Fancy meeting Garry Kasparov in person?
You can now. For real.
The chess legend is making a visit to Kuala Lumpur this November for the Youth Engagement Summit ( YES2009 )
and you get a chance to be there.

When?
16-17 November 2009

Where?
Putrajaya Convention Centre (PICC)

How much will it cost?
Normally USD$1000 but YouthAsia ( for the SEACHANGE movement ) has the privilledge of giving out 500 FREE tickets to South East Asian Youths. ( this means that if you’ve participating from Myanmar / Thailand etc – we will provide free airflight, accomodation and even food to be a part of this summit  – i know, cool!   )

HOW to WIN FREE passes?
Just visit :  http://youthsays.com/seachange/go/qxB
HURRY! We’re only picking free winners till this Thursday ( 27th October )
For more info about the summit, please go to www.yes2009.asia
or visit our Facebook page : http://www.facebook.com/seachangemovement

Sign up now. Don’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

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Just a reminder of this Youth Engagement Summit (YES) event on the Nov 16-17 at Putrajaya.

Check out their website at http://www.yes2009.asia/

Other videos at Youtube YES channel

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This popular video has been shown all over YouTube recently. Just in case you haven’t seen it:-

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Took a couple of hours to update the database.

Ouch. My national rating is heading for one below 1500.

Check yours at: http://myrating.gilachess.com

Top 10 national rating:-

Top 10 Overall

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This is the first Mc Donalds to open in Teluk Intan. Yeah that’s how small this town is

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Puduraya

Originally uploaded by gilachess

Bus to Teluk Intan is late again .. Ah the fresh smell of carbon monoxide…

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I didn’t post the IIUM tournament details because the organisers never emailed me anything. Perhaps the email got lost (assuming that there WAS an email).

Good thing too since the date has been postponed at least twice.

Anyway from the announcement in the chess-malaysia group it looks like the date is now November 1,2009.

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Everyone’s on Facebook

Originally uploaded by gilachess

Facebook popularity is amazing. Almost everyone I know has a facebook account. There are many chess players on facebook too. Famous chess personalities like Kasparov, Susan Polgar, Kosteniuk, Magnus Carlsen, etc all are there and they approve you when you request to be their friends.

A programmer friend of mine told me that it’s quite easy to write facebook applications. After seeing that the popular Mafia Wars facebook game is written in PHP, my favourite programming language, I have become quite interested to see if it is really that easy to learn.

Chess.com also have a facebook app where you can play long time control chess but existing members of chess.com cannot play with new facebook members .

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99 cents breakfast @ ikea

Originally uploaded by gilachess

The breakfast at Ikea is still cheap at RM 1.05 for coffee and mee hoon.

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I am definitely biases towards Asus netbooks, having tested out several 900x models and now owning a 1000HE. The thing I love most is the light weight and ultra portability of Asus netbooks. Of course every other notebook company today have come out with their own version of a netbook.

Here’s yet another model from Asus – the 1005HA.

The technology is still the same using the latest Atom N280 which only gives an estimated 4% CPU boost compared to the older N270. At first look, it is suprisingly similiar to the Acer netbooks. Probably the biggest differentiator this time is the battery life. My 1000HE is advertised to be 9.5 hours (but practical use is about 6 hours). You can probably reach 9.5 hours if you turn down LCD screen brightness, turn off WiFi and lower the CPU speed to power saving mode ::)

The 1005HA is said to have a longer battery life running for 10.5 hours!

The design is said to be nicer now with an “Seashell” look.

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I would love to test out this Dell Studio One 19 playing PlayChess.com or Babas Chess (FIC/ICC client) online. If the response is fast, then it would definitely be better than using the mouse especially for fast bullet chess (1/2/3 min).

Price of the Dell Studio One is RM 2999 3999. (RM 2999 model is with a normal screen without touch capabilities)

Specs:-

Processor
Intel(R) Pentium(R) Processor E5300 (2.60GHz, 800FSB, 2MB)

Operating System
Genuine Windows Vista(R) Home Basic 32 bit SP1 Edition (English)

Memory
4GB(2×2G) DDR2 SDRAM Memory

Hard Drive
250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive with Native Command Queuing

Asus Malaysia did invite me for a launch of a similiar product but theirs was based on the Atom processor. Although the machines were in the demo room but the presenter only used PowerPoint to show the features. It would have been nice if they showed a live demo. That was a few months ago. I now regret not pursuing the offer then by Asus to review the model because back then I was only interested in getting my hands on the 1000HE (which Asus did give me a chance to review).

Chess players who have already bought similiar touch screen PCs out there please comment if you can

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After the Blitz the participants were treated to a Hari Raya style open house with rendang, curry chicken etc.

Nice end to an exciting but exhausting blitz sessions.

That’s my main reason for coming anyway

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In the Finals Ian Udani beat FM Mok Tze Meng by 1.5-0.5.

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