in-turns and more

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...

1. People have their own blogs already...


2. Going through such an avenue with strong association with the government presents some concern...


3. There is this "hold back and look-see" attitude powering many Singaporeans, driven into our mindsets through generation: "What are the consequences of voicing out?"....


4. Sure... there is a increase number of people voicing out.. but what continues after the thought stated in point 3 would be: "what are the benefits of doing so?"

With such concerns, it would be sometime before the site would actually take off...

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!!!