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

PHP 4.4.9 had been released and that is the last PHP4 update we will ever see as PHP4 has reached the End-of-life (EOL) as on 8th August 2008.

PHP 5.3 will be due somewhere between mid September and mid October of 2008.

So for goodness sake, bug your lazy server administrator to upgrade to PHP5!

If your host refuses to upgrade to PHP4, ditch them and come over to FRRO. Here at FRRO, we always try our very best to keep our software as up to date as possible.

Intel has announced the successor to Intel Core 2 Quad (codename Yorkfield) to be Intel Core i7 (codename Nehalem). I suddenly feel that my Q9450 feels old.

          
Intel Core i7 Processor (Left) and Intel Core i7 Processor Extreme Edition (Right)

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 11, 2008 – Intel Corporation announced today that desktop processors based on the company’s upcoming new microarchitecture (codenamed “Nehalem”) will be formally branded “Intel Core processor.” The first products in this new family of processors, including an “Extreme Edition” version, will carry an “i7″ identifier and will be formally branded as “Intel Core i7 processor.” This is the first of several new identifiers to come as different products launch over the next year.

Products based on the new microarchitecture will deliver high performance and energy efficiency. This “best of both worlds” approach is expected to extend Intel’s processor leadership in future mobile, desktop and server market segments.

Source: Press Release: Next-Generation Intel PC Chips to Carry Intel Core Name

Read: Wikipedia: Intel Core i7

Spend more than 10 hours to modify lesterchan.net layout to make it iPhone/iPod Touch viewable. At the moment, you can only view blog post and not pages. I have no plans to make the pages iPhone/iPod Touch viewable yet as it is a lot of work and I don’t find it necessary.

Just point your iPhone or iPod Touch to lesterchan.net and it will detect your user agent and serve you the iPhone/iPod Touch layout if you are using either of the devices.

Here are 2 essential resources to get you stared, Apple: Safari Web Content Guide for iPhone and Ajaxian: iPhone Web Development Tips and Official Documentation Released.

lesterchan.net on iPhone (Portrait – Width: 320px)

lesterchan.net on iPhone (Landscape – Width: 480px)

While on the topic of site updates, here is the changelog since 4th July 2008:

• NEW: Close comments after 30 days instead of 14 days
• NEW: Highlight search words when viewing post
• NEW: Add hosted by Frro
• NEW: Add scroll bar To Recent Comments in Welcome Box if content too long
• NEW: Upgraded To WordPress 2.6
• NEW: Upgraded My Plugins
• FIXED: Removed all broken links using Broken Link Checker WordPress plugin
• FIXED: “No Comments” text not displayed if there is at least 1 trackback/pingback with no comments posted
• FIXED: Comment numbering is wrong after doing AJAX comment posting if there is at least 1 trackback/pingback
• FIXED: Search two or more words
• FIXED: Gallery hits increased by 1 on every photo viewed
• FIXED: Added urldecode() for $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] and $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] in 404 page
• FIXED: 10 Latest Comments in Welcome Box showing Pingback/Trackback