Yo windows vista users, this is a piece of good news for all of you if you haven't already heard about it.

Windows 7 Operating System (OS) is coming out and Vista users can get this upgrade for practically nothing (except the mailing fee). All you have to do is visit this Microsoft website and follow the instructions given. If you are a Vista user, I would recommend ordering one now, and by that I mean right now even if you intend to wait till the OS is proven to be stable. This offers only extends till Jan 31 2010 and who knows if it will end earlier, since it seems to be only available "while stock last" as quoted.

Some hardware requirements your computer needs before it can run Windows 7 without a hitch:
1 GHz processor or more
1 GB of RAM or more
16 GB of Hard Disk Space (My C drive doesn't have this D=)

It's obvious why you want to upgrade to Windows 7 because Vista is crappy not in season anymore. Windows 7 claims to be faster, more user friendly and hmm, customizable. It probably patches up a lot of loopholes Vista users experienced but I can't say much since I have not tried it. Read the full windows official article here.

Order one now! (BTW, I decided I am sticking to my XP till NS is over)

Labels: Computer, Windows

I was lying on my bed about 20 minutes ago and arching my back like a lazy cat when I felt a jolt. It felt like my body involuntarily twitched from my stretching so I decided that it's not the best position to stay in. Thus I turned my lazed body slightly and have it facing the ceiling such that I am laying on my bed staring at the ceiling like some stoned individual. It was pretty comfortable in that position and then this perpetual wave of seemingly very mild seismic activity set in. Okay I sort of exaggerated. It wasn't perpetual. It lasted for less than a minute I guess. I lay there wondering what it was and sort of enjoying it in that indolent mode. It wasn't my heartbeat since the vibration was so faster and it wasn't vibration caused by resonance. I couldn't care less though until my dad broke my surreal state of thought by asking me whether I felt the tremors. I certainly did.

But hmm, earthquake somewhere near Singapore again? Probably. I have never felt the tremors that vividly before since I live somewhere in the middle of the west area, not near the coastal areas. Thankfully for us, we will never feel the full impact of the earthquake because Singapore doesn't lie on the boundaries of plates, as taught proudly by our Geography teachers in lower secondary levels. Still, any tremors felt is sure to instill some degree of fear in some paranoia citizens (no offense intended if you were one of them) as proven times and times in the past. Just google "Singapore earthquake" and you will know what I mean. I still don't know the cause though so I stepped into the shower while others were investigating the cause (through the news I predict).

According to my mom who heard this from the news, this was caused by the earthquake in Sumatra which measured 7.6 on the Richter scale. I visited ChannelNewsAsia and the news proved to be true. We were definitely blessed to be only feeling tremors. Those in Sumatra are far worse off. May there be minimal casualties.

The news:

source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1008365/1/.html

Labels: Earthquake, Personal

Let's face it. Twitter is seriously overrated here. I might be a bias source but no matter what marketing ploy twitter uses or how about publicity they get, I don't see people around me using it.

It's been proven quite a while back that teens don't tweet. (Refer to readings here) But that survey was more or less targeted at US. What I want to state here is that we asian (or maybe just Singaporeans) don't do it either.

As of now, I know more adults (people aged 25 and older) using facebook that using twitter. Most of us probably only knew of twitter or only created a twitter account because it was very hyped in magazines and newspapers in that period of time. But really, it's like overhyped, and more like a play of reverse psychology where they try to rouse the public into thinking that twitter is very popular instead of it being popular among the public first. Just ask around, how many people do you know actively uses twitter? I logged in to my twitter account just now (Yes I do have one, but I don't use it), I can safely tell you that I can only find two active twitter accounts, in which one of them is created only after TIME's oh-wow-its-the-next-big-thing article is published. After probing around a bit, I found at least two more who admitted that they only created their account only because of the article.

Another thing is that I don't see why people will choose twitter over facebook as stipulated in some articles. Twitter has limited functionality and can only provide news feed. These are stuffs that facebook can already do and facebook provides higher interactivity compared to twitter. In my opinion, facebook remains a superior alternative to twitter in about every aspect.

Despite all these, there are still people deluded into thinking that twitter is the next 'in' thing and that corporations should embrace it without fail. These claims are quite unsubstantiated and without a decent percentage of Singaporeans active on that social networking site, these firms are just going to incur losses through this medium of advertising.

My take is that twitter is just a US thing, just like how the MySpace fad didn't get to Singapore. Who knows, maybe it's just a matter of time that people start using it but without a substantial improvement I doubt that will happen. Without your friends on a social networking site, it's not going to become popular (unless everybody wants to follow the celebrities to know what they are doing).

Labels: Review, Twitter

Here's an image of the external hard disk I am using. It was bought in July last year and has been acting funny since November. And for the past few months, it cannot be read by any of the computers I tried so far, be it windows or mac. Upon googling this product, this is what I found:



Quite negative eh? There's more of such comments here but I couldn't be bothered to upload so many of them. It seems to common for Imation hard disk not to be detected by computers and I've found similar problems posted on tech forums on the same brand in the not-so-distant past. It's irritating especially when you have your pictures, songs, videos and everything stored inside. The warranty only covers replacing of the product, but not the repairing, so it means your data is going to be lost forever if you don't fork out the cash from your pockets.

Oh well, lesson learnt. Don't scrimp on your external hard disk especially when you are going to use it to store your precious information. Buy one with a good brand name, like Seagate and say, Western Digital. Maxtor used to be pretty faulty but since it's bought over by Seagate it should be better. Imation may be cheap but it's certainly not worth the value. (Not gonna buy their products anymore)

Labels: Computer, Imation, Personal