Recuva - freeware to recover deleted photo / video / music / document / email from SD card / hard disk / USB thumb drive / iPod

If you want to recover or undelete your deleted or lost files (photo, video, music, document, email, etc.), you can try a Windows freeware called Recuva by Piriform.

Recuva works on any rewriteable storage media you have, including internal and external harddisk, SD card, USB thumb drive, and even iPod. It is possible to recover from damaged or formatted disks too.

Beside that, it is also able to try to recover your deleted emails from MS Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail, or Mozilla Thunderbird.

It can even try to recover unsaved MS Word document after a MS Word crash.

Using Recuva is pretty easy and straightforward. You just need to specify the location of your lost file...

... and then the file type...

... then Recuva will start to do the searching.

It will then list out the recoverable files for you to choose and restore them in a new storage location of your choice.

Beside the free Recuva, there are also paid version including Recuva Profession and Recuva Business Edition which include advanced features and professional technical support from Piriform.

Jisan JS-510 51000mAh Li-Polymer slim power bank

There is a Jisan brand 51000mAh high capacity Li-Polymer power bank selling online in some Malaysian e-commerce websites at pretty low price.

It claims to be manufactured in Korea, but when you search the Internet about "Jisan power bank", there is not much info other than the e-commerce webpages. The domain name "jisangroups.com" is even inactive. Most if not all the selling websites are based in Malaysia.

The power bank does have a premium metallic look and feel, but its packaging doesn't match the premium feeling. The English on the packaging (both the language and the text content) is not up to standard as well.

It provides 1 year limited warranty, with a Warranty Card inside, but there is no manufacturer detail nor contact, and the Warranty Card is not professionally designed and written. In fact, the warranty is provided by the dealer.

It says its protection circuit module is based on "Yeonhan Technology by Jisan".

All these signs make me suspect that this power bank is actually made in China by a manufacturer related to OEM factory called Yeon Han, and OEM to a Malaysian dealer with the Jisan brand, and possibly nothing to do with Korea.

This power bank is quite long (about 15cm), but not too heavy.

Given its slim design, I believe it uses the single cell 3.7v Li-Polymer flat cell as battery. This kind of battery is the same kind of Li-Po battery commonly used in hand phones and compact cameras nowadays, and is lighter and better design than the Li-Ion 18650 battery pack used in some other power banks.

However, looking at its size and weight, unless it uses a new kind of battery technology which can have extremely high energy density, I doubt its real capacity can be as high as 51000mAh. Its size and weight is more realistic for it to be around 15000mAh instead. I haven't tested on its real capacity yet, hopefully I am wrong and it really can discharge near to 51000mAh from fully charged state. Then it will be really value for money at its price.

Hopefully it has a good protection circuit module as it claimed. I do notice that its temperature doesn't change much during charging, which is a good sign.

After all, I believe this should be a good quality product, although seems to be overly done in marketing propaganda.

My home audio-visual system comprises Samsung 7-series UHD 4K smart TV, 4.2 channels wireless soundstand and Blu-ray disc player

I have just set up a new home audio-visual system comprise of 3 Samsung products:

• Samsung UA40HU7000R 7-series 40" UHD 4K Flat Smart TV (cost: RM2349)
• Samsung HW-H600 Wireless Soundstand (cost: RM639)
• Samsung BD-F5100XM Blu-ray Player (cost: RM179)

Total cost including GST = RM3167

All 3 of them are of last year old model. If I were to buy them when they newly hit the market, I might need to fork out double the cost or more to take them home. This is kind of delayed gratification to get the same thing at lower cost.

I have checked the running hour of the Samsung TV and confirmed that it is new and never been used before.

Also connected to this Samsung TV are my existing devices:

• Astro B.yond set top box (main source for TV programmes)
• HiMedia Q5II Android 3D TV box (main source for Internet streaming videos + TV games)
• UniFi HyppTV set top box (backup source for TV programmes)

I have chosen a 7-series UHD 4K smart TV, although a lower series Full HD TV is cheaper, because besides the UHD 4K resolution of 3840 x 2160, the 7-series also equipped with 4 HDMI ports, 3 USB ports, LAN port, built-in wireless LAN, analog audio out, digital optical audio out, 2 composite input groups, 1 component input groups, and other connectivities which is pretty comprehensive and sufficient.

If I choose a larger 50" screen of the same Samsung 7-series UHD 4K smart TV, I would need to fork out additional RM1200 from my pocket. By choosing the 40" screen model, I can upgrade it with a wireless soundstand and Blue-ray player, yet the combined cost is still cheaper than buying the 50" screen model.

The main reason to go for Samsung LED TV is for its picture quality and vibrant colour display. The UHD 4K screen offers 4 times resolution than the Full HD screen. The TV supports 4-steps UHD up-scaling to convert lower resolution content to a level of clarity that is almost like Ultra High Definition.

This TV is equipped with Clear Motion Rate (CMR) technology of 200 powered by Ultra Clear Panel and quad-core processor.

Being a smart TV, when connected to the Internet either using wired LAN or WiFi, you can access to Samsung Smart Hub and install apps to the TV, browse websites with its built-in browser, and perform firmware update over the Internet.

It also comes with Samsung Smart Remote Control, which can act as a pointer, and also be used as voice input device to issue voice control command to the TV.

There is an IR blaster gadget comes together with this TV. Connecting it to the IR Out port of the TV and place the round blaster in front of my Astro B.yond set top box, I can use the TV remote control to switch the Astro box on/off together with the TV, and can also use the TV remote control to change the Astro channel (instead of using the Astro remote control).

This TV is supposed to support Screen Mirroring from Samsung mobile devices, but I have difficulty in making it works with my Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0.

This TV also supports the Samsung Smart View 2.0 app for my smart phone to share multimedia content with it, and also act as a remote control. I do find the remote control in this app better than the Samsung Smart Remote Control, as the physical remote control lack of physical numeric keypad and more difficult to directly change to a preferred channel.

The Samsung HW-H600 4.2 Channels Wireless Soundstand greatly enhance the sound quality of the TV, especially when the Surround mode is turned on. It is designed to lay flat and be placed under the TV. This design saves space, and eliminate the clutter of having many speakers in normal Hi-Fi system.

This Samsung HW-H600 is classified as a mid-range Hi-Fi device, so do not expect it to perform the same as those high end Hi-Fi speakers, which costs more than 3 times its price. Its 4.2 channels comprises of 4 bass-reflex speaker drivers and dual built-in subwoofers, which is richer than those 2.1 (stereo + subwoofer) sound bars.

There are many ways it can connect to the TV, including the wireless TV SoundConnect, wired HDMI ARC connect, audio cable connect, etc. I find the audio cable connect is more straightforward and easier to configure.

The Soundstand has a USB port, and can play MP3 music when connected to a USB thumb drive with MP3 files in it.

It also can pair with mobile devices to play MP3 music or receive phone audio output via Bluetooth connection. It comes with an NFC sticker to facilitate easier Bluetooth pairing with smartphone that support NFC.

The Blu-ray disc player completes the audio-visual system by adding ability to play music, video or photo stored in Blu-ray / DVD / VCD / CD disc.

This Samsung BD-F5100XM does not support playing of 3D Blu-ray movie. It supports full HD (1920x1080) and can upscale DVD to this level, but it does not support UHD.

It also comes with a USB port, which function similarly with the USB port in the TV and Soundstand.

It has a LAN port to connect to the Internet, and comes with some apps including Youtube, Facebook, etc. However, I prefer to use the Youtube and Facebook apps in the smart TV, which can be accessed more directly. It does not support WiFi connection.

There is newer Blu-ray player model that support WiFi connection, 3D Blu-ray movie playing, UHD picture quality, etc. The cost will be at least double the price of this Samsung BD-F5100XM.