Blogging From 10363m High

  I was quite wary of taking this direct non-stop flight from Singapore to Los Angeles. It’s almost 16 hours of flight time. But now as I sit here in the Executive Economy seats zipping past the Philippines at 864km/h, it turns out it doesn’t seem too bad (touch wood). There is more leg room than the conventional Economy seats. At 37″ row-to-row and 20″ wide, the seats are actually quite comfortable. One thing for sure, I can open up…

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3G iPhone Selling Price in Singapore

Even though the new 3G iPhone will sell for quite cheap in the US (US$199 and US$299 for the 8GB and 16GB models respectively), I did not expect the prices in Singapore to fall as low. Yesterday’s Sunday Times carried an article that put the initial iPhone price in Singapore between S$500 and S$1000 (presumably with contract). Not cheap. Considering other premium phones like, say, the Nokia N95 8GB was launched at S$798 (I think?). The initial iPhone selling price…

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3G iPhone is Announced

Apple has announced the much anticipated 3G iPhone at WWDC 2008. Finally, the iPhone is catching up with comparable specs of other multi-function smart phones out there: 3.5G, Wireless LAN 802.11b/g, GPS, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, camera, and all the apps one would expect to come with a smart phone. The phone will also be cheaper. It makes the 1st generation iPhone look like a piece of ancient history, even though it is less than a year old.

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BBQ Buffet at Angsana

While we were at Angsana Bintan, we decided to try the BBQ Buffet at one of their restaurants, Pantai Grill & Bar. I like to eat variety, so a buffet is nice. Now, usually I have certain ideas about what BBQ entails. Afterall, there are quite a lot of things that you can barbeque. But it seems at Angsana, BBQ involves a rather limited selection of food. Look at the photo, that’s the entire selection of BBQ items!

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Chocolate Coated Coffee Beans

One of those tidbit snacks I love to munch on. I would usually prefer dark chocolate. But can’t be too fussy. It is difficult enough to find any kind of chocolate coated on coffee beans. — Posted from my N95 Lifeblog.

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Angsana Bintan Unedited

Here are some raw photos of Angsana Bintan, including the one bedroom suite that we booked ourselves into. Notice how the my photos compare with the versions from the resort’s website. Heh. Is it that my camera is lousy, or my photo-taking skills are not up-to-standard… or perhaps the pros have done too much photoshop editing? You make the comparison.

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The Baby Walks

Today, at 14 months and 1 day, baby Vanessa finally graduated to the next stage of baby-hood — walking unassisted! Yeah, I think she seems quite smug about her new skill. But oh no, the parents will now have to run around chasing her all over the house. Hmm, oh dear, and the poor Rascal and Phoebe are going to get chased all over the house! I don’t know whether the dogs will like it, but at least they get…

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Bungled Software Upgrade

Software upgrades are usually not terribly complicated things. Of course, the newly upgraded software many introduce new problems, such as incompatibilities or interoperability issues with other software or systems. The same is not too different for firmware upgrades of network switches. They are not trivial (that’s why you need network engineers…), but they are documented procedures that can be and are routinely carried out by network operators and providers.

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