Singapore has confirmed its first case of Influenza A (H1N1). The patient is currently being treated at the Communicable Disease Centre at Tan Tock Seng Hospital and is in stable condition. The patient is a 22-year-old Singaporean woman who was in New York from May 14-24. She arrived back in Singapore from New York on SQ25 on 26 May at 6.30am. She began to develop a cough while onboard. She passed the thermal scanner uneventfully as she did not have fever then. Later in the morning, she consulted a GP who decided to send her to TTSH via a 993 ambulance, given her travel history. She was immediately admitted for testing. Laboratory confirmation of her infection was made by midnight of 26 May. The patient has been vigilant in monitoring her own condition and had sought immediate medical attention once she realized that she was unwell. Her attending GP, through his quick response in activating the 993 ambulance for the patient, had also helped to minimize the spread of infection from this case. The Health Ministry says it has initiated contact tracing of her close contacts. They will be quarantined and provided with antiviral prophylaxis.

Passengers who had travelled in the same flight and were seated in rows 52 to 58 are urged to call the hotline at 1800-333 9999 to enable the MOH to check on their health condition. The MOH adds that all medical practitioners and healthcare institutions should continue to be vigilant to suspect cases. Singapore will continue with temperature screening for passengers entering Singapore at all checkpoints (land, sea and air).

All passengers passing through or entering Singapore are given Health Alert Notices on board their flights, advising them to monitor their own health if they have been to affected areas and to seek medical attention immediately if they are not well.

Source: Channel News Asia

Singapore Food Expo 2009 will be held at Singapore Expo Hall 5 on the 29th May 2009 to 2nd June 2009 from 11am to 10pm daily. My mom has been taking part in the Singapore Food Expo since 2003. This year my mom will have 3 booths there, SA07 selling miscellaneous food products, SA15 selling Glico products and SB15 selling mushroom products. I will be there at booth SA15 aka Glico booth to help out after work.

Glico will be launching new products at the Singapore Food Expo 2009 this year and hence we will be giving away free Pocky Choco Banana or Pretz Ham & Cheese for the first 100 customers daily. All you have to do is print out the promotion flyer and fill in your particulars and present to the staff at our Glico booth, SA15.

View: Glico Promotion Flyer

As with all promotions, there are terms and conditions and here they are:

• Products given out will be at our discretion. We will alternate the 2 flavors given out on different days
• Available to the first 100 customers per day
• Limited to 1 redemption per customer

Went for the Nokia N97 Blogger Preview at Nokia Singapore office located at Alexandra Technopark. The Nokia N97 will be the next Nokia flagship device. It felt solid when I got my hands on it. There will be 2 colors for it. The black as well as the pearl white. There are a lot of interesting applications/widgets that you can place on the home screen such as Facebook, Stocks, Weather, etc. Gone are those days of those boring Active Standby screen which exists all the way till the N96. You can have up to 5 widgets on the home screen which you can arrange in any order you like. A neat feature which not many people may know is there if you swipe to the left or right of the home screen, all your widgets will be hidden to protect your privacy. Swipe again to get them back.

The sensitivity of the screen is just average due to the technology used. If I am not wrong, the N97 is using a resistive screen to cater for a wider audience with many different methods of input instead of a capacitive screen and hence scrolling or “flickering” is not as smooth as iPhone. That is the only complain I have. In terms of responsiveness, I felt that it is more responsive than the iPhone. Typing on the mini QWERTY keyboard is quite smooth for me as the keys are not clustered together.

Of course the iPhone has a much thinner body but the length of both phones is above the same. The width of the N97 is much smaller than the iPhone.

There will be a few applications that is catered specially for the Singapore Market and it will be included in the default package at launch time. Applications include Straits Time, Golden Village (GV), SG Buses and a taxi application.

The N97 will be launching in June, should be before the mid of June 2009. The retail price is not yet know, but I estimate it to be about SGD$1200 or less without subsidy. In the mean time you can check out http://www.nokia.com.sg/n97, this will be the official Nokia N97 website in Singapore.

Gallery

Video
I kinda suck when it comes to video recording, sorry about that, there are 3 videos that I took on the Nokia N97.

Started my internship with Sedgwick Richardson (Singapore) which deals with branding and design on Tuesday, 12th May 2009. My job is pretty straightforward but not an easy task. I covert AI/PSD files to HTML and followed by converting them into WordPress templates and of course the website will be powered by WordPress. Time seems to pass very fast there, perhaps I am busy for the whole day as there are many projects to rush. I love the flexibly here in terms of dress code as well as working hours. All they ask for, is for you to get the deliverable required by the project manager before the deadline.

Working life seems to be the total exact opposite of studying life, it seems that studying is so much more carefree than exams. Exams only happen once every 3 months and project deadline is probably twice every 3 months but when working there are like a few deadlines within the same week!

Sometimes (or rather that is the case), what you study is not really applicable to the working world. To me, it seems that working world requires you to have the skills needed to complete the job given to you and at most you have less than 1 week to pick up that skill.

Also, having facing the computer for more than 12 hours during work, the moment you step home, you will be totally shag and do not feel like switching on the computer and you would rather switch on the TV and let it entertain you instead.

Sleeping before 1am and waking up at 8am becomes the norm, which is good as it is a healthy lifestyle!

Even though working life is tough, but of course you will get paid and with money comes spending power.

Introduction
The new Acer Aspire Timeline series mark the beginning of a new era in mobile computing, where users stay connected and enjoy entertainment with their notebooks for a longer time. With the new Aspire Timeline series, Acer reached a delicate equilibrium between computer lightness and battery life, creating a series of featherweight notebooks that give you an entire day of computing on a single charge.
Long lasting battery life for all day computing Acer based the new Aspire Timeline notebooks on a simple yet revolutionary idea: a series of ultra thin and light notebooks which are more efficient, reducing energy consumption to the minimum for maximum usage time. The result is a notebook as light as 1.6kg, and with more than eight hours battery life, so that important tasks will not be interrupted by a loss of
power.

In addition, with the Acer Smart Power key, battery life can be further extended through advanced settings. Press the Smart Power key to boost power saving capabilities and extend battery life, thus expanding the time of computing freedom to more than 8 hours.

Front View

Side View

Features

• Acer Comfy Touch Technology – An innovation with Intel Laminar Wall Jet Technology
  Besides enhancing battery life, Acer is dedicated to improve user experience with the Acer Aspire Timeline by developing a cooling technology in collaboration with Intel – Laminar Wall Jet Technology. It exploits the technology that has been used successfully for cooling turbine blades. Through the addition of louvers to the inlet vents, the cooling airflow is redirected along the bottom side of the notebook chassis, putting fresh air precisely where it’s needed to better cool the skin. The result of Acer Comfy Touch technology – thermal comfort of close to 6 degrees lower than the user’s skin temperature.
• Ultra Thin and Lightweight
  Through designing the Aspire Timeline, Acer broke another barrier by creating the finest and lightest notebooks to provide all-day computing. The Aspire timeline is 24mm (less than one inch) at its thinnest point. All thanks to the aluminum cover, it remains featherweight, ranging from 1.6 kg for the 13.3″ model up to just 1.9 kg for the 14″, making it both lighter and easier to carry around than anything else.
• Go Eco-friendly with energy efficient components
  The Aspire Timeline Series complies with the strictest Energy Star 5.0 prerequisites, with the notebook being efficient even when using the power adapter. Acer Power Smart adapter does even more, as it consumes 66% less than required by Energy StarPlus, the Power Smart adapter enters adaptive charging mode automatically when the battery is fully charged this stops consuming energy and reduces the tear and wear on the battery.
• High Definition Enjoyment
  Available in two form factors, 13.3″ and 14″, presenting bright, lifelike images through Acer CineCrystal LED backlit display with true 16:9 aspect ratio, 1366X768 HD resolution for exceptional media playback. To let users enjoy a fully immersive entertainment, the Aspire Timeline series is equipped with Dolby Sound Room that offers a spectacular surround sound from any pair of speakers or headphones.
• Data freedom
  Harnessing the latest Intel Core 2 Duo Processor Ultra Low Voltage solutions, the Aspire ,Timeline series comes with integrated Intel Graphics and is equipped with DDR3 system memory to breeze through multitasking requirements. Ample storage is provided by an HDD with up to 500 GB of capacity. Born to offer ultra-mobility and total freedom, the Aspire Timeline Series comes with the most up to date communication options: built-in Wi-Fi functionalities, supporting Acer SignalUp, allowing full connectivity for unprecedented mobility. The Acer Crystal Eye webcam with enhanced Acer PrimaLite technology delivers superior video performance on the Aspire one for video conferencing. higher-quality images, smoother video streaming performance are delivered with better frames-per-second (FPS)
  rate.
• Effortless Backup
  For a total ease of mind, Acer Backup Solution, combining Acer Backup Manager and Easy Launch Back up key, places back up at your fingertips. Acer Backup Manger offers flexible management, allowing efficient and hassle free data back up. Data backup can be scheduled at specific intervals with compression of files across different media types such as external hard disk drives, USB medias or optical discs. The data backup solution also boasts more security enhancement: a password can be added to protect user. With the Acer Timeline notebooks the limits of space and time become blurred taking you in a dimension where you are the master of your time.

Prices
It will be available at all Acer Authorised Resellers from 15th May 2009 onwards and prices range between SGD$1,598 and SGD$1,998.

Specifications
The official Acer Timeline Specifications is in a terrible mess, I can’t understand a thing from it. I have taken the liberty to scan the brochure that were given to us. You can view it here (532.3KB).

Personal Comment
I do not have a good impression of Acer laptop because of its poor battery life because Li Xiang is using a laptop and just after a year, the battery can go flat within 30 minutes. I do not believed that the wear and tear effect is so fast, my 3 years old Fujitsu can last me for almost 3 hours and on top of that I always plugged in to charge and use at the same time even though my battery is full.

But this time round, I believe Acer is going to rebrand itself and target towards longer battery life. When the Press Release states 8 hours, the value is derived by setting the brightness to the lowest and offing WiFi and the laptop will play a movie continuously till the battery is totally drained.

I like the fact that the laptop is very thin and light! It weights just about 400 grams more than the average netbook but come equipped with a Intel Core 2 Solo or a Duo processor.

The Intel Laminar Wall Jet Technology is amazing! The laptop that were showcased to us were not plugged in to any power outlet and has been switched on for more than 2 hours and the laptop is still cool! It is definitely cooler than my Fujitsu laptop and even more so when compared to my MacBook Pro.

The finishing is done in brushed aluminum for its rigidity because it is thin and hence plastic is not a suitable material.

The Acer power management software will automatically shutdown devices and that has been idle to conserve power. For example if you DVD-Rom has been idling for let say 15 minutes, it will automatically cut the power to the DVD-Rom and hence conserving power. Likewise for USB flash drives.

So interesting things, the DVD-Rom eject button is not on the DVD tray but located just about the keyboard.

Links

• Acer Website
• Acer Timeline Website

My cousin and auntie just came back from Japan and brought back lots of Head Porter stuff that my brother requested them to buy. Got myself a Black Beauty Monogram Pouch.

Black Beauty Monogram Pouch

My brother has set up headporter.sg which he will use it to sell Head Porter stuff online. All the items sold there are guaranteed to be authentic and brand new. All the items will come with a Head Porter paper bag or Head Porter envelope depending on the size of the item that you buy.

The Fail Whale is designed by Lu Yiying and made popular by Twitter. As you all may know Twitter website will show the Fail Whale picture when the server is overloaded or failed.

Zazzle and Spread Shirt are the two official websites where you can get the official Fail Whale T-Shirt. I ordered mine from Zazzle.

I have a very bad experience buying from Zazzle. The first time I ordered was on the 10th April 2009, my order failed because I fail to verify my credit card number. That email asking me to verify my credit card number was in my Gmail spam and hence if I fail to reply within 1 week, my order will be cancel automatically. I was quite pissed off about it and wrote them an email. I am paying USING PayPal and there is no need to involve my credit card number at all as I have ENOUGH funds in my account. Up till today, they are still unable to explain to me why do they need my credit card number. I did not enter my credit card number when paying over at Zazzle and hence I have no idea how are they going to verify it.

I place the 2nd order on the 19th April 2009 and wrote them an email to “confirm” that I am a human placing the order and not some scam and this time, within 2 days on the 21st April 2009, my order got shipped and arrive on the 8th May 2009. Took about 17 days for me to get my items after it is being shipped.

I am very disappointed with the t-shirt quality by Zazzle. The quality of the t-shirt is bad and the quality of the ladies t-shirt print is bad as well. The WordPress t-shirt that I bought 2 months ago was way better in every aspect and it is even cheaper.

So summary, think twice before getting any t-shirts from Zazzle.

Price Breakdown

• Ladies T-Shirt: USD$$21.55
• Men T-Shirt: USD$20.50
• Shipping: USD$11.97
• Discount of USD$5
• Total: USD$49.02

2 T-Shirts Inside This Package

Ladies T-Shirt (USD$21.55)

Men T-Shirt (USD$20.50)

Closeup Of The Fail Whale

Links

• Lu Yiying
• Lu Yiying Illustration Portfolio
• Fail Whale Fan Club
• Twitter
• Fail Whale T-Shirt @ Zazzle
• Fail Whale T-Shirt @ Spread Shirt

My exams ended on the 6th May 2009 and immediately after that, went for some retail therapy and bought a Nintendo Wii from Qisahn.com located at 545 Orchard Road #05-07, Far East Shopping Centre. It was kinda of a last minute decision to buy Wii which happens on the day before while studying for my Statistics & Probability (ST2334) paper.

The 3 of us, myself, Suqin and Kelvin (for his girlfriend’s birthday) bought the Wii together. We thought that buying 3 Wii together there would be discount, but unfortunately that is not the case. I spent a total of SGD$390 on this while Suqin and Kelvin each spend SGD$378 because they did not get the 3rd party component cable. Hong Jun also helped to inject some money into the economy by buying Wii Fit (that will be my next buy) and Weiquan bought some board games.

Price Breakdown

• Wii Korean Set (English): SGD$309
• Wii Nunchuck: SGD$26
• Wii Wiimote: SGD$48
• 3rd Party Wii Component Cable: SGD$12
• Discount of SGD$5
• Total: SGD$390

Box

Extra Wiimote/Nunchuck

3rd Party Wii Component Cable

Love The “Layers” Numbering

Layer 1

Layer 2

Nintendo Wii Contents

April 2009 Total Traffic

• Total Hits: 10,377,687
• Total Files: 9,487,998
• Total Pages: 708,306
• Total Visits: 187,375
• Total KBytes: 39,167,115
• Total Unique Sites: 154,940
• Total Unique URLs: 17,576
• Total Unique Referrers: 29,626
• Total Unique User Agents: 6,345

April 2009 Daily Traffic

• Hits per Day: Average: 345,922 – Max: 471,712
• Files per Day: Average: 316,266 – Max: 357,843
• Pages per Day: Average: 23,610 – Max: 29,840
• Visits per Day: Average: 6,245 – Max: 6,798
• KBytes per Day: Average: 1,305,570 – Max: 1,558,673

Note: Green denotes increase, Blue denotes no change and Red denotes decrease when compared with March 2009.

Previous month site traffic: March 2009

I was invited to a Intel/Dell Swarm event yesterday at Geek Terminal. Dell Swarm is a very nice idea and the idea was came out by Dell Singapore and hence Singapore is the first country to be launching it on 5th May 2009 (tentatively). Dell business model has always been unique and most polytechnics and universities around the world always use Dell business model and supply chain as case study for the students. Dell Swarm brought a whole new meaning in buying things online.

When we all want to buy Dell products, the first thing that comes to our mind will be, Dell Singapore Website. You can also email or call to make your Dell purchases. This is a 1 to 1 buying directly from Dell. What if you want to gather more of your friends to buy together in bulk to enjoy greater discounts? That is Dell Swarm for you. Dell Swam allows you and your friends (up to 15 people) to buy Dell products in a Swarm together and enjoy the bulk discount. Each person is allowed to buy up to 3 units of any Dell products. You can share the Swarm via social networking sites like Facebook and ask you friends to join the buying spree. Each swarm will last for 72 hours or when the people in the swarm reaches 15.

Just an example, if the Dell Inspiron Mini 12 is priced at $899, the first person who join the Swarm will be paying about $859 for it, but if that person managed to get another 14 people to buy it, each of them will just pay $809, that is like $90 off the retail price directly.

Dell Swarm is targeted to go live on 5th May 2009, the URL will be http://dellswarm.com/sg. At the moment it is still undergo testing and everything on the website are just for illustration purposes and the prices there are only a placeholder. You may need a username and password to view the site. The username is “dellswarm” and password is “buysharesave” (without the quotes).

You can follow Dell Swarm on Twitter @dellswarmsg and by using hashtag #dellswarm.

At the moment, only Dell laptops and netbooks will be in the Swarm. I have suggested to them to include monitors as well. Do note that unlike the Dell Singapore Website which allows you to customize your laptops and netbooks, the laptops and netbooks configurations in Dell Swarm are fixed and hence not customizable.

Dell Swarm Home Page

When You Choose A Swarm

Swarm Details

Click on the Read More link for frequently asked questions or click here for the Dell Swarm gallery that I uploaded to Facebook.

Read More (1,282 More Words)