Alice Cheong

Time has been passing by very quickly, and stress has been building up with regards to my work, and so I decided to have a night out, and attended this 1st Fleishman Hillard bloggers gathering. It has been a long time since I venture out of my cave, to attend events.

Boat Quay and Clark Quay, seem to be on the quieter side with less crowd when I took a 10-15min walk from the furthest end (Boat Quey from Raffles Place mrt) of the Singapore river side to almost the other end of Clark Quay to reach Brewerkz. Perhaps, it is early at 730pm. Perhaps, it is a Thursday. Or perhaps, the Singaporeans’ are worried about their jobs, and can hardly make ends meet. Or perhaps, the expats are keeping away as living cost rises.

Fleishman Hillard specially reserved a room for this 1st bloggers gathering. And, my point of contact, Samantha excitedly (as bubbly as usual) as got me my nametag, and introduced me. Thanks, Samantha. Thanks, Fleishman Hillard.

Surprisingly, through I have been skipping most events this year, half the crowd are familar faces. Attending event leads me to think about the economy. The current economy is bad. The collapsed of Lehman brother is the last straw, that broke the camel’s back (USA’s finance). And, the toxic mortgage (subprime mess), that was repackaged and nicely wrapped and sold to institutions and layman, is having the domino effect of affecting the entire world’s economy. USA is not going down (recession) alone. Through it is the source of this world-wide financial turmoil, the entire world is suffering with it, due to the lack of surveillence of financial institues and the inter-connectivity of the open economy.

Now, in such a bad economy, is such PR events a neccessity or a luxuary? Looking at short term, consumers will value money over time, as money is in short supply, and as such, will perform more comparison before purchases. Personal reviews, such as blog articles, that are personalised, will have a greater effect, as most gadgets are often of similar technical specification. Thus, those companies that have a better personalised publicity will have a better chance of a higher sales.

Looking at long term, in bad economy, many companies will scale back on their expenditure, with publicity being one of the first to go. As such, it provides a publicity vacumm, which those with sufficient cash flow, and deep pockets, can take advantage of. The publicity built up, can solidify their branding. The surviving companies, where publicity was cut, will have plenty of catch-up to do after the down-turn.

What a rainy day. The sky went from relatively bright to almost totally dark. The Vado nicely captured the difference in the lighting.

[flashvideo filename="http://blog.alicecheong.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/rainy-day-with-vado.flv" /]

PS: The original Vado clip, an avi file requires Xvid codec (www.mylivecam.com/xvidcodec) to view it. It has been converted to flash. Perhaps the next time I will try the other options available for web viewing.

Apparently, Google has started saying sorry… and has been more aggressively treating certain Singapore IPs’ users with the human or robot test of captcha. I have no idea what is the exact algorithm behind it, but apparently, the same IP is not given much chance to verify itself.

My IE is showing the following.

While my Firefox is showing this (after being given a single chance of typing in at the captcha, while I didn’t take it).

Noticed any difference? The difference is that the chance of typing in the captcha is not always given once the program-IP is blacklisted. Frustrated? Maybe viewing the comments to this post helps.

Oh. So what are the alternatives since you need a search engine, and google search refuses to cooperate? Oh yes, there are www.yahoo.com, www.excite.com, www.altavista.com, and free feel to comment more sites.

And yes, We’re sorry I’m sorry… to say, my home page URL after 2 days of constant captcha treatment, is now no longer google search.

PS: And I doubt the missing TM at the google logo means that this is a virus/trojan hacked. The same logo is shown in an article pertaining to this issue from The Inquiry.

As mentioned in the earlier post, Howie from the TDM, has kindly passed me a unit of the Creative Vado. You can drool over the image below. But… you might want to save your drooling for my video blog entries which will be coming up. Do catch me video blogging soon.

Oh yes, before I end, let me tempt you with the specification of Creative Vado. It is really light at 84g with battery and has a really small and handy footprint. It allows continuous VGA recording up to 120 minutes at good quality! That is way way longer than any of the similar form-factor cameras! (We have the canon ixus, up to ixus 500 that is only able to record maximum 30 seconds video, while sony T200 is able to record maximum of 10 minutes video.) And… for great convience, there is a build-in flexi USB connector tucked at the bottom.

And, ever wonder why it is called Vado? Try spelling it out in letters.

Today, I learnt something new about Tiger Airways. Perhaps it is not new to everyone. So, what is it? What happened? Two of my family members had just returned this morning by Tiger Airways. They checked-in six 60×80cm framed paintings that are nicely wrapped by a few layers of bubbled plastic and are labelled with “FRAGILE! PLS HANDLE WITH CARE”. A sample of the bubbled plastic that was taken off from a framed painting can be seen here.

They specially informed the check-in counter personnel that the six items are fragile, and requested for the items to be handled with care. The only answer they got was, “check-in at you own risk”.

So, what does that means? Does it means that there is no fragile luggage check-in service? Or does it means that check-in will go missing? Or… Is it just the standard terms and condition to ensure that they are not liable for any transportation issues?

The answer was very clear when the check-in framed paintings were retrieved. Three of the six frames were broken during transport. You can see one of the broken frame here. It must have been violently thrown, that despite the wooden frames being layered wrapping with bubbled plastic, the frame broke off and wooden splinters were visible.

With such an experience, I can only conclude that, if there is fragile items, get a ticket from the full-service airline. I will never trust a budget airline to deliver fragile goods safely. They need to cut corners cost to be budget.

Update: Quoting Tiger Airway’s Conditions of Carriage

9.2 Valuable And Fragile Goods:
Passengers should not check in such items as baggage. If they are checked in as baggage, passengers agree they send for carriage such items at their own risk. Such items include money, jewellery, precious metals, silverware, electronic devices, computers, cameras, video equipment, mobile phones, negotiable papers, securities or other valuables, passports and other identification documents, title deeds, artefacts, manuscripts and the like.

I inherited my first laptop pretty early, around ten years ago. It had a 486 intel chip at that time. At that time, pagers were still the in thing, while handphones were called da-ge-da, as they were huge like bricks.

And, being the early days of laptop, laptops were really expensive. I fear losing the expensive laptop to such an extend, that I either physically lock up the laptop using laptop locks, or I bring it where ever I goes, including during coffee break.

As the years goes by, now, laptop has become more prevalent and cheaper, but the risk of thief has not decreased. The newer generation of sub-laptops, are really light and small, and can be easily swiped.

Even through, physical laptop locks is still the best solution, they are clumbersome to bring, and there is always friends who can help to look after the laptop while I go for a coffee break.

However, I always remember the nicely done up posters, which said, “I left my laptop with my friend, and it is gone.” and “I doze off, and the laptop is gone.” So, I am really happy to learn that there is a new product “Very I for Windows“, which is basically an anti-theft software for windows laptop.

Nowadays, with all the research work and software installed in my laptop, losing my laptop could well mean delay in my graduation and breaching of confidential research materials. As for public consequence, the next cancer drug might well be delayed. Just kidding. Not that serious, yet. Here is my laptop. Do not steal it, ok?

Anyway, Very I for windows, tracks the laptop’s important information, and in the event that the user is unable to authenticate himself or herself when the machine is online, alerts will be sent out, with information that allows the location of the machine to be tracked. This will allow the possible retrieval of the stolen laptop.

Tomorrow, or rather today, is 15-Apr-2008, which is the last day for e-filing. So, I spent more than an hour trying to log into the Iras e-filing website. It is too busy, and when I was almost about to give up, I finally got logged in.

Alas. I do not need to e-file.

“You are not required to file your current year Income Tax Return. However, if your total Income in the year 2007 is more tha S$22,000 or if your net trade income in the yeat 2007 is more than S$6,000, please click…”

It’s Yebber’s 1st anniversary! Happy Birthday to Yebber! Thank you Claudia for extending the special special invitation to me. The celebration is held at the Mint Museum of Toys. I reached, just after 7pm. Not the earliest batch, nor the latest batch. But, sigh, the counters were closed, and I was directed to level 3. And now blogging a day later, I am sure I am not the fastest, and I guess, I am not the slowest. Ah, SimplyJean has already completed her comprehensive post on the entire event in Part1 and Part2, which includes an early bird preview, and lots of photographs of the place, event and food.

Looking at the toys, really reminds me how old I am. Yes, Rinaz, thank you for your sweet words that I can pass off as a JC student. I must really treat you to a drink and meal… but then you just had your meal, courtesy of the event. Yes, of all the toys, Mickey mouse, 7 dwarfs and SnowWhite, 5 stones, and Old Maid cards ring a bell in my mind. I was from that era. And yes, I played with marbles on sandy field, shot paper bullets from rubber band and play with zero-point rubber band rope when i was young too. Ar… those were the times.

This Yebber event, like the last Yebber Christmas party, consists of bingo game too. Oooh, there was 2 prizes for the bingo game. The first prize of a wireless mouse with some additional special features is for the lucky winner who is the first to get either a complete row or column. A lucky fellow, who had a “false start” got it. Then, we had the cake cutting ceremony before continuing with part 2 of the bingo. The lucky fellow who completes the entire card, gets the prize – a creative live webcam for laptop. Ooooh. I was eyeing it. And…. I got it! I was one number earlier than Jean from SimplyJean in completing the card! W00t! W00t! W00t!

So, it’s time to claim my prize. I was so happy. I hoped that they don’t notice it’s me who won the Bingo. I was the Bingo Queen for the Yebber Christmas party, and they were saying I should be banned from bingo. Ops, for the Christmas party, I won in all rounds except one. Thank you Lady Luck.

Art? Somehow art has always fascinated me. Today, I am taking a peep into the local art exhibits in the company of my sister-in-law. I am really fortunate to have her by my side for this tour, as she has been away in the States for the past 4 years and is currently being nurtured in art under the tutorage of a number of great art professors. I am really happily to have her by my side and enjoyed her company immensely.

We met at the Dobby Ghaut MRT station. Being early and without having breakfast, both of us decided to grab a quick bite. So, we popped by Cathay, and hoped to grab a good meal and took a look at a gallery there. Alas, the gallery wasn’t open on Sun morning, and we had a quick glance from the outside. Next, Indulge restaurant! The good food that does not burnt a hole in my pocket. Unfortunately, we are too early and the kitchen has not open. So, we had Kaykun breakfast set instead.

Next station. School of The Art. Ops. I forgot that it is still under construction. Ops ops ops. Next station. Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA). There is an exhibition, but, ops, it is closed on sun. We peeped through the glass walls, and my sister-in-law kindly took the post of commenter, and announced that the paintings have a china-like style. Seems like the exhibit artists had their training in china. Isn’t that interesting that training style can be decripted? Moreover, I realised for the first time that NAFA has 3 buildings and is called campus 1/2/3. Between campus 1 and campus 2, there is a beautiful palm tree. The branches stretch out in such an artistic manner that we paused for a minute and enjoy it.

Next station. Stamford Arts Center. Ops. There is no exhibits in the center. This center conducts classes related to art. Next station. YMS Arts Center. Ops. There are many people, but it seems like a function is to be held and not an exhibit. But, the wall and ceiling is really nicely done up artistically with elegant craving-style designs.

Next station. Singapore Art Museum. That is a good one. There is 5 exhibits ongoing today, occupying all 3 levels of the museum. There is the Seal exhibit, which is really fantastic. Some of the seal’s chinese wordings were so boldly craved in an artistic manner, that it can be read both as words and shapes. It is really amazing that the artist produced so many seals and that he only had 5 years of formal education.

The Big Picture exhibit spanned 3 levels of the side wing. It is a pity that the artistic paintings were not boldly “pushed” as commented by my private personal commenter. The asian artistic paintings are still held back in their expression, perhaps for fear that the mass cannot recognise the theme. It is so fun to see my sister-in-law inspecting the canvas used. “This canvas is not stretched properly.” What does that means? I learnt that canvas needs to be stretch properly during the mounting to the board, and that this is a tiring and skilled job that many artist cannot get it perfect. “This artist is rich”. Oh. This artist is using good quality canvas. And… A good quality linen canvas cost $100!!!, as oppose, a cheap cotton canvas cost $7! And yes, “You see the yellow and red paint being used?” Yellow paint costs 4-5 times the price of blue paint. And red paint is also more expensive than blue paint. “So, you know why my painting is always blue”. The cost of material for canvas painting is high.

The Re-Woven exhibit. This is a solo exhibit by Benny Ong. Even though it is suppose to be a part of Celebrate ASEAN, a National Heritage Board programme series, it irks of exploitation. Though Benny Ong is a renowned international fashion designer, and not an artist, in this exhibit, he merely provided the design, and these designs were woven by Lao’s weaver, who’s names never appear in the exhibit. How can you have a solo exhibit, with your name claiming all the credits, while all the hard work of weaving the entire art piece is done by others?

Next station. The Sub Station. There is a solo exhibits of photography. 1/3 of the works are really good and it is really a pleasure to know that the pieces are selling very well. Next station. MICA building. There is really a lot of galleries within the ground level. One of the poster in the notice board that caught my attention is as follows. I like it.

I have a religion.
My religion is kindness.
By Dalai Lama.

I have been listening to the SeaStars sneak preview songs, courtesy of Ivan. There is a total 9 songs in this album.

The 9 songs are:
1) Dolphins Galaxi 1.1
2) Flowing With The Waves 1.5
3) Into The Deep 1.2
4) Once Upon A Star 1.2
5) Sea Anemone 2.1
6) Seabreeze 1.4
7) Seashore Days Starfish 1.2
9) Stargazer 1.4

Dolphines Galaxi has a soothing feel. But at around 1min, 1:24min, 1:34min, a new instrument was blended into the songs. Somehow, the soothing effects feels like being disrupted at those points.

Song number 2, Flowing With The Waves. The download was 8KB. So, I don’t get to listen to the music.

Into the Deep. It has a jazzy, yet old days feeling.

Song number 4, Once Upon A Star. I wanted to listen to it again, but the download was also 8KB. So, based on the memory of the first few times I heard it on the web, while downloading the rest of the songs, it is my favourite. Lively. Happy. I feel more like dancing to the rhythm.

Sea Anemone. Feels light hearted. Not as lively as song number 4.

Song number 6. Seabreeze. The first 1:30min sounds nice. But, once a certain musical instrument is added at around 1:30min, it felt like I am listening to some old chinese traditional music. Very strange feeling. This song ends up being my least favourite.

Seashore Days. It is soothing. Can just use it as background music. Maybe even during a candle light dinner.

Starfish is also soothing, but it has a light touch of lively to the feel.

Stargazer is another soothing music. Not as gently as Seashore Days.