Month: July 2009

Categories
Snippet of My Life

Snippet Of My Life Episode 21 – Endless Wondering

An artistic view of what I see every day

I often wonder: What is your morning ritual at work like?  I once followed the blog sites of a paramedic and a restaurant server and what excitingly interesting lives they have!  Office life doesn’t make great movie story.  If I have to think of one, I think of “Being John Malkovich”.  I really can’t think of any other.

Every morning I spend a quarter of an hour or so taking out my laptop and my personal stuffs from my locker, heading to the desk I have booked one week ago, and waiting for Windows to boot up.  Windows!  What would this world be had there be no Windows?  A more productive world, I reckon.  A less frustrating world, I reckon.

I wonder who came up with this hot desking idea in an office whereby most of us are stationed in Singapore.  So we take turn in bumping each other out as we book our seats one week in advance.  I need a little notebook to keep track of the desk numbers, against the calendar days.  I embrace hot desking system.  But playing musical chair at work is just silly.

So every morning I spend another quarter of an hour waiting for the office applications to load up, clicking through the desk booking system that somewhat looks like the picture on top of this post (pardon my artistic touch), and think: Hmmm … where shall I sit 7 days from now?

And I open up the image of the office floor plan, try to recall which are the seats not to book.  At times, I either get a friendly email from the secretary if I accidentally book her boss’s seat or on the day itself, get reassigned to another.  Some areas are unofficially reserved for team clusters that tend to be more territorial.  We even have a term for those – ‘land mines’.  On top of that, I do have my personal preferences like not wanting to face the toilet door or the meeting rooms.  Everybody does online desk booking 7 days in advance.  I wonder how much time we spend everyday just to get a seat to work.

Something is not right but no one is doing anything.  Similar to how we accept a trash operating system for a decade and more.

*     *     *     *     *

JoikuSpot

Last week I have converted my car into mobile Wi-fi hotspot.  Thanks to my N97.  So if you are to ride with me, you have free Wi-fi access on the road.  Today’s lunch, I have converted myself into a walking Wi-fi hotspot.  I really want the Internet Radio bad.  So bad that it has to be done at all cost.  I want to listen to Internet Radio in the car, at work, and on the road – like I was used to with my old N96.  Because I have 30Gb mobile data quota to burn every month.  Because I am learning Spanish.  And more importantly, because I like to listen to things that are not what everybody around me is listening to.

So I walked around the blocks, this lunch time.  Deep inside my trousers’ left pocket, my N97 was running hot as a Wi-fi hotspot converting 3.5G mobile signal into a wireless network.  Deep inside my right pocket, my N96 was running hot as a Wi-fi receiver, broadcasting the radio transmission to my earphones all the way from Spain using the Internet connection provided by my N97 inside my left pocket.  And as I was walking on the street, this lunch time, I couldn’t help but to visualize the amount of radiation and invisible action that happened from my left trousers pocket to the right, and in between …

I sincerely hope that my genetic replicating devices are OK, amidst the heat and the radiation.  If Nokia is reading this, please hurry up with the development of the Internet Radio for your newer phones.  What’s taking you so long, I wonder. 

*     *     *     *     *

Ever since I have moved to a different office location, so far away from my friends in town, ever since my team has reduced into a one-man-show, ever since Cynthia has left Singapore for a business trip, if not for the occasion phone calls I have during the working hours, I could theoretically not to speak more than 10 words a day (still need to order food).  It doesn’t take too long to eat when you are alone.  So these days, I have plenty of time to read during lunch.  And because I don’t talk much, I have plenty of time to think.

My life today reminds me of my business trip to Paris long time ago.  Between Friday’s have-a-good-weekend to Monday’s how-was-your-weekend, I hardly had a conversation with anyone over the weekend.  Now, I don’t even have someone to have-a-good-weekend and how-was-your-weekend with at work.

Strange, in a melancholic way.

Fortunately, Cynthia is coming home this Sunday.  What would my life be like if I was still single?  I wonder.

Categories
Book Reviews Non-Fiction

The Silver Lining by Scott D. Anthony – Now It’s the Time to Innovate

The Silver Lining

“The Silver Lining” is a timely read.  Great Disruption is here, today.  Just about half a year or so ago, companies were further revising down their targets, cutting cost, and have stayed cautious for the uncertain times.  The economic downturn affects both the multinational corporations and the local companies.  I have had a chat with some of the local business owners and all of them have experienced some level of hardship with their business, have made or at the verge of making some difficult decisions.  As for myself, an employee of a MNC, I too am frustrated with the disruption to the funding that is much needed to continue fueling some of the key initiatives.

The bad news is: resource has become scarce.  The good news is: constraint is the enabler of innovation as pointed out by the author of “Silver Lining”.  It is the time to transform and leave the old market.  Because for many, not to transform is the way to extinction.  Scott Anthony uses case studies from Cisco, Google, Nintendo, Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble, and more to illustrate what they have done differently from others, in making them successful through the challenging times.

What strikes me as the most interesting idea from this book is that innovation is not necessarily a random encounter.  Instead, it is a discipline that can be structured for success.  In his book, Scott Anthony shares with us a toolkit to audit the organization’s innovation capabilities.  He takes us through the pruning and diversification of the innovation portfolio, how we can ‘refeature’ our offerings in order to cut cost, and how we can effectively innovate.

Some of you may ask: how exactly can we innovate besides gathering a group of people with diverse disciplines and hope for some big ideas to spark off?  The organization and the internal processes have to be structured in a way to make innovation repeatable, hence increases the innovation productivity.  We have to be creative to experiment and test our key assumptions.  Sharing the innovation load can be an option too if we need to lower the expenses and risk.  And in uncertainty times, we may need to look into the ‘low end’ and see what customers value.  All the details can be found inside the book.  “Silver Lining” ends with one chapter on how you can strengthen your personal innovation muscle (which I find it useful) and another one – which is my favorite – on the 10 disruptive developments to watch today according to Scott Anthony.

Excess is a root cause of many innovation struggle.  There are already organizations out there that look at the current time of uncertainty as their silver lining.  New innovation is brewing in the horizon ready to change the game.  The question is: will your organization emerge as a winner?

Hardcover: 145 pages
Publisher: Harvard Business Press (June 1, 2009)
ISBN-10: 1422139018
ISBN-13: 978-1422139011

You may wish to get this from Amazon.com.

Official Site: The Silver Lining Playbook.

Categories
Photography Travel Blog

A Road Trip To Valencia

The Beautiful Peñíscola

“You always like to do it the hard way” – I get that a lot from the people around me.  I have no idea how the hard way always find its way to me.  But I think, rewards are earned, not being handed over.

For the record, I don’t seek out the hard way.  I would prefer to take a train from one city to another, and then take an excursion trip like what we did in Montserrat.  But Cynthia wanted to experience what a road trip would be like in Spain.  And so, we rented a car in Barcelona, passing the beautiful coastal towns of Tarragona and Peñíscola, before reaching Valencia.

As usual, below are the options you may wish to read more about our road trip.

  • A photo collection for day 4 of our trip to Spain (38 photos with captions)
  • A journal written in details on what we did and more (approx 2,000 words)
  • A highlight of the photos below (8 photos – and for Facebook readers, please view the original post)

Talking about the hard way, I have not eaten since I woke up.  Eight hours I have spent on this entry.  Time to have a real good meal before watching the F1 broadcast at eight!

To read the rest of the travel blog entries, please follow this tag.

Categories
Diary

I Found It, I Found It! – One Man’s Persistence To Find That One Song

I think Cynthia would be quite proud of me when she reads this entry.

I don’t know how you remember your overseas trips.  Or moments of your life.  Maybe you write journals, maybe you take pictures.  On top of the words and images and the memory living in those who share the moments with you and will one day remind you that ‘you were there’, I remember trips or moments by the music I repeatedly listened to when I was there.  Vividly I can recall where I was when I heard the song “Nobody Knows” or “U Were Meant For Me”.  I have old school mates till today still tease me of the song “Superwoman”.  That song I was used to blast out loud from my room while I was inside the shower room down the corridor.  Every morning.

In Spain, we rented a car.  And inside the car, we listened to the local radio.  You know what radio stations are like.  Some songs you get to hear every day, even a couple of times a day.  And there was this one song that Cynthia and I both like but could not catch who the artist was.  In Spain, we walked.  And one time, that one song was playing on the ground floor, from an old building made of stone, music coming out from an open window.  I was tempted to knock at the window and ask who sings that song.

For the last few weeks, after we returned to Singapore, every now and then I tried to Google the artist.  It was fruitless for I only know one or two words from the song and it’s a common Spanish word.  I tried to listen to the Internet Radio and catch who the artist is.  But my Spanish is very minimal.

So I painstakingly combed through the Spanish chart online.  Combing through all the popular songs that are now playing on air all the way to the beginning of this year.  I play each song from YouTube and memorize who is who.  After a while, I begin to recognize patterns – the pattern of multiple releases by the same artist and the pattern of how songs are moving up and down the chart across the time horizon.  I know the texture of the voice that sings that one song.  And I know that the song I am looking for is still playing in the air so it should be originating from the chart.  Or maybe the artist has recently died and this riddle would be quite hard for me to solve.

And like all good things in life, once you found that something, it seems so easy.  The song is called “El Aleph” by Nena Daconte.  Click here for music and lyrics from YouTube.  Or here for the official video.  I am pretty sure I will buy their album for memory’s sake.

Nena Daconte

External Link: Official Site of Nena Daconte

Categories
I See I Write

The Flagship Nokia N97 – A Giant Leap From Its Predecessor

N97 on day 1

Before you go on and read more on my hands-on experience with my new Nokia N97, there are a few things about me that you may wish to know first.  Like what Haruki Murakami said, I like something doesn’t mean that everyone must get that something.  Having said that, I do feel responsible in what I write because I know there are friends out there who make certain decisions based on my words.  I am also a keen user of Nokia for a decade but because Cynthia loves varieties in life, I have also got to experience what other brands are like.

Below is an article on a more detail review based on my 1 week hands-on experience with the N97.  You will expect to read candid comments on the commonly used functionalities.  Maybe you will also find some tips that will enhance your experience with your N97.

For those who are interested in a summarized recommendation, here is the verdict based on my first week observation with N97.

Nokia’s flagship product N97 is more than a performance upgrade from its predecessor.  I find the new tilting touchscreen precise, responsive, and positions well to my eye level.  The full QWERTY keyboard is user friendly and fun to use.  I rely on my N97 to connect to my friends via instant messaging (MSN), mobile Facebook, web mails, besides the traditional phone functions – all at the same time.  The entire package – including the maps, music, camera, and additional applications from the OVI store – well positions the N97 as a mobile computing device in my opinion.

At the time of this write-up (firmware version 11.0.021), there are noticeable number of improvements to the existing suit of applications.  Although there are also some minor glitches and missing applications, I hope these issues would be ironed out as Nokia rolls out the patches.

An overall high quality product that deserves the Nokia’s flagship title.  I am certainly very happy with mine.  For detail review, please click here.

PS. Stay tuned for more updates.

Categories
Photography Travel Blog

Into the Mountain Montserrat

Montserrat

If you open the Sunday edition of our local paper The Strait Times, you shall see a write up on Spain with a picture on a location exactly the same as my entry last week.  What a coincidence.

Ever since I have started writing this Sunday series on our trip to Spain, there are two questions often asked.  (1) Why takes so long to process the photos?  (2) How come you are not inside the album?

To be honest, selecting the photos and processing them is easy.  They are more or less as they are except the few artistic spins to make them unique.  It is looking through my handwritten notes and the materials we have collected in order to (a) write a journal of the day, (b) put in a proper caption for each photo (and try to make the story gels), and (c) write a blog entry – that takes time.  I also try not to repeat the contents for these different channels because there may be readers who read (a), (b), and (c).  But I enjoy doing that.  As in why I am not inside the album.  Well, Cynthia has been taking my pictures as we toured.  And I may share them towards the end of this series.  Also, towards the end of the trip, I suddenly remember I have brought along a tripod.  So you will see more of ‘our’ photos later.

As usual, below are the options you may wish to read more about our day 3 journey – a visit to a monastery in Montserrat and more.

  • A photo collection for day 3 of our trip to Spain (35 photos with captions)
  • A journal written in details on what we did and more (approx 1,000 words)
  • A highlight of the photos below (8 photos – and for Facebook readers, please view the original post)

Enjoy!

To read the rest of the travel blog entries, please follow this tag.

Categories
Foreign Movie Reviews Romance

Threads of Destiny – OK, I Wonder What Part 2 Would Be Like

Threads of Destiny

So I had a movie ‘date’ with a … guy.  Because Cynthia has an social gathering with other girls and she doesn’t like to watch sappy Japanese movies.  Sure, give me some of those tragic tears.  I mean that’s what you would expect when you watch a Japanese teenage romance, especially one that is from the cell-phone novel genre right (remember “Sky of Love”)?

Orchard Road was jam packed with heavy traffic.  It took me a long time to arrive at Cineleisure.  It was a long queue at the ticket office too.  When it was our turn, the trainee said to me, “Threads of Destiny!  You would love it.  It’s such a great movie!”.  She said it with such level of admiration, and conviction.  And here we are, two dudes watching a Japanese teenage romance with an added age exceeds this young box office trainee’s by a good multiple of times.  Something is wrong with the picture.

I just had to run to Far East and install a protective film for my new Nokia N97 (you will hear more later, for sure!).  “Wilf, we won’t have enough time,” my ‘date’ lamented.  I looked at the clock, 30 minutes before the show starts.  And you know Cathay cinemas, they start movies on time.  But my desire to put on some protection was too hard to deny.  So I said to him, with determine, “Don’t worry, I will be back, before the show starts.”

So I ran.  Really ran.  Along the jam packed Orchard Road with human traffic, reached the shop before the next customer (who has 3 Blackberry phones and we had such a good chat on Nokia phones), have my protection on, and ran all the way back.  My friend got me the popcorn and drink (so sweet, thanks!) and we arrived at the theatre just in time.  Not a second early, not a second late.  Oh, I managed to say hi to my blogger friends who were participating at the Tangs 24 hours Blogathon when I was running to and fro along Orchard Road.  I am green with envy!

From what I gathered, “Threads of Destiny” is a Japanese cell-phone novel (that I will probably read), a TV drama series, and now a movie adaptation.  From what I gathered, this movie version is not quite like the original story that is more violent, filled with physical intimacy and drug abuse.  I am not sure why the change but watching “Threads of Destiny” as a movie, it has all the classic Japanese drama elements of teenage romance and friendship.  Probably a bit overdosed with tragedies.  In Singapore, the movie is edited to a PG rating.  I wonder what has been edited out.  Perhaps the scene on drug usage (or sexual intimacy!).

Mei and Atsushi (played by Nao Minamisawa and Junpei Mizobata) share the same birthday, Feb 29 and Fate is supposed to string them together even though there are so many driving forces that keep them apart.  One moment, the story is filled with happiness.  Another moment, something bad happens.  I swear some of the [female] audience was gasping as the tragedy happened.  No, there are no tears jerking moments and I did struggle with the lack of logic on some of these tragic moments.  Personally, I think Nao looks pretty darn cute when she is sad and she has this outlook of nothing-bad-can-ruin-her-day, which I think it’s perfect for this role.  Such a sad role to be in, if you think about it.

I read that some viewers are not too happy with the ending.  It is not much of an ending per se as there is a part two for this movie.  There are many lose ends and strange to say, I like the ending as it is.

By the way, there is this one conversation in the movie that I think it is memorable in a bizarre way.  Mei asked, “Will we meet again”.  And Atsushi’s answer is so out-of-the-world that you either hate it (I suspect most do) or amazed by it.  I mean, who would have answered such a simple question that way right?!

Categories
For the Geeks

Norton Inner Circle: Getting Ready for Norton 2010

Norton Productions

OK.  Exactly how do I get recruited into the Norton Inner Circle, I cannot recall.  Maybe I am an excellent specimen who needs extra … protection.  Or maybe I am one crazy beta tester who is willing to surf porn dubious sites on a holy mission.  6.30 pm sharp I turned up at the Pan Pacific Hotel.  I recognize quite a few familiar faces (like Lester!) and was ready for an intensive knowledge download all the way till 10pm.

Gasp!

But I am really glad to be at the event and hear the experts from Norton who flew in all the way from US and Australia and meet with the media and those in the business for a couple of days in Singapore.  This is the team who is behind monitoring all the threats from the world’s malicious hackers.  They are also behind the development of the upcoming Norton products.  I am not technologically inclined and the number one burning question I have was …

Who get to come up with all the cool computer virus names like W32.Koobface.C or Bloodhound.Exploit.264?

The statistics are mind blowing.  In year 2002, there were about 20,547 different kinds of viruses and threats.  5 years later, the number has grown to more than half a million.  This year, we have 2.5 million and counting.  An estimated 120 million ‘signatures’ recorded since 2002.  Imagine if each virus maker or threat originator was to plant a tree instead for each virus they create, the world would have been a much better place.  Think about all the added carbon footprint just to fix this virtual problem that in the past, these people did it for fame.  And now, for the money.

Plant trees, not viruses!

But fear not.  If there was no crime, we wouldn’t have police.  If there was no cybercrime, we wouldn’t have the big N to keep us cyberly safe.  Throughout the presentation, Norton has shared with us the history of computer threats and how they evolve.  Most of you are perhaps familiar with the need to have the anti-virus to scan our computers for known viruses and firewall to block attacks from the network.  Maybe less so on the vulnerability attack or intrusion through the ‘common doors’ we open for network communications and the chance for our computer to be zombie-fied and do it’s new master’s evil deed!  And because of the fake websites and applications that are designed to trick us into providing them with our personal information or even legitimate websites that are seeded with bad stuffs that automatically infest your computer by you merely surfing the site, the threat – to me – seems very real.  Cybercriminals ought to be punished, in my humble opinion.

Year 2009, Norton from Symantec has officially released the Norton Insight (read previous entry for my hands-on experience) that leverages on the community’s help in identifying what are the trusted files and what are not.  It is an opt-in program to send the footprints of the downloaded files to their lab for profiling with the rest of the community.  I opted in as I am cool with it.  No personal information is sent to Norton and they are not interested in the content of the downloaded files either.  For the past 3 years, millions have participated in this program to make our virtual world a safer place.  And so have I starting this year.

In this upcoming release, Norton takes it one step further and closes the gap on the gray area between what is trusted and what is not.  You will hear more from me later, perhaps next month.

Having seen the behind-the-scene on how the Norton team monitor the global threats (pretty cool with a war map like a computer game or what you would have expected Obama to see inside the Pentagon), the stringent key performance indicators on the performance (one of their senior VPs has mentioned during a BusinessWeek interview last August that Norton will not ship [their products] until they are the fastest in the world *gasp*), and how they upkeep with the product quality, I have decided to sign up as their guinea pig for the beta testing / preview of Norton 2010.

So what will I do as a guinea pig?  Norton didn’t give me much guideline.  Since I am a creative dude, what I will do for a start is to open up all my daily spam comments in my website (quite a lot), click onto each of the spam link and see if my computer would get an infection.  I always fantasize to be a cybernanny and ‘investigate’ on those dubious sites on a daily basis.  Man, this could be fun!  Wish me luck.

Categories
Country Folk & Jazz Music Reviews

Lisa Ekdahl – Give Me That Slow Knowing Smile – It’s Simply Heavenly Beautiful

Lisa Ekdahl

I would love to give her that slow knowing smile and make her say hey, hey, hey, hey.  And we would say oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.  Just like her song.  From the whistling in the beginning of “Give Me That Slow Knowing Smile”, the simple repetitive chords of an acoustic guitar and the harmonizing bass line, the gentle entrance of Lisa Ekdahl’s feather like voice, to the subtle drums and electric guitar strumming and solo that is not overpowering yet making the song interesting, you know “Give Me That Slow Knowing Smile” will haunt you for a long time, in a good way.  The new album from the Swedish singer and songwriter Lisa Ekdahl has this element of dreaminess and simplicity that works well with her unique child-like vocals.  To be honest, I could not get into her previous Swedish release “Pärlor Av Glas (Pearls of Glass)”.  The style of that album is too different from the Lisa Ekdahl I have come to know.

I enjoy listening to her old album “Sings Salvadore Poe” of jazz and bossa nova written by her husband.  I think “When Did You Leave Heaven” and “Heaven Earth & Beyond” are two of my all time favorite records of hers.  Some may critize the suitability of Lisa’s child-like voice for the jazz genre.  But just take a listen to her rendition of “Cry Me A River”, “The Color Of You”, and “When Did You Leave Heaven”, you would simply want more.  But more doesn’t seem to arrive, yet.

This new album I would classify under pop-folk.  Entirely written by Lisa Ekdahl, the lyrics are as heavenly light as the music delivery.  The opening line in the form of chorus for “The World Keeps Turning” is captivating: The world keeps turning we can’t change its course.  What I can’t hold by love, I won’t hold by force.  The world keeps turning beyond our control.  What I can’t hold by love, I won’t hold at all.  It turns out to be a dreamy love story, strengthen by the symbolic images of a running lover invoked by the lyrics.  Another song of my faovrite is “One Life” when she sings, “All of us came in through the same door … all of us will very soon be leaving.  We were brought here soon we will depart.”  And the one face that she keeps referring to turns out to be the face of God.  Simply beautiful, in a heavenly way.

A short album of 36 minutes and below is a live video clip of the opening track “Give Me That Slow Knowing Smile”.  For those who purchase the CD, it comes with Opendisc technology that allows you to access to her commentaries, interviews, and videos online.

Categories
Fantasy & Sci-fi Foreign Movie Reviews

20th Century Boys 2 – This Trilogy Is Growing On Me

20th Century Boys 2

October 2008, the Movie Review Squad has watched the first installment of this trilogy, of this perhaps the most expensive Japanese film ever made.  I wonder why there is a 6 months delay before part 2 arrives in [a tiny theater in] Singapore (compare to a 2 months gap for part 1).  And I look forward to a part 3 that will be released this August in Singapore.  So it says on the big screen at the end of the trailer, at the end of the 142 minutes movie.

142 minute?!

Part 2 is just as lengthy as part 1.  To recap, “20th Century Boys” is our friend TK’s baby.  He got us into this.  Friend!  And surprisingly, Cynthia loves the part 1 too.  I found the first part a bit lengthy, a bit confusing, and kind of lacking in the eye candy factor.  Men!  I know.

Comes part 2, titled “The Last Hope”.  Although it is still a bit lengthy, because the plot doesn’t go back and forth in time that often like part 1, it is much easier to follow.  The story is still as confusing as ever partly because I am – or we are – overwhelmed by the sheer number of key characters with names in Japanese (of course).  And honestly speaking, our recollection of the plot thus far was very minimal.  If you recall, part 1 is about this Book of Prophesy, whereby the future plays out exactly as what was ‘predicted’.  Part 2 is about this New Book of Prophesy, that is even more absurdly bizarre.  I said it many times, Japanese imagination knows no bound.  The entire story of “20th Century Boys” and the concept created is just, strange.  But I am liking it.

The year is 2015 and the heroine Kanna has grown up.  I am not 100% sure if the 24 years old actress Airi Taira can act that well.  But she is one eye candy for sure.  I love her hairstyle in the show (shallow I so am!).  Deep inside, I was – or we were – hoping that Kanna would play a much bigger role in the overall plot.  But I was mildly disappointed.  Perhaps part 2 has this mid episode syndrome and is sandwiched between two episodes with a scale of total world destruction, Kanna can only do what Kanna has done.

I have absolutely no idea how the part 3 is going to play out of course.  Maybe Kanna will save the world.  Maybe somebody else does (the title does imply that the heroes belong to the male species though).  Or maybe the world will be destroyed for good.  Personally I enjoy part 2 more than part 1.  The filmmakers have done a great job in delivering us a powerful ending for “The Last Hope”.  And I find myself cracking into laughter here and there amazed by the super dramatized acting and over the top production.  In preparing ourselves for the finale, I think the Movie Review Squad needs to spend some time and watch the first two installments again in order to get a better grasp on what the story is about.  I may even need to dig up some “20th Century Boys” manga online!