My name is Neo and I blog at thenewdimension.com.My area of interest is in Technology and venture capital (alright, it sounds boring). More often, I write articles on latest gadgets in town and tech-related stuffs. I usually don’t blog about society and public issues as they are very much controversial in nature. By agreeing to write on blog.dk.sg is a challenge. As you might have known, DK had been nominated as “most insightful blog”. As a guest blog, I have to put up this disclaimer up front. If my blog entry is not as insightful as DK’s, at least I have set up some expectation here.

I always have the impression that Singapore is suffering from the worst recession in the past 60 years. However, my sentiment changed until recently when I witnessed the super long queue outside the Showroom at Tanah Merah – Optima and it is not surprising that the property was completely sold out in 3 days! Optima is only one of the many examples. The question is “are we heading for recovery?’

If we are, how come our unemployment rate keeps rising Q-on-Q? I am sure you find the scene shown in the picture below very familiar. People are still looking for jobs! Ironic, isn’t it? On one hand, people are buying home (even to an extent of paying at a high price) and on the other, people are queuing for jobs (government jobs is in the radar of the young job seekers.).

I can’t seem to make the comparison of both. As an economics graduate, such phenomenon can only mean that the rich in Singapore does not seem to be affected that much during this crisis.(otherwise, how are they able to push up the price of the property?)

I am not so worry about the low-income group. It is just a matter of the salary. As a low-income Singaporean, will you be willing to get the same low salary as the foreign workers?  I am glad that Singapore government is handling this crisis well (at least they are hiring to keep the unemployment rate low). If you are looking at the list of exhibitors in the Career and Learning Fair 2009, almost all of them are government bodies.

Good time is coming soon? If US, the largest consumer in the world, is undergoing a long period of recovery, what make you think that Singapore, a trade-dependant economy, is recovering any sooner? Stock and property market are doing well but only the rich benefit from there. Luckily, we have a very caring government who continue to spend on projects such as upgrading of HDB’s elevators to keep workers employed. Even residents who stay in Hougang and Potong Pasir which are run by opposition parties got lift upgrading too! Recently, I heard from a friend that she is busy attending training to be a helper in the next General Election.

By the way, I am a happy Singaporean. Hope you enjoy my blog post.

I am sure some of you have heard of the new HTC Hero, and yes it’s coming to Singapore, and yes the public finally have  a chance to get a sneak preview of this “Hero”.

So for those who are keen, do register early. You might catch me there at the event! *Winks*

P.S. Too bad someone will only be released on the 5th and cannot go… …

Firstly, thanks DK for giving me the opportunity to vandalise his blog for the very first time

A short introduction first, I am Jacelyn and I blog at daintyflair.net Shameless plug I know, that’s what I am here for (kidding )

I am still cracking my brains what to blog here. Feel free to give me ideas! Too techie like DK, I don’t know la. But I don’t mind plastering cutesy stuff here LOL!

As you all may know, am not a new guest blogger on DK’s blog. Did guest blogging here before, thus I believe, not much introduction to begin with.

But for the sake of introduction, I shall write a little more here. Blogs at nicole.sg (plug!) as well as part of Tech65

First, a big thank you to DK, for the opportunity to mess up his blog guest blog here. While he is in reservist, the guest bloggers are here to play.

I am still trying to find my groove in blogging once again, as I feel I am lagging behind in blogging on my own site. LOL. All is well, and doing what I love would be the most satisfying experience.

Alrightey, I shall take my leave here, and let the rest of the guest bloggers intro themselves too!

I shall go enjoy my well deserved break first. Fret not, will be back.
Nicole

I will schedule some blog entries while I’m away. On top of that, I’ve also invited some of my friends to help guest blog while I’m away. And judging from the guest blogging last year, its going to be fun. Too bad I have limited internet access.

Anyway, the 8 guest bloggers are:

CobaltPaladin
Dottie
Jacelyn
Neo
Nicole
Poisonvine
Ridzuan
Sheryo

I will leave the introduction to them. Have fun everyone.

Although men can be difficult to understand at times.

Men may have unfathomable hobbies such as watching football or sniffing laptops. *shrugs*

Men may be so tired out by their gigantic responsibilities that they fall asleep standing up. Here’s one who have found an alternative use for a Lenovo S10 laptop.

Men may blush and hide behind a tree or a gadget when talking to women.

Men may spend more time casting their magic on gadgets instead of on the girl of his dreams.

Men may be very strange but they are still excellent. Even though men messes up all the time, life would have been a lot harder and a lot less pleasurable without them. My respect to them!

This has been a guest post by Precious.

As the final post of my guest blogging in DK’s blog, I attempt to answer the question (see title). The short reply is yes but really, how much each blogger wants is relative. Although I’m not blogging full time and earning a full time income, my blogging this year has paid for my coming Japan’s trip fully. However, it takes a lot of hard work and passion to keep blogging. Here’s my story of at least earning some kopi money monthly.

I started out to blog just to get into the wave of blogging and three years ago, I set up a Xbox 360 blog just for the goal of getting a network blogging gig. After numerous emails sent to the editor, I got the job. Initially, the income was not great and I had only one blog to begin with but after several months, things got better and tens of dollars became a few hundred coins.

The picture was rosy when I had 3 blogs and each of them was doing pretty well until I found that I spent almost most of my waking time blogging and doing nothing else. This is just as bad or addictive as gambling. Some aspects of my life were neglected and I’m glad to rectify before things got worse.

The current economy spares no one, including blogging. If you think network bloggers don’t have retrenchment or pay cuts, then you are very wrong. My monthly blogging income was cut by more than 50% but I still keep blogging for the network as my passion was still there.

Blogging for yourself is better than blogging for others, most of the time. Therefore, with the experience accumulated from my network blogging, I started Beijing Olympics FAN! You can see this kind of blog as a project blog, a term I bestowed.

For this kind of project blog, it’s targeted at a niche area. I set up the Olympics blog around a year before the actual Beijing Olympics 2008 event to give it time to rank better in search engines. I must admit I did not post regularly in the first 8 months until around 6 months before the main show. I even hired one blogger to blog for me.

The Adsense income for the blog stayed stagnant until June 2008. In August 2008, I had the biggest pay check from Google in my 4 years with Adsense. To sum up, the Olympics blog earned me a few thousand bucks. At that moment, I realized that blogging really pays but not without hard work.

My advice to aspiring bloggers is to keep your day job while continue to blog. Even you think you are earning a full time income from blogging, give it a few months before you hand in your resignation letter.

As for now, I’m starting new blogs (like this simple Netbook FAN! blog) and I’m content I can drink at least a few cups of teh in Kopi tiam or Coffee Bean, all paid for, by blogging.

If you have any questions, feel free to shoot in the comments section.

P.S: Thanks DK for giving me the opportunity to blog here. Please recruit me again next time.

Last Sunday we went to a basketball match between the Singapore Slingers and the Smart Pampanga Buddies, and the Slingers won 100 – 72, which was pretty awesome.

We snapped a couple of pics with the giant players, now I’m just waiting patiently for DK to send them over so I can show you some!

I met up for a gathering with a few friends of my forum friends whom dk knows too while dk was away for his reservist. Obviously he wasn’t very thrilled to know that we had our once in a blue moon gathering while he was not available.

Ok.. Back to the topic… Food~! Yummy… We had our dinner at this Japanese restaurant called Santouka in The Central. Santouka is located in a ulu corner of The Central so it is not really easy to find. It is best to arrive there by 6.30pm if you are going there for dinner as the place is quite small and their tables will be filled up by around 7pm. Queues will be snaking outside the restaurant any time after 7.

Santouka is basically famous for their ramen. They have a few types of soup base namely shio (salted), shoyu (soya sauce) and miso. I had their Miso Ramen and I must say their ramen is definitely one of the better ones around. A must try from Santouka is probably Toroniku (pork cheeks). Their Toroniku is really tender and yummy.

The ramen here is worth a try if you have not try it yet.

Here it is, dear all readers, the promised pron!  It has blonde, hunk, or9y, phallic symbol, young girl in Japanese sailor school uniform

It is highly NSFW!  You have been warned!

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Macross Frontier

Yes, DK, you are welcome! Don’t need to thank me for the increased readership. It was my pleasure.