Dee Kay Dot As Gee

I’ve been hosting my blog on Host Gator for more than a year already. And so far, I’m loving it.

Host Gator isn’t my first webhost. I started on Dreamhost in the beginning. But it was more of a nightmare than a dream. I lost count of the number of downtimes. I still remember there was once when Dreamhost was down for 2 days. That was unacceptable. The downtime was so bad that I have their server status webpage on my bookmark.

So I switched over to Host Gator more than a year ago and end my nightmare. Host Gator is pretty reliable. I only remember a couple of minor downtime which lasted a few hours. Other than that, everything is very reliable. I know that Host Gator has a website to check the status of the server, but I don’t remember the URL because I hardly need to check.

And apart from their reliable uptime, their tech support is pretty good too. I remember sending them questions on how to do some setting. Instead of replying the instructions, they did the setting for me. 2 thumbs up.

I don’t have much experience with web hosting. But if someone ask me to recommend a webhost, I will definitely say Host Gator. And I’m sure many other Host Gator customers will agree with me too. I’m very happy with Host Gator and I don’t foresee myself changing web host anytime soon.

Remember X-Mini 2 Capsule Speaker? It’s the winner for my 2009 Best Local Gadget. And you can imagine how excited I was when I went to their office to collect a review unit their latest creation, the X-Mini Happy.

The X-Mini Happy, in short, is a X-Mini 2 Capsule Speaker with a SD card slot that converts it into a MP3 player. Or rather, the world’s smallest Boombox. The sound quality, to the non-audiophile me, is the same as the X-Mini 2 Capsule Speaker. The controls are fairly easy and straight forward. The jog dial basically does all the controlling. Press and hold the jog dial for On/Off. Press the jog dial for Play/Pause. Scroll the jog dial left/right for previous/next track. Scroll and hold the jog dial left/right to decrease/increase the volume. It’s a pity that the X-Mini doesn’t comes with a shuffle mode.

Since there is only 1 speaker, music coming out from the X-Mini Happy speaker is in mono. Like the X-Mini 2, the X-Mini Happy also comes with a Buddy Jack for you to add more speakers. Or if you want to enjoy the music alone, you can plug in a headphone and press the mute button. This sorts of convert your boombox into a personal stereo MP3 player. Earphones are provided in the retail package. What is lacking from the retail package is a lanyard for you to hang the X-Mini Happy on your neck and use it as a MP3 player. But no worries, there is a hole for you to hook your own lanyard.

The X-Mini Happy can also function as a normal Capsule Speaker when you remove the SD Card. Like the X-Mini 2, I like the way the cables coils around the speakers nicely. The X-Mini Happy has a non-removable build in battery that can be charged using the MiniUSB port. Battery life is pretty decent with 5 to 6 hours of MP3 playback or 11 hours of speaker usage.

As a whole, I love the X-Mini Happy. My only complaint is that it always revert to the default volume after you turn off the power. This can be quite a problem because the default volume is pretty high. I find myself having to quickly reduce the volume whenever I turn on the power. The X-Mini Happy also doesn’t remember the exact spot where you stop your MP3. Instead, it always start from the beginning of the song that you stopped previously.

The X-Mini Happy will make it’s debut at the coming IT Show (11 – 14 March 2010). Original retail price is S$119. First 100 units at the IT Show will be sold at a special price of S$99.

In short:
Same good X-mini 2 Capsule Speaker, now with built-in MP3 player

Likes:
Amazing sound quality
Easy to use
Portable

Dislikes:
Doesn’t remember previous volume setting
No Shuffle mode

I read with great disbelief that Mr Ong Ah Heng, a Singapore Member of Parliament, actually said this in Parliament during the budget debate.

“I know of one family who complain the cleaners in their precinct are lazy and too old. They don’t want local workers who are old, they want young foreign workers. To satisfy the demand, I changed the local workers to foreign workers. Foreign workers are not a burden to us. Their presence here is not negative. Without foreign workers, things will be worse,”

Mr Ong Ah Heng should be ashamed of himself for making such statement in Parliament. Has he ever questioned why the senior citizen have to work as cleaners instead of enjoying their retirement? Does he know that these senior citizen have contributed to the development of Singapore when they were younger? Why isn’t the country taking care of them when they are old? Is this how the Government treat it’s citizens who had contributed to the country? Replace them with foreign workers when they grow old.

And he is doing this because of ONE complaint? So what if one day someone from his constituency complaint that the MP is too old and want a young foreign one? Is he going to sack himself and hire a foreigner to take over his job?

I think Singapore is really a very unique country. Our Member of Parliament are actually taking care of the foreigners more than its own citizen. What kind of rubbish is this? Fire the older locals and hire younger foreigners? Did he check what went wrong before replacing them with foreign workers? Could he had improve the working environment so that the senior citizen could do their work better? If the senior citizen is really not performing in his/her job, could he replaced him/her with another local instead of a foreigner? Why is there a need to change all to foreign workers? Why label all senior citizen as burden just because of 1 complaint? Are older local worker really a burden to us? And most importantly, can we afford to carry this burden? Remember: We used to be THEIR burden when they were younger.

Utterly disgusted that we have this kind of MP in Singapore. Has he forgotten about PM Lee’s New Year message for 2010 where he emphasized that Singaporeans are top priority for the Government.

Seriously, who voted for this fellow?

It’s the time of the year when everyone gets free Ben & Jerry!!! Interestingly, this year’s Free Cone Day is on 23 March. I thought usually is somewhere mid or late April? Oh well, who cares? So long as there is free Ben & Jerry!!! Woohoo!

Actually hor, I also don’t know why I so excited about Free Cone Day every year. I never queue up for Free Ben & Jerry. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge fan of Ben & Jerry Ice Cream. It’s just that I lazy to queue up. I rather pay for my own Ice Cream and enjoy it without long queues.

I guess for those who follow blogs closely, especially political blogs, you would have seen the blog entry by this fellow by the name Gopalan Nair claiming that some top level Minister suffers a massive heart attack. I will not go into details here because it is a distasteful hoax and would stain my blog. In fact, the mere mention of his name makes me feel dirty. (I’ll go wash my hands after I finish typing this blog entry. My advice to you is to wash your eyes after reading)

The hoax came at a very bad timing. This is a time when the new media is trying to establish its reputation as a trustworthy news source. Gopalan Nair is a moron to create such hoax and discredit the new media. Not only did he cast a bad light on the new media, he also cast a bad light on the opposition parties. I can’t believe the Worker’s Party actually field him during the 1988 and 1991 elections. But luckily for us, he is no longer in the opposition party and I’m pretty sure all creditable political parties would disassociate themselves with him.

It’s a step backwards for free speech. And if you know Singapore, you know that we already aren’t that forward in terms of freedom of speech. Well done Gopalan. Look what you have done. Seriously, if you have nothing better to do, maybe you should just Go-Pa-Lan. Ask your hokkien friends if you don’t know what that means.

I can already imagine how someone will quote this one freaking incident and use it to justify that Singapore new media cannot be trusted. But let’s make this clear. Gopalan is no longer a Singaporean. Whatever he do has nothing to do with the Singapore blogosphere. Do not associate his childish action to Singapore bloggers.

Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and Singapore Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee (SYOGOC) launched the Singapore 2010 Odyssey last Saturday at Orchard Cineleisure. The Odyssey is the first virtual world developed based on an Olympic event. Users will be able to create their own avatars, compete in games, learn more about the Olympic Games and socialize with other users.

I had the opportunity to roam around Odyssey few days before the official launch. The place sort of reminds me of Second Life. When I first heard of the project, I was wondering why didn’t they just use Second Life which is a tried and tested platform. But after looking at the targeted age group and the things they are doing, it make sense for them to have their own controlled platform instead of using the open Second Life. Like Second Life, users can walk around the 3D world using your arrow control. If you are tired of walking, you can fly by pressing the F key. But unlike Second Life, you can’t choose how high to fly. Users can also perform some actions like Dance, Wave, Sit, Lie Down, Laugh by right clicking on yourself. Basic avatar customization is also available.

There are several mini-games which users can compete with each other and earn points. Currently, only Archery, Swimming, Shooting, Hurdle and Basketball is available. More games will be rolled out before the start of the Youth Olympic Games. The games involve just a few buttons are very easy to play. Wish that it could be more challenging. But then, maybe it’s more suited for the targeted age group. There are also quest which users can try to complete. Like the mini-games, the quest are also very easy to complete.

Perhaps the best part of the Odyssey is the social networking element. The Odyssey provides an excellent platform for YOG participants and supporters to meet each other virtually. Users can communicate via public or private chat. They can also explore the 3D virtual landmarks in Odyssey. Venue like Youth Olympic Village, Singapore Sport School, Marina Barrage and The Float @ Marina Bay are carefully modeled in 3D. More venues will be roll out before the start of Youth Olympic Games.

Odyssey is not a web apps. You need to download the application to run on your PC. The only problem with Odyssey is that it does not support MacOS. Or rather, only Windows is supported. With MacOS growing in popularity among the youth, the MacOS users will be left out.

As a whole, the Odyssey is a great platform. But the platform is nothing without users. Let’s hope that as we approach YOG, more and more users will sign up and join Odyssey. Register at www.singapore2010.sg/o now.

Look me up when you are there. My nick is DeeKay.

Here’s a interesting prank you can play on a sysadmin. Get a magician and “cut” an ethernet cable infront of him. Then magically joins it back.

Visit Isilon Systems to see how it was being done. Actually, I sort of guessed it already. Quite a common trick.

I was at Jurong point few days ago when I heard some familiar music coming out from one of the cubicle. It sound like from one of the iPhone game that I played recently. Interestingly, the game is call iBomber. I kid you not. Someone is playing iBomber while bombing the toilet bowl.

Which sort of reminds me of this T-Shirt from Threadless.

Actually, you can silent the phone while playing the game.

The recent leap year bug in the PS3 reminds me of a basic programming exercise I did when I was in poly year 1. For the exercise, we were told to write an algorithm to validate dates. It is fairly straight forward for all the month except February because of the leap year.

The Gregorian calendar, which most of the countries are currently using, has this leap year thing which confuses some programmers. Leap year is a year when February has 29 days instead of 28 days.

Actually, the logic is very simple. If the year is divisible by 4, it is a leap year. But if the year can be divisible by 100, it will not be a leap year unless it can also be divisible by 400.

Which means the year 2000 is a leap year. But 1900 and 2100 are not leap year. 2008 and 2012 are leap year.

By the way, anyone got any idea how to validate Chinese Lunar Calendar? I think the lunar calendar is much more complicated. There are some years when they repeat the entire month.

Update: Just notice that the Singtel mioTV glitch also happened on 1st March. Could it be the leap year bug also?

Remember Ok Go? The guys that bought us the Treadmill video on Youtube? Well, they are back with another amazing video. This time, it’s a Rube Goldberg machines. COOL!

OK Go – This Too Shall Pass