Like the winds of change, you will notice a drastic change in the engine technology of automobiles to come. Japan’s big car magnet company has introduced the K20A that is being used in the new Honda STREAM which happens to be the initial spectrum to their latest new generation i-VTEC engines. This huge step will lead the way for super high performance engines to come.
The K20 FD2R engine has a 6 speed transmission with many of the good technologies being carried forward enhanced and placed on the new generation engine. The engine which is promoted and seen as Honda’s next generation engines runs by timing chain instead of the normal timing rubber belt and has a reverse engine head.
The K20 engine should not be judged by its power rating but for its brilliant technology that has been put into it. It has been specially put together so as to save on fuel making it economic, with ample of internal combustion force for twisting and turning easily and clean emissions that are managed and bestowed at a higher level with VTEC (Variable Valve Timing and Lift Electronic Control) and VTC (Variable Timing Control) combined.
The K20 i-VTEC arrangement operates on Honda’s own creation of the VTEC system and adds VTC (Variable Timing Control), that consents for dynamic/continuous intake valve timing and overlapping control. You will find that the K20 comes in various versions, depending on their sporting subtle differences in their power train assemblage. They are available in K20A, K20B and K20C.
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Reading through all the bells and whistles of the new Parallels Desktop 5.0, I was so excited and downloaded the trial copy to install on my Macbook Air laptop. The installation window pop up was quick and the screen display was fast. Click, click, click and I was into the installation progress bar.
I was so excited with many new features, such as faster performance on Snow Leopard OS X 10.6, automated Parallels Compressor that keep the virtual machine optimized and reclaimed hard disk storage space, Multi-Touch gestures available in Windows, remote control windows using Remote Control and the new Crystal Mode. These were the features that got me enthusiastic especially the new Crystal Mode.
Once Parallels Desktop 5.0 was installed, I quickly ran my virtual Windows XP. The speed was impressive and XP was loaded faster than before. I clicked around and realized that it was responding slower and slower and then almost like completely hanged.
I quickly when to Parallels Website and confirm the minimum requirement. Macbook Air laptop was inside the requirement list. I managed to access the start button and clicked restart but it took me more than 10 minutes just to click on the Restart option.
Windows XP restarted again and the startup was fast and went into Windows and from here onward, I could never used my XP anymore. It hanged instantly and I had to hard reset my Air laptop. After three tries and three hard resets, I gave up.
I took the trouble to reinstall back version 4 from my backup. Sad to say I was disheartened that I could not upgrade it. My Macbook Air Laptop model identifier ‘MacBookAir 1,1’ running at 1.6GHz. Perhaps it’s time for me to get a new mac.
With all the hypes and marketing brainwashing, I finally I got a copy of OS X Snow Leopard also known as version 10.6.
The installation was standard like the previous version but there was no Archive and Install option available and it went straight to upgrade my existing OS. I was worried. After more than a hour, I heard the Mac ‘ding’ sound and I ran toward the screen looking forward for a safe upgrade. I was glad that my Air laptop was successfully upgraded.
The first thing I did was to checked my hard disk storage space. To my amazement, 10.6 gave me back almost 13GB of storage space. I was worried again if my video and other files were deleted during the upgrade. Double checking again and again, I was so delighted that Snow Leopard 10.6 saved so much storage space. One thumb up!
The overall performance of my Air Laptop increased significantly. I could feel the speed. Everything I did was so much faster, applications loaded faster, Dashboard displayed faster, Spaces switched faster and the list could go on. I quickly restarted the OS to test the startup speed. The performance was over my expectation, at least two times faster than 10.5. Another thumb up!
Chinese language input on Multi-Touch. This was the main reason that enticed me to installed Snow Leopard. The Chinese input with Multi-Touch was first introduced on iPhone and iPod Touch. Combining keystrokes and keyboard input, now I could simply used it on my Air to enhance my writing. Three thumbs up already!
The most intensive Parallels Desktop 4.0 with Windows XP SP3 loaded in Snow Leopard. Another delighted discovery, my Windows XP was up and running two times faster than previously with 10.5. With Snow Leopard 10.6, I reclaimed a hefty lot of processor speed. For this, one big thumb up!
There were many more enhancements Snow Leopard offered. For me, These four reasons were more than enough to justify my upgrade. Four thumbs up for MacBook Air laptop running on Snow Leopard 10.6, the experience was awesome.
Finally I got my chance to test drive the new Mugen RR! Super cool huh! Test drive Mugen RR was a dream for every Honda fan especially those in the mod business!
My friend called me on Friday morning saying “Bro, my RR landed in NAZA showroom! I am gonna picked it on Monday or Tuesday along with my registration plate.” I was surprised! I could not believe that he really bought the RM350,000 Mugen RR which was about USD$102,000.
The Honda Civic Mugen RR had a limited production run of only three hundreds units worldwide and only in Milan Red color, same as my Euro R color. Mugen RR was powered by Honda well-known K20A motor, which also used in FD2R, DC5, EP3, CL7 and many other models. K20A tuned by Mugen could output 240HP which no other mod group could produce now. (Can …. JC Racing, Spoon, Toda, Comptect,… many of them can produces as well, but it will void the car warranty with the modifications… The Mugen RR is approved by Honda, all parts are authorized by Honda Japan as for street legal.”
I woke up 7am and got myself ready for my friend arrival. About 15 mins later, I saw the blood-red car coming to my gate. Here it is, the Mugen RR is here! I was so excited now to race on the highway.
I was walking around the car and checking the spoiler, bodykits, rims, tires, exhaust, for like 20minutes. Then I opened up the driver side door, slowly and carefully sit on the Recaro Racing-type seat. The seat was also different from Type R, it came with feature lightweight carbon fiber shells.
Turn the key and push the red button, the motor fired up! I drove the RR to Jawi for breakfast. On the Jawi highway, I stepped hard, racing all the way to Bukit Merah. All I could express was, excellent!
The Mugen RR was really a street race car but the steering a bit light, other than that, it is a race car champion. The V-Tec screamed all the way up to 9,200RPM. The engine was fully packed with torque!
Civic Type R suspension was already consider bumpy to me for street use, but the Mugen RR is even stiffer! That was why the car ride amazingly stable, even at 235km/h speed (Apexi RSM installed). When crusing around 230km/h, You would just felt like you were driving around 140km/h on a normal Civic. After the exit of Bukit Merah toll, I u-turned and got back to the return route. Spun up the front wheel after the smart-tag scanned, I speed up all the way till the 360 degree highway entrance service road and dropped gear from 4th to 3rd to 2nd, by heel toe way. Woh! I underestimated the potential of RR. I could even go faster than what I was clocked-in now, the 4 tires were sticking on the road! Sweet!
I did not know what would be the top speed of this car because I got no chance to race due to heavy traffic on the Malaysia “Pariak” Highway.
Anyway, I am very happy with the test drive on the highway. Thanks to Ryan! The RR was an untouchable machine on the street. It could easily eat any Bimmer 325i.
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Gone through the hassle to Install Windows 7 from beta release to RC Build 7100. All the builds were getting better then the previous release and Build 7100 is by far the best and stable.
I think my Windows XP in Parallels now had the good Windows 7 as the contender to be replaced. I was very disappointed with Windows Vista when installed in Parallels. Vista was such a bloated OS that I spent most of the time waiting to click the next task.
Windows 7 when you switched to classic mode interface, the OS operated faster than XP. I could feel Windows 7 is much sleeker and neater than XP and Vista when you executed a task. Windows 7 integration with Parallels 4 had more bells and whistles than running with XP. I was not sure with Vista because I gave up on it.
Windows 7 had an old compatibility mode feature that let you run older software and drivers, and this feature worked so well that I had no problem running older application and support for older hardware.
So far so good, Windows 7, I had no complain. I am looking forward for the release.

My Macbook Air laptop had been with me for the past three hundreds and sixty-five days. My best companion and ever since I had my PowerBook 12”. None of my Mac stayed with me for more than a year except my PowerBook 12” and now my beloved Air.
I just bought the Apple Care Protection Plan (ACPP) for my Air because it was going to be my lover, my entertainer, my postmaster and my best buddy for the coming years.
I have been using my Macbook Air Laptop for the past 200 days. The more I use the more I like the machine. My Air is now my perfect travelling companion.
Many people have been complaining the shortfalls of Air. Like only one USB port, battery not swappable, no CD drive, etc. Until you use it like a road warrior, you will truly appreciate the ultra portability of Air.
One USB Port Only. Yes! One is enough. Think about it. How often do you two USB Ports concurrently. Road warrior like us will use Bluetooth to replace USB. We connect devices, like mobile phones, mostly by Bluetooth. My main use of the USB port is USB security key issued by bank.
USB port is hardly use these days unless I am performing an extensive backup to my external drive or transferring huge files. When I say huge files, I am taking about size of 100GB. With Wifi running 802.11n, transferring files of 10 to 20GB over wireless is not a problem at all. 10GB can be transferred within 10 minutes.
Why carry a CD drive. Seasoned traveller like us, will rip the DVD and playback from the harddisk. When on the move, we do not swap the CD in and out of the CD drive. We copy our required data into the harddisk and use it while on the road because we all know that accessing the CD drive will drain the battery faster.
Since this is the typical behaviour of a road warrior. Then removing the CD drive from the machine and make it an external device is a strategic move. It will conserves battery power and lighten the weight. Road warrior usually use the CD drive before travelling and after that the drive will not be used until the user is back to the base. If the user really need the CD drive, then take it along with him.
I do not need extra battery pack. The battery can last 2 to 6 hours depending on how I use. My Air has survive a 12-hour journey from a single charge. Of course a seasoned traveller like me, knows how to conserve and maximise the battery to last as long as it can. With combination of turning on and off wireless and use the lighted keyboard sparsely, I am sure you can prolong the battery life of Macbook Air as good as me.
Macbook Air laptop does have it shortfalls. The most important shortfall is, there is no security lock. You cannot secure it to an unmoveable object. Thus this make my Air really portable, I have to bring it to the toilet to pee with me if I have no one to look after it.
Another shortfall for me is no built-in LAN port. There are times I just need to get a quick task done, I would prefer to get connected faster by plugging in to the LAN port than configuring the Wifi. This problem is still bearable if I remember to bring along my USB-Ethernet adapter.
Running Windows Vista through Parallels Desktop, the performance is still acceptable. But running Windows XP through Parallels, I gain back more CPU resources and reclaim 4GB of harddisk space.
Is 80GB of harddisk space too small for the Air? Removing my seldom used mp3 and movies files and relocate them to my external storage. I still have 28GB left on my Air. If you are not a porn collector, 80GB is more than enough.
2GB of RAM and running on integreated graphics, I can multitask Photoshop, Parallels Desktop, iPhoto, iMovies and iTunes comfortably. I am also using Final Cut Express on my Air. The trick to run Air at it best is to keep the exhaust fan RPM as low as possible and that is around 2000 RPM. The lower the RPM, the more applications you can run and faster.
Remember Macbook Air laptop is not a Macbook Pro. But Air packs much more performance in the slimmest chassis ideal for the road warrior.
