I've moved my blog and portfolio to http://fusedthought.com/en/blog. However, this site will still be kept as an archive...
Individual entires can still be accessed using their trackback links.
I can effectively throw out all my knowledge on the blogger template requirements. The upgrade is causing me a new headache: templates no longer in plain HTML. making use of widgets now, I need to study their XML coding again. oh gosh...
I guess for the time being, I'll make do with this excellent blog template which they adapted from mezzoblue.
Oh.. and sorry about the links... looks like its all gone, the blogroll... need to slowly add one by one...
In-Turns... My period as an intern has officially ended... I shan't discuss much about it as the report has yet to be handed up... Like a company's FY status, I shan't reveal it first....
Well as usual, since I've been "working" for sometime and thus didn't update here as much as I could, I shall have a slightly longer post. Categorized of course... So that you may skip parts of no interest...(or probably all.. LOL)....
Lets go GP-style from big to small, starting with: On the News
Well watching the news sometime ago, it was announced that the national museum is now reopened... Like the National Library, it is really revamped and I hope to go there once again... Although I can't remember the last time I've been there already....
Another piece of surprising news was that the gov feedback unit has also revamped itself and officially launch blogs as a means to communicate and gather feedback from the masses... It can be found at http://www.reach.gov.sg/... However, with the attitude and mindset already driven deep into Singaporeans, it remains to be seen whether the blogs will actually gather any momentum.
The lack of momentum can be attributed to few reasons...
Another much awaited news would be the island-wide wifi network that is free for 3 years as well as the workfare bonuses... I am in no position to comment on the workfare bonuses... However, on the issue of wifi, it marvels me, or rather, it failed to marvel me (I can't really decide) that the take-up rate has been so high, when broadband penetration rate in SG is only 58.9%. It goes to show the power of something being "free".
Free? I go "yar sure"... This is something I don't really think is sustainable without some form of revenue... As what I learnt the past few weeks, or you can put it down to plain common sense, company's exist to make money... (with the exception of non-profit charity organizations)... there must be some way to gain back... Either at the end of 3 years, you'll be charged a nominal fee, or you start getting some form of advertisement the moment you connect to the network or while you roam on the network... Oh well.. only time will tell...
On the Technology side
Intel has launched quad-core chips... and definitely a power user's dream. Now there is a jungle of chips out there.... getting very confusing... With AMD and Intel's different naming systems as well as 32-bit and 64-bit versions of processors, and with Intel having the old Celerons, Pentium M, Pentium 4, Pentium 4 HT, to the newer Pentium D, Core Duo, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Extreme (quad-core), Core Solo... and the list is growing.... Ouch.. my head hurts..
Not to mention Vista has been officially gone into RTM and also released to VLK clients. Likewise for Office 2007 which adopts the OpenDocument format as well as finally has a plugin which supports export to Adobe PDF format.
On the Personal Front
Got a web-development project.. and boy.. my head is throbbing over the implementation... I am venturing into somewhere I've never been... that is adopting the use of a Database (MySQL) and also the use of a preprocessor (PHP)... Ok.. PHP not much of a problem as I am quite strong in the presentation part which uses XHTML and CSS, but there is much to be learnt on the logical layer... And with plugins to a certain system which has to be developed to control the forms and Database, this "one-man-show" seems a bit daunting and a headache... But then again, looking "ahead" at least I got a push to learn what I would otherwise put off: about Database f(x)...
Training has also restarted and we are supposed to have our eyes on the National Schools Tournament. And talking about that, I still haven't get to see the Direct-School-Admission Students... Well... Better start doing the attendance list...
and oh last but not least....Happy Feet!!!
GST is going up again... and by GST, I meant Goods and Service Tax, not Greet, Smile and Thank. If the latter was true, it would have been great...
I don't know, but I guess its another cycle of increment. I guess we should be used to it already since that time when it was increased from 3% to 5%. Now it would be increased to 7%.
It seems to be a legal way to "take from rich and give to poor" theory. However, one question would be: "What would happen to the society's middle class". We are neither here nor there. We don't qualify to get the benefits and also not rich at all.... So in my view, it seems that the middle classes are the ones that bare the full brunt of such an increment.
Its a vicious cycle. In the market, consumers would ultimately be the one to suffer. Picture this..... If price of materials increase, manufacturing cost increase, and thus, product cost increase and then this amount would be passed on to consumers.
One point to note. There is a snowball effect along that price pathway. When materials increase in price due to GST, in order to cover cost, manufacturers have to increase the price. And in addition to this price, there is still GST. and this would continue increasing until the final party to get the goods.
It was argued in the radio that hawker stalls may also suffer quite a lost. Although there is an increase in GST, hawker pricing aren't as price inelastic as other goods. A small increase in pricing of the food would turn even the most frequent customers away. Actually especially frequent customers. They may feel that they have been paying that amount for years and an increase is unacceptable.
To conclude, I think that any increase by the Government will generate alot of arguments and views... But ultimately, I guess a persons view is will still be bias towards their own backgrounds in cases such as this.....
This article appeared in today's newspaper (The Sunday Times, November 12,2006, page 24) , about a new call in the US to abolish homework....This age old question never fails to come up after some time....
A group is saying that children are doing more homework but there is no evidence that it adds to the learning experience... It is also said that the correlation between homework and academic achievement is more visible as one get into a higher level of education...
And I guess the education system here in SG is somewhat similar in terms of homework load. Though they are sure moving to a teach less learn more method, which means more work/research to be done at home, which equates to more homework...
I believe that the homework problem can be seen in all countries especially those with a very established education system... Well its been done for so many years and there is nothing against it. There is also nothing that says that it is bad. In fact I guess I must agree there is a certain degree of usefulness in homework. There are some subjects which needs alot of practice.
However, the situation whereby homework is increasing is not new. Compared years ago, homework load has definitely been increasing. I believe that it is now more prevalent that subjects covers more depth and thus, would translate to more work....
It is stated in the article that a study had suggested that the amount of homework be based on a child's age, example would be a first-grader 10 minutes of homework, second-grader 20 minutes. etc. This led me to think about it....
What if it is implemented in SG? well, I guess a few things would come up.
For one, if it is implemented according to age, what about those who are older than the mean age for that level? For example, a 19 year old can be in secondary school...
Second, 10 minutes of homework? Yea right... if each teacher would allocate 20 minutes of homework, and taking an average secondary student who takes 8 subjects, this would add up to about a 160 minutes of homework. And a Secondary 3 student is definitely higher than 2nd grade.. not sure what grade though... I think its 5th or 6th grade... If the time allocated to homework increases , the total amount of time allocated for homework would also increase proportionately.... Wow!.. Huge number...
Again, moderation is the key... One man's meat is another man's poison... Though some may be against, I think there are some who likes doing homework... Though I aren't one of those, but I find that it helps and thus will still do so... (p.s. Moreover, there are reprecussions if we don't do, and I'm not referring to grades... ok maybe grades too as it counts into our "daily quality of work" marks..)
The concerns that the group is bringing up definitely deserves a second look. However, I really don't think it is wise to totally abolish homework...
Been watching the 7pm Korean Drama: 궁 (宮)..
Lolx... didn't want to watch at first.. but it seems like its quite funny... Grew to like the song too...
Belows the song: Perhaps Love
Took this picture while I was in the North East (MRT) Line on my way back home
Advertisement nowadays... Crowding the already crowed train....
This post is quite random I think....
Well.. Recently, Microsoft has announced that Windows Vista will have even more restrictions.
For one, they will not be allowing it to run in a virtualised environment for the Home and Home Premium Editions which I think would form the majority of the market.
As many know, Microsoft hasWindows Genuine Advantage (WGA) programme which caused some privacy concerns. Now, according to an business technology site, InformationWeek , a new programme called the Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) has been launched. (source)
As published in InformationWeek, and I quote: "Beginning Friday, users of Office XP and 2003 must prove to Microsoft that their software is legitimate to download add-ons from the Office Web site. "OGA only gets invoked then," said Jaidka. To download a template, for instance, requires that the user validate Office."
Though I aren't affected by this ruling since I invested my allowance on their software... $400 bucks for Office XP..., it has nonetheless got me thinking about the future of using such proprietary software...
I've been slowly but surely, migrating to opensource (OSS) and freeware once I feel that my software has become outdated than their respective freeware and OSS competition...
Looking through, I was actually able to sorted some of the more actively used softwares on my computer into a few categories....
Online
Filezilla,
Firefox,
Thunderbird,
Opera,
Internet Explorer 7 (To test my websites and visit sites built with ASP - Active Server Pages )
Compression
Izarc,
Zip Genius,
KGB Archiver
Development and Graphics
Inkscape,
Visual Studio Express,
OpenOffice.org,
GIMP,
Picasa
Server and virtualisation
VMware Player,
VMX wizard,
Apache
Maintenance and Security
Starter,
FreeRamXP pro,
EULA analyzer,
AntiVIR,
ZoneAlarm,
Spybot Serach and Destroy,
Ad-Aware
Media
VideoLan,
Audacity
LOLx... Welcome to the world of OSS and freeware I guess... haha...
