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the otnaicus daily

Edition 270 – Back In Singapore

I’m back in Singapore. Seriously, the amount of force required to overcome the inertia of coming back to work is tremendous. But it has been overcome. And I’m back to work, and spending lots of time catching up on work backlog.

Parents are with me in Singapore for a week. It’s great to be able to spend time with them, albeit only in the evenings. But for a person who doesn’t see his parents every single day of the week, it’s a good plus. Love my parents tonnes. 🙂

Gadget temptation rant coming up and you’ve been fairly warned. While I was in Malaysia, there have been large full-page ads in the local newspapers for the new Blackberry Bold. Man, it looks good and sleek. Very very tempted to switch over to the Blackberry. But looks like I’ll have to wait for the next generation of the Blackberry as I’m tied to the iPhone at the moment. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

Speaking about the iPhone, it’s been working out well for me. Things missed are the ability to forward SMS, no MMS and the pretty soft ringing volume. It also seems that I’ve been overly cautious with my data usage. The plan comes bundled with 1GB of data and I’ve barely scratched 20MB for this month. So I’m going to experiment and see how far I can go. All in all, not too bad of a phone. But there are some features missed.

Also, for those of you trying out the new browser by Google, called Chrome, this site works fine with that browser. If you do see any problems, do tag me or leave a comment and I will look into it.

That’s all for now folks. Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 269 – KL Emerge 2008

I can finally say that I’ve been to all the three Emerge conferences around Asia. And yes, I’m blogging from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Here for a quick getaway after KL Emerge.

KL Emerge was indeed an eye-opener for me. My main job for Emerge was to direct all the sessions. Camera will be crewed by the TV guys from CHC KL. The TV ministry in CHC KL is a 100% guys ministry. Not a single sister in sight. And they are a crew that does a 3-cam live production every weekend WITHOUT any form of communications between the director and camera crew. Yes, no comms. Impressive right?

Anyway, during the 3 days, I was very impressed with the TV crew. A bunch of people who have good attitude and are more than willing to learn and to excel in what they do. They really do have a passion for what they do. One example. On the last night, RDP took the handheld camera for praise and worship and did a lot of walking shots. The camera person who took over in the later stages emulated the shots without needing to be asked. Now that is what I call learning through observation. All-in-all, a fantastic bunch of people. I would love to work with them again soon. Heard that some of them coming down for Asia Conference. Now if only we can ask them to help out……. 😉

Other than Emerge, I’m thankful that I could extend my stay here in KL. Need a bit of break from work. Although a bit boring, the chance I get to spend time with my parents and for me to put some deposit into the sleep bank is more than worth it.

Guess that’s all for now. Will update again soon when I’m back in Singapore. Until then, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 268 – iPhone 3G

And so I woke up at 9.30am on Saturday, 23 August 2008. Saturday – a day that I can sleep in, a day that I can have a lazy morning before heading off to church. But no. Saturday, 23 August 2008 was to be a special Saturday that I had to get up early, shower, change, and head down to ComCentre at Exeter Road. Why?

All because I have reserved the iPhone 3G and have made an “appointment” to purchase it that morning at 11am.

So I took the train down and I was expecting a looooong queue when I got there. But surprisingly, the queue was relatively short and moved along pretty quickly. Took me all of an hour to get through the queue and get the iPhone in my hands. But I must say that the queue was very orderly and SingTel even handed out refreshments in the form of  pack of chips and a bottle of water for those in the queue. All in all, a pretty good experience.

SingTel build a temporary structure that looked a bit like the Apple Store on New York City’s 5th Avenue. So all the iPhone related transactions took place within that structure. 50 counters were available within the “cube”. Once I got in, I was at a counter within one minute. The only not-so-good thing was that activation of the iPhone was slow, probably because of the amount of traffic being generated. The guy serving me even suggested that maybe Apple only had one activation server. But I was in pretty good spirits and just waited patiently for all the necessary paperwork and transactions to be performed.

A quick personal review of the iPhone 3G. Whatever you have read in the reviews hold. Even the much talked-about 3G reception problem is true. This morning, when I came into the office, the 3G reception dropped to nothing, when previously, on my Nokia N70, the reception was full. Switching to 2G will help a lot. It brought my reception up to full. And it is definitely a fingerprint magnet. Can’t wait till I get my Invisible Shied, which, in my opinion, is the best screen protector around. Check it out here.

To summarize, the iPhone is not that bad a product. The keyboard does take getting used to but after a while, you can type pretty quickly. I hope there’s a proper solution to the 3G reception problem. It may not be noticed much in the USA, but in Asia and Australia, 3G is big and coverage is pretty much everywhere. So Apple, please buck up on this!! Haha, as if Apple would read my blog.

Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 267 – Two Week Anniversary

Yup, my new PC is 2-weeks old now. And apparently I’ve done enough to screw the OS up enough that I need to reformat and reinstall Windows Vista. There goes another few hours of my life.

I’m also contemplating a switch down to Windows XP instead of Windows Vista. Why? Because I can’t get VMware Server to start a virtual machine on Windows Vista. Vista simply locks up, blue-screens after a while and reboots. One main reason I got such a power system is so that I can run VMs to test new operating systems or web applications. Looks like now, I have to consider a downgrade to XP, or to scour around the net more to find some solutions.

Oh well, all part and parcel of adjusting to a new computer. Hope the reinstall will fix the networking problem that I’m facing now. Cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 266 – Morning Prayer Meeting and More…

Decided to sacrifice some sleep and woke up early today to go down for the morning prayer meeting that has been happening the whole of this week. Had to wake up pretty early to get to Jurong West by 7am but it was all worth it. Talked to God about one pretty major decision I have to make (more about it below) and it has brought some perspective to the situation. I will definitely go down more often next week for the meets.

For the past few weeks, one thing that was burdening me was a potential job cum career change. As most of you know, I’m in the IT line and the switch is to a event/media production line. The former is my job, the latter is my interest. It seems natural to most that it is obvious to go along with something that interests you. That is when one would actually enjoy working. Working becomes play.

But to me, I tend to start considering a lot of things, most of which relates to the future. A lot of “what-ifs” start flooding my brain. What if I find that I’m not suitable for the job? What is the career path in this line? What if I can’t get used to the working hours? What if this? What if that? I think you catch my drift here.

There was a time when going into the media line was something that I yearned. I remember during one point in my university career that I even pondered about switching courses to mass communication. But as I was about to graduate and this door was opened before me, I balked at the chance. Reality of life suddenly sank in and I found myself asking the same questions that I’m asking myself today. To be honest, the opportunity has knocked more than just that one time.

Fast-forward to today and the opportunity presented itself again. Do I take the plunge? Is this really God’s calling for me in my life? Seriously, a lot of thoughts are swimming in my mind. Praying about it this morning helped a bit but it still left me with having to take the courage to make the decision. My friends have been advising me to not think too much and go with your interests. What can I say, I have an “adventurous” mind that likes wandering off. At least I can say that I enjoy working with the group of people and the work. (My wandering mind just asked me: “Will the interest be long term or will it die out?” See what I mean….).

But it’s crunch time and I have to make the decision soon. Not nice and not fair to ask for the person to wait for my decision forever. So do keep me in prayer as I keep myself in prayer. Pray that God will lead me in the right direction (I think I kinda know what direction that is).

Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 265 – iPhone 3G

It’s coming. It’s confirmed. It will be available in Singapore on 22 August 2008. Alas, pricing is not available yet… Am hoping for the best…

Cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 264 – Finally…

Finally… Managed to figure out how to EQ my new sound card. So the sound is sounding pretty good now. So I don’t hate my new PC’s audio anymore.

It’s rare to have an entire Saturday where I can stay at home and relax. No service today because it’s a public holiday here. National Day. Instead, we’ll have two services tomorrow. Took the opportunity to do some "spring" cleaning of my room. Just finished cleaning up my room, together with changing the bed sheets and all. So all in all, I feel that I had a productive day today.

It’s going to be a long Sunday tomorrow. Service plus EOGM. But thank God that Monday is an off day for me because my company is replacing the holiday from today. So can have a bit more time to rest at home as well.

Gotta sign off now as I’m preparing to go out. Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 263 – What I Don’t Like About My New PC

THE AUDIO!!! It sucks!!! I miss my Sound Blaster sound card!! The drivers don’t allow me to EQ the sound in anyway. So I end up with thinned-out, bass-less audio. ARGH!!!!!

Plus, since my speakers are 4-point, the rear channel doesn’t work!! Sigh…..

Okay, enough ranting…. Back to work…. :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 262 – My Brand New Computer

Finally, after a long time of deliberating and consideration, I’ve finally purchased my new computer. This is an upgrade to my current computer, which has been with me for the longest time. And this is the inaugral post from the new PC. I must say, it’s spanking fast.

Spent quite a number of hours figuring out how to put together the new system. So much has changed in the past 5-6 years since I assembled a PC. So many more power connectors that go to a tonne of different places. Imagine connecting one wrongly, and your brand new motherboard will be up in smokes. Thank God I did it properly, although with some guess work involved.

So right now, I’m stuck with the task of migrating things from the old to the new and generally getting the new computer up to speed. Since I’m using Windows Vista, I wonder how much of my current peripherals are not compatible with the new computer. At the very least, I’ve lost all the functionality of the buttons on my keyboard as Logitech does not support my keyboard in Vista. But all’s not lost. Basic functionality is still there so I’ll bear with it for the moment.

I’m off to restart my computer and then to bed. I guess I’ll continue with the setup tomorrow. So until the next post, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 261 – Festival Of Praise 2008

So here we are again. That time of the year when we have Festival of Praise, an annual praise and worship festival held by churches in Singapore. Took the day off work today to complete the setup at Singapore Indoor Stadium. At first it seems that the set up is more or less done. But as the day wore on, seems that more and more things need to be done. As of this moment, we are short of some video cables to send some video via CCTV to some rooms.

Sent my Nokia N80 for repair today. When the slide is open, some of the keys couldn’t work. They quoted a repair charge of between $60 to $120. I almost ended up buying a new phone without contract. But praise the Lord, the service centre just called me and told me that the repair cost only $30 plus. So at least the phone can last me till the iPhone 3G makes its debut in Singapore.

Time for the service is drawing near. Gotta sign off now first. Will update again soon. Until then, cheers… :Þ