I Tried To Leave My Company With A last Hoora!

1780 days ago

As you guys know, I am being retrenched from my company, which I had worked for around 6 years or so. Due to some financial problems, they decided to ditch me...

As you guys know, I am being retrenched from my company, which I had worked for around 6 years or so. Due to some financial problems, they decided to ditch me and get younger and more capable guys to replace me. Not really, but it is true that my company is facing a lot of fiancial problems so a lot of people were cut. Some of the staff had worked for over 10 years. I really pity those. I mean, a lot of them had sacrificed a lot for the company, but in the end, the result was retrenchment by those greedy nutjobs at the top. Bastards! They didn’t even give any kind of retrenchement benefits at all, claiming that their own big and expensive cars needed more chrome in order to shine.

Well, so I was officially let go a few days ago. I decided then to leave my company with a big bang. I wanted to make a name for myself as a rebel and as someone who isn’t afraid of anything. I wanted to make a huge fuss and create a big scene at my company reception area just before leaving at 6pm. I bought a trumpet and a loudspeaker into the company as well. But I guess they (being some sort of evil genius) knew what I was planning and they told everyone (who was to be retrenched) to gather at the reception area at around 4pm. They ordered everyone to queue and in turn gave each of us our cheque (the last payment) and each of us was then escorted out by their heavily armed paramilitary guards. It spolit my grand plan. Most people will be too anxious(and afraid) to collect their cheque to worry about me. And those who would have supported my scheme (actually those who have already collected their cheque) would have been escorted out already. Damn it! My little Boston tea party has failed.

Well, anyway, I did managed to spit on my company’s entrance door. It’s kind of yellowish. So that’s one for justice. One for the common man being oppressed by greedy corporate types you can find everywhere in Singapore. No one is willing to stand up and fight, so I guess it is left to me. Hoora! Hoora!

Now I am starting to look for a job. If you can help, please leave your contact here. I am looking for an IT job, especially in the networking (Windows) and desktop support arena. And the best thing about us, I won’t cost you a leg or an arm, just feed me some scraps you have left over on your table now and then will be fine.

EditDNS Review

1781 days ago

I am not very sure whether you guys have heard of EditDNS. Well, it is a DNS host which offers their basic services for free. And if you require some additional...

Free DNS hosting provided by<br /> EditDNS.net

I am not very sure whether you guys have heard of EditDNS. Well, it is a DNS host which offers their basic services for free. And if you require some additional features, you will need to “donate” a small sum in order for these features to be activated. I have tried their service and was so impressed that I am currently a “premium” member. You get to be a premium member by donating.

If you are just looking for basic DNS hosting like your A, MX, TXT, CNAME and PTR records, you can do it with EditDNS and this is free. You can also use their DNS Server as an backup (secondary) Name Server. They also offer free web forwarding and email forwarding. They have both US and Europe servers. You have the option of having only US or Europe servers or a mix of both. You can also use their email re-routing feature, which re-route all your emails to non-standard ports if your ISP blocks port 25. Furthermore, you can make use of their dynamic DNS service if your ISP provides you with an dynamic IP address.

If you donate (that’s a small sum of US$5 or more around the same as your daily Starbucks Coffee), you can get email hosting (with spam and antivirus filtering) for your domain. This can be a good (and cheap) solution for anyone who just need to use email for their domain. You can also use their servers as an email spam and virus filtering relay. This acts as a relay which clears spam and virus from your emails before forwarding to your actual email server. I think this is a very good feature which I am using now. But note that having a relay can slow down the speed at which you will receive email because mails are routed to the relay first before sending to your actual email server. In addition, if your webhost don’t provide a backup email server, you can make use of EditDNS to host your secondary email server as backup. If your main email server goes down, the backup mail server will accept your emails for you and later forward to your main mail server once it is up. If you like, you can use Private Name Servers for branding purposes as well.

This service seemed very reliable and they don’t leave a huge gapping hole in your pocket either. I myself did not face any problem when using EditDNS and from reading their forums, any problems are solved quite quickly. Not bad, not bad at all, considering a lot of users are using their service for free. And not to mention, they do offer a lot of very nice features. You should also read up on my other article – List of Free DNS Hosts.

No Improvement

1781 days ago

Hmm…guys I am having a slight problem with one of my directories. No matter what I did, I am unable to increase the amount of traffic from Search Engines to my...

Hmm…guys I am having a slight problem with one of my directories. No matter what I did, I am unable to increase the amount of traffic from Search Engines to my Singapore Business Directory. Even direct traffic don’t seem to work too. I submitted my directory to countless web directories on the Internet, posted my directory’s URL on forum signatures, tried to advertise my directory on other websites, added good quality articles on my directory but they seemed not to work. Traffic from Search Engines has become stagnant mainly because a lot of my directory’s pages went into supplemental index. They usually don’t show up during searches. Direct traffic has dropped a bit too.

Perhaps it is time for me to stop online efforts and start doing some promotion offline? You know, by advertising in my local newspapers and magazines. Do you think that it will have better results. Advertising in the local newspaper cost about S$33 for one small column but the circulation is about 2 million copies per day. Even if 5% read that little advert, I could get quite a few hits. And anyway, Singapore is very traditional and the people still rely on (hardcopy) newspapers for information. Advertising flyers and pamphlets? That’s a very cheap medium of advertising as well. However, you need to distribute the flyers and that can be rather costly. Oh, television and radio is out of my budget as you well know.

So, what do you think. Should I cut my online efforts and start my offline newspaper campaign? Is it practical to concentrate on these kind of traditional advertising medium?

Fallout 3 is Alive!

1782 days ago

My favourite game series of all time – The Fallout Series, has another sequel! It’s Fallout 3. For those who never played Fallout and Fallout 2 before, you should rush out...

My favourite game series of all time – The Fallout Series, has another sequel! It’s Fallout 3. For those who never played Fallout and Fallout 2 before, you should rush out and grab a copy (or two) and play them great great Role Playing Game. It’s probably the best out there, except Darklands of course. Nothing beats Darklands, although I have to say Fallout 2 comes quite close.

For those who don’t know what is Fallout or don’t have the money to buy the game for like 10 bucks, it’s an isometric (sideview topdown) Role Playing Game set in the post nuclear world (yes, mutants, radiated rats, giant scorpions, burnt out cars and ragged dirty people). The game came out in 1997 and the sequel (that’s Fallout 2) came out in 1998. The game is sort of played in real-time (partly) and when combat starts, it becomes turn based. So you move a few steps or fire your M72 Gauss Rifle depending on the number of AP (Action Points) and your opponent does the same thing after you have finished yours. Yes, it was kind of like an old school RPG. Your character will gain experience points from completing quests or butchering people (or mutants) and he/she will increase in level. And the increase in level comes “perks” (essentially bonus skills), increase in Skills, increase Hit Points, thicker muscles, harder skulls….the usual RPG things that is standard issue.

But what is great about this game is it’s story line. You are a vault dweller (the people who escaped the nuclear holocaust by living in vaults) and you are forced by circumstances to leave your vault to save the something. It’s also an open-ended RPG, in which you don’t need a follow a fixed path and there are lots of quests to be completed. Futhermore, it has mindblowing violence, groin punching, trash talking, sex, vulgarities, drugs, everything you expect from a great RPG. Heck, you can even get married or become a porn star in the game! Truly, it was really one of the most innovative RPG I ever played.

Well then, after Interplay (the distributor) and Black Isles (the developer) were brought down due to financial problems (or something like that), the next sequel (Fallout 3) landed in Limbo. It was bought over by Bethesda Softworks (yes, the morons who brought you Oblivion Screensaver for 2-year old mutant girls with high end graphic cards) and just recently the released a trailer and a few screenshots for Fallout 3 after like 7 years? They also had a Fallout 3 Press Event in June in which Critical Hits attended and wrote a little preview on Fallout 3. Now, let’s keep our fingers cross that it won’t turn out to be a crap like “Oblivion in Power Armour”.

I will now end with this thought provoking quotation from Fallout:

“War. War never changes.” Whatever.

Printer Anywhere – Interesting Idea

1782 days ago

I came across this site (Printer Anywhere) a few days ago and I found what it offers to be a rather interesting idea. You download a software which shares your printer...

I came across this site (Printer Anywhere) a few days ago and I found what it offers to be a rather interesting idea. You download a software which shares your printer on the Internet and this software will also look for other’s printers (with an userid) on the Internet. It is sort of like a little Peer-to-Peer printer sharing. Basically you can print from someone else’s printer even if they are miles away. All you guys need is an internet connection. So, for example, you have a client who would like to have a copy of your document and he just needs an hardcopy, no softcopy is needed. Instead of printing from your own printer, you print to his “already shared” printer, saving you the problem of sending emails and wondering whether he/she has the correct software to open the file. It is also convenient if you (or them) do not have a fax machine available for you to do regular faxing.

Printer Anywhere claims that the data send across the network to the Internet shared printer is encrypted. Well, perhaps so, it’s my opinion that it is still not safe enough. Just think that you are sending your files to be printed on someone else’s printer which you have no idea where it is located or whether the printer itself secure. I mean, anyone can be looking at your hardcopy right at the printer. God knows what they could be doing with your document. Next, the problem with Peer-to-Peer is that it is prone to abuse. You are sharing your printer on the Internet. A spammer can easily get the same software and start sending our print jobs to thousands of shared printers, and you will be printing out spam and advertisements right on your own printer before you even know it! I mean, you not only waste bandwidth, you are wasting time and paper to clear these kind of spam or flyers/brochures.

This is a good idea, but it needs to be more secure. Spammers are the biggest problem on the Internet and letting them into your printer is probably not the smartest way to go about. Having perhaps password protected shared printer or sort of a userid identification would help cut down on the abuse that is bound to happen.

Freaking Warm Weather Part Deux

1783 days ago

Okay, okay, the weather is getting very warm again here in Singapore. Even in the evening I feel absolutely no breeze at all. The air is still and the ground feels...

Okay, okay, the weather is getting very warm again here in Singapore. Even in the evening I feel absolutely no breeze at all. The air is still and the ground feels like it is releasing hot air when you are walking down the street. And worse of all, there is no rain. It has not been raining for a couple of days now. If there is no rain, there will not be a break from all these heat that is burning my body up. I am not sure how’s the weather is like at your side, but it is really baking down here in Singapore. Talk about Global warming….

And in Singapore, the majority of us live in small flats and with little windows for ventilation. Picture yourself in a small room and a small window and all these heat coming in. Yes, you will be baking inside this oven we call a flat. After a while, you will sweat and all the sweat will start to seep down to your shirt and your pants, and you will be completely drenched with smelly sweat. Yes, all you have to do is sit. If you are doing heavy work, you will be sweating like a pig in no time. I really pity those doing construction in the hot sun, must really be very tough to be doing all these heavy lifting under all these heat.

Tomorrow, I am going to the nearby swimming pool. All these sun, why not go get a nice tan while we are at it? I mean it is definitely better than getting baked in my little room right? And it cost like a buck for entry. Or I could maybe visit the beach? And drink some ice cool lemonade while looking at the beautiful scenery eh? Or I could just go to my office and enjoy the air-conditioning and the fine conversation of my fellow workers.

Don’t Stare At The Monkeys!

1783 days ago

Have you heard the expression or phrase “Don’t Stare At The Monkeys“? Well, it supposedly makes them angry if you stare at them. I don’t know the reason why, but they...

Have you heard the expression or phrase “Don’t Stare At The Monkeys“? Well, it supposedly makes them angry if you stare at them. I don’t know the reason why, but they somehow get very aggressive and may attempt to attack you if you do. I recently found out that this is oh so true.

I was drinking a cup of the finest brew at my neighbourhood coffee shop just a few days ago. This was the only coffee shop in Singapore that has real coffee, not the bitter carbon water we find everywhere, but actual real great tasting coffee. Anyways, there was this weirdly dressed creature with a funny spiky hairstyle drinking coffee. Apparently, monkeys like great tasting coffee too. Hey, who or what doesn’t! He being so different, I decided to take an extra peak at him. You know me being the curious type. And he caught me looking at him! I mean, I didn’t actually stare at him like for hours or anything, just an extra look so that I can describe him in my blog later on. Not that I was deliberately trying to be rude or trying to pick a fight, but it was just like sort of a quick look with no harm intended.

And that was enough to set him off. After he finish drinking his coffee, he came to my table and demanded (by beating his chest with his fists several times) to know the reason why I was staring at him. He “said” that he had “caught” me staring at him since I came to the coffee shop and told me that if I have a problem with him, we should finish this up somewhere else. I being a weasel declined his kind offer. Hey, he had chains around his body! I told him that I wasn’t staring at him as my main interest in life is with pretty (human) ladies that appreciate fine coffee as I do. He barked a few incomprehensible words at me before stalking off into the sunset, his little tail wagging behind him.

But anyway, the moral of this blog post is to tell you that it really makes the monkeys (and Gorillas) mad if you stare at them, even if for a few seconds. My suggestion is to point digital cameras at them and please use flash. It frightens them (sort of).

Singapore – A Great Place To Eat

1784 days ago

Yes, indeed. How many of you have visited Singapore before? And if you did, I am pretty sure you will agree with me, that Singapore is one of the best place...

Yes, indeed. How many of you have visited Singapore before? And if you did, I am pretty sure you will agree with me, that Singapore is one of the best place where you can find great food. Sure, it’s not the best, but the food here is at the very least edible and if I might add, very tasty with a huge variety for everyone. And if you know where to look, the prices of these fine foodfares can be reasonable as well. Furthermore, you will find different favours of food.

If you are looking for Japanese food, you can find a plenty here like Sushi, Sashimi, Donburi, Japanese Curry, Ramen…..superb. How about Italian or French? Yes, we have it here as well. You can even find them at Hawker centers! How about Korean? Yes, the currently Korean craze has resulted in a lot of new Korean restaurants popping up everywhere on the island. Fine Indian dining you say? Yes, sir. It’s here alright. Naan, Tandoori Chicken, Biryani….wonderful, just wonderful. Chinese food? You will be amazed at the number of different restaurants/bistros we have here, serving Chinese cuisine – Hokkien, Teochew among them. How about local fares? Hahaha, you will discover that that’s what Singapore has plenty of and you should try them.

Whether you are looking for expensive and high class restaurants or just a family restaurant, or even a local cafe or bistro, Singapore has it all. If you are feeling adventurous, you can try out Singapore’s hawker centres. You will be amazed at what these humble hawkers can cook up for you to satisfy your appetite.

Eat and eat and eat. That’s what Singaporeans and Singapore visitors are doing. I mean, basically Singapore has nothing much to offer other than shopping, sunshine and food (well, in the future there will be gambling and vice). It’s no surprise that there are a lot of fat and obese people in Singapore, all with heart problems and will properly die young. But please, don’t let that stop you from trying out Singapore’s great dining pleasures.

So if you are visiting Singapore, please try out Singapore’s numerous restaurants. I have complied a list of Singapore Restaurants you can check out. It is not arranged in any order. I have also complied a list of Singapore Bistros/Cafes.

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