Google has hoped on to the web browser bandwagon. Google Chrome is an open source web browser developed by Google using the WebKit rendering engine.

• An address bar with auto-completion features called “omnibox.”
• The V8 JavaScript Virtual Machine.
• A privacy mode.
• Web applications can be launched in their own browser window without an address bar and toolbar.
• Chrome includes an automatically updated phishing and malware blacklist using the Google Safe Browsing API.
• Uses the WebKit Rendering Engine.
• Puts individual tabs and plug-ins into separate processes.
• Integration of Gears.

The beta should be available tomorrow (Singapore time). Wonder how well it will stand against Mozilla Firefox.

Source: Google Blog: A fresh take on the browser
Taken From: Wikipedia: Google Chrome
More Information: Google Chrome, Google’s Browser Project

August 2008 Total Traffic

• Total Hits: 9,922,623
• Total Files: 9,019,489
• Total Pages: 791,515
• Total Visits: 164,135
• Total KBytes: 35,659,614
• Total Unique Sites: 129,710
• Total Unique URLs: 15,995
• Total Unique Referrers: 18,962
• Total Unique User Agents: 5,286

August 2008 Daily Traffic

• Hits per Day: Average: 320,084 - Max: 413,876
• Files per Day: Average: 290,951 - Max: 367,253
• Pages per Day: Average: 25,532 - Max: 31,541
• Visits per Day: Average: 5,294 - Max: 6,369
• KBytes per Day: Average: 1,150,310 - Max: 1,572,558

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

Previous month site traffic: July 2008

Comex 2008
Comex 2008 was held in Suntec City Convention Center from the 28th August 2008 to the 31st August 2008. I hooted the following:

For My Mom:

• Canon Color Ink For Canon Printer MX700 - SGD$50 (Free SGD$10 NTUC Vouchers)
• 2x Canon Black Ink For Canon Printer MX700 - SGD$44 (Free SGD$5 NTUC Vouchers)

For Li Xiang:

• Canon Color Ink Value Pack Canon Printer MP160 - SGD$55 (Free SGD$5 NTUC Vouchers)
• Microsoft Basic Optical Mouse - SGD$19.90

For Myself:

• D-Link DNS-323 - SGD$199 (Sim Lim Square’s Fuwell selling for SGD$235)

D-Link DNS-323
I have been aiming for the DNS-323 for quite a couple of weeks, Fuwell is selling for $235 which is a little steep. I am quite surprise Comex is only selling for $199 as from what I heard PC Show 2008 which is held back in June is selling for $189. But nevertheless, it is still cheaper than $235. I went to Comex on Thursday, 28th August 2008, and at 12pm sharp, when the doors are open, I headed straight to the D-Link booth. I have already did my homework on where the booth is located. Once I am at the booth, I told the temp staff I want the DNS-323 and he got stun for a few seconds as I think he didn’t expect me to buy it so fast, if I am not wrong, I am the first customer of the booth.

2 weeks before Comex 2008, I have already went to Sim Lim Square’s Fuwell to buy Western Digital Caviar Green Power (GP) 1TB for SGD$220. At that time I did not want to run RAID 1 and hence I only bought 1 HDD. But after getting the DNS-323 and playing it on Friday, I decided to try RAID 1 and hence the next day I went to Sim Lim Square’s Fuwell to get the exact same hard drive which I bought 2 weeks ago. The price is still the same.

Western Digital Green Power hard drive is fantastic, it is very quiet, even when I put the 2 hard drives into the DNS-323, overall it is still quiet. The only irritating thing is the blue LED lights which is so bright when all the lights are off.

I got a major problem when running RAID 1 on the DNS-323, the formatting of drives always get stuck at 94% and after lots of goggling, I realized that it is a firmware bug. I downgraded to 1.04 (currently is 1.05) and set the inactivity timer to 90mins instead of the default value and that seems to solve the problem.

D-Link DNS-323 Box

D-Link DNS-323 Box Contents

Western Digital Caviar Green Power (GP) 1TB

Space Chimps
Caught Space Chimps a couple of weeks ago and the movie was just average, the funniest part of the movie are all in the trailer.

Death Race
Caught Death Race last week, starring Jason Statham, Joan Allen and Ian McShane. It is directed by Paul WS Anderson. The movie was good and basically it is a action packed movie almost throughout the whole movie.

WALL-E
WALL-E stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class and EVE stands for Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator. I have been wanting to watch this movie since the trailer aired in Singapore quite a number of months ago. Managed to catch it at GV Max on Friday midnight show. The show was good in terms of both storyline and humor. Go and catch it.

I saw the toy selling for SGD$19.90 for both WALL-E and EVE. So tempted to get it but in the end didn’t get it. You can view the toys here.

Dad’s Back For 4 Days
My dad came back on Saturday for 4 days and will be leaving on Tuesday, 2nd September 2008. Vietnam has a public holiday and his company give them another day off and my dad just need to take 1 day leave and he can come back for 4 days.

We have been bringing him around eating and eating as Hanoi food is not suitable for him. He lost about 2kg and now I can see his 6-pack.

The next time he will be back shall be in December 2008 where his contract ends. He might renew his contact if the offer is good.

I was interviewed by Kenny Chee of My Paper (我报) regarding IT fairs in Singapore.

my paper (我报) is Singapore’s first free chinese newspaper, launched on 1 June 2006, is designed for bilingual, young adults aged 20-40, who have been exposed to Western and Chinese cultures and want their voices to be heard.

Here is a snippet of the interview within the article:

“IT fairs have better promotions at times, compared to stores, and they tend to bundle more gifts,” said Mr Chan,who has also worked as a web developer.

You can read the full article here (my picture is included).

Thank you Kenny if you are reading this.

Had an informal gathering with Nokia, Text100 and several bloggers at The Straits which is located at 31 Pekin Street, Far East Square. At first when I heard of The Straits, it was referring to the The Straits Kitchen located at Hyatt Hotel. Luckily the full address is given, if not I will be going to the wrong place. The last informal Nokia event was held on the 13th June 2008. How time flies, 2 months just passed like that.

We get to play with the Nokia N79, N85 as well as the long due N96. I would like to say that my views are PURELY based on the prototypes as N79 and N85 will not be launching that soon. For the N96, it is quite closed to the final as it will shipping next month (September 2008) and the RRP for it is SGD$1258.

Nokia N79
The first phone that I got to play with is the N79 and it is the successor of N78. It is the smallest Nseries device that is built by Nokia so far and indeed it is small. The build quality of it is solid, similar to that of my N82.

As you all may know, the Xpress-on cover is back. I have not heard of that term for a long time. This time instead of paying separately for the covers, Nokia has decided to bundle 2 other colors cover within the package. 2 colors of the N79 will be available, Canvas White as well as the Seal Grey. The Canvas White will come with the the cover color of “Olive Green” as well as “Light Sea Blue” and the Seal Grey will come with the cover color of “Coral Red” and “White”. Both sets of the N79 will come with a default cover color which is Espresso Brown.

I am quite impressed by the Xpress-on cover. For example, if you change the cover to Olive Green, your S60 OS’s theme will also change to Olive Green. There is a chip located below at the back of the cover that does the magic.

The shutter speed for the N79 has been increased and hence it takes lesser time to snap a photograph an hence when taking a slow moving object, it will not be that distorted anymore.

Nokia also added Nokia’s Widsets to the phone. WidSets is a clever service that brings the Internet to your cell phone. You can have your Twitter, Friendster, Flikr, Digg, Wikipedia, etc services within the application.

The N79 also has an accelerometer and this time it can rotate any screen within the OS itself (even the main menu). Just rotate the phone, and the screen will be rotated as well. It is much better than my N82 when they first introduce the accelerometer where it can only rotate certain screens.

The N79 will have the common stuff such as 5 megapixels camera, dual LED lights as well as GPS.

The only thing I do not like about N79 is the menu key as well as the clear key. The left and right screen key as well as the answer/hang-up key are “popup” but on the other hand the menu key as well as the clear key are flat and hence it is a little harder to press the menu and the clear key or worst still you will press the wrong key like me. I tested it and when clearing my message, instead of pressing the clear key, I pressed onto the right screen key.

Nokia N85
The Nokia N85 is the direct successor of N81 and N81 8GB. It is built for playing N-Gage games similar to the N81. The N81 is a normal sliding phone but the N85 is a dual slider phone.

The N85 spot a new OLED screen never seen before in the Nseries. With this screen, whatever is displayed on the screen is brighter, sharper and consume lesser power. You can definitely notice the difference.

The keypad on the N85 is very flat and hence it is very difficult for me to press. I have to press the menu key quite hard for it to recognize my action.

Similar to the N79, it also have faster shutter speed, Nokia’s Widsets, accelerometer, 5 megapixels camera, dual LED lights as well as GPS.

A lot of people are saying N85 is the N96 killer as N85 has better screen and much better battery life. You can read about the comparison here.

Nothing to say much about the N96 as I have discuss it many times. I personally think that it is a long due phone since February 2008, it has been more than 6 months and finally it will be launched next month. If Nokia were to launched it before June 2008, I think it would be good as I think that the N85 will eat into the market share of N96 as they are very similar and DVB-H is not ready in Singapore.

Nokia N79 and N85 will launched sometime in October 2008.

Once again, do note my views are still based on early prototypes and some of this problems may get solved before the actual release.

PS: I forgot to bring my Canon iXUS 860IS as well as my Nokia N82 and hence when I use my iPhone to take the pictures of the phones, it turns out to be crap and hence I did not upload it. iPhone camera really not up to standard.

Nokia today held a media event at House @ 8D Dempsey Road at 2pm to officially announced the launch of Nokia N79, N85 and N96. Unfortunately I have to attend my first tutorial, if not I will definitely attend the event.

Basically Nokia N79 is the successor or Nokia N78 and Nokia N85 is the successor of Nokia N81 as well as Nokia N81 8GB. You can also say that the Nokia N96 is the successor of Nokia N95 8GB, but personally I think it is own rather than successor of anything.

Read More (727 More Words, 7 More Images)

I was there at the Singapore iPhone 3G launch over at Singtel ComCenter which happen at midnight on the 22nd August 2008. I reached there at about 9.15pm and started queuing. I was the 43rd in the queue according to the sticker pasted on my application form.

There are 2 parts of the queue, the first part (Killiney side) is where you queue up and then the part time sales people will write down all your details in the application form as well as the equipment form. Once you are done, they will bring you in batches to the second part of the queue which is in front of the glass house. You will wait at there till midnight. There is a live band EIC and Glenn Ong from Class 95 to entertain you. I brought my laptop along as well so I can provide live updates on Hardware Zone forums.

Approaching midnight, all the top brass from Singtel came and together with the first person in the queue who started queuing since 12pm stand in front of the glass house’s doors. At the stroke of midnight, they pulled the big ribbon which is wrapping around the glass house to unveil the launch of Apple iPhone 3G in Singapore and “mini” fireworks were released. The first guy went in together with the top 10 customers of Singtel into the glass house to get their iPhone 3G. I think the top 10 customers are the one who gave Singtel the most money.

The first guy took about 15 minutes inside and once he is out, all the media are taking pictures and interviewing him. Once his 5 minutes of fame is over, it is the time for the rest of us in the queue to get ours. I think there are 2 places to buy your iPhone 3G, one in Hello Store itself and one in the glass house. The staff directed us to the Hello Store instead and gave each of us a queue number. My queue number was 1032. I waited for about 5 minutes before it is my turn as perhaps the counter is still setting up.

The staff who attended to me is extremely polite and knows his products well. I applied for the Singtel iTwo Value Student which is SGD$48.15 per month and Broadband on Mobile 1000 which is SGD$22.42 per month. Totaling it up would be SGD$70.57 per month. I got the Black 16GB iPhone 3G at SGD$508 but because of the student plan, I get another SGD$50 off the phone and hence the phone cost SGD$458.

I suppose to meet Weiquan and queue together but I was too early and hence I queue first. Nevertheless after purchasing my iPhone 3G (I was done by 1.30am actually), I waited for Weiquan inside the Hello Store and we waited for his turn. He also applied for the iTwo Value Student which is SGD$48.15 per month and also got the Black 8GB iPhone 3G for SGD$298 after SGD$50. He said he will wait for a while before applying the Broadband on Mobile 1000. The staff who attended to him was not very polite and I am not really happy with his work attitude.

There are 32 counters inside the Hello Store if I am not wrong, but there are only 3 cashiers and that is the bottle neck. Every sales staff just put the customer iPhone on the floor, chair or any available space they can find. And when it is the customer turn, they will ask you for your name and the color of your iPhone 3G and they will search through the whole floor of iPhones before finding yours. A lot of people make noise about the issue especially the guy behind us, he was making a very huge fuse about it.

We left about 3.30am and I sent Weiquan home and drop by Li Xiang house to say hi.

Later at night, my brother said he saw me on Channel 8 10pm news but I was not at home. I wanted to watch the Channel U 11pm news to see if they repeat it, but to my disappointment, they didn’t run it. I managed to catch a video posted by xin.sg (it was Li Xiang idea) and I managed to see myself in the video.

After watching the video, I was like WTF! How come only the first person in the queue got served by Singtel Staff wearing gloves while the rest of us do not have that. That is so double standard.

Here is the “mini” fireworks video that I took:

I have uploaded the few pictures that I took to my gallery:

3 New Voice + Data Plans

• iFlexi Value - SGD$56
  • 1 GB Data *
  • 200 Mins Outgoing Voice
  • 500 SMS
  • iPhone 8GB Price: SGD$348
  • iPhone 16GB Price: SGD$508
• iFlexi Plus - SGD$95
  • 2 GB Data *
  • 500 Mins Outgoing Voice
  • 500 SMS
  • iPhone 8GB Price: SGD$49
  • iPhone 16GB Price: SGD$208
• iFlexi Premium - SGD$205
  • 3 GB Data *
  • 1500 Mins Outgoing Voice
  • 1500 SMS
  • iPhone 8GB Price: Free
  • iPhone 16GB Price: Free

Note

• * Only for customers who connect/recontract to an iFlexi plan before 5th Sep 2008.
• These plans also come with 5 value added services free (Caller ID, AutoRoam, VoiceMail, SMS Plus and Overseas Missed Call Alert).
• Taken from: Singtel iFlexi Price Plans.
• Prices stated are including 7% GST.

Voice Only Plans

• iOne Plus - SGD$25.68
  • No Data *
  • 100 Mins Outgoing Voice
  • 500 SMS
  • iPhone 8GB Price: SGD$698
  • iPhone 16GB Price: SGD$848
• iTwo Value - SGD$48.15
  • No Data *
  • 300 Mins Outgoing Voice
  • 500 SMS
  • iPhone 8GB Price: SGD$348
  • iPhone 16GB Price: SGD$508
• iTwo Plus - SGD$82.93
  • No Data *
  • 700 Mins Outgoing Voice
  • 500 SMS
  • iPhone 8GB Price: SGD$49
  • iPhone 16GB Price: SGD$208
• iThree Plus - SGD$192.60
  • No Data *
  • 2000 Mins Outgoing Voice
  • 2000 SMS
  • iPhone 8GB Price: Free
  • iPhone 16GB Price: Free

Data Only Plans

• Broadband on Mobile Lite - SGD$3.21
  • Download Speed: 3.6Mbps
  • Upload Speed: 384kbps
  • Free Local Bundled Usage: 2 MB
• Broadband on Mobile Value - SGD$10.70
  • Download Speed: 3.6Mbps
  • Upload Speed: 384kbps
  • Free Local Bundled Usage: 10 MB
• Broadband on Mobile Plus - SGD$19.90 (New)
  • Download Speed: 3.6Mbps
  • Upload Speed: 384kbps
  • Free Local Bundled Usage: 500 MB
• Broadband on Mobile 1000 - SGD$22.42
  • Download Speed: 1Mbps
  • Upload Speed: 384kbps
  • Free Local Bundled Usage: 50 GB
• Broadband on Mobile 2000 - SGD$34.85
  • Download Speed: 2Mbps
  • Upload Speed: 384kbps
  • Free Local Bundled Usage: 50 GB
• Broadband on Mobile 3600 - SGD$62.37
  • Download Speed: 3.6Mbps
  • Upload Speed: 384kbps
  • Free Local Bundled Usage: 50 GB

Note

• * It is recommended to have Broadband on Mobile data plan to go along with the Voice Only plan.
• These plans also come with 4 value added services free (Caller ID, AutoRoam, VoiceMail and Overseas Missed Call Alert).
• Taken from: Singtel Existing Voice Only Price Plans.
• Prices stated are including 7% GST.

Links

• View Singtel Broadband on Mobile price plans
• View Singtel Postpaid Mobile price plans
• View Singtel iPhone price plans
• Credit to leinad of HWZ
• Discussion at Hardware Zone Forums

*UPDATE* Singtel officially announced the price in http://home.singtel.com/singtel/index.html. I have updated this blog post to reflect it.

*UPDATE 2* Personally, I am going for the iTwo Value (SGD$48.15) + Broadband on Mobile 1000 (SGD$22.42) = SGD$70.57. My current M1 monthly bill is also about SGD$60+.

Been a long time since I blogged about my personal life because there is nothing much to blog about. Also I have not watched any movie for the past 1 month plus! The last movie that I watched was The Dark Knight in KL!

School
Just ended my first week of school. It is a 4 day week for me where Monday is my off day. Just when I thought I have to take 4 exams for this semester, I was wrong, the new module CS3361 do not have an exam! Our lecturer who is the CTO of IBM Singapore, told us this piece of good news today. So now I have 3 papers to study for and my last date of my examination is 27th November 2008.

Taiwan
I will be going to Taiwan with Li Xiang during December. My mom got 2 free tickets for a 6 days 5 nights trip to Taiwan as she bought 2 lorries for her office and each lorry is entitled to 1 ticket. Li Xiang and I was thinking of extending the trip to about 2 weeks instead of just 6 days so that we can explore more. Hopefully we are able to do it. Keeping my fingers cross.

Wanted to wait till I am in Taiwan before I get the Asus EEE PC, but apparently the price difference is not that great. According to some online site I checked, it is just a different of SGD$50 and the keyboard layout maybe in Chinese and Taiwan has different voltage from Singapore. Since there are so many factors to consider, I think I shall get my netbook in Singapore. Now I am considering between Dell, Lenovo and Asus. Dell and Lenovo will launch their netbook soon.

Comex 2008
Comex 200 will take place on the 28th August 2008 till 31st August 2008 at Suntec City Exhibition Center (entire levels 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6). The opening hours is from 12pm to 9pm.

Thinking of getting the D-Link DNS-323 (2-Bay Network Storage Enclosure) and along with a 1TB Western Digital Harddisk Drive for my home. The DNS-323 is running on Linux and hence I can do a great deal of stuff on it like use it as a Torrenting machine, FTP server and even a Web Server.

Going to get Li Xiang a USB mouse as her mouse gave up on her a few months back.

Apple iPhone 3G
Singtel will be announcing the price plan for Apple iPhone 3G next week before officially releasing it on 22th August 2008. I have gotten all the documents (authorization letter and my mom’s NRIC) ready for me to jump ship from M1 to Singtel. Apparently when doing the true number portability from one operator to another operator, the account name must be the same for both operators. My M1 line is under my mom’s name and hence when I use the true number portability in Singtel, I need to apply under my mom’s name as well and not mine.

The funny thing is that my mom is using my name for her Singtel line as last time when I was in National Service (NS), they offered discounted plans for NSF and hence my mom switch it to under my name.

My M1 plan will end officially on 24th August 2008 and Singtel will launch the iPhone on the 22nd August 2008. This means that I have to sign up an account with Singtel on the 22nd August 2008 as well. I called Singtel to ask whether 2 days does make a difference in the true number portability as technically my plan with M1 have not ended yet and the CSO said it is fine. Woot!

I am using the iPod Touch and I dare to say that no other devices can come close to the iPod Touch/iPhone in terms of web surfing experience.

With the voice and data plan bundled together with the iPhone, I can surf the Internet wherever I go without worrying about the data charges.

Now the only thing we can hope is Singtel don’t disappoint us with the pricing.

Dad Coming Back For 4 Days
My dad is coming back on the 30th August 2008 for 4 days as there is a long weekend in Vietnam during that week and my dad just need to take 1 day of leave. I have already planned on where to bring my dad go eat to make my dad gain back the weight that he lost in Hanoi.

2 weeks ago, I have already book a table at MELT for Lunch on the 31st August 2008.

SINGAPORE Telecommunications will start selling Apple third-generation iPhone in Singapore on Aug 22, the company said on Tuesday.

SingTel’s CEO for Singapore, Mr Allen Lew said that ‘there are ‘tens of thousands’ on its reservation lists’, and those who registered online will get priority for the iPhones.

Online reservation is open until Aug 17. Mr Lew said SingTel will release the price of the iPhone later.

SingTel on Monday said its regional mobile user base was up 45 per cent to almost US$198 million (S$280 million). in the second quarter against a year earlier.

India led the way as SingTel’s mobile associate Bharti added a record 7.4 million new users to bring its total mobile base to 69.38 million at the end of June, the Singapore telecom carrier said in a statement.

Bharti, the largest GSM operator in India, makes up 35 per cent of SingTel’s mobile base in the Asia-Pacific.

SingTel, the largest telecom firm in South-east Asia, holds a 30.44 per cent stake in Bharti as well as stakes in other mobile firms in the region.

For SingTel’s other associates, mobile users at Indonesia’s Telkomsel rose by 1.11 million during the June quarter to 52.44 million and Thailand’s AIS subscribers increased by over 877,000 to 25.96 million.

SingTel’s wholly owned Australian unit Optus added 101,000 users during the quarter to 7.24 million while in Singapore, its mobile subscribers grew 182,000 to 2.75 million.

Source: Straits Times: iPhone on sale from Aug 22

Singtel Email: It’s coming on 22 August 2008!

Singtel Email: iPhone 3G NEWS from SingTel