Singapore’s Pretty Vibrant Lately

Somehow despite the gloom and doom, Singapore city seems to be abit more vibrant lately.

This summer there has been so many music festivals, mall activities that I must say you can’t really be bored if you bothered to look out for stuff to do.

Only problem is that I work later and when it’s time to chill after 11pm lots of things are closed already.

Also not sure if you’ve heard of the Dove shower challenge. In this shower challenge, Dove (the shampoo brand) created a shower stall in a mall where they challenged girls to “sing in the shower”. 

On one hand I’m laughing at how crazy marketers are getting to stand out from the crowd. On the other hand I must say it’s pretty good way to go viral on the web. And I’ve noticed that brand marketers are increasingly engaging the web by creating branded blogs, microsites, seeding sponsored posts and inviting bloggers to PR events. Oh well, things have really changed in this small little island huh?

WIRELESS AT SG REALLY SUCKS

START OF RANT

Why must it log me out every 15 minutes? And it can’t remember my username and passwords. People in the IT industry in Singapore really should go for usability classes.

There is a simple rule about usability, make it simple, make it quick, make it hassle free and you will have people sticking to it. I don’t really mind that CREATIVE technology inserts zen player ads into ALL my webpages while surfing, but having to log back in every 15 minutes is plain SPASTIC. Is this a ploy to increase “usage logins”?!?

END OF RANT

Diesel at $1.563 per litre.

That sucks! It’s a 347% increase in 4 years!Now my cost per km is up to $0.14 per km or. US$0.16/mileS$1.563 = US$4.25/gallon! for my USA friends.ArghOn top of that with crazy rising ERP/Parking surcharges, I’m getting hammered like crazy by the inflation here.Just yesterday I was charged $11 just to park 2 hours in the CBD.3 New ERP Gantries coming up right outside my home by November.GST up to 7%  despite projections of a budget deficit of $0.7b,  this year’s budget surplus was like 7x ($4.7b).Hospital Means Testing coming soon too! Grand Theft.Even the Hong Kong Govt is nice enough to cut the 40% tax on Alcohol. What a great way to celebrate in HK! Official Inflation for January in Singapore was 6.6%. Yes 6.6% for just ONE MONTH! If annualized, that would be 79.2% in yearly inflation!  

VariNice coffeeshop

Borat likes to say “verrrry niiiiiiiiice!!!”I’m sure many of you heard me say it many times.Well I found one coffeeshop with such a name in Jurong East.It’s called VariNiceNice! 

Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award 07

Went for the Singapore gala dinner for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award dinner last night. Nice event. Very expensive. Heard each table cost $2.5k! At least the food and the service was good!

Anyway, there’s something funny about the awards and its selection. This is not meant to belittle the efforts of the winners. But I find that many of the winners were 2nd/3rd generation entrepreneurs. They just took over dad’s company. Or they were not even native Singaporeans.

Anyone with a discerning eye would have noticed this. Luckily, at least the ultimate Singapore winner was a true-blue Singaporean. Otherwise, we’ll just be sending “Foreign Talent” to another contest. Just like our sporting teams.

I think E&Y should consider having separate categories. Let the guys who are 2nd/3rd generation with family money fight in one category, the guys who are rags-to-riches and on their own fight in one and also split the categories by Citizenship.

At least this will be a fairer competition. Otherwise, don’t mind me saying this but the perception will be that the competition is one that rewards the established inner-circle which truly defeats the whole idea of an entrepreneur award.

Good Service in Singapore? Where can you find it?

There’s this hawker centre at Dover where I just had lunch. There were 4 stalls there giving extremely pro-active service. They would come out of their way to welcome you, find you a seat and take order. Sometimes I think they’re a little over-enthusiastic. But better than being ignored isn’t it?

The reason they have pro-active service could be due to the competition. There are 2 chicken rice stalls and 2 drink stalls.

Many people have mentioned to me that service standards in Hong Kong have improved greatly. I think it’s the “China” effect. The stronger the competition, the more people buck up!

3.5G Mobile Broadband… The Way to Go! Liberation is Here!

Aha, my liberation from the shackles of wired broadband is finally here. Last weekend, I spent 3 hours in the line at StarHub Plaza Singapura to buy the MaxMobile 3.5G Broadband modem and access plan.

It’s the most wonderful piece of gadetry I’ve bought this year. It’s the ultimate mobility solution. Liberation has arrived!

The modem is called the Huawei HSUSPA USB Modem E270 with a download speed of 7.2Mbps and an upload speed of 2Mbps. It’s the latest and fastest 3.5G mobile broadband solution.

I no longer have to be thetered to to home or office line. Mobility is here. I can now go ANYWHERE in Singapore and be able to get work done.

With so many libraries, cafes and McDonalds all around this 24 hour town, the possibilities are nearly endless. It has given me the opportunity to work all around town. And get stuff done even at apparently weird places like:

• In a club, I can reply to emails by slotting the SIM card into my smart phone.
• When waiting for a carpark space, I can whip out my laptop and reply to a few mails or get some work done.
• I can meet friends at McDonalds or some Library and use Windows Internet Connection sharing to share the MaxMobile connection with them.

It’s really exciting! So much so that I’ve literally been telling everyone I know about this.

Only problem now is power supply: laptop battery just doesn’t last long enough. However, with so many places that ‘could’ have sockets, it’s not a show stopper.

Eventually, i hope to be able to buy an ultra-mobile laptop that is RAM-Drive only and has a built in 3.5G modem so all I need to do is slot in my SIM card. It will have the OS of a workstation and the portability of a mobile phone! How nice!

The Early and Fake Christmas

Singapore celebrates Christmas as if we are in the winter latitudes. From early Nov onwards, for 2 months, Christmas trees will pop up all over the island, Santa Claus will descend everywere, the whole Orchard Road will be lit up and every store will be playing the same old tunes ad-nauseum. I bet if there was affordable technology to make Singapore snow over, the Government would do it, just for “tourism”.

S$6.3b to be invested in building world’s largest solar cell manufacturing complex in Singapore.

From making transistors, cpus and electronics to Solar Cells, Singapore is in transition. This news of Norway’s REC building a S$6.3b plant in Singapore nearly went off the radar.

How big is this deal? The last major deal from EDB was ExxonMobil’s $4b+ oil refinery. This has nearly eclipsed it.

It is also close to the size of the two $5b casinos.

Of course, most people wouldn’t bother too much about it since there wouldn’t be much media hype about this.

I think it’s a good move to turn existing wafer expertise that we have into new sectors of clean energy.

It’s same same…. but different.

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