April 2007 Archives

I haven't sounded very supportive of my favourite team, have I? Well, this evening's match began with a very exciting goal from Julio Baptista, who then went on to miss a few other good chances that surely our top strikers would not have. The only problem is that two of our top strikers aren't around, which is why Baptista is.

In the second half, Jens Lehmann got more itchy-fingered and started moving out of his goal more often. Most of his decisions to do so were fine. However, he once ran out when he didn't really need to and that resulted in a ball being lobbed over his head, far behind him, landing in goal. Ugh. I'm so glad I sold off all my BBC Sportdaq shares on him. I'm not terribly excited to hear that the aging goalkeeper is staying on for another year. He should be in the reserves at this stage, if only Arsene Wenger could find a new keeper in time.

On the other hand, maybe we should thank Lehmann for rousing Arsenal into action, as the second half looked like potentially goalless before that. As usual, the Gunners were playing beautiful football that didn't really result in many solid chances. I thought they were a bit cocky in not trying hard to make the scoreline 2-0. When the going got tough, Baptista was replaced by Denilson. However, the young Brazilian hardly made an impact.

Emmanuel Adebayor, who had injured himself slightly, rose to the occasion and scored a lovely goal. His speed caused some havoc in the Fulham defense, although Arsenal's own defence started looking more shaky as well.

Despite Arsenal's complacency, Fulham themselves made a tactical mistake by being too greedy. They could have played safe by settling for a draw, but soon after scoring their equaliser, made it clear that they were out for a winner. This opened them up for more attack. And when a weaker team does that with a stronger team, that's asking for trouble.

If Arsenal had its Lehmann moment, the same could be said for Fulham. Moritz Volz, who came on as a substitute for the injured Rosenior, committed a foul in the penalty box, right in front of the referee. Shortly after Captain Gilberto scored, Volz proceeded to commit another foul. That was Arsenal's third and final goal.

For the most part it was an average game. Arsenal was playing at a 6/10 level while Fulham were at about 5/10. I had expected a 2-0 scoreline. However, 20% of ESPN voters expected 3-1, so maybe I haven't been watching enough football lately and have lost my touch!

Whatever the case, Arsenal have won and they are breathing down Liverpool's necks. The Gunners need all the points they can get, because they're playing Chelsea next. Oh, both teams are, actually.

To avoid relegation, Fulham will need to score points desperately in their next match - against Liverpool. If Liverpool do turn the tables on Chelsea and proceed to the next round of the Champions League, I wonder if they would be willing to risk losing their third position to Arsenal by preserving their best players once again.

I haven't written much about football lately.

That's because there hasn't been much for me to shout about, has there?

Well, I hope the Gunners stay in 4th position and maybe try for 3rd, though it makes little difference. It's simply not their time. I'm not even sure if it's going to be their time next year. We can only hope things get better.

I'll be watching the match against Fulham tonight, and hope we can come off with 3 points.

I am pleased to announce that my "PHP Includes" problem has been resolved. Thank you to my readers who did suggest the right things. Just that it was a combination of many suggestions and not just changing just one component, which in itself did not work.

I had to remove the "@" sign (which I recall was necessary for my templates to work, as my previous web host was using the latest version of PHP, which I'd assume is version 5). I also had to use absolute server paths.

Strangely, my PHP5 code worked on this current server until my current web host upgraded to version 4.4.6.

Oh well. I learnt something new from this.

We enter exciting times again, with the French presidential elections and the US Democratic and Republican nominations.

Unsurprisingly, the final two horse race in France is between Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal. The last time I recall it was a more unusual contest between the incumbent Jacques Chiraq, and surprisingly, the right-wing extremist Jean Marie le Pen, who fortunately is not in the running anymore this time.

The problem with being a long-standing front-runner, is that more people are out to attack you and support your rival. This is the problem that Sarkozy faces. BBC radio reported today that Sarkozy does not seem to be wooing the centre, as he has maintained his conservative stance and still makes his (trademark?) divisive statements. Royale is still attempting to court the votes in the centre. Altogether, this uncertainty of outcome makes it an exciting race.

Regarding the recent US Democratic candidates' debate at South Carolina, the jury's out as to who's really won the debate. Naturally, on Barack Obama's website, a poll indicates he won it, with Hillary Clinton ranked second. Likewise, Clinton's camp says she won it, and looked the most 'presidential' to boot. But we shouldn't feel obliged to believe everything their own people say, as it would obviously be biased in their candidates' favour. In any case, these are just mini battles and not the whole war.

I am somehow less interested in the Republican nominees this time. I supported John McCain when he ran against George W Bush two terms ago. But after McCain's initial triumph at New Hampshire, it was a losing battle for the war veteran. Recent antics, his seeming lack of interest in wooing South Carolina voters at an earlier stage, and his increasing age may mean his chances are slimmer this time.

There are similarities between both the French and US Democratic nominee elections. In both cases, a woman is likely to be the strongest, or second strongest, candidate overall (I'm wondering what will happen when Condee Rice enters the fray). The New York Times notes that Obama has the potential to take away some of Clinton's long-standing black supporters. But surely, voters shouldn't support a candidate based primarily on race. Unless of course, race does make a difference in the candidates' ability to empathise with voters, and vice versa.

Next, the male candidate who is currently competing with this female candidate, can be viewed as an outsider in terms of ethnicity. Sarkozy is the son of a Hungarian immigrant and a native French woman. Obama was the son of a Kenyan father and a white American mother.

Both the French presidential election and the Democrat nominations will be exciting to watch, as the second-ranked candidates are closing in. Wikipedia has a most useful list of opinion polls, arranged chronologically, to show how Obama has been catching up. And if you went purely by geeks, Mashable reports that Obama is getting much more attention on Youtube and Digg.

• The New York Times Caucus Blog (but I'm wondering if NY publications are skewed in favour of Senator Clinton)
• Obama's senate podcast
• John Edward's blog - personal and affable, like the man himself
• List of official and potential 2008 Democratic candidates
• List of official and potential 2008 Republican candidates

BTW, Barack Obama has finally started using Twitter. To date, his account stands at just one post: "At the California Democratic Party Convention in San Diego." He has some way to catch up with John Edwards.

Technorati tags: Nicolas+Sarkozy, Segolene+Royal, Hillary+Clinton, Barack+Obama, John+Edwards

Dear readers,

Yesterday my blog went blank. I thought I had again exceeded my file storage space, but on checking, there was plenty of space left.

I thought I had exceeded my bandwidth, seeing how my account went over 5GB so far, this month. But the web host assured me that was not the problem.

My blog did receive over 1,500 cases of trackback spam, which took a very long time to delete, but it made no difference. (I didn't expect it to, but it was a wild hope)

My web host said it was a problem with my S-Code capcha plugin for Movable Type, but I realised it wasn't just my blog pages but any PHP pages using @include files. I tried using another version of 'include' code but that made no difference. Any text appearing after the very first line of @include code, would simply not display.

I then got suspicious as I had not touched my Movable Type plugins or templates recently. I asked my web host if they had recently upgraded their version of PHP. The answer was yes. I read up on the latest documentation involving the 'include' command but haven't quite put my finger on what the problem is. Do you have any idea?

This is how I encase my include files:
<?php @include("<MTBlogURL>includes/header.php"); ?>

It worked fine until, presumably, the upgrade to PHP 4.4.6.

At least, I managed to narrow it down and sure enough, as I substituted the @include links with the original lines of code, things started appearing again. This home page, which some of you might be viewing right now, is working simply because of this.

But this is only a quick fix. I need to figure out the PHP problem as I still want to use 'include' files for better control of my code. If you guys know a workaround, please let me know! Thanks.

[Of course, for you guys to reply, I have to 'quick-fix' my individual blog post template as well, so it no longer calls on 'include' files. Sigh. I'm only going to re-publish recent posts for now, so at least you don't see blank pages.]

The last time I dined with friends at Al Dente Trattoria at Colours on the Bay, I recalled having a decent experience with lovely ambience. Thus, I was fine when my family decided to dine there after watching Phantom of the Opera. Or so I thought...

We watched the Phantom of the Opera yesterday evening and the performance was solid. The catch to starring in a big musical that everyone's heard of many times before, is that it is difficult to produce an exceptional performance, because the standards are already high. It was the same for this sellout performance at the Esplanade.

Just experimenting with Digg tools on this blog. Things may prove embarrassing 50 posts later if nothing actually gets dugg. Big, fat zeroes... we don't like seeing that in Singapore schools, unless it's preceded by the number '1'.

The second day of the Marketing to Women conference was just as good, if not better, than the first. At least there was no sales pitch today. Frankly, I find companies who try too hard to sell their products or services at conferences, are actually doing themselves a disservice.

Firstly, it shows that you don't respect your audience, who have paid thousands of dollars to attend the conference. We're here to learn about your expertise. We're not interested in the specific products you're selling, but HOW you marketed them. What were the difficulties you faced, internally and externally, and how did you overcome them?

In fact, presenting your expertise in an appropriate way will indirectly send a powerful message that enhances you and your company's image as the consultant to go to. Like a well-written blog, show us your thought processes and not your hard-sell tactics, and we will give you due respect.

Day 2 also re-iterated some points from the previous day: Don't just take a male or gender-neutral product, slap on some pink and expect women to buy it. Women want empathy. You have to understand them. Your brand must also have authenticity.

One point was that not all men can market to women effectively. We were shown numerous TV commercials which were either written by men or women, and it was very obvious which was which.

Then the popular question among the audience was how could we present our case to a board of directors who are mostly, if not all, male? The answer was to do testing and present them with the hard facts. Or, just give them what they want, and when it bombs, show them the bottomline and that may convince them to try something different next time.

Another big point I took home was that even if your Marketing team has got the creative concept spot on, the story shouldn't end there.

For instance, you may have re-designed a car to appeal to mums (ie, easy to drive, safe for the kids, spacious, not like a tank) but what about the nasty car salesmen who are typically aggressive with women customers and are only interested in closing a deal instead of listening to their customers' needs? Sometimes your products are not sold by your own company but through franchisees and dealerships. That's when you have to look at changing the way things work, or else you may alienate your customers further.

We were also given scientific evidence that a woman's brain is wired differently from a man's, such that we are extra sensitive to how something is packaged.

One American speaker (who was possibly the best presenter today) gave many good local examples of how customer relations could have been improved. A credit card company kept on asking her to sign up for the basic card when she's been with them for years and is already a platinum cardholder. A local telco never says 'thank you' personally to her, despite her being a very heavy usage customer. These are all areas that can be improved. Certainly we still have far to go.

I had the opportunity to speak with her during tea-time, and agreed as I had similar problems with both companies. I didn't have time to tell her about Orange, the Telco company I had such a wonderful experience with in my three years as a student in the UK. You can read about their wonderful services and rewards schemes in a previous post.

Sadly, another point was re-iterated: Singapore customers are still more interested in the lowest prices instead of looking at higher quality products. This makes it difficult for new luxury players to enter the Singapore market. So if you're wondering how come certain top brands are ignoring us, it could be for this reason. We're too small, and many of us are too cheap!

Tea-time talk among my fellow Conference-goers also touched on the fact that Singapore was a small market. How diversified an approach can we actually take towards our customers? Ideally it should be as segmented as possible. But others pointed out they had small budgets that could only do so much. Datamining was brought up as a possible solution.

At the end, I gave feedback that while the presentations were generally very insightful and well-executed, some examples were relevant only to Western countries. Creative agencies there have less trouble getting their citizens to come forward to give testimonials, which are a very powerful tool in marketing to women. However, it may not be as easy in Singapore and other parts of Asia, where people are more shy.

Technorati Tags: Marketing to Women

I was just sharing this story with a Singaporean who's starting a local songwriter's circle. I've decided to share it with the rest of you, too.

Several years ago, my mum and I went on a tour of Spain. One night we were on a cruise ship and there was a dinner party. The band played music from every country that we tourists came from. Every time one country's 'famous' song was played, the tourists from that country were invited to go to the stage and dance.

They had songs for all the European countries and the US. As expected, they had catchy songs for the Latin American tourists too. You'd be able to recognise a few of the tunes.

However when it came to Singapore, the other Singaporeans ducked behind their seats, leaving me and my mum in the spotlight. So we went up on stage. The band looked confused, as they had no idea what type of music to play for Singapore. There was a bit of awkward silence.

In the end, the band made up some ching-chong tune that sounded pseudo oriental. I actually felt a bit ashamed - not so much because we were the only ones on stage, but because the rest of the world did not know what Singaporean music sounded like. They did not know of a classic 'Singapore song' they could play at this party.

Frankly, I myself couldn't think of any famous or catchy Singaporean song that could be played, apart from some traditional Malay songs. The rest of the world wouldn't even have heard of Dick Lee, outside of Asia.

That memory alone spurs me to keep on writing and producing music whenever a tune pops into my head.

[More info: This happened in the late 1990s. I know the Asian region may be familiar with some of our local artistes who sing in Mandarin, but our music has yet to touch the rest of the world. I'm hoping that bands like Electrico and the Observatory, who are my current favourites, can change things. However what I'm aiming at, are songs that can become world classics and embed themselves into other people's memories.

Am I hoping for too much? With music, I am forever optimistic and will patiently await the day that one catchy Singaporean song will make it to the international entertainment scene, and that people will know its tune and its origin.]

Technorati Tags: music, Singapore.

Over dinner, my family was recounting their time in Paris a few weeks ago. Yours truly had chosen not to go on this trip due to another recent overseas trip (to SXSW) and a pile of deadlines at work.

The hotel receptionist had given my family the wrong directions to the tour agency, so they were late and the bus left without them! However they found an alternative tour which started a few hours later. To pass the time, they went to various shops nearby, then bumped into a Frenchman friend who happened to be back in Paris. He recommended a good place for lunch.

Said my mother, "The restaurant's name was Costes. C-O-S-T-E-S..."

At which point I shrieked, "COSTES!!!! YOU WENT TO HOTEL COSTES?!?!?!? I HAVE ALL THEIR CDs I LOVE THEIR MUSIC!!!"*

In fact I was just listening some Costes music while working out on my Nike+ iPod nano kit a few hours earlier.

Apparently their food is really, really good too. The prices were high but the food was worth it. There were beautiful people everywhere, dressed in suits. And that was only lunch time, so I can only imagine what it's like at night.

The next time we go to Paris, I'll see if I can squeeze in a visit to Costes.

* To be precise, because I have the entire collection of CDs, I didn't see the point in buying their recent 'Best of' CD.

The Marketing to Women conference Day 1 was generally good. As mainstream marketing is not my core function, I learnt more than the average Marketing graduate working in a Marketing role. Day 2 tomorrow should be good too.

As can be expected, there are many more women than men attending the event.

I couldn't help but notice one guy who remained at his seat while the rest of us had got up for lunch in a nearby room.

The guy was the only one with a 15" Macbook Pro.

I also couldn't help noticing he had a working internet connection.

Altogether, that was enough to make me approach him.

"Hi! Are you connected to the Internet?" I asked. He replied yes.

"Did you have to pay for it?" I probed. He said no.

"Oh, are you staying in this hotel?" (he was a Caucasian and I assumed he had travelled from a neighbouring country to attend this conference, and maybe he was given free access).

He said he wasn't staying in this hotel, and in fact that conference organisers(?) had given him the wireless username and password for free. He even showed me a slip of paper containing the login information.

(At this point I felt like turning into the Incredible Hulk, because I had so very nicely asked the Conference organisers the same question in the morning and they told me there was no wireless connection available. I asked again, if there actually WAS wireless but I had to pay for it, and they said yes.)

On my way out of the conference room, I bumped into one of the organisers and I asked her the same question. She insisted that there was no free wireless internet available.

Just then, the guy with the Macbook Pro and free wireless connection walked up behind her. That triggered off a sense of injustice that only the most wireless-deprived geeks would understand.

I didn't want to be too confrontational, so I simply muttered, "That's not what I've heard." And walked off.

On hindsight, maybe the guy needed to use the Internet in an emergency and they gave their account details to him, while agreeing to tell everyone else that there was no free wireless connection available.

Or maybe he was just very charming. After all, how often do ladies get to see a dude wielding a 15" beauty?

I'll be at the Marketing to Women conference at Copthorne Waterfront this Monday and Tuesday. I recall there isn't free wireless available, but if you do know of any 'lobang', let me know!

It's funny because I don't consider myself a 'typical' woman, so I might learn more at this conference than the average female attendee!

Just a few days ago, I blogged about buying a new Microsoft Wireless keyboard and mouse set. Alas, within a couple of days strange things started happening to them. First, the mouse kept turning off. Then the keyboard's F11 button, which looks ever so slightly more depressed than the other keys, kept on getting activated.

Most likely there's something wrong with the circuitry, causing the slightest vibration to activate the F11 command.

I had a real HEADACHE reading off my web browsers, both IE and Firefox. Imagine you're looking at some text... and suddenly, the window expands to full screen mode. Then before you know it, it goes back to normal.

Then it expands again!!

And if reading from that screen can give a headache, try TYPING on it, or clicking on items in your list of emails. I kept opening the wrong emails because just as I poised my mouse over the right link, the browser would expand and I would click on the wrong email. Bah!

I got so fed up that I'm taking it back to South Asia Computer on Monday evening. I will update everyone on how well they handle returned goods.

To prove my case to them, I also shot this video.

[I'll correct my own English: In the heat of the moment, I said the F11 key was 'spoilt' - as a glass of milk would be, but certainly not hardware. Let's settle for 'not working properly'.]

[Update: I was putting the keyboard back into its original packaging when I realised the receipt said that all goods sold are not returnable or exchangeable. I'll give the computer store a call first to confirm this. I really dread calling a Microsoft service centre for help.]

[Update #2: This sucks. I go to Microsoft Singapore. I click on "All Products" on the left nav bar, and get redirected to this error page. What the... I'm bracing myself that the store won't help me, and neither will Microsoft Singapore.]

Before you read this post, you need to know this background information regarding my testimony.

Yesterday morning, I sent my Nissan car for servicing at Tan Chong Motors along Bukit Timah road. As I had to go back to work (in the south), I crossed the long overhead bridge to the other side, so I could catch a cab going in the right direction.

As I was crossing the bridge, I saw a number of buses passing by on either side of the roads. Then I wondered, Would I still be able to tell if the 174 bus is coming soon? After nearly 4 years of not taking this bus to work, I wouldn't expect the Holy Spirit to be obliged to prompt me any longer.

Before I reached the end of the bridge, I was prompted that the 174 would be arriving in 1-2 minutes time. It was nearly 8.30am already and from previous experience, the service would become less frequent around this time. Anyway, since I needed to catch a cab, I stood along the main road, a bit further up from the bus stop, and kept an eye on the bus numbers that were turning up.

Well, I couldn't catch any cabs because they were all flying past me on the first lane, but within 1 and a half minutes, the 174 did arrive! Someone else hailed the bus, so it stopped, then on the spur of the moment I decided to board the bus too, since it also was on the way to work. It was a nostalgic moment for me!

And no, unlike my previous trip last year to the service centre, I didn't have anyone new approaching me for help!

The whole point is not that God can help you catch buses, but like what I learnt many years ago - that you can approach him for small things and He will listen (if it's in His will).

Our home Acer PC's wireless mouse was giving trouble for the last few months. Even a battery change didn't improve its erratic performance. Last night, I removed the casing to check on the batteries again, and was surprised to find that the inside of the mouse was wet!

I discovered that one of the batteries had leaked. And the mouse was designed in such a way that there was a hole directly underneath that battery, large enough for liquid to seep through to the circuit board. In short, the mouse was damaged. The Acer wireless keyboard was also getting erratic - and we've had this PC for less than a year.

So I went shopping for a new Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse, and settled for the entry-level Optical Desktop 700. I bought it at South Asia Computer and it came with free flat panel speakers!

At the same time, I bought myself an 8GB Flash (thumb) drive. Initially I had gone upstairs to Challenger to view their product range and prices. They had a beautiful, shiny Sony 8GB thumb drive that was going for about $260. However, as I wasn't a member, I wouldn't get any discount.

So instead, I bought an 8GB Imation Pro 2 Flash (thumb) drive for $159. It doesn't look as pretty, but it is smaller and comes with its own partitioning software.

I also picked up a SanDisk 6-in-1 PC card adapter. It is to be inserted into my Dell laptop. When you're at an event and want to upload photos immediately, things are much easier with a built-in reader - rather than a device that's sticking out of a USB port or dangling on a wire.

Small, functional gadgets, but I did get a sense of catharsis today.

We had a decent practice session this evening. Here's our 'exercise' song. It's meant to get the band in sync with each other. We used the catchy bassline from Freak Power's Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out. One of my favourite acid jazz songs.

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With every round, we had to go faster and faster! You'll hear our teacher's voice, urging us on until we sounded like a hardcore rock band. We had no score - just the bassline.

Nicol on synths/organs, me on piano/electric piano, Richard on bass, and our newest member Justin on drums. (Side note: I think most, if not all of us, play in our respective church bands.)

[I saved this post as a draft and never got round to publishing it until today. So here it is, 5 days old.]

On the home page of Techdirt today is a summary of the Malaysian Government's reaction to the blogosphere in the midst of its tourism promotion efforts.

Still in the news today is mention of the Thai Government's censorship of Youtube's videos containing offensive material of the King. I see two sides to this. The King is the most revered figure in the country. Having studied Thai history and had Thai friends, I know how much they respect him.

And remember that old HSBC ad on being the world's local bank? There was a scene where a white tourist put his feet up and some young Asian (presumably Thai?) jerked his head away, as he found it offensive.

Thus, combining two polar opposites within Thai culture was bound to bring about a reaction. You can't expect the Thai Government NOT to do anything about it. However it is not practical to regulate the Internet. With its rebellious nature, I am not surprised that more such spoofs will be uploaded to Youtube and other channels. Any organisation that thinks it can block the Internet, is underestimating the human spirit, and risks appearing out of touch with reality today.

Taking a step back, I see that both situations involve two issues: The question of what is offensive material (which can be very subjective), and the (im)practicalities of censoring or controlling some aspect of the Internet.

The International Herald Tribune reports that Tim O'Reilly (who coined the term Web 2.0) and Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia) are working together to create a set of guidelines for online discussion and debate. Preliminary recommendations are available.

Chief among the recommendations is that bloggers consider banning anonymous comments left by visitors to their pages and be able to delete threatening or libelous comments without facing cries of censorship.

They are considering different levels of comments, which bloggers can select. What's going to be interesting is that "The whole system would be voluntary, relying on the community to police itself." Some good may come out of this on certain sites, but not all. More often, I'd expect to see trolling and chaos rather than self-regulation and order.

While Robert Scoble was quoted as saying these guidelines made him feel like he was in Iran, O'Reilly clarified it thus:

... the guidelines were not about censorship. "That is one of the mistakes a lot of people make -- believing that uncensored speech is the most free, when in fact, managed civil dialogue is actually the freer speech," he said. "Free speech is enhanced by civility."

Truly, it is. If man were allowed to do anything he wished.

A few of my girl friends commented that my blog was too techy for them. Well, here's a lightweight post which may sound very unlike my usual self!

Some long-suffering friends may be pleased to note that yours truly FINALLY went for a manicure and pedicure - for the first time in possibly a year.

The weirder thing is that 3-4 years ago, I bought a package for 10 manicure and pedicure sessions. Then I stopped working for a few months before moving to my current job. Somehow, I just stopped going and forgot about it for a long time, until my mum reminded me about it this year.

Today, I decided to stop procrastinating. I called up the salon this afternoon and gave them my details. They found my records and fortunately they still honoured it. So I turned up this evening for a nail session. The lady attending to me probably spent an extra long time shaving all the excess skin off my feet! I could see bits of wet skin coming off with every stroke of her instrument. My soles are feeling soft and tender now.

OK, it feels weird talking about beauty stuff. I hope my girl friends are happy. Let's say that I'm _so_ not used to having painted nails that the moment I walked out of the salon to my car, I immediately nicked one nail. Reaching into my bag for my keys was another hassle. Even going to the loo was... OK, you get the idea. Fortunately as my nails are still short, I can type on keyboards and play the piano.

I wonder what my band will think of me when I show up tomorrow, with painted hands and feet. Everybody else will probably be wearing jeans / T-shirts / cargo pants / bermudas... and there's their band leader appearing in open-toed sandals, afraid to swipe her fingers down the keys lest she chip a nail. Maybe I should bring a change of clothes and wear gloves. (BTW, we found a new drummer!)

In over a decade of worshipping at St George's, I've never seen it so packed before. Some people were standing in the aisles and doorways until the children moved off to attend Sunday School.

Of course, the church tends to get more crowded during special occasions such as Christmas and Easter, but I was moved nonetheless. I'm actually sniffling as I type this.

I believe God has heard our prayers over the years and has blessed us gradually with all the things we need to run the church and draw newcomers and old members alike.

It has been a while, but you can feel things are moving in the right direction.

Happy Easter to all Christian readers!

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Having a cough for 3 weeks actually has one advantage - I can record my own renditions of songs with husky vocals!

Since the John Legend song 'Ordinary People' is beautiful AND within my Alto vocal range, I decided to record my own version of it. The piano you hear is actually my Bösendorfer Grand, recorded using the mighty little Micromemo for iPod. There is some hiss but I preferred a real piano for this song.

Vocals were recorded using my usual Shure microphone, channeled via a preamp to my G5 Mac running Logic Pro 7. Editing and mixing were done using Logic too.

Have a listen and tell me what you think. I am not entirely happy with my pitch, and my lung capacity has shrunk so I felt more breathless than normal.

Legend fans may notice that I made the opening line gender-neutral, and also shortened the finale.

Technorati Tags: John+Legend Ordinary+People, Micromemo, Logic+Pro

To use an analogy, I'm like a lump of coal that's been out of the fireplace for a while. Apart from church on Sundays, I haven't attended any classes for the last few months. My prayers and resolutions for this year are to find myself more time to focus on what is important.

Thus, I decided to reschedule my car servicing this morning (it can wait another week) and attend a talk by Right Reverend Dr Paul Barnett. Hope I got all his titles right! He has his own brief Wikipedia entry! He gave a talk on Luke and how it was pieced together based on others' testimony and historical fact. Even secular and anti-Christian historians acknowledged the existence of the state of affairs at the time, i.e. the names of the rulers and the persecution of Christians later on.

I learnt that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were to a good extent based on the first Gospel, of Mark. The Gospel of John is an entirely different matter. Curiously, Rt Rev Dr Barnett also mentioned a possible 'Q' draft gospel which the Gospels of Matthew and Luke could have made reference to. However, he clarified that he wouldn't stake his life on it. Some preliminary research I've done on the net, also points to the same conclusion.

After the talk, I was approached by a member of the Worship team who's been asking me to play for them again. I feel pretty bad because I've been turning down his requests for the past year. My existing commitments at work and my jazz band make me feel like I'm already taking on too much. The other issue is that the worship practice clashes with my jazz piano lesson which is difficult to reschedule. Still, I feel called to return to the team and will probably do so one day.

In the meantime, I will continue serving through the website team and by reading passages occasionally. My next reading may be on 15 April, if I replace the original person who is currently unwell. That is when our former Discipleship minister and fellow blogger David Ould is preaching, so that may be a nice arrangement!

Today I got home from work late, had dinner and started designing a mockup for my church's new website. At work, I am more of a project manager/New Media-PR person than a designer, but every now and then it is good to revive the skills I picked up as a web designer/technologist a few years ago.

At recent church meetings and at work, I've brought up the benefits of using web standards, particularly Cascading Stylesheets. For the more technically savvy folk, I usually explain the important of separating style from content. For an even more able colleague yesterday, I explained the rise of XML and how we are currently in transit mode with XHTML, which is why our code has to be tidy.

I've always been sensitive to people's reactions to my ideas. So, for web standards, I usually avoid going into technical details when talking to laypersons. I move straight into the benefits like the time saved by amending only one stylesheet as opposed to changing the font tags in every paragraph on each page. Those who are interested to learn more, can then find out what exactly needs to be done.

If there's time, I like to show CSS Zen Garden - it always has a 'Wow' factor. I usually display the visual aspect of the web page first, then its source code. Then I switch to another template, and show them that most of the code's still the same - the only thing that's changed is the stylesheet. Everyone gets it after that.

If I want to demonstrate how different stylesheets can be used on the same website, I'll take them to our internal staff newsletter, which looks very different when you print it out. Elements which are not necessary on paper, such as the nav bar, and certain images, are removed from the print version. I explain to them that the same thing can be designed for mobile devices, so there is no need to have many different versions of the same website.

Back to my church revamp. Given the fact that our new site map has 3-4 levels of navigation, I forsee someone might ask me for one of those fancy dropdown menus. Naturally if that happens, I only want to use CSS dropdown menus. However, many examples I found involve the website being aligned to the left. This example is the best I've seen so far - good to look at, and centred. And it has 'tentatively' valid XHTML, according to the W3C validator. Do let me know if you find any more.

Out of nostalgia, I decided to use my G5 Mac to work on the mockup. My preferred weapon is still Fireworks. I seldom use Photoshop except for editing photos. Fireworks is easier to use in the sense that you can draw layouts quickly, and create Symbols and hotspots with one or two clicks or presses of a button. Of course both programs are now part of one big family...

Technorati Tags: CSS

(in chronological order)

• Spent some time reading the latest issue of The Economist. Being alone at home has its perks - I get to read the newspapers and magazines first.
• Tried to make it in time for a company event in the morning, but missed the main action. Decided to patronise the remaining stall that hadn't closed shop yet, and got a back massage by visually handicapped people. At least they made some money.
• Tidied up one teeny portion of my room, leaving me with about 90% more mess to clear. Still contemplating getting a new work desk, or improving what I currently have.
• Went out for dinner with relatives. Coughed like there was no tomorrow, and took some new medication.
• Filed my taxes. That helped me to sleep better, knowing the deed was done.
• Woke up on Sunday feeling much better - but still coughing.
• Couldn't sing properly at church without coughing. The strain of having controlled lung actions was just too much for me.
• Tidied up my car's glove compartment.
• Went out for lunch with relatives.
• Went to Tanglin Mall to buy cough drops, and stopped by That CD Shop to ask if the new Tracey Thorn album was out yet (the answer was no). I bought 3 compilations instead. Contemplated doing a music review on this blog, since I haven't written one in ages.
• Created a private social network using Ning.com (thanks to Preetam for the link)
• Created another private social network. Thinking of using it for my new band, to communicate and upload files.
• Composed a music loop using my Korg Triton and Logic Pro 7. These will come in handy when I finally start my video podcast.
• Had dinner at Waraku with the Bristol girls, to celebrate Shin's belated birthday.
• Shot videos of weird scenes during the dinner. I'm wondering whether they're suitable for uploading and viewing by the public, or whether they would be too politically incorrect. Heh.
• Uploaded a couple more video clips to Revver.com. Pending approval.
• Pondered when I'd next update my blog, since I didn't have anything substantial to blog about yet.
• Decided to blog about what I did this weekend.