Bought the Magic Trackpad at iStudio located at Changi Airport Terminal 3 on Friday before I left for Jakarta, Indonesia. On the same day, Apple Singapore is having a Chinese New Year Sale. As there are no 7% tax at the airport, it amounts to about the same price as the CNY sale. Got it for SGD$91.59. In fact, if you are getting more expensive items like MacBook Pro or Air, it is even cheaper at the airport than during the CNY sale.

Box Front

Magic Trackpad

Apple Wireless Keyboard + Magic Trackpad + Magic Mouse

Interesting blog post by yeeguy entitled How Facebook Ships Code. mig33 do share some common things with Facebook =)

Here are 8 interesting snippets:

1. All engineers go through 4 to 6 week “Boot Camp” training where they learn the Facebook system by fixing bugs and listening to lectures given by more senior/tenured engineers. estimate 10% of each boot camp’s trainee class don’t make it and are counseled out of the organization.
2. Very engineering driven culture. “product managers are essentially useless here.” is a quote from an engineer. engineers can modify specs mid-process, re-order work projects, and inject new feature ideas anytime.
3. By default all code commits get packaged into weekly releases (tuesdays)
4. Resourcing for projects is purely voluntary.
5. Engineers responsible for testing, bug fixes, and post-launch maintenance of their own work. There are some unit-testing and integration-testing frameworks available, but only sporadically used.
6. Ops team is really well-trained, well-respected, and very business-aware. their server metrics go beyond the usual error logs, load & memory utilization stats – also include user behavior. E.g., if a new release changes the percentage of users who engage with Facebook features, the ops team will see that in their metrics and may stop a release for that reason so they can investigate.
7. If a feature doesn’t get coded in time for a particular weekly push, it’s not that big a deal (unless there are hard external dependencies) – features will just generally get shipped whenever they’re completed.
8. Getting blamed will NOT get you fired. We are extremely forgiving in this respect, and most of the senior engineers have pushed at least one horrible thing, myself included. As far as I know, no one has ever been fired for making mistakes of this nature.

Read: How Facebook Ships Code

Li Xiang and I will be going to Jakarta, Indonesia tomorrow for the weekend to visit my secondary school friend Sugih and to meet Pei Jun there.

My iPhone 4 is as good as a paper weight when I go overseas because I can’t use data on it due to expensive data roaming. I always wanted to try SingTel’s Bridge DataRoam Unlimited but didn’t have chance to read up more about it. So for tomorrow’s trip, I decided to research a little.

SingTel Bridge Data Roaming Price Plans

SingTel’s is offering 2 plans for its Bridge DataRoam Unlimited. I am only interested in that because no monthly fees is needed and you only need to activate it when you need it. It is valid for a full day (24 hours) from 0000 to 2359 regardless of what time you activate. So it doesn’t make much sense to activate it if you reach the country at night.

Bridge DataRoam Unlimited Plus

• Price: SGD$20/day
• Data Bundle: Unlimited
• Service Coverage
  1. Australia – Optus
  2. Hong Kong – CSL
  3. Indonesia – Telkomsel
  4. Macau – CTM
  5. Malaysia – Maxis
  6. Philippines – Globe Telecom
  7. Taiwan – Taiwan Mobile
  8. Thailand – AIS
• Enjoy FREE extended coverage
  1. France – Orange
  2. USA – AT&T
  3. Switzerland – Swisscom
  4. Japan – Softbank

Bridge DataRoam Unlimited

• Price
  • 1 day – SGD$14
  • 3 days – SGD$38
  • 5 days – SGD$56
• Data Bundle: Unlimited
• Service Coverage
  1. Australia – Optus
  2. Hong Kong – CSL
  3. India – Bharti Airtel
  4. Indonesia – Telkomsel
  5. Korea – SK Telecom
  6. Macau – CTM
  7. Malaysia – Maxis
  8. Philippines – Globe Telecom
  9. Taiwan – Taiwan Mobile
  10. Thailand – AIS

I can’t really figure out what is the difference between the two plans if you go to countries like Hong Kong, Indonesia or Taiwan as an example.

Obviously I want to choose the Bridge DataRoam Unlimited plan as it is SGD$14 vs SGD$20 of the Bridge DataRoam Unlimited Plus plan and most likely I will take the 3 days plan for SGD$38.

Do note that you need to stay connected to the specific network of the country. So make sure you choose the network manually rather than let it auto connect to any network (which is most likely the default setting).

Activation

• Dial *7626 (*ROAM) from Singapore
• Type *7626 via sms and send to 3333 from overseas

Screenshots

SingTel Travelling Overseas: Roaming
Official Site: Bridge Alliance

See also: SingTel Bridge Data Roaming – Part 2

A.C. Ryan has announced new Playon!HD2 and Playon!HD Mini2 shortly after I got my Playon! HD back in November 2010! Damn!

I love the new features of the Playon!HD2 especially the upgraded wired networking to 10/100/1000Mbps because on Playon! HD, it is only 10/100Mbps and transfering files to it over LAN is taking forever! My home network is already on 10/100/1000Mbps wired with Cat6 RJ45 cables.

• More format support: Supports BD-ISO and DVD IFO/ISO
• Engage Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Msn, Skype
• Gigabit Wired Networking
• Unique User Interface: Playon! GUI2.0
• Smart Content Management: Autofile Indexing
• USB 3.0 Connection
• Ez Drive Slot: Easy Hard Drive Insertion

Press Release

AC Ryan Unveils Playon!HD2 and Playon!HD Mini2 at CES Las Vegas

Las Vegas, USA – January 2011. AC Ryan continues to revolutionise the media player world with its market leading, multi award winning Playon! series of Full HD Media Players and Recorders. The Playon!HD2 and Playon!HD Mini2, the first to feature the latest 1185 media player processor from Realtek, takes the original series a class forward.

The Playon!HD2 is the next generation of network media player, taking your digital entertainment to the next level. Store all your media files centrally and securely in the built-in eco friendly, low noise, low power consumption HDD up to 2TB. The Playon!HD Mini2 is the next generation of network media streamer. Stream all your media files from your attached storage or over your network. The Playon!HD2 and Playon!HD Mini2 allow you to enjoy your media files directly in the comfort of your living room.

The Playon!HD2 and Playon!HD Mini2 make digital entertainment at home easy. Enjoy more interaction with friends through Facebook, Twitter, MSN and Skype. Play or Stream the world into your living room with the WePlayon! portal (coming soon) for the best online content. The unique and intuitive Playon! GUI2.0 allows users to navigate through all the exceptional features with ease.

Building on the success of the original world’s first, Playon!HD and Playon!HD Mini, the Playon!HD2 and Playon!HD Mini2 are the first Full HD Network Media Player and Streamer to feature Realtek’s latest 1185 processor. Enjoy the pure performance of Gigabit Wired Networking for the very best in media streaming. Wireless networking is also supported with optional Wireless-N via an external adapter. The Playon!HD2 also includes a USB 3.0 port, supporting the fastest transfer speeds available on USB for your external storage, and an EZ Drive HDD slot, to make the installation of your 3.5″ HDD even easier.

The Playon!HD2 and Playon!HD Mini2 will be available at all leading retailers in early February.

Suggested Retail Prices:

• Playon!HD Mini2 – ACR-PV73800 – $/€ 109
• Playon!HD2 – ACR-PV73700 – $/€ 169
• Playon!HD2 500GB – ACR-PV73700-500GB – $/€ 205
• Playon!HD2 1TB – ACR-PV73700-1TB – $/€ 229
• Playon!HD2 1.5TB – ACR-PV73700-1.5TB – $/€ 259
• Playon!HD2 2TB – ACR-PV73700-2TB – $/€ 289

Official Site: A.C. Ryan Playon! HD 2
Official Site: A.C. Ryan Playon! HD Mini 2

Source: AC Ryan Intros Playon! HD2 And Mini2 Full HD Media Streamers

Verizon Wireless announced last night (12am SGT) that they will be selling the iPhone 4 as well in the US. The difference from AT&T and perhaps the rest of the world iPhone 4 is that it will be a CDMA version as opposed to a GSM version.

In terms of physical design, it is more or less the same with only three slight differences with the metal band surrounding the iPhone 4. See top, left and right view comparison.

Because of the extra gap on the left side and the removal of the gap on the top side as compared to the GSM’s iPhone 4, the buttons alignment is off by a few millimeters. I wonder how well will it fit into tight fitting iPhone 4 cases. BTW, Apple will be updating it’s own bumper to fit Verizon’s iPhone 4.

In terms of software, Verizon’s iPhone 4 is running 4.2.5 and currently the GSM’s version is on 4.2.1. I am guessing all iPhone 4 owners will get an update to 4.2.5 on 10th February 2010 as that is the date Verizon’s iPhone 4 will be launching.

Verizon’s iPhone 4 has an interesting Hotspot feature under the Settings that allows up to 5 Wi-Fi devices to use the iPhone 4 as a hotspot making it a mobile 3G modem, which is exactly the same as what my Huawei MiFi E585 does.

There is a rumour stating that the hotspot feature will come to iOS 4.3 for GSM’s iPhones but it is still dependent on whether the carrier supports it. Come on SingTel!

I hope that feature will be available for all iPhone 3GS/4 users, since it doesn’t make much sense to give it to Verizon iPhone 4 owners only. But then again, sometimes when Apple does things, it totally makes no sense.

One thing that we GSM users take for granted is simultaneous Call and Data usage, but unfortunately you can’t do that for the CDMA version of iPhone 4. It is either Call or Data and not both at the same time.

Also there will be a CDMA’s version of iPad coming to Verizon as well.

Official: Verizon’s iPhone 4

Engadget: Verizon iPhone first hands-on!

PS: Links showing the comparison and hotspot features are from Engadget.