I love my Dell 2408WFP Monitor because it has not 1 but 2 DVI ports! This allows me to connect to my Windows desktop as well as to my MacBook Pro without physically switching the DVI cables from my monitor.

As I have been using Mac a lot during office hours, I wanted the same setup I have in my office at home which is 1 external monitor and dual screen it with my MacBook Pro. In order not to clutter my desk with too many items, I bought the Apple Wireless Keyboard for SGD$98 and together with my Apple Magic Mouse paired using bluetooth to my MacBook Pro, I am able to have both Mac and Windows environment with just a single monitor but having 2 separate sets of keyboard and mouse.

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Got the Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad for my office use at DG Lifestyle (yes, it is a HK company) at VivoCity for SGD$78.

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Apple Keyboard

WiFi Model

Wi-Fi + 3G Model

Specifcations

• 1GHz Apple A4 custom-designed, high-performance, low-power system-on-a-chip
• 9.7-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen Multi-Touch display with IPS technology
• 1024-by-768-pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch (ppi)
• Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating
• Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n)
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR technology
• UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz) (Wi-Fi + 3G model)
• GSM/EDGE (850, 900,1800, 1900 MHz) (Wi-Fi + 3G model)
• Digital compass
• Assisted GPS (Wi-Fi + 3G model)
• Cellular (Wi-Fi + 3G model)>
• 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB flash drive
• Accelerometer sensor
• Ambient light sensor
• Built-in 25Whr rechargeable lithium-polymer battery
• Up to 10 hours of surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching video, or listening to music
• Weight: 242.8 mm
• Width: 189.7 mm
• Depth: 13.4 mm
• Weight: 0.68 kg (Wi-Fi model); 0.73 kg (Wi-Fi + 3G model)

Full Specifications: http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/

Wi-Fi
16GB: USD$499 = SGD$700
32GB: USD$599 = SGD$840
64GB: USD$699 = SGD$981
Ships in 60 days time

Wi-Fi + 3G
16GB: USD$629 = SGD$882
32GB: USD$729 = SGD$1,023
64GB: USD$829 = SGD$1,163
Ships in 90 days time

Official Website: iPad

Ordered a 21.5″ iMac (3.06GHz) for my dad to replace his old computer (which is also my previous desktop computer). Actually suppose to order 2 sets. One for my Dad to put it at home and the other for my mom to replace her old Fujitsu laptop in the office. However, my mom got some doubts about the Mac OS X and software compatibility issues and hence ended up getting 1 set for my dad first. In the mean time she can play around with it at home before making a final decision.

Since I am still technically a student, I made use of the Education Store and hence it is cheaper by SGD$100. The iMac cost SGD$1,688. I also topped up another SGD$218 for Apple Care so that the warranty will get extended by another 2 years.

My mom preferred the idea of non-wireless keyboard and mouse so that there is no need to change batteries every now and then. I opted for the Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad. As for the Magic Mouse, I wanted it so I bought another Apple Mouse. The difference between each wireless and non-wireless mouse/keyboard is SGD$20, and unfortunately Apple do not refund you the difference if you opt for the non-wireless mouse/keyboard.

The Apple Mouse and the iMac was delivered on two separate dates maybe because I “customized” my iMac by changing the bundled keyboard.

Specifications

• 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 1920 x 1080 resolution
• 4GB memory
• 500GB hard drive
• 8x double-layer SuperDrive
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics

Damage

• iMac: 21.5″ (3.06GHz): SGD$1,688
• Apple Care: SGD$218
• Apple Mouse: SGD$78
• Total: SGD$1,984

Dates

• Ordered Date: 17th January 2010
• Apple Mouse Delivered Date: 19th January 2010
• iMac Delivered Date: 20th January 2010

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Magic Mouse Front

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iMac

• Bright 21.5″ display or 27″ LED-backlit display
• Wireless Keyboard & Magic Mouse
• Intel Core i5 or Core i7 “Nehalem” (for 27″ iMac)
• 160GB, 320GB, or optional 500GB harddrive
• Price (21.5″): SGD$1,788 (3.06GHz Core 2 Duo/500GB) or SGD$2,288 (3.06GHz Core 2 Duo/1TB)
• Price (27″): SGD$2,588 (3.06GHz Core 2 Duo/1TB) or SGD$2,988 (2.66GHz Core i5/1TB)

Official Website: iMac
Apple Singapore Store: iMac

Mac Mini

• 2.26GHz or a 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 2GB or 4GB RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor
• 802.11n wireless technology
• 160GB, 320GB, or optional 500GB harddrive
• Price: SGD$948 (2.26GHz/160GB) or SGD$1,249 (2.53GHz/320GB)

Official Website: Mac Mini
Apple Singapore Store: Mac Mini

MacBook

• Durable unibody enclosure
• Built-in 7 hours battery
• Brilliant LED-backlit display
• Spacious glass Multi-Touch trackpad
• Price: SGD$1,588

Official Website: MacBook
Apple Singapore Store: MacBook

Magic Mouse

• Seamless Multi-Touch Surface
• Laser-Tracking Engine
• Wireless
• Price: SGD$98

Official Website: Magic Mouse
Apple Singapore Store: Magic Mouse

Apple Remote

• Control your Mac, iPod, or iPhone from afar with the sleek aluminum Apple Remote. Play, pause, adjust volume, move forward and back, and access menus while playing music and video.
• Price: SGD$28

Apple Singapore Store: Apple Remote

Apple Mac OS X Snow Leopard is now available. You can get it at the Apple Singapore Store for SGD$48. Pre-ordered mine on the 26th August 2009 and received it yesterday, 28th August 2009, at about 10am, couriered by DHL.

One advantage living close to DHL’s Keppel’s Distribution Center is that my house will always be the first stop which means I always get it at 10am. Tested and proven by me many times. I even asked the courier guy from DHL and he says that my house will always be the first stop when they plan the route.

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Shall do a fresh install on my MacBook Pro over the weekends. I always like fresh install when it comes to OS.

I have been addicted to Apple’s Push Notification Service ever since I bought Prowl. There are endless possibilities on what you can do with Push Notifications.

Apple’s Push Notification Announcement

The Apple Push Notification Service is a mobile service created by Apple Inc. that was released with iPhone OS 3.0 on the 17th June 2009. It uses push technology through a constantly-open IP connection to forward notifications from the servers of third party applications to the iPhone or iPod Touch; such notifications may include badges, sounds or custom text alerts.

Apple first announced the service on 9 June 2008 with a slated release for that September; however, as stated by Scott Forstall at the iPhone 3.0 preview event on 17th March 2009, the rollout was rolled back in September after a decision to restructure the APNS for scalability purposes due to the allegedly “overwhelming” response to the announcement of the APNS. At both events, Forstall stated that push notifications were a better means to maintain battery life than background processes (which are used for pull technology) as far as receiving notifications are concerned.

APNS is using XMPP/Jabber, particularly the PubSub extension.

Wikipedia: Apple Push Notification Service

For email, there are PushMail and GPush to ensure you get a notification seconds after you received an email.

For twitter, there are SimplyTweet and Boxcar to notify you when you get a mention or a direct message in Twitter.

For instant messaging, there are BeejiveIM and IM+ to ensure you never miss an instant message.

For reminders, there is NotifyMe to notify you of things to do

For bills payment, there is BillMinder to ensure you will not miss your bill payment.

The list is not comprehensive, there are much more iPhone apps that make use of Push Notification. Mashable also has a post on it, 14 iPhone Apps With Push Notification for Productivity.

For web developers like me, I love Prowl, because there is an API for you to use and ready made classes for
Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Java and Lasso. Do note that the IP addresses are limited to 1000 API calls per hour which is better than Twitter’s 150 API calls.

With Prowl, you can customized your own Push Notifications. For me, I have my this web server’s cron setup to check my Twitter account for new mentions and direct messages every 5 minutes and if there are any, it will notify Prowl using the API and Prowl will sent a Push Notification to my iPhone.

If anybody post a comment in this blog, Prowl will also notify me as I have hooked it into WordPress. Next I am thinking of using my backup server’s cron to ping this site every 1 hour, and if there is any downtime, it will also sent a Push Notification to my iPhone. As mentioned earlier, there are endless possibilities on what you can do with Push Notifications using Prowl + Webserver + Cron.

I was there last year at the Singtel iPhone 3G Launch queuing up for the iPhone 3G as a normal consumer. This year I was also there, but with a media pass. I was there pretty early at about 1.30pm because I have to go to Funan to run some errands. The media event started at about 3.30pm. We are brought around the Comcenter by Yuen Kuan Moon, the EVP of Consumer from Singtel. He explains to us the various part of the queue structure and how the customers will move about when queuing. Apart from that, Singtel announced a new service called Mio TV on Mobile. Customers can get to stream live tv stream from Channel 8, Channel News Asia, Bloomberg and a few others. It is not an iPhone App, but rather the streaming is done in Safari itself. It is pretty impressive as the quality is watchable and it doesn’t lag.

According to Kuan Moon, this year the response was much better than last year. He did not give an exact figure but he says in thousands. Last year the launch of iPhone 3G is basically register of interest and user still have to queue up. But this year, Singtel did a pre-order and require the customers to make a deposit of SGD$50 before queuing. There is also a separate queue for walk-in customers which closes at about 9pm due to the overwhelming response on the pre-order queue.

The event was not a midnight launch but rather only a 4 hour event from 8pm all the way to 12midnight. I have no idea whether they closes at 12midnight yesterday as from what I know at 9pm, the waiting time was 6 hours according to their website.

Similar to last year, the host this year was Glenn Ong from Class 95 as well. Mediacorp artists like Pierre Png, Joanna Peh, Felicia Chin was also there. Instead of the glass house which Singtel specially built for the iPhone 3G launch last year, this year they are using tentage. Also, there are tentage all over the queue area because some customers complained about being in the rain as last year when they are queuing up.

I used my Dad’s line and got my iPhone 3GS 32GB Black at SGD$678 on iFlexi Lite plan. I upgrade his Classic plan to iFlex Lite and got SGD$100 off, I got a SGD$120 Red Prestige voucher from my uncle and hence the iPhone 3GS price became SGD$678 – (SGD$100 + SGD$120) = SGD$458.

The only way to tell an iPhone 3G from iPhone 3GS is at the back. A1303 refers to iPhone 3GS and 32GB will definitely be a 3GS. Also the part the text it says iPhone is shiny for iPhone 3GS and white for iPhone 3G.

Facebook Gallery: Singtel iPhone 3GS Launch

Apple announced the new iPhone 3G S, S stands for speed. Basically, everything is the same as the iPhone 3G including the looks.

Here are the changes as compared to the iPhone 3G:

• Improved performance
• Improved battery (though not much difference)
• 7.2Mbps HSDPA (iPhone 3G was 3.6Mbps)
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (iPhone 3G was 2.0)
• 3-megapixel autofocus camera with macro mode and auto white balance
• Video recording at 30fps VGA with on-device editing capability
• Voice control that allows you to dial and control your music
• Digital compass
• Headphones include an inline remote for music control
• 3D graphics support in hardware
• Nike + support built-in
• Supports accessibility features, like zooming on text, inverting video, and voice over when you touch whatever text is on screen.
• Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating screen

It will be available in Singapore by Singtel in July 2009. Just to let you know Singtel supports Internet Tethering as well as MMS for the iPhone OS 3. Seriously I think lots of Americans is hating AT&T right now because both Internet Tethering and MMS is not yet supported by AT&T.

iPhone OS 3 will be released on Wednesday, 17th June 2009 worldwide. With iPhone OS 3, I see no point in jailbreaking maybe besides the ability to change theme and SSH.

Keeping my fingers cross to see if Singtel allows last year iPhone 3G users to upgrade to iPhone 3G S.

Links

• Apple Singapore: iPhone
• Apple Singapore: iPhone 3G S
• Apple Singapore Store: iPhone

Apple announces iPhone OS 3.0, the iPhone OS that was supposed to be in iPhone in the first place.

Here are some of the features we can expect in iPhone OS 3.0:

• In-App Purchase
• Peer to peer connectivity
• Custom apps that talk directly to that hardware
• Turn by turn navigation
• Push notification
• Cut, copy, and paste
• Landscape mode for most core apps
• MMS
• Voice Memos
• CalDAV calendar and .ics subscription support
• Spotlight
• Note Sync
• Auto-fill
• YouTube accounts
• Stereo Bluetooth via A2DP
• WiFi autologin
• Tethering support

I think lots of paid jailbreak apps like SwirlyMMS and biteSMS might have to developed new apps. Say good bye to SwirlyMMS, biteSMS and QuickGold!

The iPhone OS 3.0 update will be available for free for iPhone and iPhone 3G users. MMS and Stereo Bluetooth will not be available for iPhone users due to hardware differences. For iPod Touch and iPod Touch 2nd Generation users, you will have to fork out USD$9.95 for it.

Links

• Apple: iPhone OS 3.0 Preview
• Gizmodo Live Blog
• Engadget: Live from Apple’s iPhone OS 3.0 preview event