Wrap video and totally blown away by the Quick-peel an egg and Turbo Parking videos!

If I do Turbo Parking in front of Bangsar Shopping Village II, I guarantee Panda Bear Bear will be the talk of the town! :-p muahahahah!

Enjoy :-)

Panda Bear Bear's Desktop

To show my support to a local fellow blogger that goes by the name of Sabahan (common name but who would have thought like that also can).. I decided to post a screen capture of my desktop.


And yeah... you can find the rest of his supporters' desktops on his blog here.

Girl of the Month @ Land Down Under Malaysia

Land Down Under? Isn't that Oz? No lah! It's Tanah Singa or Singapore! Down Under Malaysia ma... :-p

I came across this particular web personality by accident. Since I have already looked at her profile and also one of her YouTube performance, let me just sum it up for all the BATANG out there!

1. She's from Singapore (Duh!) and her name is Tay Kewei


2. She's 24


3. She have a lil' sis.


4. She's a Backup vocal for some artist like David Tsao and etc.. (others I never heard b4)


5. She's probably attached (which not half bad 24 years old gal wouldn't?)


6. She's an occasional song writer


7. She plays the Erhu (what? no worries more explaination here)


8. She have this set of straight white teeth which she shows alot when taking pictures. Sometimes it makes her look good but sometimes so so la.. Compare the pic below and the rest to evaluate yourself ;-)


9. Overall, she's not bad looking for an Asian girl. Call me simple minded but I kinda think her look is still pure and sweet for a Panda Bear Bear like me! ;-)



10. She's not married although she can sing for weddings, corporate functions and etc. I guess that's what she do as part time job when she's not working as backup vocal.
11. Back to point 4. She's probably attached which is kinda sad for all the single BATANG out there. No worries bro.. I feel 4 you.. I feel 4 you :-(
    
    
12. Last but not least.. I will recommend her as Panda Bear Bear's Girl of the Month 2007 (I'm just starting this Girl of the Month thingy so not much info yet.. so don't shoot me asking me what is this? :-p ).


13. Some dude actually make a YouTube video about her. You can find it here.


14. She blogs and you can find her blogs @ http://taykewei.blogspot.com/

Here's a sample of her home video performance. What? Yeah.. you heard (or actually read) me right. She's still a local artist trying to make it big. ;-) Enjoy.

p/s: She seems so young and naive here. :-p + Sweet

Back Dorm Boys!

This video must be one of the funniest things I've seen in a while's time. These 2 boys are not new to the scene. Apparently they have been around for quite some time. On Wiki, it is said the above posted video was released back in the year 2005. It was recorded on a low-res camcorder (most like webcam since it is a student dorm). And then, their videos (Yup! there are more of these) found their ways to YouTube and guess what.. a total sensation. A look at the number of hits they get is a testament of their popularity, although on the 2nd thought, they might not be THAT popular afterall cos I only came to know about them yesterday! Ha ha ha! (But they most probably are famous in their dorms and also in China).

I believe both of them are Chinese undergrads (yup finally confirm in Wiki that they are from China... pai seh.. at first I thought they are from Taiwan) who so happen to be quite creative and having ample time on their hands to come out with something like this. Kudos to them for their creativity and the most important thing, "putting a smile on your face on those long dreadful days!"

Enjoy ;-)

Söldner-X: Himmelsstürmer (Horizontal Space Shooter in 720p HD)

First impression! This is so R-Type!!! For those who is horizontal space shooter dummy.. no worries, you can find more info here. Lazy to explain ;-)

I gotta admit I only played R-Type during my hey days of using Atari ST (Yup, you heard me right. Atari ST! In my personal opinion, very poor as a personal computer but great as a gaming machine. Afterall, it's Atari.) and even then, the graphics are impressive, the music is heart thumping techno (thanks to the built-in MIDI) and the game, one of the hardest to beat. Really pushing your eyes and hand coordination to the max. Absolutely LOVE IT and I'm sure alot of ardent gamers out there would in one time or another come across this game.

Anyway, that way back during the early 1990s. Right now, development of personal computers have progressed by leap and bounds. Every 6 months, we have something new. Love it or hate it. That's the way it is and because of such advancements in the processing power of both CPU and Video cards, I gotta say the year of 2007 onwards marks the era of pure and sheer gaming pleasure.

Which brings me to the topic today. I'm talking about the newest horizontal space shooter video game, Söldner-X: Himmelsstürmer, developed by SideQuest Studios and published by eastasiasoft. It is in development as downloadable game for Playstation 3 (PS3) on the PlayStation Store and as physical product for PC. The downloadable PS3 version will most likely be arriving Winter 2007 over the Playstation Network (PSN), whereas the PC version will be available Nov 2007 @ Play-Asia.com.

In the fastest and most effective possible manner, I'm going to list down all the features of this upcoming game (I highlighted those with GREEN text to indicates what matters to me:

• 12 stages of beautiful parallax graphics and animations, staged across 4 fantastic world/space settings
• High definition graphics in 720p (16:9)
• Supports 2-Player Co-Op Play (simultaneously)
• Beautiful weather effects (such as rain, fog and lightning)
• Detailed background animations
• Classic design, yet state-of-the-art shooter technology
• Unique upgrade weapon system with five standard weapon types
• Never before seen tactical elements such as chaining, effectiveness system, 'berserker' mode and much more
• Plenty of hidden bonus features
• More than 20 extras (with both positive and negative effects!)
• Addictive collection quests
• Over-the-top boss fights
• Features a superb soundtrack and sound effects
• Bi-lingual story mode (English/Japanese)
• Six modes of difficulty: very easy, easy, normal, hard, impossible, nightmare
• Easy to learn, yet tough to master Online high score ranking

• Constant frame rate (60fps)

Ya da, Ya da, Ya da, enough of description, let me illustrate :-)

I wanted to showcase a YouTube trailer but decided it will do the game no justice. Thus, here is a slightly higher res streaming video for your enjoyment. When I watched this trailer, there's only 1 thing on my mind. I can't wait to play it. The graphics intensive and the music is heart thumping. I have always been a fan of shoot-em up and the soon to be released Söldner-X is a testament that this genre is not dead yet.

I will not be able to give you a review of this game as no demo is available yet. But keep your eyes out for this shooter. It will definitely be a great addition to your library of games especially to those who have Widescreen LCD Monitor/TVs and PS3. For those with PCs, here's the requirements (although I believe you should look more at the Recommended specs which honestly in my opinion, should not even be any issue to most PC owners nowadays).

A Food Blog for Thoughts

I usually don't go surfing to food blogs but today is one of those day whereby I woke up late and after finishing my roti canai (a better explanation over at Wiki), I suddenly have interest to get some nice foods.

And thus, what brought me over to this particular food blog, called 3-Meals.com. I could only think that the name represent a Chinese saying of having a proper 3 meals a day which of course represent your breakfast, lunch and dinner (Sorry! No supper here cos it will definitely and 100% guarantee to make you fat especially if you sleep straight away after eating supper!).

Anyway, back to topic. This guy here definitely loves playing with his camera (not at a perverse manner mind you :-p ) and on his food blog, he's actually quite illustrative and nothing beats the saying "Picture tells a thousand words!". Damn.. I'm actually getting quite hungry now. Ha ha ha!

Overall, if out of 5 stars, I think I'll give him a 4 stars for his effort on providing descriptive reviews on the food he tasted, illustration and of course, the location info on how to get there. Definitely worth a shot if you are those adventurous food enthusiasts.

A Beemer or the Tri-Star?

These 2 companies have been at it since the beginning of when German marques are recognized globally as automative with precision, quality, performance and last but not least, luxury. So, when it comes to down A SINGLE ABSOLUTE CHOICE on their best of the best.... which one will you choose when you make your 1st million? or 2 perhaps :-)

Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG (W204)

A V8 6.2 litre powerhouse with an incredible output of 457 PS (335 kW) from the German marque which is synonmous with Luxury & Performance.

BMW M3 (E92)
A V8 4.0 litre powerhouse with an incredible output of 420 PS (309 kW) from the German marque which is synonmous with Handling and Sheer Driving pleasure.

Please submit your vote on the polls booth on your right hand side. Thanks

Dry Ice + Dent on Car Body = ?

Ok.. I'm going to show you guys and gals an interesting DYI. Please perform this with extreme care because it involves using Solid Carbon Dioxide (better and commonly known as Dry Ice).

How many times have people like Car Lovers feels when they found that their pride and joy have been dented by some idiot who can't seems to open their car doors with care when parking side by side to another car. This is especially true in shopping malls especially those shopping malls with very very narrow parking space!

Behold... a contribution to society by the use of science and logic ;-)

Free WiFi for Nokia WiFI enabled phones!

Or at least that what it seems to me :-)

Ok.. I'm talking bout Malaysia here and you can find more info and the way to access these free WiFi services from Nokia Malaysia's NSeries WiFiZone website.

Let me say that I happen to bump into this free service by accident. I'm at my local coffee shop sipping away to my delicious Ying Yong that I decided to check via my WLAN quick scan to see whether there's an access point (AP) around. And then I found Airzed's AP (a restricted and locked AP available only to paid customers) and decided to check it out just for fun. To my surprise, I'm automatically brought to Nokia NSeries WiFiZone start page with their Flash game. If you are a residents in Malaysia, perhaps you can check it out. I believe there's some prizes to be won.

I decided to try my luck by browsing some website using Nokia's Safari web browser on a Google's Mobile web search page. Apparently, I believe any links that you click while browsing through this website will automatically be converted to a smaller footprint for your mobile's web browser which of course a good news to me as Nokia's Safari web browser from my experience running off a Nokia N series phone tends to run out of memory pretty quickly whenever the webpage is filled lots of graphics.

Ok.. I running off topic again :-) Back to my input, guess what? It worked! Not only the website are displayed very quickly, I can't believe I can actually browse on a paid AP's network without paying (that's before I found out about this NSeries WiFiZone thingy). So, I started downloading all the apps from Nokia's Download! found on my phone. I gotta said, I'm pretty impressed with AirZed's network overall speed and response. Maybe it is because it is a paid network, but who knows right. I gotta tell you downloading Nokia's free apps and testing them out on my phone really make me feel that perhaps, long long time ago, my decision to pay a premium for a WiFI enabled 3MP camera N series phone is not a bad choice after all.

Finally, I guess Nokia Malaysia really impressed me recently with their value-added services provided for all their N series customers. With the official launch of their Windows Live Messenger chat client and also right now, this free WiFi thingy, I guess I finally started to feel getting more money worth when purchasing a Nokia Smartphone over a equally priced Windows Mobile device. But then, this is just my opinion! :-)

Finally!!! Official Windows Live Messenger on your Nokia N series!

Ok.. I'm truly excited when Nokia decided to launch Windows Live Messenger service officially for Nokia S60 version 3 series phone. Why? I guess it is long overdue seeing that most of Nokia N or E series phone are already running on this platform including their newest range of Communicator series.

Finally a proper MSN client (oops.. should be known as Windows Live Messenger client). There's 2 ways to get it + 1 unofficial way (I got mine through there).

1. Nokia Nseries consumers who own the Nokia N73, N76, N80 Internet Edition, N93i, and the N95 multimedia computers are the first who can access the Windows Live services via the Download! Application on their devices.


2. Existing users and interested consumers can visit http://www.nokia.com/windowslive to learn more.


3. You can download the client from MSN China.

The 3rd option is my unofficial way of getting it way b4 the Windows Live Messenger service is announced. I'm sure lots of tech savvy people have already gotten their hands on this piece of chat client. From the client, I found that it is produced by Chinese company MIMM Technologies. Not too bad and it even comes with their well-known sign-in and chat request wav sound samples. But of course the hassle is to be able to understand Chinese language while navigating through Mobile MSN China's website to acquire this little Java chat client. It think this client is slight different from the 1st and 2nd option. Let me just sum up the difference by saying that the MSN China's version is the slim diet version.

The 1st and the 2nd option are both the same and are considered the full fledge version. Flash demo of the interface can be found here. This particular version have integration with your Nokia's Messenging window and you can even add your contacts (with Hotmail address) into the chat client, share image from your Gallery with your friends and even synchronizing your email with your PC (I have not tried this feature yet). After a week of using this chat client, I gotta say that I'm thinking more or less that I can survive without my laptop when I'm sipping my Caramel Machiato at my local Starbucks. A WiFi enable Nokia handset really does make a difference. No need to fear the high 3G/EDGE/GPRS data charges by the end of the month :-)

Talk about integration, this service just raise the overall value of your Nokia N/E series handset. Why? Because Nokia S60 v3 series handset have what I would call a very approchable and user friendly interface for a Symbian OS (as compared to other implementations) and right now, with integration with Windows Live Messenger, why should I still ponder between a Nokia or a Windows Mobile 6 handset. The S60 v3 series platform have quite a large collection of softwares out there and with Nokia choosing to based their E90 Communicator handset on this platform is a testament that it might be the preferred choice for all Nokia's Smartphone series in the future.

Even Nokia's N95 (so called "It's what computer have become" tagline) is based on this platform. Kudos to Nokia for coming out with this great piece of software. Maybe their tagline after all, do started to make more sense as they come out with such softwares over time for their N/E series customers. ;-)