Soulshift Eterna

The Value of Twitter

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 11:20:00 +0800

On the way to work today, I walked past this big group of reporters and cameramen crowding around an Ang Mo, in front of one of the big advert posters at Bugis station.

The kaypoh me wanted to find out hey, what’s the big hoohaa - but time wasn’t at my disposal so I hurried away.

Still, I was curious.

So I then flicked out my phone, did a search on the simple term “Bugis”. A few irrelevant tweets later, I found a Tweet answering my curiosity, courtesy of @UzenTan (a stranger):

There’s like loads of cameras concentrating on a dude that is showing how to use the code reader thing to buy turkey in bugis

So there you are.

Twitter, being other than an outlet for my usual rants, actually helped me with information that is timely, and relevant, although my search term is rather generic.

A Google search, on the other hand, would probably turn up nothing relevant until a few hours or days later.

But the irony of it all?

I’m posting this on Tumblr.

Q Essential - better than Gong Cha and maybe Koi. (Taken with...

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 12:41:55 +0800

Q Essential - better than Gong Cha and maybe Koi. (Taken with Instagram at Q Essential @ The Bencoolen)

The MacBook Air

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 16:55:00 +0800

A few months ago I was notoriously known for being anti-Apple. Whether iPhone, iPod or MacBooks, I was the detractor. I was the rebel against the herd mentality, and quite fiercely so.

That was, until I met the MacBook Air.

Finally, I understand why in the recent years Apple products are getting increasing popular - because they understand what we users want.

I’ve had my MacBook Air for over 3 weeks now - and my 2 year old Asus laptop is now happily retired at a corner of my table. I’m still deciding what to do with it… but here’s why I love my Apple.

Slim profile and sleek design.
Lightweight, device and adapter.
The Air weighs 1.3kg, and the adapter without the extension about 200g. The entire package with the extended power adapter still weighs 25% lighter than just my Asus laptop alone.
Long battery life.
When I had my Asus, whenever I decided to work someplace outside, it had to be a place with readily available power. If not, the Windows laptop would last me about 1.5 hours before I have to frantically search for a powerpoint somewhere.

With the Air, I’m going without connected power for up to 7 hours when I’m just doing some writing or surfing, and above 3 hours when I’m doing design on Photoshop.

It was liberating.

One huge factor is the MacOS - it is much less of a power vampire than Windows. Which brings us to…
MacOS X.

It took time to get used to, but MacOS is simply wonderful. Everything is fast, elegantly smooth, and very responsive. It was everything Windows never were.

The Air is a step down from my Windows machine in terms of processing power, but contradictorily, everything runs much faster. My Photoshop is faster, on average I’m wasting less time waiting for that split second lag when I click on something.

And I love the Dock, the Mac’esque version of the Windows task bar. I like how it flows like a wave when I roll my cursor over to run an application. My most used applications are right there, waiting for my sortie, while the less used applications are hidden in a folder of my creation that slides open when I need it.

There are other subtle but thoughtful touches to the OS, that just enhances the overall experience.
Zero waiting time for starting up.
When I was on my Asus, I rarely use the sleep function, mostly because of the limitations in battery life, and the fact that it isn’t very reliable nor fast.

But with the Air, like most MacBook users, when I want to move from place to place, I rarely power down it. Instead, I just close the lid and it goes to sleep.

The time it takes to wake up from a sleep is about 2 seconds.

And when I decides to off it, it takes about 5 seconds to shut-down, and around 10 seconds to boot up and be ready for use.
LED display, and natively high resolution.
My old Asus sports a LCD that seriously pales in comparison with LED. Most new laptops, Windows or Mac, are now equipped with LED screens, but the Air triumphs in one way - it runs 1440 x 900 resolution on a 13.3” display. It’s somewhat like the Retina display on the iPhone 4 - more pixels on the same sized display means everything is sharper.

Even the newly refreshed MacBook Pro 13.3” does not run a resolution this high.
The multi-touchpad.
is a god-send when I don’t have a mouse. Conventional laptops have us scrolling through a webpage by sliding our fingers along the sides of the touchpad, but it’s often a hit-and-miss affair.

With the MacBook’s touchpad, I slide my 2 fingers on it to scroll in all directions, and 3 to perform a click-and-drag action, for example selecting a bunch of text.

It is also wonderful to play Angry Birds on.
Great sounding speakers.
There isn’t any visible sign of the Air’s speakers (or air vents), but my music and movies play loud and beautifully. Wonderful piece of engineering.
Bundled software, and Adium.
My MacBook Air came with iLife ‘11, a suite of applications for managing and creating media. There’s GarageBand for musicians (sadly, I’m not equipped with the necessary music skills to do anything), iMovie for creating high-quality montage videos, iPhoto for managing photos, and iDVD.

There’s also Mail and iCal out of the box, for emails and calendaring.

Adium, on the other hand, is a free unified instant messaging client exclusive for Mac. Unified meaning that I’m using the same application to connect to my Google Talk for business conversations, MSN for social, and even Facebook, although the last is unstable.

Perhaps the feature I love most about the Adium is how customisable it is. For example, it is how it looks like on my dock:
Running Windows without rebooting, via Parallels.
And for that rare occasion where Windows is required (for me - testing my websites on Internet Explorer):

Can’t say the same for Windows.

When I had my Asus machine, I happily deemed it a laptop, and called it a laptop. But I didn’t know it wasn’t really one; it was just a portable computer that still required one to be connected somehow, and lug around 3 kg’s worth of equipment.

How is that a laptop?

Anyway, rumours say a MacBook Air refresh is coming in June. This means I’ve become the new owner of a machine that is going to be slightly obsolete soon, but I can live with it - it is currently fast enough for my use, and I’m enjoying the 2 months use of it.

But if you are going to get one, it might be worth waiting for the 2011 version.

"Success is going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 16:48:29 +0800

“Success is going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

- Winston Churchill

Oh, how I wish you were here. Right now. Under my palms.

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 16:03:16 +0800

Oh, how I wish you were here. Right now. Under my palms.

Making life better for your event organiser

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 01:13:00 +0800

In any gathering or event, most of us are participants. At least, the lucky ones are.

There’s always someone who gathers everybody, find a most convenient date, be responsible for the turn-out, sometimes choosing the venue and making reservations and what-not.

I am of the opinion that I am horrigibly bad at maintaining friendships. But I try, mostly by organising outings.

Despite my relative lack of a social life, I find myself the organiser of a few gatherings. And I think it is a tough, and sometimes unsung job that somebody has to do.

It is okay if you do not feel like taking up the mantle to organise an event, just don’t make it hard for the organiser!

But how? Here’s my 2 cents’ worth:

Be responsive. When you receive an invitation, reply - even if you are unsure of your availability - just reply saying so, and remember to get back to the organiser once you are certain.

I usually do my organizing through SMSes, and I really need to know whether you are agreeable to what I plan, or if you have received my SMS. A reply saying “Okay” really helps - a lot.
Be interested. If you can’t make it for the day stated on the invite, suggest an alternative so the organizer knows his options without having to ask again blindly. If you just reply you can’t, you give a vibe that you cannot care less for the outing or its participants. At least, that is what I feel - that you don’t really care about meeting us.

How does “Oh, that day I already have something” sound when compared to “Oh, that day I can’t make it, but the next weekends I’m okay”?
Be appreciative. Respect the organiser by letting him know if you are going to be late, so he can adjust his plans accordingly.
Be a great help. By volunteering as the organizer for the next outing! I know a few friends who are so tired of being the planner every single time that they stopped - and then the gatherings stopped too.

Admittedly, I am guilty of most of the above, but having preached it — I will now practise it, as far as I can.

Dear friends, would you please, too?

P.S: For the organisers in my life - Ming Hui, Jie, Galvin, Dedrick, Xue Li, Wen Han, Keil, Bryan, Alvin Buddy, Swee Ching, Tze Quan (and a few more that I can’t remember off-hand) — thank you!

Thanks Galvin! 0uzo: Taken with instagram

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 02:46:04 +0800

Thanks Galvin!

0uzo:

Taken with instagram

Again, being normal

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 22:22:09 +0800

is what my third story is about. Similar to the second story, but not quite.

It’s about being normal - as compared to the less fortunate around us.

Recently I had the fortune of catching this movie - 聽說 (Hear Me), starring Eddie Pang and Chen Yihan, with the girl.

It was a wonderful romance flick, and if I could rate it as though I rate movies I caught in theatres, it would be a fiver.

A big part of the movie is non-verbal, with us relying on the subtitles to translate the hand signs that the leads use to communicate.

Very soon, it is very obvious in the differences of their lives and ours, and how a sense that we never actually acknowledge the presence of can mean so much difference.

In one scene, one of the characters had this to say: “one day, she asked me if the piano sounds nice — and I cried.”

For some in this world, able to listen; able to walk; is something that they do not have the luxury to experience.

So yes, it is a bliss to be normal.

The simplest things

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 22:19:54 +0800

are easily ignored. When they are taken away from you abruptly - suddenly you feel the loss. It is a kind of presence only felt with an absence.

The past one week was kind of like a mini-hell for me. Because of one bar of chocolate, I developed a mild fever that escalated into a full blown fever garnished with headaches that woke me up in the middle of the night and horrible sore throats that crippled my productivity.

It took me one week to fully recover — well, almost fully — and that very day my throat no longer felt stabbed when I swallow food - I grew a sincerely-felt appreciation for the simplest things.

Things like having a decent meal with food that appealed greatly to me, things like being able to walk around with energy, things like gulping down a cup of unremarkable Coca Cola suddenly seemed like a rediscovery of wonder, once again.

That day, I felt immensely blessed to be… simply normal.

So if one feels down or depressed by the lack of a positive situation, take heart, and appreciate that hey, at least it isn’t the worst and negative.

What do $15,000 mean to you?

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 22:19:51 +0800

For us, it was an expensive resolution to an unexpected predicament. Luckily, we didn’t had to bear the blunt of it.

My dad has always been built like a bull — he is rarely sick, and the only time he got hospitalized was when he was robbed when I was 3 years old.

Then one day recently, he hurt his back. The strain and pain resulting was so intrusive that he had to take time off work to recuperate.

We visited Western general practitioners and Chinese physicians alike, but they couldn’t solve the problem. Everyday, my dad would be at home, crippled by a sense of ache in his left leg that is only slightly alleviated by lying down in a particular manner.

By the advice of my mother’s friend, we finally visited a Neuro-Spine specialist at Mount Elizabeth. The MRI diagnostic costs us $730, but it was definite and conclusive — the general discomfort was a result of some… muscular disc that was exerting pressure on the nerves along his spine, and my dad needed a surgery to fix it.

The specialist could have done it at $35,000, but it was beyond us. So we had it performed at Singapore General Hospital, which costs half the price.

It was the first time our family had to deal with a surgery and hospitalization, so naturally we were quite unnerved.

Fortunately, it went well - the surgeon scraped off parts of the disc and inserted a piece of titanium to correct the spine. The very next day, my dad could walk normally again.

This whole episode had the bill of $15,000. It is a big sum by our books, and would mean a big disruption to our finances had we had to pay it out of our own pockets. Thankfully, my mom in her work was covered by the company’s insurance and that included her spouse. So that took the impact of the $15,000, and brought a relieving conclusion to the whole story.

The take-away from this ordeal?

That we can be feeling well one day and be struck suddenly by a crippling illness another day. It can be curable in a single surgery, or it may take weeks of diagnostics and treatment to fix, but it certainly will cost a bomb.

Are your family prepared to withstand such an impact? And even if you do, what does $15,000 mean to you? Would you be able to produce it without feeling the pinch?

A lot of us take our good health for granted, and refuse to consider worst case scenarios such as this. And when it finally hits, we scramble to reduce the damage but it may be all too late.

In a way, it is, for my parents. They were never the strongest proponents of insurance, but after this incident they find themselves struggling to be insured.

Insurance works in a very logical manner - when you are young and well, it is cheap and it covers everything. When you are old and suffering from ailments, the premiums are expensive and the insurance companies, even if they are willing to insure you, will exclude all the ailments that you ever had.

Everyone, every single one of us, in my opinion, should be covered under the Medishield Extra/Plus at the very least - which ensures that you will never have to pay for a single cent if you are hospitalized.

Do not take the good health you have today, for something that’ll never go away.

Being normal

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 22:19:45 +0800

is something all of us take for granted.

Until it’s all taken away from us — and then we realise that we should be glad that it’s there in the first place.

This dawned upon me in three different ways, and I came out of them learning three different things, which perhaps in the end — at the most basic level — aren’t so different after all.

Cards and Vibes

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 00:16:00 +0800

A year ago, Maybank’s representatives ambushed me in school with an offer that was hard to resist. Sign up for their free card, and get a free voucher for GV and free entry to Sentosa for a year!

So many of us signed up that day, the card salesman was practically grinning from ear to ear.

About 2 to 3 months later, the free entry to Sentosa privilege was revoked.

The card henceforth became a white elephant. For me, it was an emergency card that I never used.

Recently, they must have realised the stupidity of this whole facade and discontinued this card.

Since then, Maybank has been hounding me (and Amber) via unsolicited calls and spam mail to sign up for their “new” eVibes card.

The name of their old, discontinued card? eCard Vibes.

What?!

Doesn’t help that the 1-for-1 movie deals the new card offers is for Eng Wah…

"Suicide is the most sincere form of self-criticism."

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:36:00 +0800

“Suicide is the most sincere form of self-criticism.”

- Robert A. Heinlein

My parents

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 01:12:30 +0800

are out of town, and their dog makes my bed her bed - literally, adjusting my blanket for her comfort. Because she’s probably feeling lonely without them, I let her do this just once. Just once, Yuki!

Today would be the second day I’m in office. I like it a...

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 21:21:52 +0800

Today would be the second day I’m in office. I like it a lot!

One challenge in entrepreneuring is locating and leasing a suitable office - one that fits our requirements of budget, location, size, and to a certain degree presentation.

This particular one is big enough to sit up to 4 comfortably, is decorated tastefully by the landlord, isn’t too expensive, and is wonderfully located centrally at Bugis.

We’re pretty lucky to have found this place - and even luckier that that landlord turned out to be my brother’s client - and a very happy one at that - that we got to saved on agent fees and got to move in 2 weeks ahead of our lease tenure.

Thus while officially we have yet to move in yet, but I’m making full use of this rent-free period. My partner Francis is coming in soon, but until then - I’m the sole occupier of this room.

So if you are in the area someday, ask me for coffee or lunch!

Prestige

Sat, 11 Dec 2010 15:43:00 +0800

During my short stint as an IT trainer, I had the honour of teaching in a few primary schools.

It was thus so that I had a first hand experience of the difference between the attitudes and behavior of those from neighbourhood school, and those from so-named prestigious schools.

My opinion is that kids from the former are more down to earth and therefore more pleasant to have as students.

On the other spectrum, the one class I had from the prestigious school had so much lesser… innocence.

I can’t begin to state how much this judgement suffers from various survey biases, but the truth for me is - those students worried me.

Let me elaborate.

There was one kid whose teammates were away for the session and so were told by her form teacher to join this other group.

The reaction of the team leader was, in American slang’ed English, “Oh my god, are you serious?” in stereotypical Gossip Girls style, with a hand gesture to boot.

Halfway into the lesson, about half of them whipped out their iPhone 4s (not even a 3GS there) and fiddled around with them.

Another time, I’ve heard from a fellow trainer that the kids asked her about her Gucci and CK and stuff.

This class was a mix of primary 3s and 4s - 9 and 10 year olds.

Is this how the rich and elite treat their children? Exposing them to the material life at so young an age and thus destroying most of their sense of innocence and any opportunity to instill the correct values?

If this is what “prestigious” entails, then I would very much stick with “neighbourhood” to avoid the taint, thank you.

I abhor exclusivity

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 13:13:34 +0800

More specifically, exclusive deals.

iPhone and Singtel. EPL and Singtel. Some particular gaming titles and PS3. Or Xbox 360.

Choice is a necessity to safeguard consumer interests, and exclusive deals take away our ability to choose.

When it’s no longer competitive, ultimately, we as consumers are the biggest losers.

"One bird on hand, is better than 3 birds in tree."

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 23:34:51 +0800

“One bird on hand, is better than 3 birds in tree.”

- Overheard, my brother on phone with his client.

I have two loves in my life

Sat, 13 Nov 2010 12:23:08 +0800

One is Amber, and the other is Science Fiction.

In a lift ride today

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 13:27:00 +0800

A primary 2 school kid was standing next to me. His bag looked much heavier than mine.

I was carrying my laptop, adapter, mouse, notes, and jacket in my bag.

Hmm.