Toyota Avanza enhancement - Titan high-low adjustable performance suspension system

I have upgraded the stock suspension of my Toyota Avanza to Titan high-low adjustable performance suspension system.

Titan is a well-known Malaysian brand of serviceable car shock absorber and suspension components, manufactured by a company called MPd Auto Centre Sdn Bhd founded in 1999 by Richard How, and located at No. 38, Jalan Mewah 3/3, Taman Perindustrian Hata, Pandan Mewah, 68000 Ampang.

Titan is highly recommended by AOCM as a replacement for the stock suspension of Toyota Avanza (either the 1.3 or the 1.5 models). Although its initial cost is higher than normal absorber, it has advantages such as:

• Height is adjustable to tune for the suspension dampening rate
• Can be custom made according to your requirement
• The package includes the whole car suspension system, i.e. absorber, spring, damper, panhard rod modification, etc.
• Serviceable, no need to replace the whole thing in the future, thus lower maintenance cost
• Has second hand resell value

Built upon inverted monotube design, Titan suspension can be adjusted to be stiffer for racing performance, and also adjustable to be softer for comfort driving. With this, the car can be tuned to greatly reduce its bumpiness and bounciness on the ride. In fact, you will be amazed by Titan's performance in handling uneven road conditions, road bumps and road holes.

If Titan is used together with the Ultra Racing bars, Toyota Avanza can have a greatly improved steady and stable ride, as well as safer and better handling for high speed and cornering.

For those who complain about stock suspension system of Toyota Avanza, this could be your solution.

Best antivirus / security suite in 2010

What is the best antivirus and/or security suite for home user now?

I believe a good security solution for home computer:

• should detect most if not all of the virus and malware.
• should be good in protecting from new/unknown virus and malware.
• should not have too much false positive.
• should not diminish the performance of the computer too much. The computer should not be sluggish when the security solution is running.
• should not consume too much CPU and memory resource.
• should be fast in scanning for virus and malware.

After reading the comparison and benchmarking reports in these websites...

• AntivirusWare
• AV-Comparatives
• Passmark Consumer Antivirus Performance Benchmarks (2011) report
• TopTenReviews
• Virus Bulletin

 I found that the best in 2010 is a competition between these 2 vendors:

• ESET
• Symantec

Slovakia company ESET produces the NOD32 Antivirus and the ESET Smart Security suite, while US company Symantec produces the Norton Antivirus and the Norton Internet Security suite.

However, in terms of pricing and availability in retail computer store in Malaysia, Symantec definitely has the upper hand.

Therefore, the best security suite in 2010 for me is Norton Internet Security 2010. I bought a genuine box of it with 1 year subscription to 3 computers at the price of RM100 in Digital Mall recently.

After installing Norton Internet Security 2010, I got free upgrade to Norton Internet Security 2011 with its Norton Update Center.

Am I scammed by the electronic ultrasonic insect repeller?

Insect and pest repelling using the electronic way isn't something new and has been around for many years. However, until today, there is still debates and doubts whether it works or not. There are lab tests showing that it totally not working, and other lab tests showing that it does work but not very effective.

In fact, there are 3 common kinds of electronic insect and pest repeller in the market:

• Electromagnetic - the device changes the wavelengths of the frequency signals that already exist in the wiring of homes, thus claimed to be able to agitate rodents and insects with these signals.
• Ultrasonic - the device emits high frequency sound above 22 khz which is unheardable by human being (thus called ultrasound) but is detectable by certain insects and rats. The effect is like putting a loud siren beside their ears and chase them away.
• Ionic - it is said that certain insects and rodents are sensitive to negative ions, so they won't go near an ionizer.

Nowadays they are even 3-in-1 products which combine all the features above, but selling at high price of above RM100.

I have 2 electronic ultrasonic insect repellers in my home, which I bought for about RM20 each in Giant hypermarket. Picture as below.

In fact, you can easily find in the Internet for circuit diagrams about electronic ultrasonic insect repellers, and can DIY make your own with some electronic knowledge and devices. Some are very simple, and here is a more complicated one from Electronic Circuits website.

Beside that, there also exist computer software that make use of the speakers to generate pest repelling ultrasonic waves, such as SEA Anti-Mosquitoes XP, KP-Anti Mosquitoes, Ultrafobos, etc. Similar applications are available for mobile devices including iPhone, Palm, etc. For normal handphones, there are also ultrasonic ringtones that you can find and download from Internet.

Is the small electronic ultrasonic device that I've bought effective to me?

I put one in my kitchen, quite near to the dining table.

Well, before using it, I used to disturbed by one or two mosquitoes at night when I used my laptop on the dining table. After using it, so far no more such mosquito disturbance.

And before using it, sometimes I saw cockroach in the kitchen when I turn on the light there during midnight. Now, so far no such engagement after using it.

It seems like it works fine for me so far, and I don't feel like scammed, although I've found quite a number of reports in the Internet saying electronic insect repellers are useless.