Several weekends ago, I decided it was time for me to change my left hand side car’s Constant Velocity (CV) joint. It’s been a while since I’ve noticed the clicking sound whenever I make a U-turn but I just ignored that. It costed me a few hundreds RM in repair for my car’s right hand CV joint last year because I’ve been telling myself that “it’s still okay for now and everything would be alright”. The cause of CV joint damages is most of the time because of the worn out or tear of the rubber that contains the grease. Visually inspecting my undercar components, it’s been several months already that the boot of the CV joint is torn. If I were just to replace the boot alone, it would have just cost me less than RM50 but only if the CV joint doesn’t make any funny sound. As for my CV joint, the sound is too obvious. Procrastinate just makes thing even worse but it is one tough habit that is not easy to get rid off.

Being a bootstrapper, I hunted for several shops to get the best deal for my repair. I was tempted to do it on my own but of course I was short on tools plus my car mechanic skillset has been rusted for so many years. The only thing I have is the knowledge on how to minimize costs and repairs. So, in order to prolong your car’s CV joint this what I am going to share:

1. Avoid making very sharp U-turn so often; this is because you’ll make your CV joint rubber boot to stretch in and out excessively and will make it torn off quickly.
2. Try and avoid small and tight parking spaces where you need to turn your wheel from end to end.
3. Check your undercar at least once a month and take into consideration every smudge of grease on your wheel.

Here’s a snapshot of how my mechanic removed my car’s broken CV joint. If I’m not mistaken, this is my fourth CV joint that I’ve replaced eversince I’ve been driving my own car.

The cost of the repair was RM130 for a brand new CV joint. It’s not an original part but hey, original parts doesn’t mean that it is really original. A car manufacturer have thousands of vendors working for them, they just kind of assemble them together and for aftermarket products, they just make the packaging use their own brand. As long as it works, I don’t see the trouble of using some other brand but of course don’t get a cheap imitation product or you’ll just endangering yourself.

I haven’t made my wheel alignment yet after replacing the new CV joint. I guess I’ll wait for my tyres to worn out and then proceed with a tyre alignment. Oh no…more procrastination..

By the way, check out this girl mechanic who got trouble removing her car’s CV joint. I stumbled upon this trouble with my former car and my mechanic had to cut his way through using a grinder. It’s not an easy job but somebody has to do it.

Last weekend, I went to Ipoh for a day trip. I’ve planned this trip for 2 weeks already however I was kind of in a tight budget so my trip had to be in a minimal cost as possible. I’ve never been to Ipoh by bus before, I’ve been on a day trip by bus to Butterworth last year. I’ve brought along my digital camera so I’ll let you see a glimpse of what I’ve experienced.

My trip wasn’t so bad. It cost me RM13.30 for a one way trip using MARALiner Express bus. The seat were comfortable and the leg room is quite big. In my old days, these kind of seats are considered executive seats and cost more. Anyway, I parked my car outside of Jalan Duta Bus Station (there’s free parking but you park at your own risk), get on the bus and I’m off to Ipoh. My journey starts at 9am. Almost three hours later, I arrived at Medan Gopeng Bus Station somewhere before Simpang Pulai if I’m not mistaken. I didn’t actually arrived at Ipoh town but I was on a mission to someplace else which I have no idea yet because I had to wait for my host to bring me to the place where ever that is at that time. Here’s a few shot of Medan Gopeng Bus Station. At least this bus station has air conditioned compared to the other bus station I’ve been to.

Less than an hour later, my friends and I arrived at Hutan Lipur Sungai Salju located somewhere in Batu Gajah:

We had to climb all away to the top with all of our food before we can reach the waterfall. Seeing the waterfall was a really refreshing experience. Eventhough it was raining a little bit, I enjoyed every moment of it.

We then left the waterfall, had some spin around the outskirt of Ipoh and head back to the bus station for some snack. My bus was at 7pm and I arrived safely back in Jalan Duta Bus Station in KL at 9.30pm. By the way, I took Transnasional express bus and their seats are quite cramped. I pretty much preferred MARA Liner better. Total cost of the trip was less than RM50 which was cheaper than my weekly date trip in KL. I think I should take the bus more often. ;-D

All my life, I’ve always been a Windows user. So if you ask me to use other operating system such as Linux or Mac, I can always use it but the comfort level would never be the same as using Windows. However for Internet browsers, now that’s different. I’ve tried most of the browser that is available for download but I’ve never tried Safari browser. When Apple decided to give away their beta version of Safari 3 public beta browser, I downloaded it. So, what is so special about this browser and is it suitable for me?

Another reason for me to download is because I need the latest Apple Quicktime that is bundled with Safari browser download package since I just installed a fresh Windows XP SP2 on my computer. I tried and install Ubuntu as a dual boot on my computer but something went wrong so I decided to scrap that idea and just stick with Windows. I’ll write about that in a special blog post.

While downloading, I was reading my RSS feed using Google Reader and found this:

• Safari 3 Is An Half-baked Web Browser from Apple, Wait for a Patch

I almost ditched my downloaded Safari browser installation file but I decided to install it anyhow. I wasn’t really going to use this browser permanently so I gave it shot.

I like the fonts and the User Interface (UI) that Safari browser renders. It looks similar when using FireFox on Ubuntu and also when we use Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista, everything looks so nice to the eye. What I don’t like is, it slows down my PC. Until I can afford a faster PC, I don’t think this “eye candy” software would benefit me. Still, it’s a great alternative for a change. I don’t think web developers and designers would welcome this browser as that would mean another change to the source code.

So many things happened since I last wrote my last post. Now I just have to many drafts that I need to finish up. Last weekend, I could have finish up or at least add in a couple of blog posts but something strange happened to my Windows, it got corrupted. I had to concentrate all my effort to track down my files on the hard disk because I have this bad habit of not having a full back up. I then found out that it was my RAM that was loose that cause my motherboard to act weird on my hard disk detection and some other useless computer crap. I had to say goodbye to most of the junk files I have but it did hit me that I need to further schedule ahead for some timely back-up just in case something happen. This might be one of the reason for me to use Ubuntu as a change? Well, not quite.

Anyway, last month I went to Putrajaya for the Colours of Malaysia launch 2007. It’s already over if you look at the dates on Tourism Malaysia. I never would have known such event if not for my sweetheart who participated as one of the 1600 dancers. I wrote a blog about it in Malay on her blog. I’ve also uploaded a couple of videos shot using my Kodak Easyshare DX6490. The camera doesn’t work at night but I finally figured out which mode to use. Here’s one video where I had a little fun and danced with her after the event: