As usual, I am so busy with school, as said previously, I got assignment due every single week since the 3rd week of school. It is now mid October. My last day of school is 14th November 2008. I got 3 exams on the 22nd, 25th and 27th of November 2008. The confirmation date for my Taiwan trip is getting closer each day, it is now mid December 2008. I think I should be able to get the exact date at the end of this month or latest by early November 2008.

Last Friday, Li Xiang has no school, so I skipped my lecture (the lecture is quite useless as that module is not examinable) and we spend some quality time together. I sent her to school to loan her Canon 20D DSLR camera for her photography assignment and then we went to Singapore Botanical Gardens to re-take some of her shots for her photography assignment.

After spending an hour there, we proceed on to Orchard Road to catch a movie, we caught Big Stan. It is the first movie directed by Rob Schneider and the movie was good. Personally, I love movies starring Rob Schneider and Adam Sandler as I have not been disappointed in any movies with them in it yet.

On Sunday, we went for Tim Sum at Crystal Jade Dining at VivoCity as our Thailand friends are leaving, they are here on a business trip to discuss something with my mom. 3 years ago when we visited Thailand, they really took good care of us! I will definitely be going to Thailand again when it is more stable over there. After the Tim Sum, Li Xiang and I headed home to catch some sleep while my mom and brother went to Takashimaya as they are having a storewide 15% discount because of their 15th anniversary in Singapore.

At night, they went to Serangoon Gardens because my mom’s cousin baby is one month old while Li Xiang and I headed to Central for the famous Ma-Rutama
s Ramen. They are opening a branch soon in Liang Court on the 1st November 2008. We walked around Clark Quay and Liang Court and took some pictures along the way. Last weekend was the best weekend I had since school starts.

Our 4th anniversary is coming on the 24th October 2008, going to bake her a chocolate Chiffon cake. It is my VERY FIRST attempt in baking a cake, hopefully it does not fail. I think it is easier for me to do programming than baking. LOL

I was busy with the Nokia Remix 2008 and hence I have no time to compile my site traffic statistics for September 2008. But better late than never, here it is:

September 2008 Total Traffic

• Total Hits: 10,026,167
• Total Files: 9,143,765
• Total Pages: 804,734
• Total Visits: 173,723
• Total KBytes: 37,275,290
• Total Unique Sites: 136,527
• Total Unique URLs: 16,197
• Total Unique Referrers: 19,417
• Total Unique User Agents: 5,630

September 2008 Daily Traffic

• Hits per Day: Average: 334,205 - Max: 383,820
• Files per Day: Average: 304,792 - Max: 344,866
• Pages per Day: Average: 26,824 - Max: 36,666
• Visits per Day: Average: 5,790 - Max: 7,999
• KBytes per Day: Average: 1,242,510 - Max: 1,627,248

Note: Green denotes increase and Red denotes decrease when compared with August 2008.

Previous month site traffic: August 2008

Red Dot Design Museum

This is the 2nd and final part to the Nokia Remix 2008 event. The party starts at 7pm and is held at Red Dot Design Museum. I was there with Li Xiang. We have a blogger meeting at Pacific Coffee also at 7pm where we get to play with the Nokia XpressMusic 5800 for quite a long time. I took a video of the Internet surfing experience and the gaming experience using accelerometer and will be uploading to YouTube.

About 8pm, we proceed on for the buffet dinner and followed by the Music Performance. By the way, the food catered by Nokia is as usual very good. Thumbs up for that.

There are a total of 4 music performances namely, Plain Sunset, Astreal, Andrew Macdonald and Lifehouse. The first 2 bands are from Singapore, the Andrew Macdonald is from Australia and the last band Lifehouse need no further introduction. And of course it is Lifehouse which gets the party going and I think Lifehouse has put up the best performance of the night. They will be performing at St James Power Station later on in the day (it has past 12mn). The MCs for the day is The Muttons featuring Justin Ang and Vernon A from 987FM. I think they did a great job at hosting the event and their jokes are awesome! Thumbs up!

Here is the video of the XpressMusic 5800 Internet Surfing/Browsing:

Here is the video of the XpressMusic 5800 Gaming:

Here are some of the pictures that I took:

Nokia Remix 2008 Singapore was held today at 9am at Odeon Towers, Supper Club. Supper Club is a beautiful place the huge sofa chairs are so comfortable that I almost fell asleep. I knew pretty much everything that Nokia is going to announce thanks to the pre-media briefing yesterday.

My Media Pass

I have finally got the chance to take a video of the user interface of the XpressMusic 5800 and I have uploaded it to YouTube. Nothing is new here, for more information, you can check out the post below this or check the specifications at http://www.forum.nokia.com/devices/5800_XpressMusic.

Here is the video of the XpressMusic 5800 User Interface:

As usual, sorry for the out of focus digital camera video recording, but I don’t mind a sponsor for a dedicated HD video recording camcorder, any takers?

“Nokia Come With Music” service is also announced. Let me summarize it in points so that it is easier to digest.

• It is a pre-paid service that is bundled to Nokia mobile phones. Currently on the 5310 XpressMusic, N95 8GB and 5800 XpressMusic.
• You need to pay a little bit more for the bundled phone. Price for Singapore is still unknown at the moment.
• You get 1 year of unlimited music downloads through Nokia Music Store. 18 months option are coming in 2009.
• The music you downloaded, you get to keep it after the 1 year. Nokia spokesperson keep emphasising this.
• Like it or not it is DRMed.
• If I am not wrong, the format is WMA and not MP3.

Personally, I am not in favour of DRM and WMA. I don’t mind paying a little more for non-DRM and MP3.

Here are some of the pictures that I took:

It is now 1am Singapore Timing and my NDA has ended. Now it is time for me to talk about Nokia XpressMusic 5800 aka “The Tube”. I was invited by Text 100 (Thank You Supriya!) to the pre-media briefing of the Nokia Remix 2008 at Marina Mandarin. The media pre-briefing is held simultaneously with the Nokia Remix 2008 event in London and hence the weird timing of having it at 9pm last night.

The press release conference will happen later on at 9am and followed by a party at night at 7pm where I will be going with Li Xiang.

There will be 3 parts to this post, I will post the brief details about the Nokia XpressMusic 5800 which is in the PowerPoint presentation (full specifications will be out later), followed by my 1st impressions after playing it and lastly the pictures I taken at the pre-media briefing using my Canon iXUS 860IS.

Nokia XpressMusic 5800 “Tube” Press Shot

Brief Details on Nokia XpressMusic 5800

• Incredible Big Sound experience: High performance built-in stereo surround speakers
• Superb 30fps VGA quality video recording and playback on 3.2″ 16:9 nHD widescreen display (640×360, 16 million colors)
• Great music experience: 8GB MicroSD included, 35 hours playback, FM RDS Radio, OTA Podcasts
• Freedom of choice: 3.5mm audio jack, support for the leading digital music formats (MP3, eAAC+, WMA, M4A)
• Easy to side-load (USB) and download (OTA) using the new Nokia Music PC Client or the new Nokia Music Store user interface
• Key device for “Comes With Music” Service
• Direct Access: One-click media bar for quick and easy access to all your media
• TV-Out
• GPS with A-GPS
• Multiple input methods:
  • Stylus, plectrum, finger
  • Handwriting recognition
  • One-handed portrait usage (ITU-T)
  • Two-handed landscape usage (full QWERTY)
  • Tactile Feedback (vibra)
  • Copy/Paste functionality
• Automatic screen rotation using Accelerometer
• Running on Symbian OS 9.4 S60 5.0 aka S60 5th Edition
• RRP: €279 = SGD$558.20 (before subsidiaries and taxes)
• 3G version to be available in 4th Quarter 2008, GSM850/2G version to be available in 1st Quarter 2009
• Sales Package:
  • Nokia XpressMusic 5800
  • Extra Stylus
  • Stylus Plectrum in Wrist Strip
  • Protective Carrying Case
  • Portable Stand
  • MicroUSB Cable
  • TV-Out Cable
  • Charger
  • 8GB MicroSD Card
  • Battery
  • Stereo Headset with Remote Control
• For the full specifications, check it out here, http://www.forum.nokia.com/devices/5800_XpressMusic

1st Impressions

• THICK! Due to the built-in high quality speakers.
• No Multi-Touch. Due to different technology being used.
• Tactile feedback is something innovative and I kinda like it. Beats touching on a normal screen.
• VERY RESPONSIVE. Even though it is just a prototype that I am playing with, it is more responsive than the Apple iPhone and definitely much more than the Samsung Omnia.
• Love the “One-click Media Bar” that can be accessed by pressing the button on top of the screen (NOT phone)
• The main screen will allow you to add 4 favorite contacts where you can see your history calls, SMSes, etc to him. Think of it as Facebook friend feeds.
• I love the multiple inputs that this device can handle ranging from T9 keypad to full QWERTY.
• 3 buttons at the bottom, Call, Menu and End Call respectively.
• I love the sales package, lots of stuffs inside there especially the cool “Stylus Plectrum in Wrist Strip” and the nice looking “Carrying Case”
• The buttons are generally big and easy to press on, accidental press on other buttons have not happen to me yet.
• I would love to see how Nokia can evolve their touch technology next year. Perhaps a new Tseries?
• Symbian S60 5th Edition is used, 4th edition is skipped because Chinese believed that 4 is an unlucky number. S40 OS and S60 3rd Edition will still be maintained.
• Applications and games built for S60 3rd Edition is backward compatible on the S60 OS 5.0 although it may not be optimal because of the screen size.

Exclusive Pictures/Videos

Here is a video of the video playback on the XpressMusic 5800:

Here is the video of the XpressMusic 5800 User Interface:

Here is the video of the XpressMusic 5800 Internet Surfing/Browsing:

Here is the video of the XpressMusic 5800 Gaming:

PS: The video recording is a little blur due to my digital camera focusing. I apologized for that.

Here is a tutorial on how to configure your iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPod Touch or iPod Touch (2nd Gen) to connect to NUS Wireless network. We will be using NUS WLAN SSID “NUS” instead of “NUSOPEN”, as “NUS” is protected by PEAP and it is much faster.

Read More (182 More Words, 8 More Images)

I have been so busy with my school lately, despite having a 1 week holiday last week. I used to complete my never ending assignments. It seems that every week, there is an assignment due and it is all report writing, and reporting writing is basically testing your Googling, paraphrasing and smoking skills. There is 0 programming for me this semester and perhaps the next semester as well.

I have not been going to the movies for about 1 month or more!!! But anyway, time flies, half the semester has gone. 10 more weeks till end of exams and then I can enjoy my Taiwan trip!

Out of topic, I would like to show off my iPhone 3G Springboard!

My iPhone 3G Springboard

I have Jailbroken it using Windows QuickPwn 2.1 in less than 10 minutes.

The theme is based on Damino by Anjuna, the wallpaper is Seasons - Winter by Kol and the font is Silkscreen by Kottke.

This theme requires WinterBoard application and Five Icon Dock modification, both by Saurik.

A popular site (http://140.124.181.188/~khchung/cgi-bin/plutil.cgi) that converts binary .plist file to ASCII/Text XML .plist file is down for quite sometime. I decided to mirror the site, but instead of Perl, I am using PHP to do it. Similar to the site, the processing is done by http://homer.informatics.indiana.edu/cgi-bin/plutil/plutil.cgi/.

Here is the link: http://lesterchan.net/plutil/

Just in case you are wondering, .plist is used by jailbroken iPhone to modify settings such as font face, font size, font colors, etc. If the file is in binary, you can’t modify it and hence this converter converts the binary content within the file to ASCII/Text and this will allow you to modify it.

I ROFL at these questions.

• If Fed Ex and UPS were to merge, would they call it Fed UP?
• Do Lipton Tea employees take coffee breaks?
• If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?
• If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren’t people from Holland called Holes?
• Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?
• Why the man who invests all your money called a broker?
• If horrific means to make horrible, does terrific mean to make terrible?
• Why is it called building when it is already built?
• If a book about failures doesn’t sell, is it a success?
• If you’re not supposed to drink and drive, then why do bars have parking lots?
• If you take an Oriental person and spin him around several times, does he become disoriented?
• If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?? Human ??

Source: Hardware Zone Forums

T-Mobile announced the world’s first Android-powered phone which is known as the T-Mobile G1 either wise known as HTC Dream.

Here are some brief features from Wikipedia and Gizmodo:

• Qualcomm MSM7201A processor at 528MHz
• 128MB RAM / 256MB ROM
• 1GB MicroSD card preinstalled. Supports up to 8GB MicroSD
• Built-in GPS
• 3.1MP camera (no flash), 2048 × 1536 resolution
• No video recording
• GSM/GPRS/EDGE/Wi-Fi and UMTS/HSDPA 850/900/1700/1800/1900/2100Mhz
• 1150mAh battery (Talktime: 5 hours, Standby Time: 130 hours)
• Touchscreen size is 3.17 inches (81 mm) with HVGA (480 × 320) (65K color)
• 115 mm × 55 mm (4.53 in × 2.17 in), 16 mm (0.63 in) thick
• Internet navigation button controls
• Full QWERTY 5-row keypad that slides away when not in use
• Available in white, black and brown

The T-Mobile G1 will be retailing in the US for USGD$179 and it is tied to T-Mobile similar to how the iPhone is tied to AT&T. By the way, there is no 3.5mm headphone jack in the G1 as it is using the proprietary ExtUSB connector by HTC.

Press Release: The first Android-powered phone
View: T-Mobile G1