Hindhede Nature Park

Went to Hindhede Nature Park this afternoon for these pics despite the partly cloudy sky. Strolled up the gentle winding boardwalk to the lookout point where I was rewarded with a lovely view of a water-filled disused quarry. From the dense forest across the water, I could hear the chatter of monkeys and the garrulous call of the white-crested laughing thrush. This is one of my favourite scenic spots at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. Very calm and peaceful surrounding, reminds me of the same tranquility that I experienced at Tasik Kenyir.

In case your sense of direction isn't too good, this map will put you on the right track.Click on the above photo for high-res image
View of the quarry from the lookout point.
The TAS VHF Station is at the top of the quarryClick on the above photo for high-res image

Clouded Monitor

Photographed at MacRitchie Reservoir, Singapore
Family : VARANIDAE
Species : Varanus bengalensis nebulosus.Click on the above photo for high-res image
Whilst on the way to the Tree Top Walk, I encountered this specimen as it was digging amongst the leaf litter searching for beetles and other insects. The hike to Tree Top Walk had to be abandoned due to bad weather.
The Clouded Monitor is often mistaken for the Malayan Water Monitor due to similarity in appearance. The Clouded Monitor is distinguished by the position of the nostrils which lie mid-way between the eye and snout.

Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve

This is the mouth of Sungei Buloh Besar with the town of JB forming the backdrop. Click on the above photo for high-res image
There are three walking trails in Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve (SBWR). On my previous visits, I managed to complete "Route One" and "Route Two" but somehow I took a wrong turning and missed the "Tower Hide".
This morning I visited SBWR again and chose to do "Route Three" which is approximately 7 km long. It took me about 4 hours to complete this trail. This time with the aid of a trail map I made it to the "Tower Hide". Here are some pictures that I took from the top level of the "Tower Hide" :-
Can you see the "Bird Observation Hide" on the left ?Click on the above photo for high-res imageAnother view from the topClick on the above photo for high-res imageDuring the course of my hike, I came across quite a number of Malayan Water Monitor Lizards (Varanus salvator) sunning themselves. There is a large community inhabiting the Aquatic Pond. Another common sight is the "Common Sun Skinks" and the "White-breasted Waterhen". The star attraction of SBWR is of course the migratory birds that feed on the mudflats. I couldn't get any good shots with my camera as they were out of range. Time to get a more powerful zoom ?
Whilst on the way back to the car park, I spied a "Pink-necked green pigeon" (Treron vernans) feeding on the the ripened fruits of a palm tree. Here is the shot :
Pink-necked Green PigeonClick on the above photo for high-res imageWhen I next come back to SBWR again, I intend to explore the 2 km long "Kranji Nature Trail" which is the green corridor linking two wetlands, the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve and Kranji Reservoir Park.

Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra.

Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra will tour China and Singapore in October, performing two concerts in Beijing, one in Shanghai as part of the prestigious China Shanghai International Arts Festival and two in Singapore.

Photo Credit: Mark Lyons
Tour at a Glance

• Friday, October 21: Beijing, Great Hall of the People

• Saturday, October 22: Beijing, Great Hall of the People

• Monday, October 24: Shanghai,* Shanghai Grand Stage

• Wednesday, October 26: Singapore, Esplanade — Theatres on the Bay

• Thursday, October 27: Singapore, Esplanade — Theatres on the Bay

Esplanade — Theatres on the Bay is Singapore’s national performing arts center. It boasts superb adjustable acoustics — by world-renowned acoustician Russell Johnson — found only in four other halls globally.

I have two of the Pops recordings, both are on TELARC label. One is "Time Warp" with Don Dorsey on the synthesizer keyboard and the other is "Round-up".

Globalogue Forum - Launched Today

A new forum, "Globalogue", has been launched today at :



http://globalogue.org/forums

What is a forum ? (an uninitiated may ask.)

A forum is a place for online discussion, debates, dialogues and information sharing. It allows you to post messages for everyone to read, and in turn read the messages of others. Forums are an excellent place to learn and share knowledge with other people from around the world.

In "Globalogue", there are a number of topic areas in which global affairs are discussed. These and other topics are listed on the forum's topic index page.

Check here for their WELCOME MESSAGE.

See, Hear and Feel the Sound.

You are invited to "see, hear and feel the sound" of Dolby.
Stereo speakers recommended.
( See the video )

Mighty Mouse is here !

Apple today introduced Mighty Mouse, its next generation mouse with several innovative new features that make using a Mac even more powerful and easy. Mighty Mouse offers power users up to four independently programmable buttons, without compromising simplicity for users who prefer just a single-button mouse. Mighty Mouse also introduces an ingenious Scroll Ball that lets users scroll in any direction—vertically, horizontally and even diagonally. With the Scroll Ball, users can scroll with natural, fluid movements, making Mighty Mouse perfect for applications from viewing web pages and photographs, to video editing and music creation. Mighty Mouse is priced at just S$88.



Check this review: http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/

I think I'll wait until Apple releases a Bluetooth version of this mouse before shelling out money.

Bukit Timah Nature Reserve

Went trekking at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve this morning as the weather was cool and breezy.
Situated within this 164-hectare (400 acres) of nature reserve is Bukit Timah Hill, the highest point in Singapore standing at a "towering" height of 164m. I took the shortest path to the summit because of time constraint.
Summit Path
The shortest trekking route to the summit follows what the park has labeled as the "Red Walking Trail" which is just over 1 km and follows a paved road heading northwest from the the Nature Reserve's Visitor Centre. From the Visitor's Centre to the entrance of the Nature Reserve, I encountered a rather steep climb, (about 60 degrees incline) which actually provided me with some good exercise as I plodded my way up the hill.
Saw many interesting insects along with the Plantain Squirrels (Callosciurus notatus) on my way up. I also spotted two beautiful butterflies - the Blue Glassy Tiger and the Common Palmfly.The Blue Glassy Tiger.Click on the above photo for a high-res image
The Common Palmfly.Click on the above photo for a high-res image
Watching these butterflies feeding from flower to flower in their natural environment is always fascinating and rewarding.
The whole Nature Reserve has four clearly marked trails. The shortest one takes about 20 minutes while the longest route will take about 1 hour and 10 minutes to complete at a leisurely pace. Throughout all the routes, there are many simple jungle-themed shelters which provide rest as well as shelter from the rain for the visitors.
Bukit Timah Hill was once an active quarrying site in the mid-1900s. One abandoned quarry has been developed as a park. Hindhede Nature Park is now a popular spot with visitors who come to enjoy the quarry’s scenic beauty.

I saw Batman Begins

I saw BATMAN BEGINS yesterday. Whilst strolling along Orchard Link, I decided to walk over to Cathay Cineplex Orchard and view the cinema posters. I was curious about how many people would turn out to see BATMAN on a Monday so I purchased a ticket to the 1:40 PM show and was surprised to find the theater to be only half full!


If you are a fan of the comic book series , GO SEE THIS FILM! It is the closest you're going to get to the comic book. It is different from all of the other Batman movies in that it is made much more in real life style. It is serious all the way through. Christian Bale did great! Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman were brilliant too. Michael Caine's portrayal as Alfred was amazing and as for Ken Watanbe, I wish he had more words to say ... I love his acting and totally enjoyed his character as Katsumoto in "The Last Samurai". By the way, Gary Oldman is perfect in his role as Commissioner Jim Gordon! After seeing this film, I think I can safely say that this is one of Christopher Nolan and David S Goyer's best films without a doubt. The cinematography and the bat effects are fantastic! I must confess I was literally in awe after watching this movie.

One drawback was that the fight sequences in "Begins" were edited too quickly, and the lighting too dark so that you really couldn't tell what was going on and determine who was hitting who. Hopefully the next film will open up the fight sequences so that we can actually see Batman use the martial arts skills he developed during his exile.

Looking forward to the sequel !

VLC media player

VLC (VideoLAN Client) is a multi-platform multimedia player. It handles most MPEG, AVI (including DivX), ASF, WMV, OGG, MP4 and WAV files as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

I stumbled across the latest release of VLC (version 0.8.2 - test2) during the latest round of my never-ending search for a way to play back WMV files on my iMac. Couldn't be happier with this Mac OS X version ... the only drawback is that VLC does not support the WMV3 sound or video format due to no suitable decoder module for fourcc WMV3.
When you try to play WMV3, you get only audio, no visual, most probably due to M$'s new Digital Rights Management (DRM) structure.

By the way, WMV3 is the fourcc code of the WMV9 codec, so both are the same thing. WMV3 itself is just an updated version of Microsoft's MPEG4 codec variant and will only work in Windows.

Chronicling the first week with the iMac G5

Exactly one week ago, I received my iMac G5 and eagerly unpacked and installed it.

Plugging in the necessary peripherals was easy.

Last step was to attach the power cable and switch on the iMac G5. Gingerly I pressed the power button (located at the back) and "BOING!!!" the Apple startup sound was so damned loud I almost fell off my chair. (Sidenote: Unfortunately, the loudness of the iMac G5 does not extend to the OS sounds - all other sounds other than the startup sound are very muted even on max volume.)

I saw the grey Apple logo and a revolving thing on my screen that spins and spins for a good few minutes. After a while, I got to the registration and setup screens and after duly filling them in, I was deposited at the Finder. At last, a proper taste of Mac OS X Tiger.

I started to explore more of Tiger. The first couple of days was just spent tinkering with the OS, trying out stuff and setting preferences. Notice 'home and 'end' keys don't move to the beginning and end of a line as in Windows - I miss that. I am now trying to get use to the one-button mouse.

Switched to Mac OS X today

I collected my new (up-graded) iMac G5/2Ghz 20" from SGL today.

The original iMac G5 was with this specs :-

20-inch widescreen LCD
1.8GHz PowerPC G5
600MHz frontside bus
512K L2 cache
256MB DDR400 SDRAM
160GB Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-loading SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
64MB video memory
56k internal modem
Includes Mac OS X Panther


After the upgrade, the specs now is :-

20-inch widescreen LCD
2GHz PowerPC G5 - BETTER
667MHz frontside bus - BETTER
512K L2 cache
512MB DDR400 SDRAM - BETTER
250GB Serial ATA hard drive - BETTER
Slot-load 8x SuperDrive (double-layer) - BETTER
ATI Radeon 9600 - BETTER
128MB DDR video memory - BETTER
56k internal modem
Airport + Bluetooth - NOW FREE
Includes Mac OS X Tiger and iLife .... plus loads of new stuff !!!

Tiger roars on April 29

  At last, the TIGER is available tomorrow - Friday, April 29, 6 pm 

The latest version of the Mac OS X operating system called TIGER is to be launched globally tomorrow at 6 pm. Three groundbreaking features are Spotlight, Dashboard and Automator.
Spotlight    - is a search engine for the desktop similar to a feature Microsoft is touting in its next Windows release, Longhorn — which won’t be out for at least another year. .
Dashboard - A visually stunning set of tiny applications called Widgets that provide weather, stock price, flight tracking and other sorts of data.
Automator - allows a user to automate repetitive tasks.

Toki No Nagare Ni Mi Wo Makase

The song you are now listening to, is the Japanese version of the Mandarin hit "I Only Care About You" 我只在乎你. The singer : Teng Li-Jun.


Here are the lyrics:

Moshimo anata to aezuni itara
Watashi wa nani o shiteta deshouka
Heibon dakedo dareka o aishi
Futsuu no kurashi shiteta deshouka
Toki no nagare ni mi o makase
Anata no iro ni somerare
Ichido no jinsei soresae
Suteru koto mo kamawanai
Dakara onegai soba ni oite ne
Ima wa anata shika aisenai

Moshimo anata ni kirawaretanara
Ashita to iu hi nakushiteshimau wa
Yakuso ku nanka iranai keredo
Omoi de dake jya ikite yukenai
Toki no nagare ni mi o makase
Anata no mune ni yori soi
Kirei ni nareta soredakede
Inoti sae mo iranai wa
Dakara onegai soba nii oite ne
Ima wa anata shika mienai no

Toki no nagare ni mi o makase
Anata no iro ni somerare
Ichido no jinsei soresae
Suteru koto mo kamawanai
Dakara onegai soba ni oite ne
Ima wa anata shika aisenai

Together again for one last time

WOW ! Shadows' fans everywhere, rejoice ! Here is the fabulous DVD of their final tour that not only meets, but exceeds all expectations. Ever since I heard their first hit "Apache" in 1960, I have been a diehard fan.
THE FINAL TOUR 
The Shads (as their legions of fans call them) had not played together in several years after their disbandment in 1968. Fortunately, due to constant fan support all over the globe, they decided to get back together again on stage for one last time on THE SHADOWS' FINAL TOUR. The tour kicked off at Scarborough Futurist Theatre on April 30th 2004 and spanned the entire UK over a massive 37 dates and culminated at the London Palladium on June 14th.
THE FINAL TOUR DVD 
November 8th 2004 saw the release of THE FINAL TOUR DVD which was recorded at Cardiff's International Arena on June 5th. Of course, the Shads are -- Hank Marvin (lead guitar)-- Bruce Welch (rhythm guitar) -- Brian Bennett (drums). They were accompanied on this final tour by two other fine musicians -- Mark Griffiths (bass) and Cliff Hall (keyboards).
I was over the moon when I bought a copy of this DVD yesterday afternoon. How nice to listen to the instantly recognisable Shadows sound and watch their famous routines in the comfort of your favourite arm-chair. The DVD running time is 180 minutes and features 42 tracks (including no less than twenty-one TOP 20 hits, five of which got to No.1.)
Having this DVD is a real coup. I am sure all Fender Stratocaster fans will definitely want to add this gem to their DVD collection.

Surfing on the fast track

My contract has ended for Singnet BroadBand 512kbps. I recontracted for 1500kbps (unlimited plan) and today is the activation day.
In 1997, when the first broadband services were launched, the equipment was untested and thus hard to set up. Also, the expected bandwidth -- at times said to be about 100 times faster than that offered by 56K modems -- was never realised.
This led to disappointment with broadband services in the early days. Until recently, broadband has always been seen as an unfulfilled promise. But things have turned around over the past year or two. Thanks to better experience and, of late, lower prices, broadband services have become attractive to those who usually would not have considered them.
For those who have not considered getting on the broadband wagon before, now is the time to do so.

At long last, I own a JAM !

I've just received my JAM yesterday evening from HELLO! at Bugis Junction. It really is a sight to behold for a Pocket PC (PPC). I never thought I'd see the day when I'd own a PPC this small and functional. Actually, I am referring to the i-Mate JAM which is another brand name for the Xda II Mini. In fact, they are also being marketed in other countries under brand names such as Qtek-S100, MDA Compact, HTC Magician and Dopod 818 (which is the Chinese version of the Mini).
i-mate JAM .... aka Xda II Mini I really like the size of the JAM. Look at the picture posted above, its smaller than my current Nokia 6150. You just got to say WOW the first time you put your hands on one of these babies....
I've had my i-Mate JAM for two days now, and it's an awesome device. The JAM is tiny (about the size of a 3G iPod, with more rounded edges) and has all the features of any PPC on the market today, minus WiFi and VGA. The lack of WiFi on the JAM does not bother me at all as I seldom go around the hotspots in town. Details of the Technical Specifications can be found HERE.
Voice quality is quite good, and the 416mhz processor is more than enough for basic PIM tasks. I intend to use a 1 GB SD card to store mp3s, (the original set comes with a 256 MB SD card).
Yeah, once you play with the Xda II Mini, you'll want one for sure, just like me.

The Bloom of a Lifetime

Above photo by Wong Len Poh.
The Talipot, Corypha Umbraculifera, an Asian palm, blooms only once in its lifetime of 30 - 80 years. The inflorescence each weighs more than half a tonne (500 kgs), 6 meters tall and may bear over 20 millions fragrant tiny flowers. "Umbraculifera" means "bears an umbrella," an appropriate name for this ornamental palm. The Talipot palm's flower clusters are the largest in the plant kingdom. The plant itself can easily grow trunks up to 80 feet in height and 3 feet in diameter and leaf blades up to 16 feet in diameter. Enthusiasts can check out the ones in bloom now at the Singapore Botanic Gardens.Len Poh chanced on a rare sight while taking a retired professor from his University out on a visit to the Singapore Botanic Gardens on 22 Dec. Two 79-year old Talipot Palms in the Gardens flowered for the first and last time during this Christmas. It is such a rare occasion that the Botanic Gardens put up special signs to direct visitors to the palms.
Talipot Inflorescence
Photo by Wong Len Poh 
From across the vast expanse of green lawn, you can see that something special and significant is going on. Your eyes are caught by the sight of the bright flower cluster, fountaining up, out and above the massive base of stout green palm fronds. Tiny insects hover in a cloud around the inflorescence. Are they pollinating the blossoms or just admiring them?Tiny Talipot flowers 
Photo by Wong Len Poh 
Some of the small, pale palm flowers, which are only about a fourth of an inch in diameter, gently rain down on you as you look up, and they lightly carpet the ground below.
Sad thing is that the palm will die after the enormous effort of flowering and fruiting, for the first and last time in its life.

Yahoo! Mail now gives 250mb!

Yesterday I noticed that Yahoo! allows 250mb space. Hooray and thank you! But I don't know why Hotmail still gives me a miserly 2mb.

Another delightful feature of Yahoo! is the to: / cc: addressing feature. Just type the first alphabet and the entire list offers itself to be picked.

Byte (Topper)

Sailing has finally arrived at Lower Seletar Reservoir. For the past few week-ends, some members of Seletar Country Club have been practising with figure of 8, sheet-bend, bowline, clove-hitch, round turn and 2 half hitches so that they can catch the wind at Lower Seletar.
The Byte (designed by Ian Bruce) is a high performance sailboat that delivers the excitement of the Topper without the need for great body strength or weight. In fact, the Byte is just right for anyone weighing 50 kgs or more and they are gaining in popularity in Singapore schools.
The Byte was recently awarded ISAF Recognised status which is
testament to the worldwide success of the boat. 
Rigging up
The local Byte fraternity has been fired up ever since Calvin Lim Zhi Yang won the World Byte Championship 2004 in a fleet of 132 entries. Lying second till the last day, Calvin managed to overtake Issac Bussin of Canada on the final day of racing. Calvin who in June won the Euro Cup is only 15 years old.
The World Byte Championship 2004 was held from 18~24 August in Kingston, Canada.
Congratulations to Calvin for an outstanding performance.

RSAF F-16s outgunned by Indian Sukhois

Six F-16C/D Fighting Falcon jets from the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) have been engaging in dogfights with their Indian counterparts in the open skies over Gwalior in Western India during the past two weeks. To be precise, they are participating in the first bilateral air exercise, codenamed SINDEX-04, which will end tomorrow 27 Oct 04. Curious to know the outcome ? Read on .... which is a Times of India news report, quoting IAF sources, said the Indian pilots proved more than a match for their visitors.

Don't fret if Pak gets F-16s
RAJAT PANDIT
TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2004 11:24:29 PM ]

NEW DELHI: India need not lose sleep even if Pakistan manages to acquire more F-16 fighters from the US. After plastering American combat pilots in an exercise earlier this year, IAF top guns now have another reason to be gung ho: their top-notch mean machines have proved more than a match for F-16s, the much-vaunted 'fighting falcons'.
Russian-origin Sukhoi-30MKI jets are apparently outgunning American F-16s on "several aspects" at the ongoing Indo-Singapore air combat exercise in Gwalior.
This is the first-ever face-off between these two sophisticated war machines originating from the two former Cold War adversaries.
"Our Sukhois are doing very well against the F-16Cs (of Singapore Air Force) in terms of manoeuvrability, sophistication of avionics and weapon systems. Similarly, our MiG-29s and Mirage-2000s are also matching up to the F-16s," say IAF sources.
IAF is pitting even its MiG-21s, which constitute over 45% of India's combat fleet, against F-16s during the 'Sindex-Ankush' exercise in Gwalior.
"Ever since the Pakistanis acquired F-16s from the US in the mid-1980s, we wanted to size them up. So, we are matching almost all our planes with F-16s of the Singapore Air Force, which are more advanced than the F-16s of Pakistan," said sources.
The IAF has also tasked its elite combat school to develop manoeuvres for MiG-21s to elude the radar cones of F-16s.
IAF spokesperson Squadron Leader Mahesh Upasani only said, "Results of the exercise will be assessed only after the debrief. It's premature to comment at this stage."
Instead of F-16s, the US had fielded the F-15C Eagles during the Cope India-04 exercise in February. So, the decks were promptly cleared when Singapore came knocking for training facilities with its F-16s.

Short trip to Pulau Tioman

Socata TB9 Tampico with Berjaya's DASH 7 in the background 


Sunset view of Renggis Island - photo taken by Denise Renggis Island is located infront of Berjaya Tioman Resort. Only a few hundred meters from Berjaya jetty (lalang village). Average depth is 9m and max depth is 12m. A truly wonderful dive site, this beautiful reef has many coral varieties - hard and soft - and teems with marine life - puffer fish, angelfish, butterfly fish, sting rays, moray eels, trigger fish, giant grouper and more. Renggis is one of the best sites for seeing turtles, and harmless black tip reef sharks are often spotted.

Apple Introduces New G5 iMac

The half-dome base is gone, and the iMac G5 is iPod-white in colour. This is my first impression of Apple's redesigned iMac. The new iMac G5 desktop tucks all of its components, including its hard drive, processor and DVD drive, behind a wide-screen LCD (liquid-crystal display). The LCD screen is about 5cm (2 inches) thick and is mounted on a curved metal stand, has proportions similar to those of Apple's Cinema Display flat panels.
The new stunning iMac G5
The new computer was unveiled by Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing at the Apple Expo 2004 in Paris yesterday. Apple Expo is Europe’s largest Mac-dedicated event, and this year’s show takes place at Porte de Versailles from August 31st to September 4th.
Worldwide distribution is to begin in the middle of this month. The new iMac G5 features the high-performance G5 processor running up to 1.8 GHz. For details of the technical specifications, look up here. Prices for the new iMac line are as follows:

• 17-inch model ... 1.6 GHz SIN $2,488
• 17-inch model ... 1.8 GHz SIN $2,788
• 20-inch model ... 1.8 GHz SIN $3,588.

Today's Science Experiment

Four worms were placed into four separate jars. The first worm was put into a jar of alcohol. The second worm was put into a jar of cigarette smoke. The third worm was put into a jar of sperm. The fourth worm was put into a jar of soil.

After one day, these were the results:

The first worm in alcohol - dead.

The second worm in cigarette smoke - dead.

The third worm in sperm - dead.

The fourth worm in soil - alive.

CONCLUSION: "As long as you drink, smoke and have sex, you won't have worms!"

COMEX 2004

COMEX 2004 starts today at the Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre (Suntec City) and will be on until this Sunday 29 August. This digital, IT and consumer electronics exhibition is now in its 12th year. One can expect to find great buys on desktops, notebooks, hand helds, wireless peripherals, memory devices and a host of other IT related products.
Bargain hunters like myself will enjoy comparing prices of the latest gadgets and gizmos under one bargain-packed roof.

Are you a cat lover ?

U still hate cats ?

Goldie is the quiet one. She has soft and lovely fur. One thing that Goldie doesn't do is to meow and whine like Roger. I think this is called the "silent meow". She just opens her mouth and a soft sweet meow comes out ! I have heard her meow loudly before though. That's when she smells fish and wants some!

Goldie

This is Roger, very intelligent and lovable tom cat. He's a lap cat, but loves to be carried around the house especially by Denise. Whenever I'm on my computer, Roger will jump on the computer table and just walk over and around the keyboard. He does this a lot when he wants me to get him something to eat! At present his favourite game is to attack every other cat in the house.

Roger

Curlie is the great hunter. Besides being an expert mouser, she also brings home bats, tree lizards and little birds. Curlie likes to jump on my bed in the wee hours of the morning to let me know it's time to eat and pats my face with her paw to wake me up. I open my eyes only to see two eyes staring back at me!

Curlie

Bush looking for ways to harm Americans

Or so he says .......

U.S. President George W. Bush has told a roomful of top Pentagon brass his administration would never stop looking for ways to harm the United States.
The latest installment of misspeak came during a signing ceremony on Thursday for a new US$417 billion defence appropriations bill.

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we".
- Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004 .

WTC SURVIVOR - Virus Hoax

A friend, The Chief Abbot (not his real name) has just sent me an email entitled "Fwd: READ ASAP - VERY IMPORTANT" which contains dire warnings about emails entitled "WTC SURVIVOR". According to SOPHOS ANTI-VIRUS, "WTC SURVIVOR" is a hoax.
This email first started to circulate in (can you guess..?) September, 2001, and one had just arrived in my Inbox today. There NEVER WAS a "WTC SURVIVOR" Virus, but the hoax lives on !
Remember, the warning IS the virus ... ANY email that asks you to forward it on is a HOAX, even if it is a warning about a VIRUS !! Everyone seems to feel that it is better to send it on, not realizing that millions of other people are doing the same thing !!
REMEMBER, TO ERR ON THE SIDE OF CAUTION, YOU DO NOT FORWARD THE EMAIL!
Scroll towards the bottom of my Links column, on your right, and you will see the List of Top 10 Virus Hoaxes.

Google & other Search Engines hit by worm variant

A new version of the "MyDoom" computer worm was spreading on Monday, (26 July) and slowing the performance of Google and other Internet search engines such as Lycos, Altavista, and Yahoo.
According to the Washington-based SANS Internet Storm Centre - a computer security firm , the new variant known as "MyDoom.O" (also dubbed as "MyDoom.M") began appearing over the weekend. This mass-mailing worm was tapping into search engines in an effort to find more email addresses with which to spread further.

Google hit by worm variant
No wonder I had a tough time on Monday when I tried to make searches using Google. Each time I keyed in a query I was faced with a message telling me that a "server error" had occurred.

iMac G5 coming in September!!

According to Macrumors, Apple confirmed that they will be releasing a G5 iMac this coming September!
The new machines have been delayed due to a shortage of G5 chips. (That's what they said).
These chips are being manufactured by IBM in its East Fishkill, NY facility.
64 bit G5 Processor
Now, doesn't that old 17" of yours feel obsolete already?
Yoohoo!! ... I can't wait.

How much do you know about your Laptop?

Most brand name notebooks out in the market today are not manufactured by the companies that market them. There are exceptions like Asus, Toshiba and IBM but even the latter two don’t manufacture all of their laptops.
It is always funny to hear people swear by their Dell, HP (or other) laptop. Little do they realise that they are the same laptop as you would get from NEC or Acer. You say this is all crap ? Well, here is a good article that puts things into perspective.

• " The world’s largest Notebook Computer manufacturer, Quanta Computer, shipped more than 800,000 notebooks in June thanks in part to major brands like Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba, NEC and Acer."
  

This Land is Your Land ......

This is really hilarious .... See John Kerry and George Bush square off and trade insults in this can't-miss campaign spoof.
Actually this is a parody of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" ... presented by JibJab.
Click me.

How to Fly - The Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow of Flight

Thanks to Victor who passed this info to me.

Come this Sunday, 18 July, there is gonna be a seminar (featuring the Eurofighter "Typhoon") at the Singapore Science Centre. The speakers are :-

• Squadron Leader Martin "Geordie" EVANS,
  Senior Engineering Officer, RAF Typhoon Operational Evaluation Unit and


• Squadron Leader Rob COLLIGAN,
  Pilot of RAF Typhoon Operational Evaluation Unit

Eurofighter Typhoon
Session Highlights:

• * The session will include a 45-min presentation followed by a Q&A session.


• * Video presentations of the Typhoon will be screened during the introduction.


• * Brass plates of the Typhoon (and stationery) will be available for visitors to pencil their own autographed silhouettes of the Eurofighter, the world's most advanced superior swing role fighter in production. There will even be a chance on a first-com-first-serve basis (limited to fifty participants) for autograph by the distinguished speakers.


• * Exciting souvenirs such as aircraft stickers and A4 posters, and many more to be given away!

This is surely an event that no serious aerophiles would give it a miss!

US Govt Cyber Experts Advise Browser Switch

Last Friday, in response to the latest security exploit involving Microsoft products, the usually staid U.S. government's Computer Emergency Readiness Team, or US-CERT, published a warning strongly suggesting that users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer should switch to another Web browser, due to "significant vulnerabilities" in technologies included in IE.

The following article appeared in The Straits Times, (today's issue) dated 02 July 2004:

"THE United States government's cyberdefence experts, along with other computer gurus, are urging users to consider a switch away from Microsoft's widely used Internet Explorer (IE) because of new security problems.

The unusual - and for Microsoft, highly embarrassing - warning comes because of a security hole that has allowed hackers to surreptitiously install software on hundreds of websites that use Microsoft's Web server programs.

That, in turn, downloads spyware programs to personal computers, including one that steals credit card numbers and other forms of financial information.

'This is a wake-up call for us to advise users to switch to an alternative browser,' said Mr Johannes Ulrich of the SANS Internet Storm Centre in the US, which tracks immediate threats on the Internet. 'With Internet Explorer, you're playing Russian roulette and hoping the sites you visit aren't compromised.'

Most anti-virus software have been updated to block the specific program, the JS.Scob Trojan, but Microsoft has not, so far, been able to inoculate IE against the broad technique.

None of the most prominent alternative browsers, Opera, Mozilla or Netscape, is vulnerable to the flaw. Nor are computers running Linux or the Macintosh operating systems.

Another new threat emerged this week that might compromise the passwords and account information of users who bank online.

It targets users of IE and can be picked up from pop-up ads that secretly download software capable of capturing users' keystrokes. -- LAT"

The Last Samurai

I just saw this last night (on DVD)- Tom Cruise goes from Top Gun to Shogun in "The Last Samurai". Overall, it is a spectacular and entertaining movie with outstanding acting and breathtaking cinematography. However, be aware that the movie is fictional.
Did you know that the pink cherry blossoms that Katsumoto (played by the superb Ken Watanabe) was referring to were fakes - they were made of cotton. The reason for this was because they couldn't find cherry blossoms at that time of year for the scenes that were filmed in Japan.

Fuji-yama's twin .... Mt. Taranaki, N.Z. >
Besides filming in Japan (mostly in Kyoto and at Himeji) and the States (on sets on the Warner Bros. studio lot in Los Angeles (Burbank), many scenes were also filmed on location near New Plymouth on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island, with Mt. Taranaki standing in as Japan's Fuji-yama. Take a look at the picture above and see how Mt. Taranaki closely resembles Fuji-yama!

What do you think of this NEW template ?

Blogger has recently introduced a NEW interface. I took the opportunity to try out one of the new templates designed by the talented Douglas Bowman who is the Founder and Principal of Stopdesign. It's cool .... don't you agree ?
There is no longer any need to use "Haloscan" for the Comments feature.

The New 17" PowerBook G4

I was in Funan IT Mall yesterday surveying the Notebooks. The one that caught my eye is the 17 inch PowerBook G4. It's simply gorgeous and undoubtably the supermodel of notebooks. Miraculously engineered, the ultralight PowerBook G4 is just 1-inch thin and 3.13 kgs, making it the thinnest and lightest notebook with a 17-inch display on the market today.


PowerBook G4 17"

Would I buy one? To be honest, I would not. Simply because the price is too high, or rather the price/performance ratio is not good enough. For the $5,288 price tag I can also buy two state-of-the-art Intel Centrino based notebooks, which might not look as good, nor have a 17 inch widescreen monitor, but will still get the job done. That does not mean I would not want to own one, it is just that in my opinion it is overpriced.

To quote from Seong Swee "Price good, wallet loose ... sure go!"
Here are the specs:

PowerBook G4 (17" 1.5 Ghz)
Processor: 1.5 Ghz PowerPC G4, 512K SRAM on-chip L2 cache.
Memory: 512MB DDR333 SDRAM - 1 SO-DIMM.
Display: 1440 x 900 resolutions TFT XGA widescreen.
Video Card: ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 with 64 MB of DDR SDRAM.
Hard Disk: 80 GB Ultra ATA/100 drive @ 4200 RPM.
Slots: 1 PC Card (Type I or II).
Optical Drive: Super Drive DVD-R/CD-RW.
Ethernet:10/100/1000 Base-T (Gigabit).
USB: 2 2.0
FireWire: 400 and 800.
Wireless Communications: Built-in 54Mbps AirPort Extreme wireless networking(based on 802.11g standard); Built-in Bluetooth 1.1
Modem: Built-in 56K V.92 modem.
Keyboard: Full size illuminated fibre optic backlit keyboard with ambient light sensor
System Software: Mac OS X v 10.3 "Panther"
Video Accessories: S-Video to composite adapter, DVI to VGA adapter.
Audio: Two built-in stereo speakers.
Weight: 3.1 kgs with battery and optical drive installed.
Dimensions: Height 1"(2.6 cm) x Width 15.4"(39.2 cm) x Depth 10.2"(25.9 cm).

Yahoo! Mail

Wow! Just accessed my Yahoo! Mail and now I have 100 MB of free e-mail storage space. Sending and receiving messages has also been increased to 10 MB

Its time MSN Hotmail wakes up, its the world's largest free e-mail provider with the smallest storage. Presently, with a free Hotmail account, you receive 2 megabytes (MB) of free storage space. You can send messages up to 1 MB each, including attachments. However, MSN also offers 100 MB storage space ... if users pay US$59.95 a year.

Goodbye Windoze !

I have been driven to the edge by the Microsoft Twins.

I Switched to Mozilla today !

According to Paul Roberts, IDG News Service, the new IE holes defy latest patches. This was reported in Technology - PC World dated Fri Jun 11, 2004.

Four new holes have been discovered in the Internet Explorer Web browser that could allow malicious hackers to run attack code on Windows systems, even if those systems have installed the latest software patches from the Redmond, Washington company, security experts warn.

It seems that many of the flaws which have been discovered in Microsoft products are the result of nothing more than bad coding practice and an obvious lack of testing and quality assurance.

Microsoft says that they have the "lion's" share of browsers in the marketplace. But how many browsers identify themselves as MSIE so they can use sites which use 'proprietary Microsoft features'? I know my copy of Mozilla do because I actually find them better for browsing sites intended only for MSIE than MSIE itself. At least I don't have to put up with all the advertising pop-ups and other invasions that MSIE seems to attract that seems to be suspiciously absent from other browsers.

Golden Week

In Japan, tomorrow is the start of the Golden Week. During this Golden Week, there are four national holidays in combination with well placed weekends.
Trains, airports and sightseeing spots tend to get very crowded during Golden Week, and accommodation in tourist areas are fully booked out well in advance. Passengers going through security checks at both international and domestic Airports may be asked to take off their shoes for X-ray inspection as Japan beefs up her anti-terrorism measures.

The national holidays making up the Golden Week are:

April 29 "Green Day" (Midori no hi):
April 29 used to be the birthday of Emperor Showa who died in the year 1989. After his death, the day was changed into a national holiday for environment and nature since the Emperor loved nature.

May 3 "Constitution Day" (Kenpo kinenbi):
On this day in 1947, the new post war constitution was put into effect.

May 4 "Between Day" (Kokumin no kyujitsu):
A recently introduced national holiday to make the Golden Week a continuous holiday.

May 5 "Children's Day" (Kodomo no hi):
The Boy's Festival (Tango no Sekku) is celebrated on this day. Families pray for the health and future success of their sons by hanging up carp streamers and displaying samurai dolls, both symbolizing strength, power and success in life. The Girl's Festival, by the way, is celebrated on March 3.

Panoramic night views of Seto, Japan

The night views of western Japan as captured by M Murakami using the panoramic photography technique. Those who have been to Hakodate-yama, Hokkaido, will appreciate these night views of Seto. The night scenery from Hakodate-yama is said to be as beautiful as the ones in Naples and Hong Kong.
Check out some night scenes here.

Search Box

Some day I hope to have tabs on this site so that you will be able to find specific things like Members, Ex-co and Alumni. For now, I am pleased to announce the addition of a Search Box.

On the right hand column just below Babel Fish and above Archives, you can now enter any search term you like. For example, if you want to find Keiko Imai that I posted back on 13 April, just enter Keiko, and lo and behold, every post that mentions Keiko will appear.

It's by no means perfect, but I think this works rather well. I hope you find it useful!

Cheers,

Blog's background colour

Received feedback from "Keiko Imai" ( not related to Noriaki Imai .... the one that is being held hostage in Iraq ) that the blog's background colour is not so viewer-friendly . He says :

"Tuan pakai warna kuning, kita orang tua susah bacha-lah. Minta maafkan saya, boleh ka pakai warna lain ta?
Terima kasih banyak lah. "

Well, how about this new color ? Appreciate your feedback in the "Comments" section.

Take care of your balls first.

It's not often that I post something here that I had received from a chain-email, but I like this one and would like fellow kenshuins to understand that health is important.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

So, the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full, They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course , the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous "yes."

The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things-- your family, your children, your health, your friends, your favorite passions -- things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

"The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else -- the small stuff".

"If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness".

Play with your children.
Take time to get medical checkups.
Take your partner out to dinner.
There will ALWAYS be time to clean the house, and fix the disposal.
Take care of your balls first, the things that really matter.

Set your priorities.
The rest is just sand.

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented.

The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no
matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of
beers."

If you're reading this, you've

answered the invite and logged on.
Subarashi desu ! ..... care to write some "comments" in reply to this and greet the group. Arigato gozaimasu....