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The iPhone Interest & Singapore Telcos

2009-12-15T21:29:00.002+08:00

Google Analytics Now More Powerful, Flexible And Intelligent

2009-10-26T14:41:00.000+08:00

This is WAY... too exciting. :)

Google Analytics Now More Powerful, Flexible And Intelligent

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 | 11:00 AM

Today, we're announcing a new set of Google Analytics features which builds on last year's enterprise-class feature launch. Some add more power to existing capabilities. Others provide new flexibility to further customize and adapt Google Analytics according to the needs of your enterprise. Finally, we'll introduce Analytics Intelligence. Resist the temptation to skip ahead. We wouldn't want you to miss anything. :-)

Powerful.

Power-users have asked us to add even more data manipulation and analysis features to Google Analytics. We've been listening, and are adding the latest power features to expand Google Analytics enterprise-class capabilities.

Engagement Goals..and more of them! Two new goal types allow you to measure user engagement and branding success on your site. The new goal types allow you to set thresholds for Time on Site and Pages per Visit. Furthermore, you can now define up to 20 goals per profile. Watch this short video on goals to learn more.

Expanded Mobile Reporting: Google Analytics now tracks mobile websites and mobile apps so you can better measure your mobile marketing efforts. If you're optimizing content for mobile users and have created a mobile website, Google Analytics can track traffic to your mobile website from all web-enabled devices, whether or not the device runs JavaScript. This is made possible by adding a server side code snippet to your mobile website which will become available to all accounts in the coming weeks (download snippet instructions). We will be supporting PHP, Perl, JSP and ASPX sites in this release. Of course, you can still track visits to your regular website coming from high-end, Javascript enabled phones.

iPhone and Android mobile application developers can now also track how users engage with apps, just as with tracking engagement on a website. What's more, for apps on Android devices, usage can be tied back to ad campaigns: from ad to marketplace to download to engagement. Check out the SDKs and technical documentation on mobile apps tracking to get started. And coming soon, you'll be able to see breakout data on mobile devices and carriers in the new Mobile reports in the Visitors section!

Advanced Analysis Features: Advanced Table Filtering feature is being added to the arsenal of power tools you can use to perform advanced data analysis. Earlier this year we announced Pivoting and Secondary Dimensions. Using Secondary Dimensions, you could, for example, see revenue metrics for city + keyword combinations. So, you could see how much revenue your site received from visitors in Boston who searched for "bean bag". You could then "pivot" by source and see revenue by search engine for each of these city+keyword combinations. Here's a quick tutorial video.

Now we're adding Advanced Table Filtering. This allows you to filter the rows in a table based on different metric conditions. Watch the following video to see an example of how you could filter thousands of keywords to identify just the keywords with a bounce rate less than 30% and that referred at least 25 visits.

Together, these three power features let you perform in-depth, on the fly analysis without having to export your data to spreadsheet tools.

Unique Visitor Metric: Now when you create a Custom Report, you can select Unique Visitors as a metric against any dimensions in Google Analytics. This allows marketers to see how many actual visitors (unique cookies) make up any user-defined segment.

Flexible.

Every enterprise has unique web analytics tracking and reporting needs. Today, we're enhancing two of the tools that organizations use to adapt and customize Google Analytics. We're adding multiple custom variables to the tracking API and making it easy to share Custom Reports and Advanced Segments.

Multiple Custom Variables: Custom Variables provide you the power and flexibility to customize Google Analytics and collect the unique site usage data most important to your business. If you've used the _setVar() function, the concept of custom variables will be familiar, but we've taken it a step further: you can now define and track visitors according to visitor attributes (e.g. member vs. non-member), session attributes (e.g. logged-in or not), and by page-level attributes (e.g. viewed Sports section). Use custom variables to classify any number of interactions and behaviors on your site. This powerful customization capability makes Google Analytics even more flexible and able to meet the needs of the most demanding enterprises. Multiple custom variables will become available to all accounts in the coming weeks but you can start learning more about them now.

Sharing Segments and Custom Report Templates: You may have recently noticed in your accounts the ability to administer and share Custom Reports and Advanced Segments, features we announced earlier this year. Have a Custom Report you created just for the Sales Team? Simply share the URL link for that report to anyone who has an Analytics account and a pre-formatted Sales report template will automatically be imported. You can also now select which profiles you want to share or hide your Advanced Segments and Custom Reports with.

Intelligent.

Now, for the new feature you've been waiting for! Wouldn't it be great if Google Analytics could tell you what to pay attention to? Beginning today, it can.

Analytics Intelligence: We're launching the initial phase of an algorithmic driven Intelligence engine to Google Analytics. Analytics Intelligence will provide automatic alerts of significant changes in the data patterns of your site metrics and dimensions over daily, weekly and monthly periods. For instance, Intelligence could call out a 300% surge in visits from YouTube referrals last Tuesday or let you know bounce rates of visitors from Virginia dropped by 70% two weeks ago. Instead of you having to monitor reports and comb through data, Analytics Intelligence alerts you to the most significant information to pay attention to, saving you time and surfacing traffic insights that could affect your business. Now, you can spend your time actually taking action, instead of trying to figure out what needs to be done.

Custom Alerts make it possible for you to tell Google Analytics what to watch for. You can set daily, weekly, and monthly triggers on different dimensions & metrics, and be notified by email or right in the user interface when the changes actually occur.

Watch this video on Analytics Intelligence and then look for the feature to appear in your account in the coming weeks!

That's the summary. We're excited to share more details about each of these features, so stay tuned! We'll discuss each feature in turn over the next few days.

Posted by Dai Pham, Google Analytics Team

P.S. We're not the only ones with exciting news today! Google Website Optimizer also announced some big features - over time charts and a Website Optimizer API! Check out the Google Website Optimizer blog to learn more.

Bouncey Bouncey Bouncey...

2009-10-15T19:20:00.001+08:00

My bounce rate sucks. What can I do? (A five step guide)

Published

byFlorian Pihs

on August 10, 2009

Bounce Baby Bounce (Source: Wikipedia

When I first started to learn the ropes of web analytics, I turned to Avinash Kaushik’s blog (Occam’s Raz or) and book (Web Analytic’s: One hour a day) for a great deal of insight and actionable advice. One thing that stuck with me early, was Avinash’s emphasis on Bounce Rate as “The sexiest metric ever“. With all the caveats of generalizing metrics across different websites, bounce rate analysis is still a great place to start, when you plan to optimize your website.

Many companies and analyst have followed Avinash’s lead and are now prioritizing the reporting of Bounce Rate metrics. Talking to many clients in China I noticed a common question on everyone’s lips, tough: “My bounce rate sucks. What can I do?“.

Over time I developed a standard approach to address this question. Take a look at my 5 step guide:

Step 1: Does your bounce rate really suck? (Benchmarking)

Good or not? (Source: http://etc.usf.edu/)

In order to understand if you need to take immediate action to improve your bounce rate (as opposed to focusing on other KPIs), it is critical to benchmark your site’s performance.

Since user behavior and web design varies greatly among cultures, it is critical to find relevant local benchmarks for your site, ideally in your industry. In the US, services like compete.com provide valueable data. In China we have to do without any reliable 3rd party benchmark (what a shame). Even Google Analytic’s Benchmark function is not relevant, since it compares sites by industy, but does not provide country specific numbers.

A rule of thumb based on my experience in China (and please leave your ideas in the comments segment):

For micro sites for branding campaigns with mainly banner traffic: 85% to 90%
For landing pages of search marketing campaigns 25% to 40%
For landing pages of targeted direct marketing campaigns (20% – 30%)

If your numbers are higher, your bounce rate really sucks and you do need to take immediate action.

There are 4 common drivers for bounce rate.

Bounce Rate Causes

Lets take a look at each of them.

Step 2: Landing page segmentation

Bounce Rate is calculated by dividing the number of single page visits to a page (bounces) by the number of overall entires (visits that started on this page) to that same page. Bounces can only occur on landing pages (the first page a visitor sees on a visit to your site). So when your overall site shows a high bounce rate, you should first look at which landing page contributes most to your overall site bounce rate.

The most effective way to do that, is to calcualate the weighted bounce rate of all your landing pages. Stephane Hamel wrote the defining post about the methodology in 2007 on his Immeria blog. In effect you calculate the impact the bounce rate of each landing page has on the overall site bounce rate, by weighing it according to each pages importance (measured by the number of page views).

Use this formula

Bounce Rate * (Page Views/Total Page Views).

to calculate the Weighted Bounce rate of each landing page.

Take Action: Focus further analysis and optimization efforts on the landing pages with the highest weighted bounce rate. Check if your problem landing page is implementing best practices, usability test it, make changes, then A/B test the new version vs. the old version.

Step 3: Traffic Source Segmentation

Another driver for a high bounce rate on your site is low traffic quality. If your advertising efforts drive visitors to your site that are not interested in what your site has to offer, the best landing page cannot convert them. So before to start getting all excited about remodeling the landing experience, take a look at the traffic sources for your problem landing page. Many web analytics tools (regrettably not Omniture) allow you to easily segment your bounce rate by traffic source and / or type of traffic.

Bounce Rate by traffic source in Google Analytics

When doing this segmentation, look out for high volume traffic sources that drive traffic with a very high bounce rate. Very high is relative and a good benchmark is usually the bounce rate of your direct and search traffic. Visitors from these sources are usually highly targeted. If their bounce rate is high, your landing page likely has a problem. If these traffic sources have a low bounce rate whereas others, especially banner ads, partnership links etc have a very high bounce rate, don’t change your site, change your (paid) traffic sources.

Step 4: Creative Segmentation

When seeing high bounce rates for banners or SEM campaigns, it makes sense to dig one level deeper. Often these campaigns run with multiple creative executions of the banner or multiple copy executions for the text ad. Sometimes that creates a situation where one banner’s creative or call to action or one text ad is not relevant to offer made in the landing page. That is turn leads to a high bounce rate.

To understand if that happened to your campaign, you first need to make sure that your banners and text ads are comprehensively tagged (Google Analytics: UTM _content; Omniture SAINT tags) to differentiate between different creative versions. In the next step, A/B test your various creative version in multiple spots, to measure which one leads to the higher bounce rate.

Action: Run a creative A/B test before launching a campaign to ensure maximum performance.

Step 5: Loading time (Geo Segmentation)

Another very important factor for bounce rate performance is the loading time of your landing page. Especially rich landing experiences (often Flash based) require the download of large amount of data before they are ready for consumption. The longer visitors have to wait before the experience begins, the more likely they are to bounce. So far so easy.

The key challenge for web analysts is that loading time data is not available in any web analytics tool. In order to get reliable data, you need to buy the services of companies like Gomez, who specialize in web performance measurement (see last weeks Web Analytics Wednesday). This data is especially important in China, where loading times can vary widely across provinces and cities due to a unique network layout (see ChinaNetCloud’s presentation on SlideShare).

A good indicator for loading time challenges is a large variation of bounce rates across provinces in China. In order to get Google Analytics to show you the bounce rate by province in China, go to the map overlay report and click on China. This will go directly to the “by city” breakdown. Then go to the URL bar of your browser and replace the term “city” with the term “region” (** here magic happens **).

Bounce Rate by Province (China)

Action: If you see a large variation (especially between northern and southern provinces) you have a good indicator that your need to improve your hosting infrastructure to address your bounce rate problems.

These are my five steps. What are yours? Did I miss anything important? Let me know in the comments.

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Therapeutic. :)

2009-09-26T19:10:00.003+08:00

Kuroshio Sea - 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world - (song is Please don't go by Barcelona) from Jon Rawlinson on Vimeo.

Web Metrics Guru: Forrester Wave Web Analytics - Then and Now

2009-07-24T16:19:00.002+08:00

I noticed a new Forrester Wave on Web Analytics came out (3Q09) and it’s an opportunity to compare how the major platforms have developed in the last two years (3Q07) according to the Forrester Wave methodology.

Google Analytics moved from lukewarm contender in 3Q07 to strong performer with a stronger offering than before. WebTrends seemed to stand still, holding it’s place, not performing much better, according to the FW. Omniture and Coremetrics both moved up as leaders both in offerings and strategy. Unica improved, to occupy a place right next to Omniture, WebTrends and near Coremetrics.

Over the last two years, Visual Sciences and HBX were acquired and absorbed while Clicktracks all but vanished; meanwhile Yahoo! Web Analytics and AT Internet appear on the Forrester Wave, for the first time.

To me, it looks like Google Analytics and Unica improved the most over the last two years.

While the Forrester Wave appears to cover 8 contenders this time, just as in 3Q07, it leaves out many others that ought to be considered, in my opinion, such as Tealium.

I wonder if there’s a Forrester Wave for Social Media Monitoring platforms?

Article from: http://www.webmetricsguru.com/archives/2009/07/forrester-wave-web-analytics-then-and-now/

Beyonce 100 Single Ladies Flash-Dance Piccadilly Circus, London for Trident Unwrapped

2009-07-17T01:00:00.001+08:00

100 Single Ladies stop traffic with Beyonce's famous leggy dance in Piccadilly Circus, to celebrate the announcement by Trident of its free Beyonce gig in November. http://www.tridentunwrapped.co.uk

The Wireless Substitution Trend

2008-09-18T21:34:00.000+08:00

I was reading a research paper done up by Nielsen on the trend of Wireless Substitution in the U.S. and I thought it would great to share it. We might be able to see that trend with an Asian context.

Taking a step back to look at the people around me, I do realise that there are more friends who have snipped off their residential land lines over the years and are happy with relying on their mobile phones (or instant messaging/ email/ other communication technologies ) to communicate with their family and friends.

The wireless substitution trend identified in the paper could very likely be seen here in Asia as well since mobile subscription costs get more competitive and users see the convenience of mobility without wires. And yes, mobile phones penetration rates has been rocketing in this region (esp. in Indonesia where even mobile usage is seen to be growing exponentially according to my ex colleagues at Yahoo! SEA).

Now here's more hope for mobile marketing strategies! :)

Scrapblog - Digital Scrap Booking at its Best

2008-09-17T18:57:00.006+08:00

Scrapbooking has always been a great way to collect and express beautiful memories that you gained through experiencing the beauty of life. I had a one on one sharing session with the folks at Ogilvy today and I thought it would be nice to show the people who work with me in the same vincity some little pranks I know of that happened in my ex-workplace - the Yahoo! SG office.

I used Scrapblog to create my presentation "slides" and populated with memories. :) Some of my colleagues thought that I've used Photoshop Elements to come out with the presentation but nope, I doubt I had the time to do so. Scrapblog was a much easier solution for me. It brings scrapbooking to another realm - the digital realm. No, digital scrapbooking can never replace the physical, texturised scrapbooking experience. But it brings the mental visuals, the designs, that has been residing in your head into images on screen before you go, "yea that looks good, I can translate that on physical paper." Well, you can always stop at the part where you print out the digital masterpiece if you are contented with that.

Being a SaaS, the Scrapblog is a mash up with practical API relations with many photo content sources like Flickr, Picasa, and even those pictures you've uploaded on Facebook can be imported over. Putting its feet in a user's shoe, the tool has a well thought out architecture that enhances a user's experience by providing so much ease and accessibility to the needed content. Kudos to the team behind it. They should be in the Techcrunch 50 list! I wonder how the site analytics is like. Would suppose that visitors have high pageviews/visit and long visit durations. It is a highly engaging site.

Well I shall cut the talking/ writing. Have fun if you're playing around with it.

Yahoo! Singapore Auctions to Retire

2008-08-12T19:01:00.003+08:00

No way is this happening. Why? The service is great, there is a pool of audience, the activity within the network is visible. Now why stop the service?

I love Yahoo! Auctions

for its easy to use functionalities.
The interface is simple that anyone can use without going through a tutorial
Posting an item is hussle free and easy.
I'm fine without the paypal function since the seller could be staying 2 blocks away from me, or a train ride away. (Singapore is so tiny.)

You should stay!

Hiatus: Waking Up with A Song

2008-08-12T12:31:00.003+08:00

I've gone for an unannounced break from my blog.

There are higher priorities in my to do lists. I just had to take care of them.

I still enjoy what I do despite the busy-ness.

Occasionally, I take a break, pick up that guitar and sing a song. :)

As such, I did a little recording. Just my mp3 player, my guitar and me.

http://www.purevolume.com/jpg/albums/99499428

Survey: Do you have a Social Life?

2008-07-07T12:32:00.006+08:00

I'm calling for responders for this survey that my team put up. We are currently working on a Social Media Usage study and collecting some primary data.

We estimate that a 3rd of the world's online population or a staggering 417
million users in Asia Pacific are actively consuming social media in some shape
or form. (Social media includes things like Friendster, MySpace, YouTube,
Twitter, Flickr, Digg or Yahoo! Answers)

Are you one of them?
Do you consume social media?
What does it mean to you?
What would you do without it?

Please take less than 10 minutes of your time to share your experiences and become part of this dynamic and exciting study.

We thank you in advance.
I've got a eeky feeling why the link doesn't work for some, but nevertheless, you can cut and paste this into your browser if it doesn't lead you directly to the survey.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=lAloNlxmcS3TrwvKPMnmJw_3d_3d

Samsung Omnia Launches at CommunicAsia 2008

2008-06-20T02:38:00.010+08:00

The "iPhone killer" - SGH-i900 also known as the Samsung Omnia had a world launch at CommunicAsia on 17 June in Singapore. I follow its one-liner introduction :

The all-in-one maxi-phone fully loaded with top-of-the line multimedia enhanced smartphone features

Here's a video by Samsung regarding the functionality and features of the phone:

The Samsung OMNIA i900 Specifications

I met one of the folks from Samsung PR (USA) during an impromptu CrunchNetwork Singapore Meet up and got the opportunity to have a try of the phone. Personally, I'm happy with the size and weight of the phone. It feels lighter than the iPhone. The Omnia runs on the Microsoft Windows mobile version 6.1 Pro. It totally feels like you are having your PC on the phone. The camera function is remarkably customisable. Memory space of 8 or 16Gb is just right. The processor was not slow even though there were 10 programs running concurrently on it. I just hope that it doesn't hang as often as the Dopod TyTn II and 818pro that I used to have.

The stunning interface did melt my heart. The screen does a 360 degree auto rotation to orientate according the the angle I held the phone. I particularly adore the widget-like side bar it has on it's standby page, it allows you to add all kinds of widgets unto your phone and access them on the "canvas" with us a touch and drag. And touch, even though the Omnia does not have the multi touch technology that the iPhone has within it, the sliding and pointing sensitivity is good enough for me. I'm not sure if the multi-touch technology is patented by Apple.

Before I forget, the meet up was actually initiated by Greg Kumparak, Techcrunch's Mobilecrunch editor and Bernard coordinated the meet up in such a short time via the SG Entreprenuer site (and the other sites to propogated the news and get the word out in a louder way). Greg and several of us were discussing views regarding the .mobi domain and its future. Well, keeping the session as one that is lighthearted, the exchange of ideas and opinions was just top line. But we had fun. :)

Asian Numbers Could Have Made Facebook the Largest Social Network.

2008-06-16T14:11:00.015+08:00

Techcrunch recently published an article Facebook No Longer The Second Largest Social Network. The title speaks for itself.

In April 2008, a Comscore report shows a worldwide tally of the total number of unique visitors for 2 top social networks, Facebook and MySpace, at 115 million each. MySpace has been hovering at this range for the past 1 year but for Facebook, it is a steadily growing volume. There is also a graph showing the numbers that were contributed by the US. The volume has been maintaining at a constant level of 70 million and 30 million for mySpace and Facebook respectively.

I’ve modified the graph to point out the visitor volume contributed by the rest of the world outside of the US as shaded areas. The dotted lines depict the numbers from the US thus anything above it will come from the rest of the world.

For the past year, there has been an immense growth in the number of APAC Facebook users. MySpace entered the APAC market earlier and membership has since stabilized. It is not as well received as Facebook in China, a significantly big contributor looking at the sheer size of the market. But of course, China has its homegrown xiaonei.com creating even larger waves.

Alexa presented traffic ranks of Facebook and MySpace by geographic regions:

Draw your attention to the highlighted countries (Asia Pacific countries) and you will notice that Facebook has been climbing to top site ranks in a short span of 1 year. Facebook was only released to the college and university networks into APAC beginning of 2007. A short span of slightly more than a year, growth of its audience in APAC is inevitably going to continue. The older player, MySpace is already seen to achieve stagnated or low growth, or at least not as exponential as what Facebook has gained.

I have my reservations making the assumption that the European, Middle Eastern countries are the key growth contributors. The European market is largely swarmed by Bebo users. Bebo was launched in January 2005 and its users are mainly from UK (almost 50%), Ireland and the US. In the Middle East, some countries are dominated by Facebook (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, UAE, Israel). The rest of the countries prefer Hi5, Orkut, PerfSpot and other Arabic Social networks like Maktoob.com.

So if APAC is indeed the biggest contributor of the growth, what does it really mean for online marketers and advertisers? @weekee asked me on Twitter if this means good news for them.

The most obvious benefit would be the availability of another avenue to reach your target audience (that is, if they match the demographics of Facebook users). Most probably, youths below 18 are very unlikely to be there because of the age limit that Facebook has, as well as folks above 50 since the content does not attract them as much as they would to the 18-50 audience (the range could be smaller for some countries).

Because it is a platform, there are plenty of ways advertisers or online marketers can grab the attention of their TA. They comprise different degrees of interactivity ranging from just a click on banner ads to signing up for an application and access it regularly for new related content. InsideFacebook.com provided some very good opportunities that marketers could exploit from Facebook. But before embarking on any, so make sure that the people whom you want to speak to are there!

In a nutshell, these were some of the listed alternatives

In the order of ascending user interactivity:

Buying Social Ads, you specify how targeted you want it to be
Engaging in Facebook Platform Ad Networks
Use of Beacons and mini feeds to send information about your brand updates
Having a brand profile page if your brand has a “personality”
Running a News feed that people can subscribe to
Running Polls for research
Inviting guests through Facebook Events, and get invitees to RSVP
Adding Facebook Notes, Photos, Videos, Share or Posted Items
Selling on a Facebook Marketplace
Creating a Facebook Network
Creating Facebook Groups
Creating Facebook PagesSponsoring Facebook Groups
Sponsoring Facebook Platform ApplicationsCreating Facebook Platform Applications

Twitter Brace Up!

2008-06-15T12:37:00.000+08:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jun/05/socialnetworking.twitter?gusrc=rss&feed=technology

I've been getting over capacity messages whenever I visit my Twitter page the last couple of days. Indeed Twitter has been ranked the top social networking site in terms of downtime records. According to a survey with 16 of the biggest Social Networks done by Pingdom, a Site Monitoring company, Twitter has been the social networking site with the highest amount of downtime from January to April 2008. I would think that there are some others who are worse and are not counted into the group beyond the 16 that was researched on.

"we find the Twitter website, which has been unavailable for more
than 37 hours (a day and a half)." ~Pingdom

37 hours in 4 months. On Twitter, you can see a fair share of positive and negative comments regarding the temporary loss of some services provided. For some, life seem to be missing something. Others take heart of the fact that Twitter is a free service and will not "complain" even if the site is down.

Question here: Is it right for people to get angry and express their unhappiness over the digital space if a free web service is down?

Macau-Hong Kong- Shen Zhen

2008-06-07T13:52:00.000+08:00

Will be heading off for an eight day trip to Macau, Hong Kong and Shen Zhen. I can't wait. Apart from the casinos, I'm going to spend a lot of time in the museums, ruins and shopping! Oh, and how can I forget the spa and massages? See you soon!

Shift Towards Measuring AJAX Events

2008-06-02T00:46:00.002+08:00

Looking forward at the use of newer technologies like AJAX (as compared to flash and HTML) in building sites, Jim Sterne, founder of eMetrics.org, and Avinash Kaushik, Google's Analytics Evangelist gave their views on the shift in site measurement metrics that will go in line with such an implementation at the eMetrics Summit.

Beyond looking at page views, unique visitors and time spent, tools should allow us to explore the actions that our visitors are doing on the site as well. AJAX allow real time updates and events to happen within the same page without refreshing the entire page. Thus if we were to measure the activity by the visitors by the number of pages that they viewed, we could be so off in determining their engagement level with a site. Thus some tools have included event based tracking techniques while helping site owners measure their AJAX site. It not only tracks the number of pages visitors went to, it also does tracking on the number of events that happened within the same page during the visitor's visit and also the identify the events which visitors actually clicked on. If I'm not mistaken, Omniture's Hitbox has already started implementing such capability in their tool. I'm just curious why is it taking so long for tool owners to recognise this gap...

Way Cool: Google Analytics Specially for Blogs

2008-06-01T22:09:00.004+08:00

Source: Google Analytics Blog

Quoting the release blog entry for the GA Blogs product from Brett Crosby, Group Manager, Google Analytics

Several weeks back at South by Southwest, Jeff Veen announced our new Google Analytics for Blogger reporting interface. Currently available only in private beta, this product is a collaboration of several teams and marks the transition of Measure Map customers to a new Google Analytics interface designed specifically for Blogger users.

Here's what Jeff had to say:

"Many of you may remember when Google acquired Measure Map, our analytics product for blogs. When we came to Google, our first job was to take the experience of providing clear, accessible reports, coupled with powerful tools for analysis, and apply it to Google's already robust Analytics product. The result of that collaboration launched last May, in the redesigned Google Analytics interface.

Since then the team has been hard at work fulfilling our original promise: to help bloggers understand the impact that their blogs are having on the world. To that end, we've rebuilt Measure Map as an integrated feature of both Google Analytics and Blogger. We hope you like what you see."

Though we usually don't widely announce private-beta programs, we are migrating all existing Measure Map users (which include many prominent bloggers) to this new interface. With all the excitement around it, we knew we couldn't keep it a secret, so we decided to let the cat out of the bag early.

However, please keep in mind that this is an early beta; as such, we expect changes and hiccups along the way. We'll be refining the new interface throughout the year before we release it to the general public as an optional reporting interface in both Blogger and Google Analytics accounts. In the meantime, you can always use Google Analytics to track your blog.

Posted by Brett Crosby, Group Manager, Google Analytics

Like what Brett advised, I use GA to track my blog. And to mark certain milestones like: comments being made, visitors checking out some of my labels, I set them as conversion points using the tool. Now it seems like GA for blogs understand such tracking needs and has customized the tool for bloggers' use. It is still in private beta phase, it would be great if I could test it out too.

[365 Series] Day 28 Joel's Tee

2008-05-30T17:21:00.000+08:00

Joel's Tee, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

Joel seems to ave a wardrobe of message tee collection. Makes you wonder what he is trying to say whenever you see him in one with a provocative message. Morally bankrupt? The one yesterday says "New York City Jail" on the back.

OgilvyOne Singapore Interviews Vinton Cerf

2008-05-30T15:43:00.003+08:00

Vinton G. Cerf, "The Father Of The Internet" and VP, Chief Internet Evangelist for Google gives OgilvyOne Singapore a view into his crystal ball on what the Internet will be in the future.

Previously, I've blogged about his talk at the Suntec City surrounding the same context. He gave a stronger advertising point of view in this session, done in the Ogilvy Centre. Interesting insights.

Google Friend Connect

2008-05-29T17:54:00.002+08:00

Google Friend Connect lets you grow traffic by easily adding social features to your website. In this video, Google Product Manager Mussie Shore walks through the steps required to add Google Friend Connect to a sample website. Looks similar to myBlogLog but it has more functionalities. Maybe I should add one to my blog too! Oh, did I mention that it does tracking too?

[365 Series] Day 27 Penguin Necklace fron Irene

2008-05-29T17:18:00.000+08:00

Penguin Necklace fron Irene, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

Irene little gift for me from Philip Island. Wish I could be there to see the little penguins play hide and seek.

[365 Series] Day 26 McGriddles Breakfast

2008-05-28T12:53:00.000+08:00

McGriddles Breakfast at 7am, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

I have been setting myself a challenge to grab myself some Macdonald's breakfast since McGriddles came out in Singapore. So far, I haven't been able to do so, until this morning. I've been waking up rather early for the past few days. No, no to catch a glimpse of the sun rise, although I love to watch it creep out from behind some buildings across the road, but I just can't sleep properly. Then my day starts. Back to McGriddles: It wasn't as fantastic as I would have expected. I thought the good ol' Sausage McMuffin was still more yummy. However, the prints on wrapper are surely more attractive.

[365 Series] Day 25 My Estate Waking Up

2008-05-27T14:36:00.000+08:00

My Estate at 6am, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

Irene is coming back from Melbourne today. Mum and I were supposed to pick her up from the airport when we realised that her flight arrived an hour earlier. She ended up coming home by herself and we could only help her with the luggage just under the estate. The view just outside our apartment was lovely. Sun rays came in hues as they reflected by the clouds in the dawn sky paints a picture which we know only God can create. A lovely way to start another day.

[365 Series] Day 24 A Referral Letter

2008-05-26T16:56:00.000+08:00

[365 Series] Day 24 A Referral Letter, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

I went to the company doctor because my eye was itching. The skin around the eyes was crusty and flaky. The eyelids were slightly swollen and I have no idea what could have caused this. Expecting to get some cream from the doctor to ease off the itch, I was slightly taken aback when he told me that he will refer me to a dermatologist. "Is it that serious?", I thought. Nevertheless, I shrugged, took the letter and head out of the clinic for my next meeting in the office. Let's see what the specialist says on the coming Wednesday.

[365 Series] Day 23 The Coffee Bean Mascot

2008-05-25T11:31:00.001+08:00

Coffee Bean Mascot, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

The Coffee Bean and Tea leaf opened an outlet at Downtown East's E! Hub.
I bumped into this mascot without seeing where I was going. I think it hardly notice it since he was surrounded by little folks half his height. I did manage to get him to pose for this picture though.

An Evening with Vinton Cerf

2008-05-24T14:03:00.012+08:00

Vinton Cerf in Singapore, Suntec City.
Thanks for organizing it, The Digital Movement.

Vint spoke about his forecast on the Internet in 2035. Bringing with him a wealth of experience and exposure on the most advanced technologies that has ever discovered and used by DARPA, Vint selects and made us visualise the possibilities of bringing some of those technologies into our everyday lives 27 years down the road. Things that seems new to us were actually much older than we think and Vint knows that.

Special thanks to Alvin for recording the video and streaming it real time to Qik. While waiting from Aaron Koh's video to be out, we can have a peek at lower streaming quality on the interesting bits of this special evening.

Some points I picked up from the session:

Vinton predicts that the total internet population to grow up to 1,320 million internet users (1.3 billion) in 2035. That is 20% penetration of the world's population. Asia will be the top contributor region to the internet population of the world as the infrastructures in those places gets more developed. Some countries will have beyond 100% of penetration because he saw them using more than 1 device to access to the internet at the same time. It is just like how mobile penetration can get through 100% in Singapore because some of us owns 2 mobile lines.
More and more different types of devices will be part of the internet ecosystem. He estimated that one person will be using 10 devices that can be connected to the internet. Currently the number stands around 3. (I would think that it is probably true for more developed nations.)

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Wired and wireless infrastructures will allow business to business (B2B) transactions to flow through different industries seamlessly. This is due to the efforts that will be made for the standardization of transactional structures horizontally. XML and UDDI standards will advance and become more visible into the picture.
Cloud computing will come into play for higher cost-efficiency in the use of internet bandwidth across nations. (Ken from iDA share a good piece of insight with me on cloud computing just before Vint started speaking. To him, Cloud computing is similar to Grid computing.
The virtual environment will have a greater presence in the internet sphere. Vinton projects the use of holographic technologies in instances like a business conference meetings, not on a screen but a virtual 3 dimensional figure right in front of our eyes. This moves far beyond the current state of use of the virtual environment that we see today in SecondLife and other virtual games. The boundary will be challenged.
Convergence of digital objects and processes will happen. Soon URLs will not exist. There will be a rendevous of the names of digital objects and their internet address. Imagine the breakthough in the level of findability of the information that you are looking for! This really drive me to think more into the usage of tags/ labels in a more standardized way. Probably one day everyone will be tagged with a few standard terms for identity purposes.
Statewide (Nation- wide) database will start to grow. Intelligent databases that unify together to help people see trends of events that are happening around the state. The epidemic prediction example that Vint brought out was just amazing. A country could actually foresee the coming of a communicable disease through reporting trends made possible by such database integration.

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Vint shared his views on the socio-economic effects of the Internet in 2035.
Internet will further transport and display print, video and audio media in more agile and flexible forms to enable interoperability in different mediums or devices.
Internet group interactions will become richer and more mature. We could even see political interactions happening in a more common manner. Videos, opinions and other forms of content will be shared via the internet at greater volume. The current statistics from YouTube states that videos were uploaded by members at the volume of 10 hours per minute - faster than you can finish watching them. Information consumers ARE the producers. A trend in which the wisdom of crowds is gaining higher regards.
Innovation is at its edge. Data-mining mass information makes it a constant possibility.
Social Networking will take on another identity - Vint pointed out that social interaction can developed in such a way where you do not need to be physically present for your presence to be transmitted. Through robot representatives, you can control how you want them to represent you in a meeting and interact with your attendees rather than having them stare at a flat screen talking to you. Well I'll prefer the personal touch actually. I'm just skeptical on how to the society will become if people do not meet face to face with each other anymore.
Gaming will definitely see a quantum leap when holographics get more commercialized in game play. We are already seeing the spatial dimension that Wii has challenged and we can expect more. Somehow, the movie "Iron man" suddenly appeared before my eyes again.
There will be a newly revamped business models due to the dramatic drop in the cost of production and distribution with the use of new technologies. Staying with the same model could cost you more. For some industries, digitization of products, documents gets more common.

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On IPTV, Vint shared that downloading and streaming will happen at lightning speed. Look at TiVo! Video streaming will most likely be used only for real time needs.
An interesting perspective that he brought out on product placements in videos in replacement of a 30 second commercial gives advertising a new positioning. Vint argued on the fact that consumers do not like to be disturbed while watching a video, and
"advertisement interrupts but information is something that users are interested in."
Thus products be placed in videos and users can mouse over with their cursors and see more information about them. To help you visualize it, it should look something like this but definitely packed with richer amount of product information:

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Mobility and mobiles in 2035: There will be 10 million devices and counting that will be able to access the internet in total.
Remotely controlled services and devices aiding it will rise in popularity. You do not need to be in control. Payment services will tap unto to the convenience once the security issue is seriously looked into.
Haptics will also take center stage as the focus on the human sense of touch gets into the picture when designing innovative interfaces. Microsoft Surfaces is taking a step into it and that step can be widen. Control of devices and commands through touch and voice will deepen user experience in the access of the internet.
Navigation systems and its technologies -GPS, mobile tower triangulation, building announcements. will see a greater take up rate. People will view it more and more as a utility tool as they integrate their lives with it and find more use of it. Find the nearest supermarket that sells this good. Do they still have inventory for it? (Integration with inventory information of shops, indexing capabilities needed) How many miles, how much time do I need to get there?
Intelligent internet enabled devices could be spotted in more forms than you can think of. Vint was so humorous when he got us to think about an intelligent refrigerator that knows what it contains, recipes that you can use to cook with what is left inside, remind you when you need to restock your groceries, up to the extend of sending an email with a shopping list for your next supermarket trip. I want something like that!

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In order for those predictions to materialize, I could see a greater integration of data mining and information creation, as well as network agility and scalability, looking after by tighter security and authentication capabilities. The average internet user's behavior is going to be transformed.

Blown away, satisfied, learned much from this incredible man of our times in just one session. I am truly grateful for his passion to evangelize and to teach the use and the development of internet to anyone who wants to hear about it. He articulated the concepts of the internet so clearly that it is easy for us to connect with his thoughts. An entertaining communicator, not one second with him was unfruitful. Time well spent.

Want to read more about it from others:
Jean did live blogging on the event on her blog
Yuhui consolidated his live tweets here
James Seng was the moderator of the discussion. A lil' of his thoughts here
Ian wrote on the red dot.

[365 Series] Day 22 Siamese Fish Biscuit

2008-05-24T11:27:00.001+08:00

[365 Series] Siamese Fish Biscuit, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

I was munching on some fish shaped biscuit this morning and I saw this pair of "Siamese twins". I thought that is pretty interesting and snap a photo out of it. Of course, it is gone by now. :D

Ogilvy Digital Summit - Ian Stewart from MTV

2008-05-23T23:13:00.005+08:00

Ian shared a presentation about MTV Asia's views on social networking and the changing online habits of youth. I'm very glad that he covered the Asian markets specifically in some of his graphs. Not many seminars I went to has got their Asia figures spelled clearly. Here's the show. enjoy!

| View | Upload your own

Some pointers did send me nodding my head unceasingly during his presentation.

"Youths don't need another website"

The statistics says that they have accounts to 3 social networks. But I'm seeing them probably using just one very extensively and the others mildly. Interesting examples I see around are campaigns that are being ran entirely on Social networking sites, no microsite sites built. Companies can leverage on such services which are already available for free. When you are reaching out to youths the online medium could be all you need. (I doubt they watch so much TV nowadays). So the key here is leveraging.

"It is all about free content to the users... Having ads in videos are okay."

His insights says that viewers really do not mind having watching a 10 second video ad before they watch they MTV clip. That IS a great discovery. There is hope in video advertising! My take as a digital analyst on this would go along the lines questioning if viewers are actually watching the ads at all or letting it run past then come back to watch the video again when the ad is gone. But then again, if a viewer is interested in the ad, you would have reached him with your product and he probably could respond to it instantly if there is a URL. It happens the same way as television, minus the call to action part.

"They want to control their online experience"

Fair enough. I want to control mine too. Social networking sites like Facebook and Friendsters has given quite an amount of liberty for users to take control on what they want to see, spread and be talked to. Users are definitely getting more opinionated about their preferences. When I tie in this insight with some of the projects that I have on hand that is related to information architecture, I start to think that a site layout should not be too rigid. IA can be flexible. Why not allow users to structure how they want their site to look. And on our end, we just need to make it easy for them to do their thing. Something valuable I took away with me.

Ian on stage

[365 Series] Day 21 Hello I am Joanna Teo

2008-05-23T12:59:00.000+08:00

Hi I'm Joanna Teo, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

and how are you?

Linkedin Profile Views

2008-05-23T02:27:00.002+08:00

Who has been viewing at my linked in profile? I'm surprised by the spread of viewers from the different industries.

Ping sank Indogaruda

2008-05-23T00:30:00.002+08:00

I wasn't with them on this war. Hey you can't blame me for missing out on this. I was hard at work in the office alright. :) But it looks like a good win and right now, we are waiting for the next Battle Stations clan to rez and attack us.

[365 Series] Day 20 360 Brand Stewardship Training Lunch: Grilled Salmon

2008-05-22T22:24:00.000+08:00

Grilled Salmon, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

Held at the NUS Guild House, the signature Ogilvy 360 Brand Stewardship Training was conducted to educate us on the importance of keeping a brand alive. I've learned that whatever campaigns I do, I should always be tie it back to the brand's core values and identity. Advertising is about building brands, not creating advertisements. And, and the food was yummy.

[365 Series] Day 19 Chis Hard at work

2008-05-21T22:27:00.001+08:00

Chis Hard at work, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

Preparation for the upcoming Verge conference is hard work. Chris, my MD here is still hard at work at 10pm right now.

Revamp: What do you think?

2008-05-20T22:35:00.003+08:00

Listening to my itchy pair of hands, I decided to revamp my blog and make it cleaner. The free tracking tool(s) that I'm using now are sexier as well. One of them (crazyegg.com) gives me pretty heatmaps to show me where clicks are going, the other (getclicky.com)has a good reporting mechanism. I'm trying out both of them and see if they perform better than the usual Google Analytics.

So leave me some comments!

[365 Series] Day 18 My Favourite Hangout

2008-05-20T17:48:00.002+08:00

My Favourite Hangout, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

A breath of fresh air (minus the ciggi smoke sometimes), time for a little break.
I hang out here when someone pisses me off.
I hang out here when I need to have a chat.
I hang out here when I'm overwhelmed with work.
I hang out here when I think about him sometimes.
I hang out here when I need new ideas.

[365 Series] Day 17 Pool Game with Liphin

2008-05-19T23:59:00.000+08:00

Pool Game with Liphin, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

Liphin is finally having a off day after his outfield training with the army. That dude is sure jumping for joy now, knowing that that he will be taking back his pink identity card and leaving the army in 2 weeks' time. A game pool with this old friend got us talking about many issues that we are facing with in our separate lives. A well aimed force on the white ball - A form of release, letting go of some of those impending thoughts in our heads.

[365 Series] Day 16 For the love of sweets

2008-05-18T23:34:00.000+08:00

For the love of sweets, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

There is always, I'll repeat, always room for ice cream. My favourite Japanese ice cream chain lures me to take a second look with its elegant display of colours in tubs. This round, I got 3 flavours to share among my sisters and mum. Green Tea with Red Bean, Lychee and Mango! Yum Yumm

[365 Series] Day 15 ebi on my bed

2008-05-17T10:28:00.001+08:00

ebi on my bed , originally uploaded by byzantin3.

Such a lazy Saturday morning, my dog has to wake us all up with her barking. And she got the attention she was seeking for when I got up and carried her on my bed. Reprimanded her a little and she looked up at me with her droopy eyes which somehow dissolved her wrongs at that instant. You call that the "redemption look".

[365 Series] Day 14 On the top of the Flyer - Davesther

2008-05-16T23:21:00.000+08:00

At the top of the wheel, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

The family heads out again.
This time we visited the Singapore Flyer, all 17 of us (3 families).
The night scene was full of lights from the neighbouring construction site for the integrated resort as well as the CBD buildings. I thought it would be great if we could see the sunset on it but the entire process of queuing and getting up of the cabin was just a drag. We ended up getting on the flyer at 7.45pm, the sun was gone and the sky was dark already.

[365 Series] Day 13 Ice Cream Mochis from Leonard

2008-05-15T15:02:00.000+08:00

Ice Cream Mochis from Leonard, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

Leonard was on leave for the morning and he came back with boxes on yummy ice cream mochi! The mochis were filled with flavoured ice cream and they melt soon after they were taken out of the ice bag. My favourite would be the Lychee flavoured mochi, something fruity to sweeten the day. :)

[365 Series] Day 12 Bye Bye Hans

2008-05-14T19:39:00.000+08:00

Bye Bye Hans, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

A very big card from us to Hans. It is his last day at Ogilvy today. Turning "Blue" after shedding from the "Red".

[365 Series] Day 11 Be great by Tuesday Carpet

2008-05-13T09:35:00.000+08:00

Be great by Tuesday Carpet, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

Inspired by a strategic planning book written by Gorse Jeffries, Be Great By Tuesday, This carpet is place right outside the lift lobby to great visitors every Tuesday at Ogilvy Singapore

[365 Series] Day 10 My Companion

2008-05-12T16:27:00.000+08:00

My Companion, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

A full day of meetings and all I carry around is my handphone and my notebook of ideas, things to do and calendar.

[365 Series] Day 9: The Makeshift Rojak Store

2008-05-11T23:28:00.000+08:00

11052008895, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

The last I've seen of such a makeshift Rojak seller was 8 years ago at my older estate. It was a pleasant surprise. I thought it would be nice to buy and savor a serving of this "old school" styled Rojak once again, and bought a pack even though I was on my way to another eating place for lunch. The yummy taste of nostalgia just came back to me in a bite. How I miss my childhood so.

[365 Series] Day 8: Haji Lane by Night. Altazzar

2008-05-10T02:16:00.000+08:00

Haji Lane by Night. Altazzar, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

After our Marie Digby music showcase at Velvet Underground, the bunch of us, Jean, DK, Ridz, Jerrick and myself head over to Haji Lane in Arab Street for some Egyptian food. The night life over at that area was blustering with activities. I love the way the colourful lights from the signages fall on each of the buildings and the tar roads. Just sitting by the road, you can soak up the rich atmosphere that is lingering in the air. This place just feels different from any other parts of Singapore. It has a life of its own.

[365 Series] Day 7: Chocolate Caib, My Share

2008-05-09T22:03:00.000+08:00

Chocolate Caib, My Share, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

It is Candice's 24th birthday.
We got her a pretty straw clutch bag and 50 bucks of Vivo City Vouchers. She has to make time to spend all those cash vouchers within 6 months. But I'm sure she will not find it a chore at all.
Vanessa and I went over to Lau Pa Sat's Opus Deli to get her a cake. It is my favourite, the Chocolate Caib. The chef who made this cake used to work in Regent Hotel's kitchen and he set off on his own to sell his top notch chocolate moose cake at a hawker centre at reasonable prices. The Macaron totally premiumised the cake and make the strawberry seem so insignificant. Worth a try!

[365 Series] Day 6: Wall Paper on the Ceiling

2008-05-08T22:55:00.000+08:00

The Wall Paper on the Ceiling, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

It was probably Gerard's "I'm an advocate for Lion air" joke. I was laughing so hard that I tilted my head upwards and caught a glimpse of the not-so-plain ceiling. It was actually a nicely textured wall paper that was glued all over the ceiling throughout the restaurant (Ajiteh at Plaza Singapura). It is like those expensive scrap booking sheets that mysister bought from the stores. The colour blended very well with the furniture and the deco of the place. It probably contributed a part in the "poshness" of the restaurant, though I must say that the food certainly has to play a little catching up for my entire experience to be perfect.

[365 Series] Day 5: Lights and Reflection

2008-05-07T23:59:00.000+08:00

Lights and Reflection, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

Met up with Miccheng for dinner and coffee after that. I sat on a comfy couch and lean slightly toward the glass window. The hanging lights and their parallel reflections just caught my eye.

[365 Series] Day 4: Swiss Chocolate From Aimei

2008-05-06T23:57:00.001+08:00

Swiss Chocolate From Aimei, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

Aimei leaves Ogilvy today. She makes her last rounds to say goodbye and gave us some chocolates at the same time. The finance team will not be the same without her.

[365 Series] Day 3: Stephanie's Chicky Birthday

2008-05-05T22:50:00.002+08:00

Chicky Says Bye Bye, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

Happy 31st Birthday Stephy
The only girl who can make the words
"Chicken" , "Checked in" and "Checkered"
sound the same!

[365 Series] Day 2: The Happy Ending

2008-05-04T21:37:00.000+08:00

The Happy Ending, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

The craving has been satisfied.
The flavor of the chilli and butter crab dishes was intensely topped up by the good company of my friends of more than a decade.
I went home grinning from ear to ear.

[365 Series] Day 1: Green and Pink

2008-05-04T04:23:00.002+08:00

Green and Pink, originally uploaded by byzantin3.

I stand on the green patch
And wonders what the day will fetch
A glimpse of the fields that stretches afar
A prayer for a sight your homecoming car

With this, I start a 365 photo series on my blog. It is nothing new an idea but I hope that this exercise will keep me busy with finding something meaningful to live out each day of my life.

May 3 2008 would be Day 1

Time don't pass me by...

2007-03-28T23:40:00.000+08:00

I need more time.
Please don't pass me by...
May I buy some, dear God?
Do you have any spares to offer?

Unsuspecting things trap them
I devoted them without a thought
Now that I do a check
Sunsets had passed in quietness.

In awe I gasped at the reminder
No much left I see, not much.

New Blog Skin

2007-03-28T01:11:00.000+08:00

A nice revamp for my blog finally. I was looking for silhouette based pictures and I thought this orange one might leave me happy for a while. What I like about it is the shadowy grass that wraps that rest of the blog together and blends the writing area with the top picture. I've filled the right corner of the page with google's 120X600, what we call super in Yahoo! ads. Well I thought I can let them have that empty space. The layout is neater as compared to the last version, I feel... The only thing that I am still looking around for would be a nice player to give out some music. :)

Faith in Perspective

2007-03-27T14:26:00.000+08:00

Ironic picture I found. It is a street in San Francisco called Faith Street. The caption that came with it was "Faith is just a dead end street". It is closed to cars. But do you know that it is accessible by foot? No wonder the bible always says that faith is a walk.

Perhaps the best known meaning of faith comes from Hebrew 11:1
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

You would need faith if you are doing well? In a very limited way maybe, faith that good times will last? However, faith could only be more fully expressed in times of difficulties and doubt. We call that the D times: Depressing, disappointments, difficulties, dryness, doubts, death, D filled result slips, and the list goes on... It is only through times like these that we need faith to add substance and tangibility to our hopes. Faith is what that makes hopes a reality. Makes sense yea?

I was attending Rev Casey Treat's service where he talked about changing the world with your faith. He gave quite a bit of insights related to faith that made me ponder even further. Here are some:

God isn't in control of everything in the world. (true He gave us free will) but we could use our faith to change the world. (You can't blame God if thinks doesn't work out your way, It is just that you have not pressed into the matter enough.)
Faith is thus a choice, not a feeling. (Thinking about it, yea, I can feel confident but feel faith? Not exactly...)
Faith can be seen. (Woah... Through your actions! )
Faith is a way of life, the just shall live by faith. (Yea it's a lifestyle! Now I have faith in the hawker preparing my lunch. It is going to be clean and edible. Haha..)
Faith is an uphill walk. (It is progressive, if you have less faith than the previous time, you have lost some faith.)
Problems DO NOT make you have more faith. They just give you an opportunity to exercise your faith. (Hey, that's a revelation to me!)
Grow your faith by hearing the word. (And here's the solution.) Rom10:17
Faith changes the negatives. (Speaking to a problem positivity rather than letting it speak to you.)
Faith will cause Jesus to stand still (Amazing! And He will ask what you want. Mark10:46-51)
Faith establishes you future. (It frames your future according to what you believe in.)

So much about faith. It can only work if you act upon it. Faith is not sitting and hoping.

Hello Old Friend

2007-03-26T22:42:00.000+08:00

Blogging again.

Having a flustered mixture of feelings about graduation. It's going to be yet another milestone of my life. Some call me stupid to have rejected the online network marketing offer in Yahoo. I thought it wasn't what I wanted to do and dismissed my initial little plan to accept it and think later. So yea, I'm back to leaning on what we affectionately called Faith. And I'm hopeless wondering whether I'll get the production position that I desire. That's not for me to decide. Many told me not to worry, after I'm tired of thinking about it, I stopped.

Retail Therapy

The wonders of what IKEA can do. Everything is just magnified. That includes its theraphy ability! Adding on to all the cupboards and shelves which Dad bought for us, I got myself a new set of quilt and beddings. A set of covers to keep me warm and assured. Sweet.

Food Therapy
I'll spend on food. Good food. Or I'll complain until the cows go home. Well good food makes me happy, lousy food do share an opposite effect of making me grumpy. It's a 50-50 bet if I were to go to somewhere new, hopping that the food there will make me happy. Today's Tepanyaki wasn't up to standard, but the excellent company compensated the mediocracy.

Labelled Raw Gem

2006-12-31T23:29:00.000+08:00

Raw, unpolished, still hanging on a big piece of rock...
what's there to appreciate a "raw gem" for?
Last year haven't been easy for me. Wasn't that enough polishing done on me?
So am I still considered raw? I have not a single clue what was on your mind.

Consider the effect of labelling, how do you change the point of view when it is already set?

My Guitar

2006-12-30T12:43:00.000+08:00

I'm starting to play around with it again. I wonder why...
Finding something to fill my heart perhaps. Maybe I should start writing another song!
Somehow I'm still lousy with acoustics. I'm sticking with classical.
Wonder if my bro at home is picking it up again too. I think he's a prodigy, right dave?

Cozy Christmas with Family

2006-12-29T13:48:00.000+08:00

Simply love spending time with my family. Aunt Lili invite us to her house for a nice turkey dinner. A warm fuzzy affair that is. It's good to have a private function sometimes where only the closet to you are invited for a time of good fellowship.
Sally poses with the only christmas tree in the house. yes, it is in that bell glass. Mummy wonders what so special about it.

Look at the spread!!! We had nachos, beehoon, curry, otah, TURKEY, beef, honey glazed ham, sushi, sashimi... yummy!!! and we toast off with red wine, beer and baileys!

Granny and Aunt Karen in the background enjoying their food. As usual, they were quiet on the dining table compared to the chatty bunch of us.

I decided to make personalised candle holders for everyone this year. Topping it up with my wishes for them to have a bright and hope filled year ahead. Love the little flower at the end of each name.
The chocolicious log cake!!! Aunt Lili places an extremely timely host as she brought out the cake when she knows that we'll be ready for it. You'll look forward to a second helping if you were there.
Sally and Irene holding on to their share. Aren't they afraid that I'll grab it after I shot them? haha...
Can't get enough of the cake. Sally tried to savor every bit of it. I caught her before she swollows everything down. lol.
Now for some after dinner shots. We wanted to make full use of Aunt Lili's newly pained yellow feature wall. So we started snapping away.
The 4 of us. Still as close. I want us to stay close and never part. Really cherish this bonding that every family yearn for. We just have it.
And we love to show it in style. Give me some attitude people!!!

There we go... Season Greetings everyone, enjoy your company.

Taitai for a Day

2006-12-27T23:53:00.000+08:00

Irene and I decided to wear our new dresses out today. We decided to meet grace to shop and eat. Boy do we feel old. Whatever made us go into Crystal Jade. We felt different inside. The service we get was much friendlier and slightly more dedicated. Could it be due to what we were dressed in? I reckon.

It was great company from Grace too! Too bad she was a little under the weather. we would have spent the night together if she was feeling better. It's mambo night remember?

Dad's Birthday

2006-12-25T12:12:00.000+08:00

Mum gave me a call when I was in Chiang Rai regarding Dad's Birthday. He actually asked us out for a dinner and mum expects all of us to be there. I don't know what to say to him. Thus the entire meal, I kept myself busy by trying to master the art of disecting a crab with fork and knife. I was pretty good at it I must say and Dad actually asked me if I really love to eat crab that much. I gave a grin and continue on with the dining surgery.

Hospital Trip in Thailand

2006-12-24T23:23:00.000+08:00

The worst thing that could have happened to you during an overseas trip is to be injured. Negligence, thinking that everything's a-okay doesn't always promise you a speedy recovery. I fell of a rock on the mountain, and off the toilet squat when my feet lost the strength to balance throughout. Just when I thought that they are recovering, they swelled overnight and I lost my ability to even walk. Crippled in a foreign land, what a way to go. Irene had to send me to the nearest hospital while the rest of the people were busy enjoying their R&R bit of the YEP trip. Good thing she's there. I would have died if not for her. I began to wonder when Irene asked why there wasn't anyone with me. I couldn't answer.

Legs were bandaged after that and I was fit to fly home, yippy!

That wasn't my first hospital trip in Thailand. I was the medic of the group and yes I did send a few quesy tummies to the doctors in Chiang Rai. On one occasion, I even stayed there overnight with Ying to take care of two members who were running high on fever. Constant wiping of their bodies was necessary to bring down the temperature. Ying was not feeling well too. So I had her rest as well. No idea how I made it but I did managed to stay awake to take care of them throughout. It was a sacrifice made for their recovery. And it was well paid off. I zonked out the next day and Ying took over.

Home

2006-12-24T17:44:00.000+08:00

I'm home. with 2 bandaged legs and a whole load of memories. I'm thinking if I should copy down all my journal entries into the blog. We'll see how....

Now for some Christmas turkey at aunt Lily's house...

The Marketer Vs The Engineer

2006-11-29T00:22:00.000+08:00

It is a tough fight between the both.

The marketer thinks that the engineer is hindering the business' progress.
The engineer thinks that the marketer is a loophole in the business' security.

Many a times, we are troubled over making different kinds of personalities in the company work together in perfect harmony. I couldn't help but to agree that job roles that contradict with each other within a company also brings people many headaches.

As an observer, I can see where these 2 people are coming from. Their original stands are meant for good. However, their priorities might clash when they meet one day. This problem really reminded me of those entrepreneurship management classes where cases like these are thrown across the seminar room with logical arguments. What is important at the end of the day is really how the matter on hand is resolved.

The marketer has far and wide plans for the company; he wants it to be on the edge thus he expects ideas to be made into reality fast. In his mind, prompt and no hassle delivery is the key to success. The ability to innovate and adapt in the fast changing industry is vital. The engineer on the other hand seeks for perfection. There is nothing wrong with it absolutely. He makes sure that the guidelines are met and that the gates are protected from external harm. I like his attention to details but his persistance might cost the convenience of many users. Could he be more flexible? Or should the marketer slow down in those creative, out of the norm requests?

Companies loss share because they are over taken by better ones. How do we define the "better ones?" Are they the companies that innovate the most? But their cost might be escalating right? Look at Sony. They are losing USD 150 with every PS3 they sold. The innovators took as long as 2 years to develop a superpower chip and they are making losses with every machine they sold. But we know they are going to be big with the games and accessories sales. What about those companies with the best security and trust for their clients? Surely you'll look for one with high security guard to put your money into! But innovation sometimes eats into the element of security and safety. Thus a balance must be achieved along the lines of providing the clients with creative and guarded environment.

I hope they come to a common consensus soon. I don't feel good standing in the middle for too long.

Anti Malaria Pills

2006-11-28T10:25:00.000+08:00

I forgot to take it for today despite my constant self-reminders.
What am I doing?
Procrastinating over a pill?
Ok I don't know how to swallow pills
That is super embarrassing and it should explain why I missed the dose.
I guess I was constantly reminding myself the horror of taking the white pill.
Yucks.

Pool

2006-11-27T16:19:00.000+08:00

The Balls
Originally uploaded by byzantin3.

The afterparty with a more familiar crowd. Mummy learned how to play pool!

Happy Birthday Popo!

2006-11-27T16:16:00.000+08:00

Popo and her cake
Originally uploaded by byzantin3.

Happy 78th Popo.

I hope you enjoyed the celebration. It's a rare gathering of 5 families, we're just lacking of 1. There is more room for smiles and laughter though...

The "afterparty" was so much more fun. Somehow, the 5 of us just don't want to head home. We went to Paradiz centre for a session of pool.

The Balls
Originally uploaded by byzantin3.

An Apple (Juice) per day Keeps the Doctor away..

2006-11-26T13:43:00.000+08:00

I had 3 so far... and a whole fridge of it waiting to be consumed. Peel Fresh Apple Juice without sugar added. "Don't worry there's no sugar!"

It is actually quite tasty and healthy too. SO grab yours today if you haven't!

It's Still About the 7%

2006-11-25T01:52:00.000+08:00

One day, an excessively paranoid parent comes home from work. His cuddly boy ran into his arms the very moment he opened the door.

"Daddy Daddy! I miss you Dad Dad!" he exclaimed.

He lift up his boy and look into his eyes, "Oh son, Daddy misses you too.. and, I'm so tired" "Could you please go get me a glass of water?" he requested.

The boy cheekily replied, "Not only until you solve my riddle!"

The father being slightly annoyed took up his challenge with a tinge of reluctance.

"So Daddy, what goes up and never comes down?" the boy waits excitedly for an answer, at the same time recalling the praises his teacher gave him when he was the only one in class who could get it right. "Come on Daddy, I'm only giving you 10 more secconds!"

The father thought to himself for a while and let out a laugh.

"Alright Daddy, give up? Let me tell you, it's our age!"

"Ah son, I do have a better answer... and it really never comes down. Just go check it out, It's in the news my dear."
-----------------------------------------------------
Channel News Asia

Saturday November 25, 12:17 AM
Hike in GST will help serve long-term needs of Singapore

SINGAPORE: The impending hike in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) by two percentage points may be unpopular with consumers and small businesses right now.
But analysts say it is a sensible strategy to ensure Singapore remains competitive and attractive to foreign investors.

The proposed rise in GST to 7 percent might hit consumers' pockets, but analysts say there is a sliver lining.

They call the move a pragmatic one which will help position Singapore competitively in the long run.

Simon Littlewood, Consultant at Asia Now Pte Ltd, says: "They've determined that a shift from direct to indirect taxation is going to help them correctly because there are relatively low levels of income tax and corporation tax in places like Hong Kong.

"Singapore's competitiveness for multinationals and for their senior executives has eroded progressively over the last few years, as other countries have stepped up investment in infrastructure, in particular the attractiveness of China, has shifted the balance on where people want to be located."

So a slight increase in GST will give the government room to lower personal and corporate income taxes.

That in turn will attract more foreign investments and talents.

Analysts say a consumption tax of 7 percent is still relatively low compared to some Asian and European countries at between 10 and 20 percent.

However, this marginal increase in GST will no doubt affect less well-off citizens and it is hoped that the government can take measures to help them cope with the higher cost of living.

To this end, an assistance package, that will more than offset the GST increase, will be offered to needy Singaporeans.

The government will also evaluate the impact of the hike on healthcare and basic necessities.Dr Chua Hak Bin, Director of Asia Pacific Economic; Market Analysis, Citigroup, says: "We have to bear in mind also that the government has actually come out to unlock some of the reserves which is quite a break from the past.

"The realisation of this capital gain could actually introduce some 2 to 3 billion by my estimate, and that will actually give the government a lot of fiscal room to do a lot more, whether it's social safety spending, helping social expenditure for the ageing population or even going ahead with the corporate tax cut."

Industry watchers remain optimistic, as previous increases in GST generated more investment and created more jobs. - CNA/so

Just Want To Show It Off

2006-11-24T09:58:00.000+08:00

My Luggage Tag handmade by Irene!
Originally uploaded by byzantin3.

Lovely lovely, Irene knows that I'll be away for a month and she lovingly made me a personalized luggage tag. I know I know you want one as well. But I ain't gonna give it to you even if your name starts with a J. Muhahaha... It's mine!

Dim Sum at the Little Shop of Horrors

2006-11-23T11:30:00.000+08:00

Hop Hop Little Shop of Horrors....

I was fed with a roaring feast of local delights at Victoria theatre yesterday along with Irene, Grace and Max. The Dim Sum Dollies family staged their latest local flare of a botanical discovery that have gone all so wrong for the last time with a full house of friends and family members. I must thank Grace for her good connections on getting the tickets. I saw quite a number of familiar faces in the theatre. John (obviously, he's Selena's hubby!), Michael and my marketing professor Mich who questioned me on why I wasn't mugging like the rest back in the GSRs. Maybe there were more but I didn't take notice.

The plot was very close to our hearts: the ah lians, the parking lot machiks (hilarious!), the dream to become somebody, to buy a house and retire where the grass is green, all encompassing around the sticky glue of love and a maneating plant. I am pleasantly entertained and I'm already waiting for the next dish to be out.

Thanks for the good company too guys!

The Yahoo! Way

2006-11-22T04:15:00.000+08:00

I love Yahoo!, no doubt about it. The people there are real. Not pretentious, some might say, down to earth. I haven't wrote a word about my internship until now, 3 months after it ends. I simply don't know how to express it. My work there comprised 60% product managing and 40% on the marketing side. Great experience. I never knew that I'll be given so much exposure within such a short time. No time to blow up in pride, but it'll be sinful if I do not slow and count my blessings on the fruitfulness of my 4 months there.

Product and Engineering sounds horribly technical but the people are a whole bunch of whacks and Shacks. I simply love them.

Amos was my direct manager and a very respected fatherly man. I don't know why Verena calls him pineapple head I guess it is because he had this chinese pineapple display hanging just above his desk. But this man, I learn much from him. DYC, Answers Admin, Product Lifecycle... all from him. yea.
Verena comes packed with extra long lasting battery with unlimited shelf-life. Small and dainty, she's definitely not quiet like a mousey. Some tried to learn her amiable, unimitable behavior but all fail terribly. VW is uniquely VW.
Jona is a fashion mama. Not wishy washy, speaks to the point and she's very clear about what she wants. Nice attribute that some in the office lacks. You know what happens to their requests... Things only turn out the way you plan them to be when you know what you planned for. I like her presentations by the way.
Landing anytime at your table without much warning would be the flying Jet in Y!SG. Always game for a good argue on life's bits and pieces. I'm still wondering why I feel that I'm on the losing end all the time. Why huh? Oh by the way, the noun Jet is since evolved into a verb."To do a Jet" has become a frequently used phrase on the foosball table when someone does an own goal (correctly me if I'm wrong on the definition)
Puuurrr.... comes Mads in her kitty cat specs. She made me 2 sets of really pretty earrings which I swear I'll wear them until they turn rusty. Where to find such colleague? But somehow I never fail to find time to disturb her through continuous pinging with links to Answers abusers. She took it all! respect.
Ping! Ping! Ping! Lennard pings a lot alright. He is Not silent. Has a lot of opinion of his own, just that he didn't speak them out. A steady worker, you can count on him for your html designs. good works he does.
Hsiang sees the big picture well and he does not forget details also. I'm wowed by some of his suggestions. Perhaps it is due to his experience when he made them but still, that's some quick thinking he did. He's the first person I spoke to on day 1 too.
Answering the 1000th call without grudge and anger... it could only be Letchimi. I like her attitude. All smiles, very peace loving. I always tell myself that I really need a bigger heart like her whenever I see her. Sometime I think she should get a break, a getaway more often. She totally deserves it.
The engineers and Shawn, so many of them. They work hard, they play harder, really. Foosball I tell you, catch a showdown everyday after 5pm. It'll be worth your ticket price. They have their PSPs and Nintendo DSlites, and their mac book pros, enough to scare and hardcore gamer to their ultimate cyber grave. Anyways, it was fun bothering them. Asking KF if this or that is possible, finding ways to make Colin say yes to the vanity URLs (engineer into branding guidelines. respect..), making it hard for Ivan to win his TeeVee (ok YH did most of the chasing), go funan with Alan, teach Paul English, smile for nothing at Donald (hey he talks funny ok and he thinks that I'm crazy..), disturbing henry and ivan over IM, nuubee treatment. lol.

The marketing team was surprisingly quieter, with the exception of Dennis. Yup, you "hear" him to know that he's in the office. He's whacky and cool. Loves orange and white websites and bargains really well. A different breed of marketing director I should say.

Miss the rocket shooting, win lose or draw days. school is so.. eee now.

Step Up

2006-11-19T12:39:00.000+08:00

$ Br0ke $

2006-11-18T20:57:00.000+08:00

Pockets empty heart is filled??

The Day Bush Saw Me

2006-11-17T01:17:00.000+08:00

Yes he did.

He was in his black bullet proof Limo along with a huge convoy driving along Stamford Road towards the Istana park. And there I was with Irene, crossing the blocked road. We were the only pedestrians standing on the pavement and we were not expecting to see the drive pass. So we stopped to see what was going on. And to our delight, the American president was driven in the Limo and he turned his head when he saw both of us. Our jaws were on the ground by then. He took a look at us!!

When the entire convoy was gone, we realized that we took no photos and that we did not wave at him At All! What were we doing?!

Almost Lost...

2006-11-15T01:54:00.000+08:00

I'm almost gone.

While fixing Kel's computer at his place, I got startled by a loud bang. A cracked hole can be seen on window in front of me. The impact was huge, it was as if something huge and fast moving was thrown towards you. I could still feel it so vivdly. When I check out what happened with Kel's parents, it was actually a bamboo pole that had fallen from the upper storeys at an angle. I was pretty sure that if the falling velocity was just a little higher, the pole would have come through the window and pierce right through my heart.

I was awstruck at that moment. I could have perished without saying goodbye. The vulnerability of life circles me. It has always been there but I felt it so strongly then. I have a deep feeling that I'm covered and protected, because I truly experience the impact. It was so near you think that the pole was right before you, but I know somebody has taken it away.

Thank you...

The Love for Teaching

2006-11-10T01:41:00.000+08:00

I'm not a teacher by training. But I love to teach. Matt and Kel are simply remarkable. Though they are not A students, they are willing to try at all cost to get the best grade within their ability. That, really warms my heart. Matt is done with his O levels. I really do hope that he will score well for his Additional Maths. I could see the amount of effort he placed into the subject. And I'm definitely well-pleased to hear from him that he felt good about his paper. That's all that matters...

Kel is a challenge I gave myself. I've never tried tutoring a language subject all my years. However, Ryan seemed to find trouble looking for English tutors, so I took it up. Kel is fortunate to have a caring mother who believes in counseling and most importantly, believes deeply in her child's potential. Kel is not a high achiever. In fact, he takes a longer time in learning. Perhaps it's due to his short attention span, Kel has problems converting information into long term memory. I guess it takes lots of practice. But I've found a way to tackle that. If you can stop him from deviating his attention, join him. I decided to take interest in the things that caught his eye at that very moment, and make a discussion out of it, in proper English that is. And it works, every time. A big bonus I got from him: A pass in English after 3 years of continual failing. Praise God for that. See my smile from ear to ear?

I realize myself that my class presentations are becoming more and more like teaching sessions. Somehow when I present, I would want to make sure that my audience understand me. And I ask for questions almost after every slide. Ridiculous as it may sound, but I feel more confident in that manner. Hopefully the receiving end feel that way too.

Happy Birthday Markie

2006-11-05T11:33:00.000+08:00

Yup Mr Stig, Happy 23rd. Stop reminding me already.

Belief

2006-10-22T03:07:00.000+08:00

Define: Belief /bɪˈlif/
A state of mind that holds an ability to take one to places where he can never imagine.
Provides comfort in the most drastic circumstances. May vary in strength.

Directions:
Simply put it and keep walking

Danger:
Automatically assumes that you are walking in the right direction.
Absolutely no room for errors.

Another One: Let's Stay Together by At Last

2006-07-29T12:01:00.000+08:00

Won't You Just Look at them: Masters of Harmony

2006-07-29T03:54:00.000+08:00

There is just this thing about music harmonies and choir or acappella arrangements that can swoon you like no other. You are just mesmerised hopelessly in them! They can even melt the hardest hearts if the songs are sweet or if the singers are great stage-takers. Makes you go awwww....

By the way guys, don't forget to listen to the way they sing, check out their dynamics too! It is simply awesome.

Fly Kite Childhood

2006-07-28T16:07:00.000+08:00

I miss those days...
Chasing the wind that lifts our kite
Watching the clouds roll by its side
Can we still relive them?

I miss those times...
Spending our days on the grassy patch
Painting the evenings with colors that match.
Can we still relive them?

I miss those moments...
Doing nothing but stare into empty spaces
Thinking about stuffs that puts a smile on our faces
Can we still relive them?

That's Aww so Sweet!

2006-07-25T00:09:00.000+08:00

Look at what I found while I was hunting for nice pictures on the world wide web. How many of us can boldly say this to our loved ones? It must be written by a thoughtful little girl while some careless recepient dropped it off the bustering streets. Nevertheless, it's awefully heartwarming.

Start Talking

2006-07-23T00:03:00.000+08:00

There's so much to say yet I don't how and where to start. Somehow or other, I think I need to start talking. Have you thought about consequences? : One reason why some matters are better kept unspoken. Still in a dilemma.

Fly Away

2006-05-22T13:29:00.000+08:00

How Big Can You Think?

2006-05-16T12:10:00.000+08:00

How Big can I think... I wonder...

No boundaries... No limits... No stopping.
I want my imgination to flow, in constant innovation.
My ideas to dance, in total freedom.
Learning like there's no tomorrow.
And create out of out what I have.
But for now,
Let me just learn how to yodel.
To yodel?
"Why?" you must be wondering.
How could I be missing out the element
That brings out the essence of my new attachment?

Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle...

Thus in tribute to that, here's a youtube video featuring a home-made advertisement for Yahoo! auction Taiwan. It's in mandarin by the way... But worry not, there are english subtitles on the buttom of the screen. Enjoy!

Try Solving This!

2006-05-15T14:54:00.000+08:00

{ First 10 digit prime in consecutive digits of e }

It caught my eye, so yea if you are interested, you can try!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So where did it came from? Who on earth set the question?

In September 2004 NPR.org reported this finding:
Mysterious banners at a Cambridge, Mass subway stop have commuters scratching their heads. The signs, challenging passers-by to solve a complicated math problem, are actually a cryptic pitch by Google, which is looking to hire more brainy engineers. Andrea Shea reports.

The message at Harvard Square (see the kind of people they are targeting?) also appears on a billboard in California's Silicon Valley, but Google's name is nowhere to be found on the ads. It simply states:

The correct answer to the banner problem leads to a Web site that poses yet another puzzle. Eventually, the determined problem-solver lands at a Google Web page that asks the smart, or lucky, few for a resume. How ingenious is that?!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My attempt at the problem:

It says that the 10-digit prime number is found in e, that is, the exponential.

e=
2.718281828459045235360287471352662497757247093699
95957496696762772407663035354759457138217852516642
7427466391932003059921817413596629043572900334295
260595630738132328627943490763...

(this is crazy.. the scientists at Nasa actually went to calculate the e for more than 2 million digits!) then, it also says that the number is consecutive in e. Thus we need to have some sort like a sliding window that fits 10 digits to slide through our e and choose 10 adjacent digits at any one time. Now we need to choose smart. Looking at the characteristics of prime numbers, we eliminate sets of 10 digits which does not fit the criteria even before testing them. However, not all criteria can be applied simply. We'll just eliminate those which end with even numbers for a start. By doing this we'll be left with these possible numbers:

1828182845
8281828459
1828459045
2845904523
8459045235
.
.
.
2742746639
7427466391

I think you get the idea. We'll then have to use a Probable Prime Test by Rabin-Miller to test if the number is prime. As simple as that. Just that it is kinda tedious. I'm still wondering if there is really a formula to fish out those sets of 10 digits. Anyway, the answer is 7427466391.com. Of course, the site has been taken down. It shouldn't take them that long to find the right candidate when they have posted their ads in Silicon Valley as well as the Harvard Square. Ah well, for the fun of it, it entertained me for one afternoon. Time chec: 5pm. I have spent 2 hours!

The Student Academic Progression System

2006-05-12T03:26:00.000+08:00

I just found out that I'm actually just 7 courses away from graduation if not for the FYP. We are the only people in SMU who are made to do this. So I'm left with"

1 Information Systems Major Elective
1 management Major Elective
3 General Electives (Arts/Science)
1 Global Regional Study Course (GRS)
1 IS Final Year Project lasting 2 terms.

If I ain't going to do anything more for the 2nd term other then the project and a few courses, it's going to be such a waste of money! Therefore... a second thought crept passed my ears and satisfied my mind. Peiyu was thinking about the possibility of both of us doing a 3rd major! That is like... Out of this world! Imagine graduating with 3 majors! woohooo! Then again, will the Office of Rigistra, I mean Registra, acknowledge this 3rd baby or simply throw it into the scrolls as an illegitimate set of wasted courses? We're hoping for the best to come.

Meanwhile, the anxious me being awakenly by the suggestion, even though I was drugged with my medicine and should be tucked into bed again, drew out the possible majors I can choose other than Management, my 2nd. Here are the final 2 candidates: Missy Law and Mr Marketing.

The Law 3rd Major
If I were to pursue in a Law major, I can clear the remaining 5 needed courses as follows:
1. Business Law (Compulsory)
2. Company Law (Compulsory)
3. Consumer & Marketing Law (I chose this)
4. IT & the Law (Clears as an IS major elective too!)
5. Law & International Business (Clears as a GRS too!)
6. Development of the Video Game & Entertainment Industries (for Mgmt major, interesting yea?)
7. GE1
8. GE2
9. GE3
10. Final Year IS Project.

5 course units per term for my very last, very ambitious academic year.
___________________________________________
The Marketing 3rd Major

The marketing major will bring me a mix of courses as follows:
1. Consumer behavior (Compulsory)
2. Marketing Research (Compulsory)
3. Finance (Compulsory, though I have no idea why.)
4. Marketing IS or e-Commerce (clears as IS major too)
5. Global Marketing (Clears as GRS also)
6. Internet Marketing (Something I want to look at)
7. Development of the Video Game & Entertainment Industries (under Mgmt major)
8. GE1
9. GE2
10. GE3
11. Final Year Project for IS.
_____________________________________________
So, the marketing major actually has got one additional course to clear. This might arise the need to spend 600 bucks more for the next summer if doing 6 courses in a term is not allowed (with the ongoing FYP, I don't think I'll request for that). Ironically these 2 majors are on extreme ends of the see-saw. One being supremely logical the other with a big element of creativity that contributes to subjectivity. Of course the latter would be more fun, my friends identify me as a more marketing person to a paralegal. I would want to give somemore thoughts to it, but this little checkup on my available option did marked a good start. Besides, matters would not be finalized unless there are sessions for those classes and that I get a place there!

Kena Detention?!

2006-05-11T14:02:00.000+08:00

Brown still keeping up closely with post-elections in his 11th serving.

Here's how the story goes...
browncast: the persistently non-political podcast no. 11

"The PNPP team explores the impact of grades and exams on Singapore education. What is a good result? Are students under enormous pressure to perform? What is the new A-star grade? We put schools to the test to find out."

Thousand Bolts of entertainment value!!!

How You Vote Is Kept Secret... Bah!

2006-05-11T11:04:00.000+08:00

Source: The Straits Times 11 May 2006 Singapore Press Holdings Limited

"The Elections Department explains the system and reason for serial number on ballot slip.

THE Elections Department is saying it again - your vote is secret. The assurance comes after some Singaporeans raised perennial concerns over the serial number on their ballot paper when they voted last Saturday.

Others were also troubled by accounts from MPs-elect on how they can gauge which areas within their constituency supported them. But as the Elections Department made clear yesterday, the polling and votecounting procedures in the recent and past elections do safeguard the identity of individual voters.

For a start, it explained how the polling system works. Constituencies are carved up into several polling districts. There is one polling station per district. Each station handles around 2,000 to 4,000 voters. Each voter is assigned to a specific polling lane with a ballot box at the end of it.

In each lane, a voter's name and registration number are called out as he receives the ballot slip. This allows the polling agents sent there by the contesting parties to confirm that he is on the list of eligible voters. The department also made clear why a voter's registration number is written on the counterfoil of the ballot paper. This deters vote fraud and impersonation.

In letters to The Straits Times Forum page, six readers asked about the serial numbers on the ballot paper and the registration number on the counterfoil. Two of them said their relatives did not vote for the opposition because of the serial numbers.

In replying, the department's spokesman explained that the serial numbers were used to ensure that the final number of ballots cast is equivalent to the number of ballot papers issued. This prevents any incidence of ballot boxes being "stuffed" with counterfeit ballot slips. This is how the counting procedure goes: At 8pm, when polling ends, each ballot box, which can contain around 1,000 votes, is sealed. Usually, ballots from four to six districts are counted in one centre.

There, counting tables will be set up. At each table, ballots from all the boxes used at each polling station are mixed up, then sorted by party, before being counted. No one except counting officials can touch the slips.

Which begs the question: How do parties gauge what kind of support they get in a constituency? The answer: It all boils down to how observant the polling agent is. At each centre, he can tell if the districts represented there are giving his party more, or less votes. This is how the PAP knew in the 2001 General Election, for example, that over half of voters from Sennett Estate within opposition-held Potong Pasir were supportive of it and decided to give it upgrading.

After votes are counted, the ballots at each table are put back into one box together with the counterfoils. The boxes are then sealed and stored in a vault in the High Court. Only a High Court judge can order the boxes to be opened. After six months, the parties are invited to witness the journey of the boxes to the Tuas incinerator. Workers' Party candidate Chia Ti Lik, whose team of five lost the fight for East Coast GRC, affirmed the Elections Department's explanation: "As someone who's observed the process, I'm 100 per cent confident that no one can tell for sure how a person has voted."

To boost public confidence, Singapore Management University law lecturer Eugene Tan suggested that all votes from a constituency be counted in one centre. Currently, votes for each constituency are counted at different centres, which then fax their tallies to the principal counting centre for the constituency and the Elections Department. Dr Tan also urged officials to continue to address "nagging concerns and untruths" that Singaporeans may have over voting, as it was "part and parcel of protecting the integrity of the electoral process".

lynnlee@sph.com.sg"

Hmm... so did they actually answer the question? I think they have beaten around the bush to distract me. Having the serial number on the counterfoil is as good as having your NRIC on the paper itself. Sigh... unless they can tell me that the registration list with the matching names n registration numbers are destroyed immediately after the number of votes are tallied, they'll have a way to trace back who voted for which party. 6 months of wait... there would be enough time for you to match the voter with his/her vote. And if the votes (on the back of each voting slip there is another serial number) are computerised, things will be accelerated. Mummy does have a point when she said, "The gahmen knows it all..."

Disgusted

2006-05-09T17:04:00.000+08:00

Some people are just so full of themselves. They think they are the only ones who can do the job well. Oh well, do it yourself then. Boo!

eMiLy's Baptism

2006-05-07T18:48:00.000+08:00

All geared up for a whole new life!
Light of the World, Salt of the Earth...
Warm wishes from the warmest members

Yummy or Yahoo?

2006-05-05T17:23:00.000+08:00

Can I have both?

Are You a "Swing Voter"?

2006-05-05T14:26:00.000+08:00

Undecided, brainwashable, the boh chaps. Parties trying their best, squeezing every ounce of effort they can find to win the votes of these fellow Singaporeans.

Today's Straits Time Report:
"Wooing swing voters"

And I'm NOT one of them. I have my reasons.. after saturday.

The General Elections Heats Up

2006-05-04T10:05:00.000+08:00

Alex showed me this today:
"PM Lee says countries worldwide respect and admire Singapore's proven system "

Mr Lee says:
"What is the opposition's job? It's not to help the PAP do a better job ... because if they help the PAP do a better job, you're going to vote for me again and they're going to be out of a job for a long time. So their job is to make life miserable for me."

I feel that he should take it in a more positive point of view. It is not that there they are out to make his life more miserable. Rather, they are out to make sure that PAP works harder! If he were to take it in a more constructive manner, we are all working towards a common goal to make Singapore a better nation. Take a monopolistic industry verses a competitively monopolistic industry. The latter has more variety because the participants have an incentive to innovate and perform better than their counterparts. A constant strive of improvement is assured. Unless the monopoly is extremely motivated and committed to discipline itself to seek incremental progress, treating itself a its own competitor, eager to outdo itself all the time, then physical competitors are not needed. The people get the best value out of everything.

PM Lee also mentioned:
"Right now we have Low Thia Khiang, Chiam See Tong, Steve Chia. We can deal with them. Suppose you had 10, 15, 20 opposition members in Parliament. Instead of spending my time thinking what is the right policy for Singapore, I'm going to spend all my time thinking what's the right way to fix them, to buy my supporters votes, how can I solve this week's problem and forget about next year's challenges?"

I take on a very utilitarian stand to this. For the overall good. Why focus on buying supporters votes from the competitors when one should think of the right policy for the nation. Is it necessary to eliminate all oppositions when one can just ignore them and focus on doing the right thing? That reminds me of the Netscape and Microsoft saga. Netscape focused so much of their energy and money in lawsuits against Microsoft when MS simply went on innovating and researching more ways to expand and improve the company's services. At the end of the day, the battle was never-ending, Netscape lost so much money and was acquired by AOL! Focusing on the wrong priorities! I don't want that to happen to my government! I hope that this mindset will soon be changed for the better.

Mr Brown and His Podcast

2006-05-03T12:07:00.000+08:00

Mr Brown's podcasting abilities just got better. The Persistantly non-political podcast series had etched as a milestone of his growth prominently. I'm sure that you are going to enjoy this 6th installment of his offering.

browncast: the persistently non-political podcast no. 6

Political aspirant, Jeff Lopez, the Man and His Ideas, goes for lunch. And finds himself embroiled in a controversy focuses the spotlight on his very integrity and credibility.
This audio podcast does not contain "persistent political content" because that is prohibited during the election period under the Singapore's Election Advertising Regulations. Remember, prison got no broadband!

Audio file for the mrbrown show 1 May 2006: the persistently non-political podcast no. 6

Off To Ubin!

2006-04-28T12:31:00.000+08:00

Yea peepz, I'll be having my peer helpers summer camp in Ubin Marina country club resort! yippee! I wonder what's installed for us. Haven't been to a camp for quite a while!

WooHoo! I Get To Vote!

2006-04-27T19:13:00.000+08:00

Yea somebody contested for my GRC! More to come when I get home! Yippee!

Has My Life Changed Over The Past Year?

2006-04-25T03:45:00.000+08:00

I seriously don't know. i Make a guess? Not much? People still come and go in simple my life. I feel that it is pretty normal.

Perhaps I do have less time for myself because of that. More time spent in worrying about stuff and people, in turn sacrificing my own personal time with God. I still hear His precious voice, without it I think I'll really be lost in the smu jungle. However, I do admit that I've not seek and chase Him as much as I did as a younger believer.

The passion and the fire needs more fanning, it is not my wish that it turns cold. But it does if one doesn't watches the fire and throws in some wood occasionally. A reality check pays a visit at my 20s. At the corner of my eyes, I see the cares of fulfilling my dreams knocking on the door of my heart. From behind, my current studies hooped a rope over my waist to tie me over. Family monetary issues on rooted me firm on the ground while the relationships pulled my hands tight, all vaying for my time, my life.

When I look up, God is asking me when I'm free for a coffee. I hate to say no, really. God says that He'll handle them. Could I have that faith to put them all in His hands. I told Him that I needed more faith, can we just takeaway coffee and talk as we walk?

Maybe the fire didn't turn small. Just that the weather has gotten a little colder and the fire remained the same. The demand for a larger warmth is required now and I haven't got enough. Somehow, the same warmth doesn't feel as warm as before. The same closeness to God doesn't feel as close as before. Paradoxical huh? Would the cold wind blow off the existing flame? I pray not tonight. I won't allow it to.

Man, I do miss the feeling of being really close to Him...

Don't you just miss this?

2006-04-24T03:17:00.000+08:00

I had it after dinner at a coffee shop in Loyang Point. Man, old memories of my younger school days. Running to the mama shop below my old flat, squeezing out ever coin in my little purse to buy all sorts of candies and softdrinks (read: junkfood) to keep myself happy. Ah... those were the yesterdays...