Monthly Archive for August, 2007

Copycat Cars

Published on August 29, 2007 in Usual Ramblings. 7 Comments

I stumbled upon a blog by Gem Sty with an article on copycat cars in China. Yeah, we have all heard the stories about the unethical business practices in China. Their R&D for new products probably go as far as buying one of those best sellers, rip them apart, study them and cheaply replicate from there.

From Apple iPods to shoes and cigars…heck, they even have the audacity to produce fake baby food too. I seriously doubt these guys are calling it a day anytime soon. What amazes me is that apart from small products, these guys are going further by copying and reproducing vehicles as well…including buses.

Left: Smart Cars replicated | Right: Buses included
(photos taken from Gem Sty’s blog)

But on another note, I guess these guys really know how to do make money…and its a thriving business. I mean just put ethics and fair play outside the door, as long as they are earning, they won’t be learning…until the government kicks in. Where the heck are they anyway?

Goooooooo South Carolina!!

Published on August 28, 2007 in This I like and Usual Ramblings. 10 Comments

The reason why I am putting this entry up? Because everyone is doing it….seriously. I mean there are blog posts about this everywhere…peer pressure? Not really…more like very funny. Anyhoo, lemme bore you with some stats. I got this video from YouTube and there are 14,276 comments and still counting since it got uploaded three days ago.

I know I know..it is mean of me to put this up…but did I mention it is funny? And hey..just in case you didn’t notice…she’s blonde… Okay sorry…no more cruel jokes…

23 minutes for nothing

Published on August 26, 2007 in Things that suck. 12 Comments

Yeap, this is one of my many useless and childish bitching sessions, please do excuse me while I do this…I have some pain to share. I called up the UOB hotline a few minutes ago in a bid to clarify some card details with them. Apparently, it seems that they have given me another card on top of my new credit card and here I am sitting wondering where the heck did I get that from.

So doing what consumers normally do when they have a query, I called up the hotline. After some routing drills which normally puts me off (but that’s normal for hotline nowadays), I was put on hold while they connect my call to an available operator. Ten minutes into the looping music and voice messages apologising for the long wait as they are experiencing a high number of calls, I figured its best I log on to the UOB website while waiting on the phone, hoping to find any information on this.

Ten minutes later, I have already

booted my laptop, checked the UOB website and found no useful information,
did some simple accounting with my DBS online banking (yeap, I am really broke…no surprise),
checked my blog for any new comments, replied to a new comment, visited new commenter’s blog (dude nice blog by the way),
checked my Gmail, found two emails, cleared them easily (nope, no good jobs available so far),
logged into my Google Reader, read two blogs, and
got myself a nice drink

And after all that, I was still getting the looping music and apologetic messages. I need to report I was not using an ear-piece and that my 30-year-old neck is really hurting like a bitch. But shortly after, I was informed that the calls they are receiving got way too massive and they will route me to a voice mail. “Hey..that I can handle”, I thought to myself. I would prefer if they call me back instead of making me wait like a bumbling idiot for some operator to come back from his/her break and pick up my call (probably not right for me to say this but please understand, I am still on bitch-mode). And then, the final backbreaker, I got another automated message saying that I can’t leave a voice mail because it is full…they shortly hung up on me

So I guess you could imagine my rage as I hurled (in my mind) my limited (very limited) vocabulary of body parts, what I think of their ancestors and descendants, their ancestors and descendants’ body parts and a couple of mixed combos here and there, which personally, I thought was really artistic (but I am sure some of you don’t agree). Yes, very bad, very unprofessional of me…still on bitch-mode by the way .

I submit to you this irony as I end. How come banks are always able to get your contact numbers (be it home, office or mobile), and successfully call you trying to hard sell you their products promising great services while we as consumers can never, ever, ever reach the bank’s hotline in under 10 mins with a few simple questions. They are always experiencing a high volume of calls don’t they?

Thanks for being bothered to read this you really deserve an award . Bitch-mode..off!!

Palm Centro leaked?

Published on August 26, 2007 in This I like and Usual Ramblings. 3 Comments

Following my earlier entry on Engadget’s open letter (with love) to Palm on a wake up call and Palm’s reply, Gizmodo released a leaked press photo of what seems to be Palm’s new toy…the Centro.

According to Gizmodo, the Palm Centro includes a nice ‘lil QWERTY keyboard (my all time favourite) and is targeted at the youth market (me me me!!). Sprint will have exclusive rights for this phone for a few months, after which, free for all markets. Price speculation? How about a nice US$99? Very reasonable, very generous of Palm…but I seriously doubt Singaporeans will enjoy this really wonderful price tag considering phones armed with such capabilities are never cheap. But that remains to be seen. I am so looking forward to this one…

Nike Air Trainer III + Transformers = another cool shit!!

Published on August 26, 2007 in This I like and Usual Ramblings. 4 Comments

Another “loss for words” moment for me again as I somehow chanced upon this totally tight Transformers shoe in Footurama. Eh, I know this pair has been around for a while but I just discovered it. I thought my previous entry on Transformer Nike Free 7.0 was wicked enough until I saw this. I need to lie down again…

Thumbs up to Palm’s Ed Colligan

Published on August 25, 2007 in Usual Ramblings. 2 Comments

About four days ago, Engadget wrote an open letter to Palm asking them…for a lack of a better word…to wake the f**k up. But don’t get me wrong, Engadget wasn’t actually trying to cut Palm into shreds or put them down while singing praises of the new iPhone. After reading the pretty lengthy letter, I felt that there was much love in what they have to say.

Allow me to summarise what Engadget was trying to put across, (if you don’t have time to read the whole letter). Back in the days of yonder, Palm was looked up upon by many as the future of innovation and perhaps the face of mobile technolgoy. But after a while, we begin to see a shift in the mobile market share from Palm to Windows Mobile and the iPhone in particular.

Their hardware, especially the Treo series have not changed much since its birth in the beginning of the millennium and its proprietary softwares aren’t making any major progress. Heck, even third party mobile software developers are not choosing Palm as their preferred choice and moving off to the other markets. All these and alot more (you have to read the letter to get details) are leading to Palm’s current tumbling stock, perhaps the lowest in its history.

However, Engadget hasn’t given up on Palm at all, in fact, the open letter provided Palm with comprehensive information/tips/ideas/yeah you get the point, on what Palm needs to do to get back into the mobile game. To me..that is “much love”.

Now that we kinda understood where Engadget is coming from, here is the part that amazes me…Palm responded after two days. Their promise? To shake things up big time!! And I think they might just got the fighting spirit back. Comments poured in from both blogs giving Palm a pat on the back just for even responding and are excited with their promise to provide a better Palm experience.

This experience has reinforced a lesson I learnt at a PR 2.0 conference attended early this month. Companies really need to embrace and communicate with other blogs out there, not just the media alone. You can keep quiet all you want but others will still continue to talk…and if it is not working…bitch about you. Palm’s response provided ex-Palm-and-still-wanting-to-be-Palm-owners a new hope. Nice move there Ed, hope you will keep your promise. I am looking forward to be a Palm user again

One up for coppers in Connellsville

Published on August 24, 2007 in Usual Ramblings. 0 Comments

Battery-Powered Cop Car Unveiled, Charges Pending – Taken from Autopia – Wired Blogs

The tiny town of Connellsville, Pennsylvania has unveiled the country’s first fully electric police cruiser. Cleverly disguised as a 2000 Chevrolet Impala, Connellsville’s robo-cruiser prototype was created by the Pennsylvania-based electronic-warfare specialist, Coherent Systems International. Coherent â€” which funded the project itself to the tune of some $75,000 â€” is trying to entice other government entities to buy into the technology. As for range, a full charge (two hours using a 240-volt outlet or four hours with 110 volts) should be sufficient to power the car for an eight-hour shift.

Original story can be found in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Nice to know that cops in Connellsville are going green too!! But I wonder if the electric cars can really outrun gangsters in their Escalades and Hummers? Catching crooks may be a tad bit tough using this car…but hey…what do I know about law enforcement?

Twitter can search!!

Published on August 24, 2007 in This I like and Usual Ramblings. 0 Comments

I got an email from the nice people at Twitter a few days ago noting that they have just released this cool function called “search” in their site. Yeap, guess the last horse has finally crossed the finishing line. They finally included a search function…phew~

I did remember days of way back yonder when fellow Twitter peers kept asking me to add them in my community and I sat for hours in front of my computer/laptop trying to figure out how the heck I can to do this. Now its easy…;)

So the rumours are true..

Published on August 23, 2007 in This I like and Usual Ramblings. 11 Comments

Following my earlier entry on the rumoured Nikon DSLRs, namely the D3 and D300, I popped over to the Nikon Press Centre this afternoon to see if all the fuss emanated by the consumer generated media is true. Guess the title of this entry says it all…yeah they are true.

The D300, perhaps KP’s new toy to be (provided that he mastered the art of pulling money out of his ass), promises of photo quality at 12.3 effective megapixel and exclusive EXPEED Image Processing System, which according to their press centre, “is central to driving the speed and processing power needed for many of the cameraâ€™s new features” (woah..nice move there PR company).

Apart from that, how about a 51-point auto focus system with Nikonâ€™s 3D Focus Tracking feature and two new LiveView shooting modes that allow users to frame a photograph using the cameraâ€™s high-resolution LCD monitor? Frames per second is pretty okay, shooting at a rapid six frames per second and after mounting on the MB-D10 Multi-Power Battery Pack, you can go as fast as eight frames per second.

The D3, my new favourite, is a real beast (this is how KP describes one heck of a solid camera) featuring Nikonâ€™s new FX-format CMOS sensor, measuring 23.9 x 36mm, which is nearly identical to the size of 35mm film…its freaking full-frame!! It has some similarities as the D300 like 12.3 effective megapixels, EXPEED Image Processing System, 51-point auto focus system and two new LiveView shooting modes. I am sure it has more similarities but I won’t be going further.

Also according to the press centre, it boasts to be the worldâ€™s fastest digital SLR camera in its class with the fastest startup time, shortest viewfinder blackout time, and shortest shutter lag of any digital SLR camera as well as the capability to shoot up to nine frames per second at full FX-format resolution.

What I like about the D3 is the extremely low-noise throughout its normal ISO range of 200 to 6400 and its HDMI capability…yeah, the freaking D3 has a freaking HDMI port. I am going to dehydrate from drooling. Just when I thought I had enough of the bells and whistles from the D3, I learnt it also has two CompactFlash card slots that can be used for consecutive recording (overflow), simultaneous recording (backup), separating recording of RAW and JPEG files or even copying pictures between the two cards.

As Peter Parker’s uncle says in Spiderman 1, great power comes with great responsibility. I am hoping that the journalists and sports photographers owning this new toy will use it for good. Check out these special sites developed for the D300 and the D3, they have more information than you can handle. Now excuse me while I check my Toto results, I need to raise money to get the beast.