Miessence to date

It has been a while since I last posted in my blog.  Facebook is the in thing now, and I must admit that I am not a serious blogger.  But I write again because there have been some posts previously on Miessence, and I would like to update all who have been reading on my reviews on Miessence.  I think it’s the right thing to do.

I have stopped using Miessence simply for the reason that it has become too expensive for me to use it regularly.  If anyone feels that the price is right, I will still encourage anyone to give it a try.

I am glad that I decided to stop using Miessence because I have discovered other alternatives.  If you are looking for alternatives, perhaps you could give iHerb.com a try.  Use the coupon code IHU745 and you get a $5 off your first order as a new customer.  Please review each product’s ingredients carefully, and there are LOTS!

I am currently giving Dessert Essence a try.  The only grouse I have is that Sodium Coco Sulphate is one of the ingredients.  Sodium Coco Sulphate is the same chemical as Sodium Lauryl Sulphate.  So if you are sensitive to it, please don’t use.  I tried because I didn’t know better then.

Lastly, I wish you all the best in your quest for a safer and healthier personal care product to use.  If I find any that’s really good, I will continue to share that information with you.

Just one reason for not buying Epson CX6500

I can honestly say why you shouldn’t get a Epson CX6500 simply because I bought one 2 years back.  Since I see that it’s still on the market, this blog entry may still save you from the agonies that I went through.

The main problem with Epson CX6500 (and I’m not sure if it applies to all ink-based models from Epson) is that when one ink cartridge runs out of ink, all functions of the printer are suspended and it will just keep on prompting you to replace the empty ink cartridge.  You won’t be able to scan.  You won’t be able to copy or print in plain black.

If you do not use the printer frequently, then chances are you’ll face clogged ink nozzles, which you’ll have to waste a lot of ink in order to clean them up.  Which means, the cartridges will run out of ink with low frequency (hence low volume) printing.  Which means you are likely to face the same situation as I did.

I’m dunking ink-jet printers for now.  Color laser printers are cheap now, so I’m going to try that out.  Anyone with bad laser printer experiences?

Audio on Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 sucks

It took a Shure SE420 headphones to find out that the Azalia codec that comes with the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 sucks. Ok, now I think my Sennheiser HD595 is tad poorer in performance compared to the Shure SE420. I’ll talk about that next time.

Recently, I managed to get my MP3 encoding to work on my Ubuntu 6.10. Hey, I’m busy too. So I started to rip some of my CDs through my Linux box. When I listened to the music on my Shure SE420, I thought that the music was hallowing. At first I thought my Shure headphones were faulty, and started this whole exercise in trying out my headphones through a standalone CD player, an amplifier, my MacBook, my MP3 player, and finally MP3 music encoded through different computers.

It was the different encodings through the computers that finally helped me to isolate the problem down to the Linux box.

So I tried different CD players on my Linux box, and I found out that 2 of my old CD players are spoilt. Hmm… hardware don’t keep well if you don’t use them for a long time. Finally, I stripped out an old Creative Soundblaster 128bit sound card and slotted it onto my Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3, and disabled the Azalia codec through the BIOs setup. Remember to connect the audio in-out cable from your CD player to the sound card. Oh glorious music!!!

Creative Technology delivers! Back to re-ripping some of my CDs, and nursing of my aching back… testing of hardware is a tiring job.

Shure SE420

After 4 grueling months of work, I just consoled myself with a new pair of Shure SE420 headphones. Not that the work gave back me deserving returns, though I hope that’s coming in the future, but I’ve been thinking of getting a good pair of headphones that I can move around with. My Sennheiser HD595 was difficult to bring around due to its size, and ambient sounds leak through when I travel on the train. I’ve been eying Shure’s headphones for the past 2 years. So when Shure launched it’s latest range of sound isolation headphones, I thought it’s a good time to get one.

After using it for a week, here’s my verdict. It’s a good pair of phones. Mids and highs are clear and crisp. Very good for vocals and instrumentals. You could feel guitar strumming messaging your ears. Lows might be a tad weak, if you’re used to stronger lows. After switching between my Sennheiser HD595 and Shure SE420 just to test out the differences, the Shure SE420 sounds more balanced across its lows, mids and highs. With the SE420’s frequency range between 20Hz and 19kHz, I didn’t experience low rumbles and trailing highs that could lift my emotions higher. Shure says that they manufacture headphones to reproduce sounds as close as possible to original recordings. I wonder if the previous experiences with my music was more of an artificial one with impressive technical engineering. Prolong use of the SE420 will probably tell.

With its Ear Canal design, the sealing of the foam buds onto your ear canal will create an environment that seals out a lot of outside sounds, but amplify your own body’s sounds. So it’s not good if you walk, or jog with the phones in your ears. Chewing will definite kill your music. If sealing of the foam buds are very tight, you can even hear your own heartbeat. But if you just use it while you are sitting down, it works better than those active noise-canceling headphones.

The wires are thick and some may feel that it’s stiff. For me, it doesn’t affect me much because the quality of the sounds produced are my higher concerns. But the stiff wires will rub against your skin as you loop it around your ears (as recommended by Shure on the proper method to wear the headphones), and the sounds will amplify into your ears.

That’s my contribution to the review of Shure SE420. Other reviews have covered quite a bit, and you can read it all of them on the Internet.

Yes, I am happy with the SE420. I think it’s worth the money, although I wish it could be cheaper. I’m itching to try out the SE530!

Updates:

My problem with weak bass was with a problem I had with my Linux box used to encode music.  After resolving that, I’m happy to say that my Shure SE420 headphones is able to produce tight strong bass.

Review of Miessence products

I hesitated to write about this, because it’s just going to read too good to be true.

I went on a health-conscious spree recently. Just couldn’t bear using the chemical-laden personal care products any more, and I found this organic product Miessence. So I made an order and started using them. So here’s my review. I would have written earlier, but just wanted to be sure that it wasn’t my euphoria that was affecting my opinion.

I just love them! I just couldn’t believe that we have been so conditioned to thinking that effective cleaning requires foaming. Well, the Miessence products do not foam, and if it did, it’s only a little bit. They still clean equally well. Let me just go into each product that I am using now.

Shampoo

I am using the Lemon Myrtle Shampoo, for normal to oily hair. It cleans very well. So well, that my wife finds it too dry. I thought it was ok, but men have more oily hair than women. I combine it with the hair conditioner. I’m getting the Desert Flower Shampoo (for normal and dry hair) for her. Initially, you’ll need 2 applications of the shampoo. That means, shampoo, rinse, and do that again. That’s because your hair has those chemicals from the previous brands, and the organic shampoo will need to strip them out slowly. A few days later, you’re back to single shampoo and rinse. Big surprise factor was that I needed only a 2-cm wide amount of shampoo for each application.

Conditioner

I am using the Shine Herbal Hair Conditioner. You’ll need this if you find the shampoo too drying. Again, only a small amount is required. Flowery scent, but on using, it has a woody scent.

Facial wash

Balancing Cleanser for normal and combination skin. First time I used a facial cleanser that doesn’t foam. I was not used to it initially because it felt slightly greasy, like applying only moisturizer. But after rinsing and drying the face with a towel, it felt great! Skin pores are getting smaller, and the oil control is amazing. I don’t wake up with an oily face now. As the day progresses, I get oily spots at the t-zones of the face. No problems with just a little dabbing with a piece of tissue. Skin is starting to glow and less puffy too. My wife is loving this.

Toothpaste

Mint-flavored toothpaste. Ohhh… if you have to get something, don’t miss out the toothpaste! We don’t have bad breath when we wake up now! It’s lovely to wake up without a dry mouth smelling like a rubbish dump. No more Colgate, Darlie, Sensedyne, or Oral B. All those didn’t work. I couldn’t believe simple ingredients in the organic toothpaste could prevent bad breath just like that. Honestly, it took me a while to get used to it because it wasn’t foaming, it tasted salty and there was a slight tingling sensation.

Shaving Gel

Another non-foaming product. For me, I’ve been using Gillette foaming cream/gel ever since I started to sprout hairs around my chin. So when I used this, I was having doubts. But foaming is just a myth! This shaving gel, or rather it’s of a creamy texture, just works as it should. It lubricates the skin, so that your shaving blade can glide along your skin without scraping with accompanying howls. On top of that, it doesn’t dry out like the Gillette foam, so that you can go over your skin repeatedly until you’re satisfied. Here’s the skeptical part… my beard growth seems to be slower after using this shaving gel. Well, that’s what I noticed for the past few days. Anyway, it has a woody scent to it too.

Hand wash

By now, “small amounts only” is not surprising. That’s all you need for an effective wash. Very little foaming, and leaves the hand moisturized after rinsing. A gingery-lemony scent which my wife didn’t like. But I do, so I’m the only one using it now. I do realize that my hands do not having the numbing feeling anymore. I mentioned that to some friends last year, and thought that it could be a side-effect of a heart condition. But it seems like it’s not. My palms are starting to feel more sensitive, and warmer too. By the way, my doctor couldn’t find irregularities in my heart beat.

That’s it. Too good to be true? I don’t blame you. It’s something that you can accept only if you try it yourself. If you want to try it, you can just shop online here: http://jubilaree.mionegroup.com.

Miessence package has arrived!

It took only 2 days! After I placed my order on their online shopping site, they sent me an email notifying me on the order placement. Today morning, they sent me another email informing that the package is on the way. Today afternoon, the UPS man arrived to my doorstep with my package. All without me stepping out of the house! After a month of leg work in trying to find safer alternatives to personal care products, this is just a bliss!

So now you know that shipping Miessence to Singapore has no problems. Oh, no GST too. 😉

Update: No GST if your package’s value is below S$400.

From the pictures, you can see that the packaging is nicely done. Nuggets of foam is used to prevent the bottles from tumbling around. The bottles have a tape seal on top. If it’s broken, it means that it has been tampered with, or the contents might have been compromised. Nice touch.

Ok, initial fragrance test!

Extremely pleasant. Quite different from the usual products that we buy. The scents have an uplifting lint to it, which I find it very hard to describe. They are not over powering. I could sniff them repeatedly just to try to identify the scents. I’ll try my best here.

Mint Toothpaste – Wife prefers mint, so we got the mint! Minty and bright scent. The volume looks good enough to last for one month for 2 persons.

Lemon Myrtle Shampoo – Milky scent with a uplifting lint of lemon.

Shine Herbal Hair Conditioner – Flowery scent, like during a spring season.

Liquid Hand Soap – Flowery scent. Slightly more wholesome than the hair conditioner.

For the others, I wasn’t able to sniff it due to the dispenser design. I’ll probably know tomorrow. So far, it’s smelling good. 🙂

Update:

Shaving Cream – Woody scent.

Balancing Cleanser (facial) – Woody, with a hint of rosemary. English herbal kind of scent.

200 Pounds Beauty

Great Korean romance comedy movie, with a touch of heart in the end.

It’s a pro-cosmetic surgery movie, so if you are strongly against cosmetic surgery based on all things should be natural, you may not find it your cup of tea.  It did touch on some moral issues, so it’s not all that bad.  I’m pretty ok with it.  In the end, cosmetic surgery is a personal issue.  To each their own, and finding yourself is your journey in life.  You can change the outside, but you can’t change the inside.  It’s definitely a good show to spend time with friends, family and that special someone.

Why are the movie theaters’ sound so loud? I could hear the sound distorting due to the high volume at certain parts of the movie. Not the first time… reminded me of why I stopped going to the movies. I saw it at Shaw Brothers Bugis Junction.

New washing machine

I had to get a new washing machine.

The old one started to stain clothes with small black oil stains, or huge orange ones. These stains couldn’t be washed or bleached off. I suspected that the seals at the steel drum’s joint to the motor had worn out, hence the occasional oil and grease leak. Thank God that only old T-shirts and some underwear were stained! I’ll be so sad if one of my business shirts were stained.

So now I’m poorer. I settled for the Panasonic NA-V80 model. It’s the one with a 45-degree tilted drum for water saving purposes. There’s a dryer capability in it that uses an inverter, so it supposed to be electricity saving; and doesn’t need an air-exhaust. Mrs wanted the dryer for the long and wet monsoon seasons in Singapore when clothes won’t dry.

I have already tried it, and it uses so little water! I was worried that it wouldn’t wash the clothes clean, but it looked alright. Due to the low amount of water used, the detergent was cut down too. Now I can foresee my detergent lasting double the washes.

Oh well, the old one was more than 10 years old, and we are one step closer to environmental care. Consolations for the pain in the wallet. 🙂

Update:

Ok, by special request, here’s a picture of the washing machine.

Product Description, if you are interested. 🙂

After 3 days of Mio

Here’s what I have found out so far.

Network bandwidth is good. Video streaming is still smooth. I haven’t encounter a hiccup yet.

The loopback for the phone line sucks. The loopback allows you to connect your phone to any phone wall-socket in your house. As it goes through the DSL/HPNA micro-filter, when you connect your phone to a wall-socket, you can hear the interference from the DSL/HPNA. The interference was bad enough to cause the Mio to not understand the phone dialing. So no calls could be made. The phone works best through a direct connection to Mio.

Mio has a firewall. Lots of presets for games, so you could just scroll down the list and enable your selected game traffic through. No logs though, so you can’t see who’s trying to screw you.

Wireless is set to default WEP-Open for encryption. That needs to be changed, because WEP is not secure enough.

Wireless can be disabled! That’s something that most wireless modem doesn’t provide. The need to disable is there if you are not using it. Surely, less microwaves, it’s good. Chances are higher that you won’t get sterile.

I found out what the USB connection is for. It’s another way for you to connect a computer to the Internet.

The gateway’s password is not set by default. So remember to set it! Otherwise with the weak WEP encryption, the wireless SID being broadcast, and the DHCP server dishing out IP addresses to anyone, someone could hook into your network and mess you up.

So after 3 days of Mio, I am still satisified, and a little disappointed with the loopback issue.

I got my Mio!

Yes! It’s finally here! My Mio has just been installed, after a wait of 3 weeks. The demand is so great that the queue to get it installed took so long.

You can get all the pictures at Singtel’s website.

So far it seems to be faster. My streaming of YouTube has not chocked, or hiccuped yet.

I’ll just tell you what was not covered in Singtel’s website.

It has:

• 4 ethernet ports at the back. So you do not need a switch anymore. Ok, it has wireless too. So you do not need a wireless switch anymore. One less equipment to power up.
• All kinds of extensions. Sorry, I got excited.  There are ethernet sockets, phone-in socket, phone-out socket, and USB socket.  If you need something to connect to your switch, the technician is very kind to entertain you. Or extra phone, or loop back to your house’s phone sockets, he’s able to help you.
• There’s also a USB socket. I don’t know what it’s for yet. Hmm… I just realised that there’s no manual!
• Telephone out socket. Just like the old ADSL modems.
• Male version. Yeah, there’s a black and white Mio. The white Mio, featured in Singtel’s commercials as a smarty-pants push-over bitch, is the female version. I’m glad I got the male version.

I’m happy so far. I hope the Internet doesn’t get bogged down at night, like it used to when I had the Starhub connection.