Ever been in the situation where you don’t have a camera and a beautiful thing/scene catches your eye? Well there is always the camera phone now to the rescue. Even though I have a Nikon D90 to take beautiful landscapes with, I don’t bring it with me to the malls or when I go for dinners. But with all this, there is still something lacking for camera phones, there is the lack of zoom, flash and even the photos are lacking in quality due to the cheap small sensor on camera phones. With the iPhone though, even with its puny little camera having just 2 megapixels, there is the App Store in iTunes which makes the iPhone such a wonderful smart phone. Under the photography section of the App Store, there is loads of free and paid apps that makes camera photography fun! In fact I got one of my first paid apps from this section. User reviews of the ‘Best Camera’ app pushed me to buy the app for around S$4 maybe? Didn’t remember the price but I knew it was perhaps the cost of a burger in McD.

Tried out the app on some photos I took, and the results was good! Basically the app have some filters which upon application results in a much better photograph! The 2 photos below, taken from the iPhone shows the original photo and after effects of applying layers using the Best Camera App!

As this was a Chinese movie, I went to watch it with my mum since I know she will enjoy this movie. For a start, the story of 花木蘭, or Hua Mulan in Pinyin translation is one that many Chinese know, and it has been intepreted in novels, history books, drama serials, operas and even a Walt Disney animation! In 2009, they came out with the movie version.

《花木蘭》 電影海報 Movie Poster for the movie Hua Mulan, from Sina.com

The last great chinese movie I got to catch was 赤壁 (Red Cliff) by John Woo, and while this movie does not have the blockbuster effect of that, it had a very nice presentation itself. As cliches goes, the start of the movie shows the barbaric tribesmen of the north invading the civilized, bountiful land of the Central Plains. Continuous defeats have resulted in the drafting of soldiers and in one particular village with lot of veteran soldiers are recalled to serve in the army. Mulan, potrayed by Zhao Wei, does the filial act and takes her father’s place. The direction of this particular scene forms the foundation of the movie and Jingle Ma as the director potrayed it well by ensuring it doesn’t take up much screen time and still have that memorable effect on viewers.

From here onwards, the plot goes to slot in scenes of Mulan in camp, whilst meeting what will be her saviour and lover, Wentai, acted by Chen Kun. One flaw of the movie lies in the convenient storytelling of Wentai and Mulan eventually taking over the command of the camp while a suprise rout causes the fatal death of the camp commander. However, the movie is saved by the nicely done scenes involving both the lead actor and actress. As such, this is a war movie that succeeds, in my opinion, because it plays on the presence of love in times of difficulties. And as with many previous China-financed period war dramas, the idea of human sacrifice for the greater society/good is inherent in much of the film.

On the overall, I would have to say I did enjoy the movie, and was truly inspired by the act of filial piety that will drive a lady to take her father’s place to fight in a war. This shows the film does what it is meant to do – which is to bring out the full flavour of the story. And that is why I think it deserves to be enjoyed in the big screen!

The Blackberry Storm and the iPhone

Having had the Blackberry Storm for about 8 months and the iPod Touch for nearly 2 years, I went down to get the iPhone, allowing me to forgo the annual (and paid) software update for the iPod Touch. Anyway I had the mobile plan with Singtel to extend. My Blackberry has been serving me well in Indonesia, but since I don’t want to pay horrendous data charges for roaming, I have set data to be off while overseas. So no Blackberry connection then But with the iPhone plan, I get 1 GB of data per month whilst in Singapore and got to use the data for internet, even tried tethering it with my Macbook for web browsing! I also get to check my mails on the handset. Well basically it does what the Blackberry does, save for Blackberry Messenger which is really nice while I am in Indonesia. Size wise, the Storm is slightly thicker, but becomes extermely bulky (in comparison to the iPhone) when it is fitted inside the case that I carry it with everytime. As I fitted my iPhone with a thin case for the back and just a layer of film on the screen, the iPhone is as sleek as it comes, which means it fits better inside my pocket.

However, just less than a month into using the iPhone, I realize this thing is the one that pulls my hand towards. There’s just so much more possibilities in the iPhone than in the Blackberry. The 3GS also comes with much faster speed for gameplay, texting, scrolling and feels just so good to play with. Compare this to the lag and frequent hangs of the Storm and it is not difficult to see which one provides ease of use. Downloading apps for the Blackberry is something thats more of an inconvenience, but Apple’s AppStore in my iTunes makes it just so easy. Sync of contacts, media and music is perfect on the iPhone (that’s because I am on an Apple Macbook too I guess). Oh and the chinese handwriting recognition on the iPhone works great too, considering I have yet to update my BB to recognize chinese characters. Thus far, it seems that the iPhone is truly the phone to have, and that seems to be everyone’s favourite at the moment.

But that won’t be the case. The limitless possibilities of applications for the iPhone means that there are so many uses for it. I game, watch videos, listen to music, convert currencies, read the news, check my mail, text message and call on the iPhone, and before the day ends, I realize the battery is dead. (A reason why I might keep the iPod Touch to listen to music) This is considering the fact that the iPhone 3GS comes with longer battery life. On top of that Apple doesn’t allow interchangeable batteries since the back cover cannot be opened. Though getting the SIM card out is faster compared to the Storm. And the Storm’s batteries doesn’t exactly work as long either if I use the Messenger function. The rule of thumb, then, is that touch screen smartphones sucks in terms of battery life. Comparing both of these phones then depends on my need. If the phone is just meant for communication purposes, the Storm is better for push mail functions, and instant messaging. But if you want the phone to be versatile, nice, and have endless uses, get the iPhone.

The last few months was busy with me completing some new reads, applying for Visa to travel to the States and Canada, as well as flying around the region. First off, there was a trip to Penang (the island) for the wedding dinner of the son of a business associate. The wedding was held in Hotel Equatorial in the southern part of the island on the mid of November. For this trip we spent a night at the Hotel Equatorial and 2 nights at Traders Hotel in Georgetown, the historical city centre of Penang.

Airy Atrium of the Equatorial at Penang

Upon arrival on Penang, we got picked up by my uncle who currently resides in the island, and got to see that the while the island is relatively better off than the less developed parts of Malaysia (think Terengganu), the development has been lagging to areas like Kuala Lumpur (the capital of Malaysia) and Johor Bahru (closest city to prosperous Singapore). My first impression of the city is that it is a clean and quaint little island and has a lot of greenery amidst some of the electronics manufacturing industry. We arrived slightly after 1pm in the afternoon and headed for the hotel which is a short distance from the airport, and it was relatively tricky to get to the hotel since it is located in a hill. The hotel, though is large and has several large scale ballrooms which might explain why the wedding was held here. Architecture wise, an open air atrium fills the central core of the hotel, with four wings housing the rooms spreading out from the atrium. The higher floors of the hotel provides a good view of the island of Penang and one of its most famous landmark, the Penang Bridge, which links the island to Peninsular Malaysia and is one of the longest bridges in Asia.

View of Penang from Hotel Equatorial

After the wedding dinner at night, we took a good night’s rest. The next day, my uncle brought us to town to meet some business associates and as it wasn’t yet time for check in, we had breakfast comprising of local prawn mee, curry noodle and kaya toast at the KOMTAR (Kompleks Tun Abdul Razak) building. This city landmark is the tallest building in Penang and is beside Traders Hotel, where we will be staying for the next 2 nights. My mum’s Golden Circle Card was pretty useful for the hotel as it was part of the Shangri-La chain. We got a room facing the city and had  a basket of welcome fruit in the room. Check in was a breeze in the Traders, same like for the Equatorial with not queues and long waits. After the check in, we walked to a tea house a block away from the hotel for lunch.

Traders Hotel with KOMTAR building beside

With our stomachs filled, it was time to settle down to business. As we export a sizeable volume of our coffee beans to roasters in Malaysia, we took this opportunity to visit our customers in building up our business networks in the region. With some of the contacts we are visiting located in Butterworth, we took a ferry across to Peninsular Malaysia, as we are in the city centre which is closer the ferry terminal rather than the bridge. The area around the ferry terminal is also full of the colonial buildings which made Georgetown charming and allowed it to gain UNESCO World Heritage Site Status. The ferry is a nice way to travel out to Butterworth as it provides passengers a view of the city skyline of Penang and the Penang Bridge by the other side. All in a 15 minutes ride.

Customs House with the Clock Tower from Penang's waterfront

The rest of the afternoon was thus taken up in visiting various coffee bean and spice grinders in the region, and it was interesting to see the various types of industries dealing in coffee and spices, from general merchants and traders to small home based industries to large scale organized food and ingredient manufacturers. For our return trip to Georgetown, we travelled via Penang Bridge. To end the second day in Penang, we had a nice dinner at Gurney Drive, one of the more popular tourist spots offering a diverse range of hawker foods from grilled seafood, noodles, rojaks, snacks and desserts. Large similarities of the hawker to Newton Circus in Singapore, albeit with this place being slightly less hygienic.

Panorama of the Penang Bridge

For the last day we were in Penang, we visited some local traders and merchants based in Georgetown and was invited for lunch at a traditional yet popular eatery in Penang. This place offers traditional Hainanese food and was one of the memorable dining experience in town. In fact the proprietor of the place was even interviewed by some international newspapers. For those keen to visit the eatery, the place is known as Shin Kheng Aun and is located along Chulia Lane in the heart of Georgetown. In the afternoon, we had some free time which my parents and me chose to spend it in the lobby lounge at the Traders while grabbing some light snacks. Dinner for the day was another invitation by another business associate and it was at another Chinese restaurant, and with this dinner, it basically wraps up my Penang trip, since we had an early morning flight the next day. Overall while I didn’t had the time ti explore much of Penang’s sights, there was much to be learned on the commodities trade in Penang and I had a rare glimpse into local life and business! For a comparison of the 2 lodging choices, I would have to say the Traders Hotel is the better of the 2 with is central location and better rooms. In fact the rooms at the Equatorial is pretty run down. The only factor helping the Equatorial is the balcony in its larger sized rooms and facilities which lend the Equatorial a resort-like feel.

There was some minor renovations at home today and that means clearing out old cabinets of old stuff, and while clearing them out, I discovered my secondary school and junior college diary… Yes dated from the year 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000. I seriously didn’t even imagine it was still there somewhere!

Looking back on those years, I found them to be the most memorable days of my life thus far, life was easy and simple back then: Wake up early, catch the bus to school, slack at class before assembly, go for lessons, sleep through those boring ones, go to the movies or the mall after school, and when you reach home, play the video console or Command & Conquer on the PC. And there was always the super long holidays to look forward too! Even the regular PE lessons at school seems to make me fitter in those days. Life seemed to have more fun, adventure and meaning back then – I remember the carnival held at CJ, there was the whole class participating in planning the booths and getting the materials and prizes ready. Then there was the annual cleaning the school thing in Cat. High, and the slightly awkward performance our class had at our last Teacher’s Day. And there was the push ups that teachers gave us for either forgetting your assignments or when the whole class misbehaved…

All this seemed to be in stark contrast to the time I spent in working life. Working life doesn’t seem to have that kind of ‘fun’ put into it. I got down thinking about this after watching this YouTube video from a link posted by a friend in Facebook:

It seems that ‘fun’ when injected in everyday life can make people to behave in surprisingly different ways. Fun in our working lives would also create a sense of well being that will make the workplace a better one!  And my life now has been trying to find back what makes life ‘fun’ such as those days in school…

I was in Singapore for the last 2 weeks and just nice, there was the COMEX show in town, in which I got a good deal, paying just S$119 for a 500GB 2.5″ portable hard disk drive. This is my 3rd Western Digital Passport HDD, giving me a total of 1.32 TB of capacity. In addition to that, I finally got some new games to add on to my collection, which includes a Civilization IV for Mac. Actually, it was the Gold Edition including the Warlords expansion pack. I was a huge fan of Civilization II which still can keep me occupied a few years back. As for Civ III, I didn’t really play it much, but Civ IV seems good and I got it since I had that little games to play on the Mac.

Another great collection I added was accessories for my Wii! Suprisingly, Nintendo has kept the demand for Wii high through its ever burgeoning range of accessories for the console. One game I was playing recently was the Super Mario Kart on the Wii and thus I got for myself the Wii Wheel setup as well as the Wii Motion Plus Controller. And both of these comes with their respective games.

Nintendo Wii Wheel. Pictures from Nintendo USA.

Wii Motion Plus Add-On. Pictures from Nintendo USA.

As the Wii console is at Indonesia, reviews on how fun these add-ons are would be up only in October when I will be back home. From the box of the Wii Sports Resort (the game that comes with the Motion Plus Add-On) there are new games like water-ski, fencing and 10 others that would make the Wii-mote sensitive to even flicks of the wrists… Sounds interesting!

Now for the new gadgets or toys for grown ups First of all, I have decided to ditch my Apple Wireless ‘Mighty’ Mouse a Logitech Bluetooth Mouse (Black) to suit my black Macbook. The Apple Mouse is great in that it has more functionality and shortcuts. A feature I’ll miss is its horizontal scrolling. But the vertical scrolling of the Apple Mouse always gives me problems that requires cleaning once every 2 weeks. That I can do without!

The last gadget I got was also the best! It’s a Wacom Intuos4 graphic tablet. For those who don’t have an idea what this is, its actually a tablet that connects to your computer via a USB cable allowing users to draw, sketch, edit and write stuff all at the same time. I am intending to use this to do some sketching, logo design and for photoshop use as well. Now, I just can’t wait to get back to Indonesia to try out all these nifty games and gadgets

Wacom Intuos4 Graphic Tablets. Pictures from Wacom.

People all around the world crave for a democratic society, and they aspire for a society based on the American style of democracy with freedom and liberty placed top within the list of values. However, is it the only form of government? More importantly, the question of it being the ‘best’ form of government beckons.

Supporters of democracy points out to the high standard of living in democratic countries, and the low level of corruption. And it is precisely on this basis that countries like the United States of America have imposed their form of democracy on many countries, notably Iraq and Afghanistan of late. Not too long ago, the United States interfered in Indonesia’s national affairs, placing Soeharto in the dictator’s seat for more than 3 decades, effectively ousting then USSR-friendly nationalistic president Soekarno. Whilst Indonesia progressed through industrialization under the reign of Soeharto, progressing faster than its larger neighbours like India, Vietnam and China, the country faced setbacks and have been slow to progress since the 1998 financial crisis.

In fact at around the same time, the United States failed to democratize Vietnam, allowing it to fall into communist rule. Now lets go back to present day, Vietnam is the 2nd largest producer of coffee crop, outpacing Indonesia’s production. Not too long ago, Indonesia was the 2nd largest behind Brazil. Vietnam now has a highway system spanning much of the country, whilst Indonesia barely copes with its road networks in Jakarta. The only major highway is one connecting Jakarta to Bandung… And today I read on Bloomberg News of the plan by Vietnam to build a high speed railway network linking Ho Chi Minh in the south and Hanoi in the north. The pace of development of Vietnam as a country has truly been short of the spectacular rise of its larger neighbour which is China.

However, more importantly, it shows the need for the world to recognize that sometimes interference in a country’s national affairs is not right and for people all over the world to understand that democracy does not work in all civil societies. Thus it should never be seen as a de-facto form of government. What matters more is providing a leeway for a country to develop its own form of governance through its own revolutionary methods.

As posted on my blog, I was preoccupied with building the website for our family business. Though it’s a small business, I do think the website should still look good. Website design was something I learnt while part-timing with my University Research Centre, where I helped to make one of their websites. I won’t consider myself a professional at it, but I do relish at the final outcome, as it allows me to incorporate some of my images I took from photography with my DSLR!

Well the website isn’t ready yet, but for a sneak preview, here’s a teaser:

Teaser of Website under Construction

Done using Dreamweaver, and nothing fancy programming, just CSS and HTML.

It’s been nearly a week since I returned from Canada. For the last few weeks, it was mainly doing more read up on CSS and HTML as I went on to craft a website for the company in Indonesia. There was also a lot of movements in the Indonesian Rupiah and Cocoa/Coffee markets in the past few days with the Jakarta Bombings and increased sentiment of economic recovery.

Talking about the bomb blasts in Jakarta, I was in town that day, having breakfast in another hotel when Dad received an SMS informing him of the bomb blast… And I was just that close to staying in the Ritz Carlton that day… It was really fortunate I found the extravagance of staying in the Ritz a bit unnecessary for a short transit and stay-over in Jakarta. Anyway, the general idea is to avoid US-branded hotels in Indonesia (think Ritz Carlton, Marriott, Hyatt, and Hilton). As an Indonesian resident, I found it disturbing that much of Indonesia’s natural beauty and charm is destroyed by this cowardly act of terrorism…

As for the website design, I finally got CS4 on my Macintosh all up and running and currently using Dreamweaver for my work in doing up the website for the company. A draft version is up, though more modifications needs to be done before I can really say the website is done! Hope to launch it officially in the end of the month!

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen was one of the most awaited movies of this year, at least for me that was. However, upon reading some bad reviews of the movie online, I had prepared myself for some disappointment, but the movie turns out to be entertaining and a worthy sequel to the first series.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

First of all, I caught the movie on the 2nd week since opening, on a Friday in SilverCity at Richmond. Went out with my brother and his college friends, and with the movie being such a big hit, the tickets was sold out, with us having to settle for the later movie at 10.30pm. As we expected a huge turnout, we had to queue early for good seats, as seats are not pre-allocated in North American theatres (the bad), though they supplement that with great snacks like NY Fries’ Poutine (the good). Well to get on with the review, the movie started on where it left off with the show’s protagonist, Sam Witwicky having to leave for college and leave Bumblebee behind. However unknown to them, ‘the Fallen’ has planned for a comeback and rescue Megatron from beneath the Pacific Ocean floor-bed. In fact the starting scene begins with a bang of Autobots hunting down for renegades Decepticons in Shanghai.

In a similar fashion as the first Transformers movie, Revenge of the Fallen was heavy on the use of CGI and special effects for the robots and there was much more metals clashing and robots transforming as the sequel adds in more robots. Critics said there was too much chaos in the movie, but I found it had a lot of action packed scenes which was a bit of a fireworks but truthfully I could differentiate the robots while they were fighting. There was also the mention of the high decibels and loud clanks, but what do you expect from dozens of cars and robots fighting with lasers and missiles? Personally, I found the movie took what was good in the first series and expanded on the strengths. On top of that, Revenge of Fallen details more of the Decepticon’s rise and tells more of the link between Decepticons and Earth.

Finally, the really good part of the sequel was how it brought out Optimus Prime as the main robot to watch unlike in the first movie where Bumblebee seem to have a more prominent spot. And who could forget the scene where Jetfire combined with Optimus Prime to combat ‘the Fallen’! It deserves its box office success, in my opinion, no matter what the critics say, for I truly was entertained even with the lengthier showtime of the sequel.