Merry Christmas 2010!

Merry Christmas! It has been the third times for me to be right here giving out my earnest blessing to everyone since I set out to beef about my stuffs by blogging in Dec 2008.

Sprang out from my bed while whole of my family had gone for Johor Bahru for a shooting of new year stuffs, swayed back to my desk with the chicken rice that packed by mum, embarked on all the formality - Firefox, Gmail, Facebook, Wall Street Journal. It's the dawn of my little bit shabby Christmas Day. When all the tavern, alley and everywhere in the town were full with revelry, riot last night because of this domestic, gift-giving but getting more commercialized holiday, I was particularly immune. No boisterous count down, no mirthful celebration. Extremely quiet and ordinary.

Haha. I'm not being autistic. Neither has it distracted me from studying nor has it recalled my dreadful trauma. I just simply have the leaning to decamp from all the agonizing stuffs and indulge myself into a real relaxing state. Leaving my fingers down on my keyboard to think about what that hell I was doing recently.

I just wound up my first semester in Taylor's University - RMIT University Bachelor of Computer Science lately. People might wonder the weird part of my course - the name. Actually it's a twinning program or so-called a partnership degree program between Taylor's University and RMIT University. In simple words, it means that the course students are pursuing their RMIT University Degree in Taylor's University Campus. The course students are having the same study curriculum and privilege no matter they're studying in Taylor's Campus or RMIT Campus. Thus, course students are free to transfer to RMIT Campus if they have the bent.

Of course, like any Computer Science course in any other Australia universities, we're required to enroll in four subjects in one semester. I acquired three High Dictinction in Programming 1, Computer Organization and Maths for Computing subjects and one Dictinction for Database Concept subject for this semester. Nevertheless, unlike the high school caged-fixed study mode, I know how much that I learnt thoughout the whole semester which the grades are inept to truly depict them. Ok, for those who personally know me, you guys should know I do have some grumbles for the course and school. A little bit more cumbersome and tedious story, I will talk more about it in later blog post.

Otherwise, I was selected as one of the twelve winners in IT@Green Photography Competition which is part of the Taylor's Bario Community Project. My awarded photo will be printed with my name in a 2011 calender for the charity purpose and a press interview with New Strait Time (A local daily newspaper) regarding the Bario Project will be featured soon as well. Thanks for all kind of earnest attention, I have the inkling of surprise that my trivial contribution would turn out to be so imperative afterwards.

I will going back to job segment next monday in order to cope with my devastating bailout. And keep screwing up with few personal projects that I'm currently working on. Keep strengthening my own pillar and prop. It will be awesome if I got any chance to share with you all in later time. I need all your support, dude :) .Since I had completed the Oracle Database Workshop during the school semester, I'm now seeking the time(Frankly, the money) to proceed to the certification exam which will going to cost me USD125 in first paper but it's no doubt to be totally worthy after all.

Some mumbling: Actually I'm in the a roaring progress of cruising my direction to the other beacon of light which will going to be another trail-blazing and life-changing milestone for me. Desperate and desirous. Stay tuned :)

Right at the end of this fervent holiday, again, wish everyone Merry Christmas and all the best!

As there is a dream, so there is a hope.

Word Lens Promises in-Image Translation

here are plenty of applications and websites that can translate text to other languages, but if you're looking at a sign or something, you'll have to type it into a translation app. What if, instead, you could take a snapshot and have an app translate the text in the image? That's the idea behind Word Lens, and it seems to work.

The caveat is that for now, the app only works from Spanish-to-English and vice versa, and it is also an iOS only app.

It took 2 1/2 years for founders Otavio Good and John DeWeese to develop the app, which is free. However, each language pack is $4.99 (as an in-app buy), and that means to have it work both ways it would cost $9.98.

Using OCR, the app translates the text and draws them back, in the image, on the screen. Here's how Good described it:

“It tries to find out what the letters are and then looks in the dictionary. Then it draws the words back on the screen in translation. The translation isn’t perfect, but it gets the point across.”

For some translation, like "restrooms," that would be good enough.


Naturally, Good is looking toward other languages. Hopefully the algorithm can be translated to Android easily. In the 2 1/2 years that they have been working on this app, Android has overtaken the iPhone globally.

You can watch a demo video below.


source: hothardware.com

Facebook Overtook SouthWest Airlines as the Best Employer in US

Facebook employees think their company is a fantastic place to work. In fact, among users of the jobs site Glassdoor, Facebook was the top-ranked U.S. employer for 2010, scoring a rating of 4.6 out of 5.

Those smug smarties from Palo Alto (disclosure: my husband works there part-time, so I can say that with certainty) say they love the openness and cooperativeness of internal Facebook culture, according to Glassdoor (also the free food and commuter shuttles).

This is the first time Facebook has made the Glassdoor list. In second place is Southwest Airlines (which was last year’s winner), followed by Bain & Company, General Mills and Edelman, respectively.

As for other tech companies, SAS Institute placed No. 7, Overstock.com was No. 9, and CareerBuilder No. 11. Apple was No. 20 and Google No. 30.

Meanwhile, in more surprising news, Glassdoor reports that Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is actually more popular now than founder Jerry Yang when he was in the top spot. Bartz has an employee approval rating of 56 percent, compared to 34 percent for Yang when he left.

Other comparisons: HP CEO Léo Apotheker has 62 percent approval, compared to Mark Hurd’s 34 percent when he left, and AOL CEO Tim Armstrong has 71 percent approval, compared to Randy Falco’s 13 percent approval when he left.

The most popular tech CEO is Apple’s Steve Jobs, with a 97 percent approval rating. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Eric Schmidt are both at 96 percent.

The Top-50 List, here we go:

Microsoft Online Windows Phone 7 Developer Guide

After the splashy release of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft has vehemently poured tons of effort into advertising and promoting in order to batter its rivals, Google Android, Apple iPhone, RIM BlackBarry, to overhaul its losing market. Meanwhile, Microsoft is in dire need of ample and significant apps for its Marketplace, as the q&q, quantity and quality of the smartphone apps will inevitably be the crucial factor of determining the WP7 victory or failure.

The Microsft MSDN Library of Windows Phone 7 Developer Guide provide all of you with a free opportunity to dive into the Microsoft first-ever-handy software development platform, which hopping from the introducation of Windows Phone 7 to Silverlight Coding, XNA design and back to Marketplace interaction - a completed Bible for Windows Phone 7 App Developer to leave their fingers down with bunch of WP7 apps out of the whole cloth. All you have to do just bit the bullet, sweep through all the materials with hands-on works and churn them with your quixotic idea and ulitimate creativity. Of course, it does have some 'pre-requisite', like any other computer science courses in university, at least a little basic knowledge in object-oriented programming, such as Java, C++. If not, those codes might look terrible from you.

Are you interested to be the one to use apps to revamp the smartphone market? Check it out now: Microsoft MSDN Library

Google New Launched Program for Students: Code-In

Are you a computer geek? Are you in between 13-18 year old? Are you eager to have a real and hands-on experience on IT-related tasks? If you nodded your head right after those questions, Google Code-in is wholly suitable for you to stuff up your tedious and agonizing school holiday.

Google Code-in is an open source development and outreach contest targeted at 13-18 year old students around the world. Of course, it's not the first time that Google embark on this kind of program. Google had run a pilot program called the Google Highly Open Participation Contest during 2007 to 2008, which gave 400 students around the world an opportunity to help out open source projects on the following kinds of tasks:

1. Code: Tasks related to writing or refactoring code
2. Documentation: Tasks related to creating/editing documents
3. Outreach: Tasks related to community management and outreach/marketing
4. Quality Assurance: Tasks related to testing and ensuring code is of high quality
5. Research: Tasks related to studying a problem and recommending solutions
6. Training: Tasks related to helping others learn more
7: Translation: Tasks related to localization
8: User Interface: Tasks related to user experiencec research or user interface design and interaction.

Since it was a huge success for Google at that episode, it's no doubt that Google fervently sets out to move its big stride to another milestone again with the contest with its new name, Google Code-In.

So, what are you waiting for? Check out its official website for more information.

P/S: Darned, I just slightly older than the age range of being the participant :(

The Lapse of Time

It has been a couple of time since my last post to be right here to convey something so-called my inner voice, perspective. Just right after the dawn of my first-university-final examination, I'm spontaneous to dip my toe into deep immersion again to hand out some stuffs which nailing down several dim hindsight that authentically raised me up and hope it wouldn't be too wearisome after all.

When I incessantly stumbled across a sort of my fellow juniors' graduation photo recently, it suddenly burned my mind with a prossession of my high school scenario - a wonderful memory amused with lots of gaffe, disgrace and topsy-turvy. And yet it's dreadful and darned: Time just flows too fast for me to realize that it has been one year of time since I graduated from my lovely high school. While I tried to recall every piece of my mind to scrutinize them, I eventually got that: Instead of continously discovering myself, like what I did thoughout my past-eighteen-year life. I transformed. Of course, it was not the way how Transformers transform themselves but the way of fundamentally changing on my mindset which I didn't ever perceive before.

My intense desire is unanimously the best thing that I ever found of myself. It always intuitively drives me to overcome bunch of hindrance and rid me of being pessimistic. Frankly speaking, in past, my desire was bound up with fame, prestige and fortune. It was morbid and terrible. I was just like, did a thing mechanically because of 'something' or screwing up so badly for the sake of getting 'something', I couldn't find what it really meant to me afterwards. You know what, what our societies really inoculate to us is merely a scripted, lock-step curricula. It has been in the process of polarization and turns out to create a tyrannic phenomenon which hypnotize people to just follow the rules that something like: We're desperate in winning the competition to embroider our C.V. to get prettier, we struggle so hard in study because of getting a fat university admission, we go ballistic over work in order to get earning more and more incentive. And the cruel fact after all is simple as that: We're there, we 'ought to' breathe under this kind of spineless, grueling and rigid cage. I would say, most of us. WE LOST SOMETHING ELSE.

Ok, I know, I'm a little agitated at this point. The CAGE makes people just do because people told them to do, other people also do and worse, eventually they feel - it 'has to' do, even people had a great disinclination to cope with it at first. Guess what? Mediocrity. Yes, it makes us absolutely mediocre. We lost our individual character, emblematic personality, potential creativity, remarkable diversity, self-improvisation and more to name few. Hence, without them, what else we left? A solid machine produced by the other prototype of machine with a big and splashy ISO mark.

We must, before setting out our head start, ask our inner voice, true heart, what the thing really meant to you? In term of our interest, responsibility and right, but not in term of benefit, acquisition and seducement. In order word, BE YOURSELF. You're the master of your fate. Ask and analyse always, your inner voice will be the beacon of light for yourself. Follow your heart and do the thing that you love or love the thing that you do (Ponder over it). Don't trap by others, just be the way you're.

I know in most of the time, in real world, it's always tough to reach the win-win situation. But if there have a choice, even just as tiny as nothing, choose and try for it. I do believe we're always able to at least make a gratifying balance between ourselves and reality. Just have to tenaciously believe it.

Right now, after the intuitive speculation, my desire was gradually transformed. It was not longer a matter of getting A or B in my final exam paper, nor the matter of Mum: Son, could you help.. Me in reluctant: Yes, mum.., but the matter of treading my path softly without cognitive dissonance, and also the matter of fulfilling my responsibility without any nausea. My desire lead me to learn, to improve and to strive because it serves my self-mental-comtentment. I disentralled from the cage of society, high school and myself. I gonna love the thing that I do. Anything else is secondary.

Second point, a quite straight forward idea that I truely wish to convey to all my fellow friends - Living as a Learning Process. Nowadays, it's obvious to see a lot of books, stuffs talking about: Self-motivation, Secret of Success, Grasp your Dream...blak,blak blak and all that. Definitely, we're always encouraged to think big, to weave your dream, to sputter out your ultimate goal. Nevertheless, there exist an underlying notion that people, especially the young generation, didn't catch up - The fundamental and basic. If you want to create another Facebook, please learning from HTML, if you want to probe into the mysterious Cosmic Microwave Background(CMB), please learning from Physics. The rule is simple as that. But a majority of people are more likely to be vehement to find out a 'short-cut' to boost up their vigorous ambition. Don't be too anxious to get overdo it, you may be somehow cruise near to the destination, but it will go haywire in once since your pillar and prop was not durable enough to handle with it. Worse, it will mess up and eradicate your previous effort. Thus, be step-by-step, keep looking and don't get pissed off. Don't just think and talk but plan and do. Have a clear picture of how to embody our quixotic dream into reality but not just dilly-dally in your house and wait for the bottle of accomplishment falling from the fixed, sturdy roof. Start learning thoroughly from the fundamental will show your the distinct direction of getting the seamless connection toward your ladder of success.

Last, again, Living as a Learning Process. As a youth, we should seize on any opportunity to learn thoughout our daily life. Oops, no..no..no.., don't get me wrong. I didn't compel your to keep reading the book page by page or crunching the dictionary utterly. The definition of 'learn' is far more not just limited in having a hands-on experience of E-banking system, getting an overview of government financial plan through the newspaper, changing the dining room's light bulb with some handy tools, processing a shipment at pos office, but also all the fundamental and ordinary tasks that I think as a human being should know. If you are already above eighteenth and you're still clueless about all of that, don't still ask someone else to help you this and help your that. LEARN THEM NOW. It never be lated to learn if you push yourself again right at the threshold.

As it's tale, so it's life.

So..Hey dude, how life treat your recently?

Apple 'Back to the Mac': What can we prospect of?

Once again, Steve and his fellow team members wound up the 'Back to the Mac' event at an unique day of 20/10/2010 morning. I should say, the protogonist of this thread is going to be totally different. I'm not going to extol how amazing and gratifying of the new Macbook Air. Nor I'm trying to acclaim the glamorous sneak peek of the upcoming major release: Mac OS X Lion. Instead, I would like to sputter out how those crucial steps, which Apple currently working on, will drastically change our daily life strides. Of course, within the confine of my own perspective and conjecture.

First of all, in order to uncover the ultimate secret behind the Apple, let's list down what Apple going to surprise us after the 'Back to the Mac' annoucements:
-Mac Apps Store
-Mac OS X Lion with tons of new features mimicking from iOS
-FaceTime between Mac and iPhone as well as iPod
-An ever user-friendly and powerful iLife 11'

Alright, those are the major factors that I gonna concentrate on throughout my following analysis. As we know, in retrospect, after the successful releases of iPhone, iPods and of course iPad, Apple was hopping from a dying Apple Computer (Personal Computer-based company) to today Apple lnc. which all of its products incessantly flood everywhere of our lives.

Guess what? Ok, fancy a scenario something like that: You were a Windows user. But one day, you were enamored of the fascinating iPhone and you got one into your pocket. Since then, you were enjoying happily of downloading tons of Apps through iTunes 10' and next figured out that it was quite unsatisfying to sync your iPhone with Windows Edition of iTunes 10' as there are not available iPhoto, iCal and so forth to get things prefect. Soon, it turned out that: You bought a Macbook and cast away your Windows. All the stuffs went well afterwards before you stumbled across iPad. It dawned on you that you 'might' need a iPad to fit a gap between the Macbook and iPhone (Steve: Exactly you need). You know, especially when you were hypnotized by the privilege of tracking the stock market or get your stuffs done just by laying at the sofa. Undoubtedly, you added it into your order list. Wait a minute, what's next? Sorry for the little bit fussy story(Ok..I know I'm over bragged about that) but I guess the following gadgets will come to mind are: Macbook Air, AppleTV, iMac, iPods..what else?

Perhaps, some of you may resonate with me, maybe not. Whatever, what I was trying to convey is not how those rich people spending their money. I just wanna simply unveil the Apple's knack of enthralling us into its world in reality. And it's astonishingly effective. Apple creates a kindred 'connection bridge' between all of its products. We are always able to share, sync and reorganize our files, music, video, Apps between its various products without any effort. It provides us a sense of mobility, flexibility and accessibility of our important data. Moreover, the upcoming AirPlay, FaceTime on Mac, Mac OS X Lion and so on will further enchance customers' experience of the connection bridge. AirPlay for sharing file wirelessly without complicated configuration, FaceTime for 'face to face' connecting with your friends ad lib, no matter you're in toliet using your iPhone to show how bad you're or in the kitchens using your iPhone to teach him how to cook whereas he's doing his assignment with Mac in the room. It will be not surprise to divine a new iPad with FaceTime intergrated coming soon. Mac OS X Lion, mimicking a sort of impressive features from iOS, consumers will have the sense of familiarity when switching between iOS and Mac and it turns out to become the ever-user-friendly operating system. As a result, it's obvious that that 'connection bridge' indirectly(or directly) coax the consumers into embracing all of its products en masse and people just foolishly follow it. Ok, the first point, check.

"We have been improving it with every major release. We're very happpy with the Snow Leopard. But we know how to take it ever further." Steve Jobs

Next, Apps Store. It's no doubt that Apps Store has led Apple toward a lion's share of market since it announced. 'Over 7 Billion Apps had been downloaded from Apps Store', there doesn't exist any corporation in the world is able to stack up against Apple at this point. Apps Store is feverishly successful and now Apple brings it to Mac. But why? What actually Apps Store benefits us?

This occasion inadvertently hit my mind to recall the story of Palm OS. Eight years before, Palm OS was the most famous and popular mobile platform as well as PDA platform in the world. I was in part of it. User friendly GUI, stable and secure operating system, more important, a sea of applications and developers flourished the splendid moment of Palm OS at that time. Thinking back, it's weird but fact that people always eager to get more functions in a single device even they will never use it. Apple knows what consumer needs. The announcement of Apps Store apparently stuffed up the hunger of that psychological phenomenon.

Apple released the SDK(Software Development Kit) of iOS to developers once the the first generation of iPhone had been unveiled. In a short time, thousands of software developers were obsessed by the relatively easiest coding system and the best way to distribute their earnest applications. Low cost and less effort. They flocked toward it to be the first to trigger the handsome income from the Apps Store. Vice versa, the consumer segment. Instead of spending much of time to keep 'googling' the apps that they eager to have. Thanks for the developers, with the tremendous amount of apps exist in Apps Store, consumers are able to choose and grab their beloved apps just by tapping few simple clicks on a neat and well-organized list. As you can see, it's not just benefit in the particular fraction of the whole progress, but it works out with a win-win situation for both consumer and developer.

In the same case, we can easily to foresee that Mac Apps Store will going to weave another fairy tale in the IT market. Mac Apps Store will be another threshold to reinvent/subvert the new/traditional way of purchasing a software. It will going to be rampant, historical and people will inevitably thrill about it. So, what are you waiting for? Be the first to earn a bucket of asset and pop up your apps in the top ten list!



In corollary, Apple is now getting better and overwhelmingly dress all its rivals down. Apple drives by its creativity, innovation, fresh angle of view and so forth. Apple was no longer just a technologic manufacturer. You know, it's Apple, not an ordinary apple. Apple has already become a fashion brand - it creates a contagious phenomenon or a sence of superiority which billions of 'Fans' take great relish in its products and bindly/foolishly follow it. People could hardly immune for that. Still, it makes people feel good with it!



Last, what's next for Apple? This, this or this? Check it out :)

(Photo source: Engadget)

Microsoft PDC 2010 KL: An exploration of KLCC@Microsoft Auditorium?

PDC, Professional Developer Conference, is the Microsoft annually definitive developer's conference where various developers will gather to learn about Microsoft's latest technologies, share their own expertise and explore the new products that Microsoft have launched year to year.

And the shimmer of PDC incessantly leaps its stride to this year, PDC 2010. Instead of garthering all the enthusiastic developers from every piece of the world to Redmond, Washington where the PDC 10' going to be held. Microsoft provides more ways than ever before for us to experience the Professional Developer’s Conference closer to home. Microsoft is working with Microsoft offices, academic institutions, and 3rd parties around the world to provide us the opportunity to attend a PDC10 event near to us by using the broadcasting and live streaming technology through internet.

Of course, Microsoft Malaysia is on the list to bring this splashy event descends upon our town. As one of the Microsoft Malaysia TechNet subscribers, I was pleased to have this precious opportunity to be a part of this local event but also seize on this chance to have a first and fresh exploration of Microsoft Auditorum located in Pertonas Twins Tower Level 29.



Check out my random photo during the PDC 2010 KL:
*Click to enlarge























Hence, what we learnt from PDC 2010?

-Internet Explorer 9, the next major milestone of IE after undergoing an obvious period of losing big fraction of browser market because of the more gratifying Google Chrome and Firefox. IE 9 going to be ablaze again with the devastating support for HTML5, ever better API system and developer-approached modification.

-Windows Phone 7, a revolutionary mobile phone platfrom which going to potentially stack up against Apple iOS, Google Android with its ever amazing and user-friendly GUI, integrated consumer-demanded functions, the most simpliest and distinctive developer tools, Marketplace(The next Apps Store?) and even more fascinating privileges.

-Windows Azure, the pioneer of providing a flexible cloud-computing platform that lets you focus on solving business problems and addressing customer needs. We all know, building out an infrastructure that supports our web service or application can be expensive, complicated and time consuming. It turns out that cloud computing gradually comes to the limelight as the stronger demand from customers. Windows Azure is the easiest solution of cloud computing aiming to provide users to manage their web service in an ever-efficient way. Building out the network to support your peak times. Getting the right servers in place at the right time, managing and maintaining the systems.

For full video of keynote address and details of PDC 2010, please check out to: www.microsoftpdc.com
Have fun!

Best Jobs 2010 - Still a Great Time To Be In IT?

An interesting question that may somehow inadvertenly emerge from graduates' or freshman's minds, "What is the best job in the world?" The latest list from CNNMoney.com "Best Jobs in America 2010" offers some encouraging news which seems to be sufficient to respond to this question. There are great nuggets throughout this article and as a whole - the write-up shares a vast amount of information. Here are some highlights I cited out for the IT field:

• Software Architect is listed as the Number One job for with a 10-year job growth forecast of 34%.
• Database Administrator is listed as Number Seven job with a 10-year job growth forecast of 20%.
• Of the Top 100 jobs, 27 were IT-related
• Of the top 25 jobs, 7 were in the IT field.
• A variety of IT-related job roles are present on the list - security, development, consultant, engineer and many more, including IT trainer at #79.

Far more interesting stories in the following, more to name few: List of Top Pay Jobs, List of Low Stress Jobs, List of Society-benefited Jobs and so forth.

Check it out! CNNMoney.com

Alright, Should I be pleased as choosing the IT as the head start of my career? Hmm..maybe yes, maybe not. Stay tuned. :)

The Day Is 10/10/10: What It Really Means?

I stumbled across an article about the the mysterious day of 10/10/10 when I was just leaving my fingers across a bunch of website this morning. I think it would be nice for you guys to take a look for it :)

It is being called a multitude of things: the Powers of Ten Day, Eames Day, 42 Day, etc. Some are just calling it 10/10/10 day, or Ten Ten Ten day. It's one of those calendar oddities that no one really know how to explain, but for some reason, we're all fascinated by it. It's probably because 10/10/10 will never happen again during the lifetime of any human alive to witness it today, and it definitely shows just how fixated we all are on numbers and strange patterns. For as much as the human race pretends not to care about "meaningless details," it seems that people sure care about numbers.

Eames Day has a huge amount of backstory. For one, people are being encouraged to watch the Powers of Ten, which is the Eames Office film. A YouTube video embed is below if you aren't familiar. According to Fastcodesign:

"Powers of Ten is arguably more relevant now than it was the year it was released. The simple idea executed in the film has become a powerful construct for thinking through design problems today. In it, Charles and Ray Eames guide us through a deceptively straightforward exercise -- zooming out to 10^24 and then back in to 10^-16 -- re-framing a simple scene by showing it within ever-larger and then smaller contexts.

If all the zooming in and out across the visual landscape seems vaguely familiar, think Google Earth. We've become very practiced with scaling in and out of satellite images of our earth, using those funny, awkward sliders on the edges of Web maps to peer in on our homes, our cities, and Area 51. But this mass application of Powers of Ten is not the reason we should celebrate the film today. Instead, we need to approach it conceptually, at the level of scale."

Of course, there's another reason for geeks to celebrate 10/10/10 day. In binary, 101010 converts to 42. If you've watched The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, you'll know that it took a supercomputer millions of years to find the answer to life, which ends up being "42." In many ways, today is the perfect geek day. Reports have stated that thousands upon thousands of weddings were planned for today in hopes of this day bringing long-lasting luck to the couples involved. One particular wedding chapel in Las Vegas had to hire six extra Elvis impersonators to help with ceremonies.


But 10/10/10 day is going even beyond the geek crowd. The U.S. Green Building Council, San Diego Chapter (USGBC-SD) is partnering with 350.org, a non-profit environmental organization, to encourage San Diegans to take part in a global day of action to celebrate climate solutions and cut their carbon emissions this year by 10 percent on October 10, 2010 -- "10.10.10."

And that's not all. A sort of meaningful and interesting events or activites are helding on this day, Google it! By the way, so what are you doing to celebrate today? You've got 10 seconds to answer :)

Source: HotHardware.com

Fake iTunes Receipt

Are you guys holding an iTunes Account? Did you come across a 'weird' iTunes Receipt hit to your email box while you don't even purchase anything in iTunes Store? Whatever, here is a story about my dad who received a fake iTunes Receipt few days before.

My dad do have a iTunes Account. He didn't make any order in iTunes Store (He didn't even input his credit card number when he registered for the account). Strangely, he received a 'look-alike' official iTunes Order Receipt from 'do_not_reply@itunes.com' stated that he had successfully ordered 'Whatever You Like' (Sweat..==) which cost a total 834.99SGD.

Here is the screen shot:

Without any hesitation, my dad lodged an report about that issue to Apple SG and of course the Apple SG Customer Support simply brought us out from the puzzle afterwards.

Here is the reply from Apple SG:


The spam is getting to flood everywhere in the internet world. The mentioned story tells us that don't be anxious at first when come to this kind of matter. Validate it and ensure what was really going on, everything should be work out OK.

IBM High School Will Churn Out IT Pros

Earlier this week, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the City University of New York and IBM are creating a computer science-focused school in the city that spans from grade 9 to 14 (students leave with an associate's degree). The high school, which will be the first to go through grade 14, has a valuable guarantee for students: graduates will be first in line for jobs at IBM.

But graduating students will be equipped to do far more than work at Big Blue, says Stanley Litow, IBM's Vice President of Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs. "The idea is to create a new [educational] model for science, technology, engineering, and math--areas where companies are aggressively hiring. If you look at hiring requirements, you won't see a huge amount of difference in a lot of entry-level IT jobs." So students will, theoretically, have the skills to work any entry-level IT position.

Students will be chosen to attend using the standard New York City lottery system--one third of selected students will be below grade level, one third will be at grade level, and one third will be above.

IBM will be directly involved in building the school's curriculum. Litow imagines that the company will bring employees into the classroom and offer mentorships for students and teachers, among other things. "The assumption is that we bring expertise to the table," he says.

Ultimately, IBM wants to use the materials developed at its New York City school in other locations--even in already-existing high schools and community colleges. "We would start with New York City, but will look towards developing materials in way that other school systems around the country could have access," Litow explains. Big Blue High: coming soon to a town near you.

Source: Fast Company

My Voice: It's really interesting to hear that one of the world most historical IT company dedicate itself into the education field to attract and cultivate more and more Greeks devote themselves into 'Binary World'. It merely the most simple and direct way to provide desperate youths who interested in the amazing computing world with the best study environment to dig into what they really love during the early age.

Zuckerberg Soars up Forbes List of Richest Americans

If Mark Zuckerberg had a dollar for every user on Facebook ... oh wait, he does. He has lots of dollars for every user on Facebook.

Zuckerberg's net worth surged by US$4.9 billion over the past year, to $6.9 billion, putting him at number 35 on the Forbes list of 400 richest Americans, which was released Wednesday. That was up from 135th place last year.

The Facebook founder's wealth was swelled by private equity deals that put the company's value at about $23 billion, Forbes said. His education is listed on the site as: "Dropout, Harvard University." Oops? Is it?

Zuckerberg wasn't the only person to profit handsomely from the growth at Facebook, which sailed past its 500 millionth user in July. Dustin Moskovitz, who left Facebook in 2008 but retains a stake in the company, is on the list for the first time, in 290th place, with a net worth of $1.4 billion. He's also the youngest person on the list, at 26. (Forbes says he's eight days younger than Zuckerberg.)

Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin also made the Top 400 for the first time, with personal wealth of $1.15 billion.

Another Harvard dropout, Bill Gates, retained his place at the top of the list, expanding his wealth by $4 billion from last year to $54 billion. Larry Ellison has to be content with third place again, behind investor Warren Buffett. Ellison's Oracle empire has helped him to amass a fortune of $27 billion.

Other tech leaders in high places include Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who share 11th place with $15 billion each. Steve Ballmer and Michael Dell each slipped two places on the list, to 15th and 16th, with fortunes of $14 billion and $13.1 billion, respectively.

The rich got richer this year overall, Forbes said. The top 400 earners in America had a combined wealth of $1.37 trillion.

By the way, the 'official' movie of the founder of Facebook will going to hit the box office soon , who are on the waiting list with me? Check it out: The Social Network :D

iPad refresh due first quarter of 2011 (Really?!)

Despite the usual denial from Apple, it seems as though they are on target to release the sequel to this years biggest tablet, the iPad.

Some of the Taiwan based component suppliers of Apple revealed they believer the shipments for the second-gen iPad will begin next year, according to DigiTimes. With that in mind, it would indicate to us that Apple will announce the iPad at the end of Q1 2011.

DigiTimes publication reported that four iPad suppliers, TPK Touch Solutions, Wintek, Cando and Chimel Innolux were in the process of completing validation by Apple for "ultra-thin, glass-based touch panels". With those terms used, it would seem that the next-gen iPad could've been on the treadmill this last few months and maybe lost some weight, maybe starting to look a bit thinner too.

There was a report a week ago, based on a conversation with an "Apple insider" that stated they were releasing a new version of the iPad for the holiday season. It would include a video camera for it's video conferencing over Wifi, FaceTime. The Apple insider added: "A version of the tablet device with a built-in video camera and support for the new FaceTime video conferencing standard has already progressed to the advanced testing stages, according to a person with proven knowledge of Apple's future product plans".

He also noted: "The publication also noted that "although Apple's historical product cycles would beg to differ, that person familiar with the company's plans claims that as of last month, there was an ambitious push inside Apple to verify the refresh for a possible launch ahead of this year's holiday shopping season."

Well, we all can sit here and debate the existence of knowledge about an upcoming product, with the millions sold in iPad's, Apple would be crazy not to release another. So the questions are, will it look the same? will it include a camera? will it be lighter/smaller? will it cook and clean for me?

The usual questions will be answered very soon. By the way, products' improvement always be a good idea to go with but not the case for a guy who just got his iPad in hot hands now @@ (Ok, it's me)

Source: TweakTown