August 2005 Archives

As anticipated, Newcastle have made a big swoop, by signing Michael Owen.

Graeme Souness will be granted some reprieve, but now he has no excuse should the Magpies continue not to win or score any goals.

Captain Alan Shearer will surely be relieved as Owen will be deemed a worthy replacement for the retiring striker. Shearer has been one of my all-time favourites. I still deeply respect him for his loyalty and devotion to his club, and his will power to forge ahead while outperforming some players half his age.

There is talk that the two didn't have a particularly brilliant partnership playing for England, but only time will tell if they can bond better at club level. Time, and patience, is running out for Newcastle.

This is a work-related post. Does anyone know of any Singapore companies who can configure existing content management systems, so that news feeds (RSS and Atom) can also be published at the same time as web pages? Experience with Podcasting is a plus.

Let me know soon. Thanks.

I finally purchased a licence for Transmit, possibly the best FTP software for Macintosh. I got tired of using their free 10-minute sessions for unlicenced users, especially seeing how I'm likely to help other friends upgrade their weblogs in the near future.

I completed reading Lawrence Lessig's first book, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. Funny how I started by reading his later books first, and ended with this one. He had an interesting chapter on Intellectual Property. This book is currently being revised by readers using Wiki, which well suits the nature of his work.

I completed reading a Christian book on Deliverance and Inner Healing. It is quite disturbing to know that even Christians can fall under demonic influence, even if they cannot be totally possessed by them. Very often it is a root problem, left unresolved, that leaves the person vulnerable to influence or attack.

I had an excellent jam session with two band members last evening. In two hours we completed A Night In Tunisia, Here's That Rainy Day, and So Nice (Summer Samba). Our bassist and drummer got their rhythm synchronised, which makes it easier for me to concentrate on improvisation.

I just watched poor Newcastle bow out 0-2 to Manchester United. The team seem to be constantly plagued with injuries to good players - this time, Kieron Dyer and little Emre. But certainly Man U had better finishing power, with the strike force I'd like to call Van Nistelrooney.

This is my first post using Movable Type 3.2! Woo-hoo.

Most obvious changes are further tweaks to the user interface, and nifty way of upgrading. All you need to do (after carefully uploading lots of files and folders in the right transfer modes, is log in and they'll do the rest for you.

It seems that you aren't supposed to rip legally-purchased CDs into digital format. When I first saw Chris's original post containing replies from IPOS, I nearly posted my own 'thesis' on the issues involved. Then I saw the long list of comments over at Mr Brown's and I knew this was an issue that hit many Singaporeans.

But considering that my knowledge of copyright law is rusty and not localised (at least while studying in UK I came across the word 'fair use' more often), I think I'll drop a note to my lawyer friends first. Any words written below, are my own unqualified thoughts!

In any case, that's why I'm so interested in what Prof Lawrence Lessig has to say, as well as his Creative Commons project.

I used to look up to copyright law, fueled as a child when I discovered my (then) best friend had copied my poetry word for word, and had submitted it to the teacher first. I thought laws made sure everything was fair. In university I couldn't wait to get to my third year so I could study Intellectual Property Law.

But when laws become so distant from real-life situations, you start to wonder. Where music's concerned: I only buy original CDs. I spent lots of money on original CDs. I can't possibly carry all of them around with me, so I got an iPod and I was happy up to now, with it. The RIAA could sue 8-year-old girls who illegally downloaded MP3s over file-sharing networks, but I think they didn't do anything to legitimate CD owners who kept files to themselves. And didn't we sign an FTA? Why do different standards apply in Singapore then. (I need to read up more on this before making further comments)

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Digital music issues affect some of us personally, and hinder our enjoyment and convenience. But what about global issues such as Third World countries not being able to afford drug patents? I think that's an even more serious case of IP (in this case, Patent) law being used in a way that doesn't help humanity. The law should be balanced so that those who created and developed the product or process, are suitably rewarded. But surely prolonging human lives are worth something as well.

Read: Brazil breaks AIDS drug patent and AIDS drug patent uproar - Putting people before profits.

Laws are balanced when they ensure fairness, accreditation and benefits to everyone who are rightfully involved. Laws should not be political tools of greedy corporations who have their cake, and want to eat it too - at everyone else's expense.

Someone's gone and produced educational materials about a very specialised type of mental affliction.

Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting ... What everyone should know about Blog Depression, courtesy of The Nonist (hurrah, I've found a cool website today).

Bloggers out there, we know how you feel. We feel your pain.

Early this morning, my web hosting account was suspended because some idiot trackback-spammed me, maxing out the database server. I was even more annoyed because my other friends' sites, also hosted on this account, were suspended. A quick note to the web hosts resolved this issue, although I am loathe for such a situation to happen again.

Also, the plugin which used to accurately indicate whether my web pages were XHTML valid (at the bottom of this page), no longer works. I didn't modify anything. I have no idea what's going on. But you know I'd never let my pages get away with poor coding.

I'll look for a fix / hack later. I'm busy with other things at the moment - more in my Korg Blog.

Download higher-res pic here.

This morning, while waiting in line at a zebra crossing, I couldn't help but notice the truck right in front of my car.

There is at least one plumber with a sense of humour in Singapore.

If you look closely at the bottom left portion of the photo, you'll notice his poster says "I have the power!" (a la He-Man?)

Other lines worth quoting:

"You don't have to invite stranger(plumber) or any tom dick & harry into your home."

"Just pump and go. It works all the time."

"It easy. Doing is believing."

I watched Stacey Kent live in concert on Saturday! Initially I was a bit disappointed with the venue because 1) I've never liked Suntec City 2) it was in a hall where you'd normally have computer fairs. Didn't feel intimate enough for a jazz band and singer.

But that was soon forgotten because the sound quality was much better than expected - little reverb, good quality microphones which could pick up the slightest sound made by Stacey's vocal chords, or her husband Jim Tomlinson's sax. They make a good couple! The other band members were good, too. Pity I sat far away from the pianist - I would have loved to see his hands as he improvised furiously.

After the concert came the autograph signing session. I'm not one for queues, but my friends were massive Stacey Kent fans. Gramophone cleverly set up shop nearby, so those without CDs (like myself) could pick up something she could autograph. My friend was even more enterprising and grabbed the posters that the cleaner was about to throw away! So I now have an autographed 'Boy Next Door' CD sleeve and concert poster. Woohoo!

And I did take a photograph with Stacey as well. The problem is, she was so busy she didn't have time to pose with anyone. She let us stand behind her, but continued signing autographs for other people. So most of our pics looked a little impersonal.

All in all, it was a very consistent performance.

I watched a Korean movie, My Brother, last night. It is well-written, and moving. The story is narrated by the younger brother of a cleft-lipped boy, who is the runt of the family and thus gets all the attention from his doting mother. The boys' father left them because of his son's disfigurement, and shortly after that, the mother discovered she was pregnant (with the narrator).

The father leaves little behind - except an old camera. The show begins and ends with that camera. As the boys grow up, there is rivalry for a girl, and the older son's heart is broken as his brother plagiarises his love poetry for her, and ends up going out with her instead. Still, the older son shows love and patience to his brother, despite getting constantly abused by him. Eventually they start to get along. But there is one thing the narrator is unable to do - call his disfigured sibling 'his brother'. His whole life has been filled with jealousy towards his older brother, and resentment towards his mother for the unequal treatment.

While the older son goes on to medical school, the narrator falls out with society, his mother, and even his brother, becoming a debt-collector. Ultimately a string of unfortunate misdeeds which he commits, comes back to haunt him, and it is finally then that he can call his cleft-lipped sibling 'his brother'.

For those of you who missed today's Mind Your Body supplement in the Straits Times today: This responsible Singaporean has been alerting our National Environment Agency (NEA) to possible mosquito breeding grounds, through his blog. Well done!

While doing my research on Podcasting, I came across this Wikipedia entry which mentions that opposition member Chee Soon Juan has his own podcast. Hmm ... technically, I thought a a podcast requires syndication, so what he has is more like a typical download link to an MP3 file.

Conversely, George W Bush gets it right with a RSS 2.0 feed.

[According to this MSNBC article, our Media Development Authority is monitoring podcasts as it comes under current media laws. ]

What a crying shame! After 92 minutes of glorious Premier League football, Wigan lost concentration and let Hernan Crespo unleash a massive projectile into the top corner of the net.

The last two matches (Arsenal v Newcastle and this one) showed some similarities. The underdog teams knew what they were up against, and began with fervour, attacking constantly. The usually sharp Arjen Robben missed the net, and Damien Duff also seemed out of sorts. Didier Drogba, the Man of the Match against Arsenal in the Community Shield a week ago, seemed a pale shade of his former self. Wigan's striker Henri Camara looked dangerous.

However, in both matches quality and class emerged in time, and as the underdogs ran out of steam, the superior teams took control of the game. While Arsenal and Chelsea seemed overwhelmed initially by their respective opponents, after the second half things slowly crept back to normal and they re-imposed their dominance. Chelsea did take a longer time to wake up, though.

Another mark of a great team is the ability of its players to score in numerous different situations, under great pressure. Chelsea could finish (eventually). Arsenal could finish. Wigan's Johansson skied two frighteningly good chances in the dying minutes of the game. A top-class poacher like Ruud van Nistelrooy would have scored in tight situations like that. That's what's lacking in the weaker teams.

But still, I can't help but say, poor Wigan. And poor Newcastle. Try, try again.

[Update: Jose Mourinho himself just said that Wigan didn't deserve to lose, and that his midfield and attack didn't perform. He's hinted at making changes in the lineup, showing no mercy. Things will get interesting for the champions. ]

What a nailbiting match! Newcastle started as if they were on fire, and Arsenal were doing all they could to douse the flames that were popping up everywhere. As if the pace of the typical English game wasn't fast enough! It looked like Graeme Souness had a good chance of keeping his job - at least, this week.

And then the Geordies' enthusiasm received a slap in the face, when Jermaine Jenas, ironically an Arsenal target for the transfer market, kicked Gilberto Silva from behind, in full view of the referee. It looked bad but most people were surprised when the referee flashed red. Even le captain Thierry Henry seemed to think it was harsh, exchanging words with Souness, of all people. Henry makes friends wherever he goes.

Still, Newcastle being a man down didn't seem to dampen their spirits, and their fans roared with approval. The Arsenal fans seemed relatively subdied. My heart started to pound as the minutes ticked by, past the hour mark. Couldn't Arsenal score a goal? Even one measely goal would be good enough at the rate things were going.

Eventually, a foul on the vivacious Freddie Ljungberg, who was pulled down in the penalty box, resulted in a Thierry Henry free kick. You had to feel sorry for goalie Shay Given (although his name sounds ominously like a 'sheer given'), because he actually made many good saves. I feel he was actually better than his counterpart Jenns Lehmann, except that the latter was seldom challenged especially in the second half. Newcastle were quickly running out of steam now.

Finally - finally! They took out the misfiring Dennis Bergkamp as well as Robert Pires - the greying members of Arsenal's squad, as well as Newcastle captain Alan Shearer, who had a goal offside. In came Aleksander Hleb and Robin van Persie. What took Arsene Wenger so long? We only had 20 minutes left to seal a victory with a second goal!

But the second goal did come - an excellent assist from Ljungberg at a very narrow angle, finished by van Persie who fired between the goalpost and Shay Given's left arm and leg. Given must be feeling rotten about it but apart from that he had a good game.

So it ended - and my heart has stopped pounding.

It's now on to David versus Goliath (Wigan v Chelsea), except that in this case, I don't think that 'David' even has a sling. We'll hope the scoreline stays in the single digits, and that Wigan will pull a few surprises.

Tribeca Hotel offers a package called the iStudio, which is basically Apple heaven for guests.

Your hotel room comes furnished with a 20-inch iMac, with "film, photo and sound-editing software" (that sounds suspiciously like iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto and Garageband), iSight cameras, an iPod and a Bose Sounddock.

You get this package for roughly the price of an iPod (per day).

In the meantime, I think I'll enjoy the very same things - at home.

To commemorate the birthday of our middle-aged country, this website's masthead will remain red for the next 4 days.

Have a happy holiday and enjoy the fireworks!

Bleah. It's half-time, Arsenal are down by a goal and Chelsea look like they aren't letting any in.

I think Arsenal fans need to hang in there for a few more years, until the Emirates Stadium is built and they can actually start spending more money on players. £357 million was raised for the construction alone.

Of course, at the way things are going, hardly anyone can beat Chel$ki, and face it - they really have the best defence in the League.

Come on, Wenger, bring on Hleb for the second half!

[Update: I braced myself to lose so it didn't feel so bad. Chelsea were better overall*, though Arsenal moved up a gear in the second half and pulled one goal back. Hleb looks good. Henry looks creative but a little stifled. And anyway, the last 8 Shield winners never won the Premiership afterwards. The competition will surely be stiffer this season. ]

[*Update 2: According to the stats, Arsenal had more possession, more attempts on goal, more shots on target, and less fouls and cautions than Chelsea. Of course, at the end of the day, it's still all about who scored more goals.]

On Friday we went for the Festival of Praise. So many young people were there! It was very encouraging to see such a large turnout. The Festival plays on until Sunday (tomorrow), and if you plan to go, I strongly encourage you to start queueing early, because it's first come first served. Listen to Hillsong Australia and Delirious from the UK. Sermon by Rev Colin Dye from Kensington Temple, UK. More information (new window) at the City Harvest Church website.

Today I took a tour of the new National Library, courtesy of Prof Tommy Koh and his wife. Finally, Prof Koh made a speech as the Guest of honour for the Read! Singapore Campaign. He gave special mention to Colin Cheong's novel, Tangerine. The other two recommended books for English readers were To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, both of which I've already read. Both are excellent books, taking a child's perspective of adult worlds. Check out the campaign blog.

Photos for both events can be viewed on my Flickr page. The photos are displayed in reverse order, latest first, so it may get a bit confusing.

[Update: Ramblinglibrarian has more photos and more accurate captions here.]

I got my regular email from Sitepoint and was pleasantly surprised to see a fellow Web Standards enthusiast in it!

All I can say is: Support Chu Yeow and his book, Firefox Secrets!!

In his own words...

I was searching around for text-to-image converters, after being inspired by what Mr Brown did. Years ago, I also tried playing around with K10K's Sigmund but couldn't figure how to run it on my own server.

So I was intrigued when I found this site via Google. And since they could Matrixify me, why not?

I used an image of me with the background removed, so there wouldn't be any unnecessary distractions.

I'm actually running on a high at work. A few exciting things are going to happen, and so far, management has been very open-minded about our proposals.

Firstly, we're planning to syndicate our content. I'm going to present an overview on how this can be done.

Next, a few of us are going to a talk on Wikis, Podcasting and Blogging. There is potential for implementation, at least for the last two items. We'll see.

Lastly, I'm going to attend an Asian corporate blogging conference next month.

All with the bosses' blessings. It's great to have such a supportive environment - thank God for it! Of course, I have to give presentations on these web trends - but it helps when you really believe in the media you're dealing with.

Onward!

I've received over 725 comment spams in the past couple of hours. It's plain annoying. Instead of flooding our websites and mailboxes with unwanted messages, why don't they try something a little more innovative - like actually making their products and services interesting enough to stand on their own merit?

Fortunately, MT-Blacklist caught them all.

All hail Jay Allen!

You know the feel-good ad campaign that Dove is running, using real women instead of the usual skinny models we expect to see? I actually thought it was clever.

Here's what a Slate writer thinks of Dove's worldwide campaign, in the short run (great) and in the long run (bad).

Oh, and I love their headline.

So Apple's finally launched their latest mouse. I've always liked the design of Apple mice (since the transparent look went into fashion). However I've never found them particularly practical, especially after being used to the multi-function capabilities of their Microsoft and Logitech counterparts.

Instead of right-clicking on a typical PC mouse to view Properties, for instance, you either had to click and hold on an icon, or press CTRL while clicking on the icon. A slight inconvenience.

But perhaps this may change. A 360 degree scroller is an awesome idea, especially for people editing large images, close-up. And somehow Apple have managed to keep the clean, neat look. No need for ugly lines dividing the left and right buttons - the mouse will detect it.

The only thing is, if I ever use it, I would expect the side buttons to take me back and forward in a browser or Finder window (that's Explorer to Windows users).

[BTW, I wonder if the cartoon character Mighty Mouse will have anything to say about Apple's latest product. ]

Update: Russell Beattie reviews his new Apple mouse. Photos included. He says, 'When using Firefox, moving the scroll ball left and right is the equivalent to going back and forward. This is a neat feature, but the ball can be touchy, so I may end up turning this off.'

I say goodbye to the very first company I worked for (full-time) again - by getting rid of my time capsule of ping-pong balls masquerading as eyeballs.

Project Eyeball was a newspaper started by SPH which lasted less than a year before closing down. Barely weeks after graduating in Bristol, I cleared the interview and got the job as a web designer. I had lots of fun learning on the job. I'm sure if they hadn't axed the entire web design team, I'd still be around somewhere, perhaps producing multimedia.

But things happen for a reason, even if it isn't obvious at first - even for years. But now I know why God let this happen to me ... so I could be in a better job and meet even more interesting people.

I bought a new compact camera on Saturday. The main reason that I bought a compact, was because I needed something small and elegant enough to fit into a dinner bag. Imagine me saying that a few years ago - I would have said that dainty cameras were for wussies!

Maybe it's me just being sentimental. After attending several gatherings without taking any photos, I realised it wasn't a good thing to not have any pics of me with my friends! My Olympus C5050 is too bulky to bring to nice dinners, and it acts up sometimes.

So I was standing inside the camera shop, holding a Canon Ixus 50 in one hand, and a Canon Ixus 700 in the other. Thanks to having read a few psychology books (Christian and general), I started analysing my desires.

Why, for instance, did I want to get an Ixus 700 all this while, when I hardly ever print my photos? At most, all I needed was 4R. The Ixus 50 would do fine, because it was cheaper and smaller.

Then I realised I wanted the bigger 700 because there was the security of having more megapixels, in the very unlikely event that I would them. And also, I would have bragging rights with any friends who owned less advanced cameras (gasp!). It was a disturbing realisation.

But if I really wanted an advanced camera, I'd get an SLR instead! Getting the 700 would be neither here nor there for me. And I'd pay $150 more.

After some deep deliberation, I settled for the smaller and slightly older 50, because I knew that was all I really needed. It was more difficult making this decision, than expected. It was actually humbling.

I've been happy so far with the Ixus 50. I will post some sample pics on Flickr soon, once it turns August back in the US and I get more bandwidth to burn.

[BTW, those using Flickr Pro accounts - is it really worthwhile? I'm wondering if I should upgrade to one because there's no way I can find a more user-friendly system to install on my own server.]