My first purchase experience with Tesco Online Shopping

Tesco is my favourite hypermarket for grocery shopping. Usually, I'll go to their physical store near my house.

Tesco Online Shopping service has been made available to my area for quite some times. Now they are having promotion to provide free delivery service (normally they'll charge for RM10 delivery fee) and also free potato chips as gift to online shoppers.

I just need to select the items to purchase from their website, tell them the delivery address, book a delivery time slot, and confirm the order. Payment will be made with credit card only when I receive the goods.

They sent out a confirmation email to me within seconds after the order was placed. I was allowed to make changes to the order or to cancel the order one day before the delivery is due.

Their delivery man called me to confirm there will be person waiting at home during the delivery time slot. The delivery van arrived pretty punctual. I was told that 2 of the items I ordered are out of stock. The rest of the items arrived in good condition, together with the free gift. I was charged for the actual amount and paid with on credit card on the spot.

Buying with Tesco Online Shopping save me time and effort to have to go to their physical store. I also no need to worry about the long payment queue at the store's cashier counter. It is really convenient.

However, here are a few drawbacks:

• The nearest delivery time slot might not be available. In this case, you might need to pick for a time slot that require you to wait for some times before you receive the goods.
• Tesco Clubcard vouchers and coupons cannot be applied for online purchase yet.
• I am not sure whether the Tesco Clubcard points collection is applicable for online purchase or not. There is no place to key-in Clubcard number during online purchase, and there is no device to swipe the Clubcard for points collection during goods receipt.
• I was not informed about the goods that are out of stock, until their delivery man arrived at my doorstep and inform me so.

After all, this is a good experience of grocery shopping with Tesco Online.

Bookfest Malaysia 2014 @ KLCC

During this Hari Raya holidays, I have visited to Bookfest Malaysia 2014 held at Kuala Lumpur Convention Center, which is crowded by overwhelming people.

There are a few parking places nearby KLCC with a parking rate of RM5 per entry, including Wisma Central, and an open car park beside Avenue K shopping complex.

Venue: Hall 1-5, Kuala Lumpur Convention Center, KLCC, Kuala Lumpur.
Date: 23 July - 3 August 2014
Time: 10am - 10pm
Entrance fee: RM2.50. Free for children and elderly person.

I feel the arrangement for ticket counter, entrance and exit for this Bookfest very awkward. The ticket counter is located far away from the entrance, and the exit is located at the center in between the English section (Hall 4 & 5) and Chinese section (Hall 1 & 2).

You really can get very good discount for the books in this Bookfest, which has attracted a lot of book lovers going there. There are also lots of activities and talks ongoing everyday, which you can find the detail schedule here: http://www.bookfestmalaysia.com/event-schedule.php

This event is a good chance for you to buy some books. Remember to keep the receipt for income tax relief to be declared in April next year :)

Converting your handphone / MP3 player to mini radio station with FM Transmitter

If your car CD player is capable of replaying MP3 music, you'll need to burn the MP3 files into a finalized CDR disc, which has a capacity of up to 680MB only.

If your car audio system has a USB port to play MP3 music, you'll need to copy the MP3 files to a USB thumb drive and plug it into the USB port of the car audio system.

What if your car audio system doesn't support the above 2 ways of playing MP3 music?

Well, you can convert and burn your MP3 files into an audio CD, which can store about 10 songs, and play it with your car CD player.

There also exist a kind of FM Transmitter that plug into your car's cigarette lighter socket, which you need to copy your MP3 files to an SD card and slot it into the FM Transmitter. Then, you can tune your car radio to the same frequency with the FM Transmitter in order to listen to the music.

But I have a better choice. I use the kind of FM Transmitter as shown below which can turn your handphone, MP3 player, or any kind of gadgets that support audio output to a universal 3.5mm headphone jack.

This FM Transmitter turns your gadget into a mini radio station with broadcast range of about 15 meters only. It supports devices with the 3.5mm headphone jack including handphone, MP3 player, voice recorder, tablet, laptop, etc.

The audio transmitted out can then be received and played by any radio device within the range. This could be your car radio, a normal radio, a Hi-Fi, a handphone with FM radio function, etc.

This FM Transmitter is able to transmit high-fidelity stereo sound with the digital PLL (phase locked loop) technology. It supports full range of FM transmitting frequency (87.5MHz-108.0MHz). It has stereo isolation of >= 38dB.

You can use it to output any kind of audio from the connected device, with audio frequency range of 100Hz-15,000Hz.

It has its own built-in 120mAh Li-ion battery, which can be recharged with its micro-USB port.

Its usage is similar to the cigarette lighter FM Transmitter. Just tune your car radio to the same frequency with this FM Transmitter in order to listen to the music.

Pretty cool isn't it?