Our company has this one policy that reads "Whoever going on a business trip or vacation leave must post an OOTO (Out Of The Office) notice and activate an automatic mail response robot (this is an option within Micrsoft Outlook) to inform your customers or fellow colleagues how to contact you for urgent discussion and indicate when is your return to the office."
Wouldn't it be great if Blogger system include this option so that at least visitors will be informed that there is no new post at certain blog site rather than disappointed after clicking the bookmark link.
I felt bad when regular visitor (Yes, I am only expecting one person) hoping to read new articles or funny video clips got so disappointed and decided to remove the bookmark/favourite link after few blank hits.
Anyway, I will be OOTO until 6th May 2008 due to a travel plan to no man's land (let alone Internet access). So, please do not click on this favorite blog link at least until then. Have a good day!
A couple of years ago when the online chatting and instant messaging tools such as Yahoo Messenger, MSN, ICQ etc. began to dominate the cyber community, they took the Internet by storm and quickly became the pet gear of many Netizens.
It was so prominent that these thingamajigs have become part of the computer operating system startup appendage that they co-exist alongside your daily drudgery at home or work place. Alas, situation deteriorated following obsession in usage that many companies began to clamp down on their existence by blocking/filtering these applications within their network domain owing to the fear that productivity going downwards spiral hence hitting their bottom-line.
However, there are also large number of organizations that believe these applications can potentially (I said potentially because this is a very subjective matter and really depends on the level of maturity and co-operations amongst staff) save some communication costs. Imagine cutting the phone bills on international calls and facilitating pro-longed hours of remote technical assistance, urgent message dissemination and internal conference calls (chats!) etc.
This is beside my point of writing this blog entry. I was entrenched to the fact that this online chatting and virtual relationship building has slowly creeping into one’s life which is possibly the underlying foundation of the creation of a Virtual World on the Internet such as SecondLife (www.secondlife.com). Nope, they are not confined to multi-players role play experience on the net as it would also offer a platform to promote inter human relationship, a place for intimate chats, sharing of day-to-day happenings, work gossips, family problems, some happy tales….some not so…but you get the drift.
As the days gone by and the feelings got a bit stronger, some of these chat buddies became very close friends…casual friendship turned into real intimacy and started to see each other in person (only if they live within reach that is)…and if all goes well (as in nobody got cheated or conned into believing those fictitious stories and identities behind the avatar and Net identities), they may eventually ended up in matrimony and live happily ever after…just like a fairy tale in this modern society.
All good and well provided they were legally single individuals. What happen if they are already attached or formally married and worst still…with children? On one hand they are contented with their real family lifestyle, the commitments, the joy and being togetherness with the spouse and kids (if they have one of those) but on the other hand, they are also torn with the constant compulsion and at times fervor to get online the very first instance to ‘meet’ with their virtual companion(s)/darling(s). And the hours could be long often into the other half of the day (or night depending on which time zone you are at). And yes, they can sacrifice the sleep and who cares about getting droopy eyes at work the next day.
Now, with the burgeoning of new wave of social networking applications such as Facebook, MySpace, Friendsters and so on, coupled with the thousands of web widgets like Online Poker, Mahjong, Big 2, Black Jack etcetera, there are more reasons to go online to chat and play games together…specially for the web buddies.
Is this the new trend of having virtual companionship to complement a complete way of life…both real and the virtual? There may be things that you will not discuss with your life partner/spouse in the real world due to circumstances but to the virtual companion ('知己') you see no barrier…perhaps it’s the effect of the make believe illusory, you can share these deep often dark secrets with them or maybe it was just the lust and pursuit of a common fad or amusement.
With that note, I would like to dedicate the following song to someone whom I know that would also enjoy it….”Love Today by Mika”.
Tomorrow will be a better day….for sure. And I hope you like the following song.
Since I have posted something similar (Grand Central, NY), thought I would just relay same message for the local replication that took place on 13th April, 2008 15:55 (that's 3:55PM) for 4 minutes.
Approximately 1,000 people participated ... further demonstrating the significance of Internet and social networking tools. For the politician who still think that the blogs, Internet, Facebook, Friendsters, Plaxo, SecondLife, Linkedin...etc are for the naive teenagers and young adults, they are damn wrong.
I have not been able to post any new entry this last few days on the blog...no thanks to the flu bug that I may have caught on the flight out attending a conference down south in the island state.
Talking about this Island State, some people still remembers it as a "Fine Country" but others especially the expatriates from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Philippines etc. think it's their nearest paradise and land of opportunities.
I am neutral not because I choose to sit on the fence but simply don't see a point of comparing what they are doing better and what they are not. More importantly, as long as there are no interferences between the neighboring country's sovereignty and internal policies, all should just mind their own business and stop instigating or fostering love-hate relationship amongst the citizens of the two neighboring country.
On a lighter note, the following phone conversation recording (I suspect it was originated from some stand-up comedy gig) kinda reminds me of how vulgar one can be and the creativeness of translating mother tongue to other languages...
...In a nutshell, this is what Singaporean think of their own nation...
Why Do Children Lost Confidence When They Are Alone?
Not just children, in fact most people I would say have the same experience at least once in their life that they suddenly felt uneasy and looking forward to an end to a situation as soon as possible. A classic sign of receding level of confidence.
I brought my 4 year-old son to his first formal swimming lesson yesterday morning. It wasn't really a lesson but more of a trial to allow the swimming instructor to assess if he is suitable to join the junior swim class. He has never shown any fear of water since we first introduced the swimming pool to him circa two years ago. Not until yesterday...what a bummer! The initial 5 minutes was fine...kicking the water, blowing bubbles into the water...and then came a this unexpected request from the instructor to hold on to the kick-board and swim towards the centre of the pool...with the instructor assistance of course.
This is just simply too much for this little fella...he suddenly felt so helpless and started to cry! Not loudly but I can tell from afar that the instructor was panic and has to quickly bring him back to the edge of the pool.
After a few more attempts, the instructor finally gave up and told me to bring him out. I said perhaps he is not comfortable without his friends or siblings (as he usually played with them at the pool previously and this is the first time being alone) while trying this seemingly risky stunt in the big pool.
The instructor agrees and advise to bring him back again next week with his comrade. Later, I asked my son what's wrong? He said "I am scared of the big pool" I said "Why? You dare to jump into the water without knowing the depth and glide down the slides without any help. Why so chicken now?" He said "I am not a chicken Dad, chicken cannot swim only duck can swim." At least, he got that right and I did not even bother to use "scaredy-cat" as I don't think cat can swim either. We just have to see if things are better next Sunday with the sister accompanying him in the pool.
The same back alleyway that you saunter a thousand times in the day (typical short-cut for most lazy people) but when the night falls, and you need to walk across it all by yourself in complete darkness...it's time to practice your super dash.
Or perhaps look forward to the carrot beyond the pitch black lane...as reward awaits that may include the delicious Mc D meals.
Why would people choose a name like "Fish"? On one hand you might find this refreshing but on the other it may lead to association with seafood dishes or rotten and unpleasant odour commonly described as "fishy smell" depending on how and when do you employ the word.
I, for one cannot imagine naming my child "Fish" under any circumstances because it will be quite awkward to yell out loud "Don't do that Fish!" or "Get out of the pool Fish!".
Having said all that, we do have celebrity such as the renown female pop singer called Fish Leong whom has produced quite a splash in her music career.
Here are some samples just in case you are interested...
The couple has been happily married since 1996...amazing huh. Sally is a diva (even today) and George was such a cool and comical character at times. Unusual amalgamation but seem to work out just fine. I like their songs, maybe not all of them but some were good for easy listening.
This is one of the oldies from George entitled "Need You Every Minute"
林子祥 - 千億個夜晚
And this "零時十分" "Ten Minutes after Midnight" is from Sally Yeh 葉蒨文 ....enjoy!
Contactless payment is gaining traction these days and there are more and more demands from various businesses requiring fast and efficient payment mechanism.
We are not just talking about cutting short the customer service queue length but also improving the payment transaction processing and bringing customer's convenience to a higher level.
One such example was an implementation of contactless payment (or sometimes called proximity payment) at the MRT stations in Manila, Philippines circa end of 2006.
The project involved launching of an RFID chip (using MiFARE chip technology) containing stored monetary value to be sold to the general public primarily for train fare payments. The infrastructure to support this proximity payment also involved various facilities being installed at all the 13 train stations around the city transit line to allow balance checks and reload of the stored value on chip called "GPass".
One of the partners in this initiative is none other than Globe Telecoms which has also successfully launch "GCash" that has created a big wave in the microfinance arena using mobile phones.
And this is definitely not going to be the last of its kind. We are predicting a wider usage of this technology in more businesses and will likely to extend its availability to the mobile channels.
Your phone will one day replaces your wallet even the payment instrument such as credit or debit cards.
Children today often have the gifted ability to interchange the usage of words in their still developing vocabulary language bank.
For example, my daughter was having a field day over the Easter weekend having bucket full of chocolates and candies from the Easter egg hunt. As she was munching away happily, I warned her about tooth decays, gums disease etc.
I said "Girl, don't eat too much candies, otherwise your gums will be rotten and teeth will fall out!". My youngest son heard that and asked "What is the gums for?" I replied "For holding up your teeth so that they won't fall off".
5 minutes later, he came back and said "Here Dad, I don't want these sweets anymore, I want my 'glue' to be stronger so that the teeth will not fall off". I was puzzled for a while...then chuckles as I knew he meant 'gums' but has used the word 'glue' instead of 'gums'.
