The e-book service is known as skoob. It offer the works of Singapore writers, study guides and educational books for local primary and secondary school students.

Skoob on iPad (Bookshelf)

At launch there are about 39,000 local and international bestsellers for smartphones, tablets and PCs. Payment is in Singapore Dollars (SGD$) and made via Singapore Credit Cards or if you are a SingTel customer, you can charged it to your monthly SingTel bill.

You can download books on up to five devices on one account. Skoob is available for free on Apple iTunes Store and Android Marketplace. You can also use any browser to view them online via skoob or load the e-books into Adobe Digital Editions.

Here are the direct links FROM APPLE itself to iOS 5.0 for various iDevices:

iPhone

• iPhone 4 (GSM) (5.0/9A334)
• iPhone 4 (CDMA) (5.0/9A334)
• iPhone 3GS (5.0/9A334)

iPod Touch

• iPod Touch 4G (5.0/9A334)
• iPod Touch 3G (5.0/9A334)

iPad

• iPad 2 (GSM) (5.0/9A334)
• iPad 2 (CDMA) (5.0/9A334)
• iPad 2 (Wi-Fi Only) (5.0/9A334)
• iPad 1 (5.0/9A334)

Received an email from Guyi Shen who is the director of Lobangclub which is an iPhone App (for now). I find the app pretty cool. It is similar to ShopSavvy and Singtel’s Price Pal.

What is Lobangclub?

Lobangclub is a free Singaporean app that finds you the best deals on any product. We do this by contributions from you, our community of shoppers. We already have over 500,000+ products in Singapore.

How to use?

• Step 1: Scan a barcode on the product you want to buy.
• Step 2: You will receive a list of all the shops in Singapore that sell that product and the prices.
• Step 3: You can help us by either contributing a price or verifying that the price is correct.

It uses your Facebook credentials for login and the UI is pretty good.

I tried the barcode scanning on 2 items (Panadol ActiFast & Nescafe Blend 37), it works perfect and even give you a picture of the product after you scanned the barcode.

I am able to get the price for the Nescafe Blend 37 but no price is available for the Panadol ActiFast. If there are no prices available, you can tap on the “Got lobang?” button and it will bring you to a screen for you to add the price, location of the item and even indicate a sale period.

I wish they have a karma or reputation points system, to entice users to submit prices and the community can mark them accurate by a “like” or something.

Profile Screen (Left), History (Right)

Scanning Screen (Left), After Scan Screen (Right)

Add Lobang Screen

App Store: Lobangclub – Singapore price comparison barcode scanner

I am travelling to the US this December for the first time and I was looking for the US version of HungryGoWhere, many people recommended Yelp, but unfortunately it is not available in Singapore App Store.

I tweeted about it and mentioned @yelp. They replied me 2 days later via Twitter asking me which country I am in, I told them Singapore and in a few hours time, they opened it for Singapore App Store! Kudos to the Yelp Mobile Team!

I am sure this will benefit users who do have a Singapore iTunes Account but not a US one.

You do not need to register a Yelp account to view Yelp, but if you are going to register an account, you need to register an account through a US Proxy as it does location/IP check or you can always wait till you get to the US and register an account.

App Store Link: Yelp (Universal)

DBS Bank has just launched the first regional Facebook Places and Check-in Deals campaign in Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Jakarta, Taipei).

• The campaign is open to anyone who owns a supported mobile device (Facebook App On iPhone/Android/Blackberry or Facebook Mobile through your mobile phone browsers).
• Users just have to visit the DBS Facebook Fan Page to get started.
• Users checking in to “DBS Places” Facebook App will be able to earn points and redeem merchant deals throughout the campaign.
• At the end of the campaign (5th September 2011), the highest point earner of each country will earn a 3 days 2 nights vacation of their destination (Singapore, Hong Kong, China, India, Indonesia or Taiwan) of choice.

It may sounds complicated at first (which is how I felt when I first read it) and hence I have put up a tutorial on how to participate in this campaign using Facebook App on iPhone.

Registration Stage

• Step 1: Go to DBS Facebook Fan Page and “Like” the page.
• Step 2: Go to “DBS Places” Facebook App and allow the app to access your Facebook details like all other Facebook Apps.
• Step 3: Register your details like last 4 digits of your NRIC number and mobile numbers with DBS.

Check-in Stage

• Step 1: Launch Facebook App on iPhone
• Step 2: Tap On “Places”
• Step 3: Tap On “Check In”

• Step 4: Search For “DBS Places”
• Step 5: Select The “DBS Place” you want to check-in
• Step 6: Tap “Check In”

To see how much points you have accumulated and how many check-ins you made, you can go to https://apps.facebook.com/dbsplaces/ using your desktop’s browser. The statistics should be updated in real time.

Every check-in to a DBS Place may allow you to redeem some rewards, like for example, checking-in to “DBS Places – Spinelli Coffee” will allow you to purchase a fresh brew of coffee at SGD$1.50. Of course terms and conditions applies!

Terms: Valid until 4 Sept 2011, from Mon to Fri 3pm – 5pm only. Check-in to “DBS Places – Spinelli” to redeem deal. Valid at Orchard Central, Heeren, Forum, Suntec City, Great World City & Velocity @ Novena Square. Not valid with other promotions, vouchers & Friend’s Card. Payment with cash only

At the end of the campaign on 5th September 2011, the highest point earner of each country will win! As mentioned earlier, the winner will win a 3 days 2 nights vacation of their destination (Singapore, Hong Kong, China, India, Indonesia or Taiwan) of choice.

Below is the breakdown on the points system.

• Check-In Points – Earn 5 points when you check-in to a new DBS Places location in Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Singapore or Taiwan.
• Refer A Friend Points – Recommend DBS Places to your friends on Facebook and earn 3 points for every successful referral.
• Network Points – For every Facebook friend in your network participating in DBS Places, you get 1 extra point just for being so connected!

Facebook Page: DBS Places
Facebook App: DBS Places

Thanks to DBS, I will be giving away SGD$10 Spinelli Vouchers to 10 lucky readers/twitterers.

All you have to do is retweet this post using the Twitter button located under the “Social” box below this post!

Fine Print

• This Giveaway is open to all readers of lesterchan.net who are based in Singapore.
• I will search Twitter.com for tweets and retweets to tabulate the data and randomly pick the winners using MySQL RAND() function.
• Winners will be contacted via Twitter’s Direct Message (DM). Make sure you are following @gamerz on Twitter.
• Winners will receive the Spinelli vouchers via snail mail.
• Details of winners such as name and blog URL may be posted on lesterchan.net.
• My decision on all matters related to this giveaway is final and no correspondence will be entertained.
• I reserves the right to amend these terms and conditions at anytime without prior notice.
• This giveaway ends on 11:59pm (23:59), Wednesday, 31st August 2011 (GMT+8 Singapore Time).