Singapore Spas

1686 days ago

Yesterday, I went to the town area to do some shopping to buy some stuff for my friend who was going overseas to work. It was as usual, very crowded and...

Yesterday, I went to the town area to do some shopping to buy some stuff for my friend who was going overseas to work. It was as usual, very crowded and you will need to squeeze with everyone. It looks like Singapore is getting way too overcrowded and with nearly a million working foreigners (don’t forget tourists and those who foreigners on visiting passes), just like Hong Kong. In Singapore, all we get is dust, sweat, heat, crying kids, mobile phone loving youngsters, loud talking businessman and squatting construction workers everywhere. That’s Singapore for you.

Anyway, one thing I realized is that recently, there is a huge increase in the number of Spas! In the Orchard area alone, I counted like 15 different Spas! And I did just a simple count, nothing really very comprehensive. In my opinion, that’s a lot of Spas. Looks like the latest craze in Singapore is now Spas. But this time, the craze is for probably the younger working adults and not for youngsters. Spas aren’t cheap, most of which cost like 30-40 bucks for some facial thingy where they squeeze and abuse your face. And some packages can cost up to several hundred dollars.

I am not really a fan of Spas, I think that there are sort of like message cum health centers, just that it looks more posh and definitely cost more. But it seems that a lot of people swear by it and they are flocking to Spas to relax and unwind after a hard day’s work. I can understand that. Singapore is way too stressed and I really pity the working population. With the increased competition in the work place and the increased number of foreigners competing with locals for jobs, it’s no wonder Singaporeans need to find some way to keep their minds off work. What’s better than someone pampering you and giving you a “rub-down”to relax those tense muscles with those weird sounding oils and creams eh? Spas seemed to be the easiest solution. Oversea holidays (Singaporeans would do anything to get out of Singapore) would require time and a lot of planning, something which a lot of Singaporeans don’t have. It is also a good way to get away from the hustle of Singapore without actually leaving Singapore. I would recommend Spas which are located away from the crowded city area with a quiet and relaxing environment.

Anyway, if you are interested in checking out the Spas available in Singapore, please have a look at my Singapore business directory: Singapore Spas & Beauty. Please note that I am not recommending any of these Spas, you should use it as a guide only.

Paid Link Detector

1686 days ago

Yes, someone on the Internet has really created a “paid links” detector! You can find the site here. It’s free currently because it is beta. Ironically, it is created by a...

Yes, someone on the Internet has really created a “paid links” detector! You can find the site here. It’s free currently because it is beta. Ironically, it is created by a company selling paid links themselves and their slogan is “BUY links that work”. Anyway, it is supposed to be able to detect paid links by checking the behaviour of the links. I believe that try to check the behaviour of paid links from Digitalpoint Forums and TextLinkAds. The actual way they do it, I am not very sure. Most likely, it checks the words around it by whether it has the words “sponsored” or “supported” near the links and whether they are site-wide.

Before we go any further, I think we should check out this detector first. So I tested out this detector with my blog’s mainpage and they found one paid link. And it’s the link to Authority Sites Directory, which is not a paid link. More like it’s just a link to my own site. So I go and test Authority Sites Directory and they found 2 paid links. These are links to my blog and to my friends website. These are also not paid links. I tried my High PageRank Sites Directory frontpage but no paid links were detected. This is kind of weird because I expected them to detect my outgoing site-wide link at the footer. The last I tried was my local business directory frontpage and lo and behold, no paid links were detected. It really looks like the detector is highly unreliable and very inaccurate. Since they don’t actually tell us how the detector works and what kind of behaviour they check, sadly, this tool shouldn’t be used by any serious webmasters.

I really hope that they improve on this detector. It can help webmasters who are rushed or don’t have the time to check a site properly. But I don’t think there is any real way to find out whether a link is paid or not, because most of these “transactions” are not displayed openly. If you check out blogs, you will be able to see textlink advertisements but are they really paid advertisements or are those actual reviews or just honest opinions? There is just no way to prove it. And I am pretty sure that Google won’t be that dumb to penalized a website because the links look like paid links. Some are pretty obvious, but most are not. Just because that Matt guy says it is, don’t mean it really is.

And the motive of creating this tool is highly suspicious. Especially if you see what that site is all about. I am naturally not a suspicious person, but this really stinks a lot.

Beating Google

1687 days ago

Well, when I was surfing Digitalpoint Forums the other day, I stumbled on a very interesting thread. It’s all about beating Google and ranking better than Google itself for the term...

Well, when I was surfing Digitalpoint Forums the other day, I stumbled on a very interesting thread. It’s all about beating Google and ranking better than Google itself for the term “Google“. My first thought was whether that is even possible. That’s the giant Google we are talking about here. I mean, I am very sure that bloody big Search Engine has a lot of backlinks and a lot of anchor text with “Google” pointing back at them. Hmmm….and everyone on the Internet knows about Google, so I guess it’s really going to be a challenge to beat Google. And Google has a huge number of “supporters” like bloggers, website owners or just plain Internet users, who I am sure will not make this “challenge” any easier.But this challenge is interesting to say the least.

And who says we need to beat Google at Number 1? Just rank number 2 or 3 behind Google but I think it’s going to be tough as well. It looks like even Wikipedia ranks at Number 23 for the term “Google”. If such an authority site ranks Number 23, what can I say about the rest of us mere mortals? Maybe if it was Adobe or Apple who took up this challenge and start optimizing their sites, we could possibly see them at Number 2 or 3. And who is to say Google will not do some hanky panky and ensure that nobody comes to the top 10 except them? With such a vast array of backlinks, Google controls it all.

So anyone here willing to take up the challenge? There is no prize if you win but I think the increase in the number of hits and visitors will more than compensate the initial monetary loss. And with this increase in hits and visitors, you can get a lot of advertisers. Who knows, you could be laughing all the way to the bank?

Media Coder – Open Source Media Converter

1689 days ago

  Have you ever wanted a software which can help you convert a certain video or audio format to another easily? Have you wanted to resize your video files smaller so...

 

Have you ever wanted a software which can help you convert a certain video or audio format to another easily? Have you wanted to resize your video files smaller so that you can send it to your friends through email? Have you ever wanted to extract only audio from video files? And you have no money to buy an expensive software to do all that? Well, let me now introduce to you yet another open source software called Media Coder. Yes, this software can do all these and more!

The most important feature of this software is that it can convert one “type” of video files to another. So let’s say you have a video file encoded in Xvid and you would like to convert it to Divx for your Divx enabled player, you can use this software to do just that. And it supports a huge range of video types like Xvid, Divx, H.264, Flash, WMV and so on. It even converts Realmedia files which can be problematic for a lot of converters! Lo and behold, it now comes with a “Device Edition”! It’s like a set of pre-defined settings for Media Coder. So if you are using it to convert a file which is readable by let’s say, PSP or iPod, you can make use of the Device Edition to easily convert files without the need to change or configure complex settings. Very useful for people like me who can’t differentiate one format from another or couldn’t care less about it.

However, if you are a control freak, Media Coder can be your best friend as well. It allows you to edit or change various settings. This allows you to control the final output of your audio or video file so that you can create the best possible quality with maximum compression (or smallest size).

I am using Media Coder for several purposes, one of which is to extract audio from video files. I have extract theme songs which I like from movies or sometimes to extract a certain dialogue. Very useful indeed. However, Media Coder did crash on me several times when it is doing certain jobs. I am not sure what causes it and it seemed to be random. Although I won’t exactly say that Media Coder is difficult to use, even for a newbie, but it’s interface can be confusing and even complicated. And it doesn’t come with a wizard. But seriously, it shouldn’t be that hard to figure out all the parts of the software.

If you find this software useful, please help the authours by either donating a few bucks or you could tell others about it.

iRiver Clix2 – My New Toy

1691 days ago

I got myself this little toy, the iRiver Clix2. It’s sort of like an MP3 and Video portable player. A lot of people called it an MP4 player, but I guess...

I got myself this little toy, the iRiver Clix2. It’s sort of like an MP3 and Video portable player. A lot of people called it an MP4 player, but I guess that’s not the correct term for it right? Anyway, I got myself this gadget and I had the chance to play around with it for a few days already. I have to say, this player really impress me.

First of all, this player looks very sleek. It has a glossy surface and I am sure a lot of cool and hip people will be attracted by that. You don’t have to worry about it’s size either, even with a video function, this player is small and slim. The audio quality is superb! Even comparing to my friend’s Creative player, it beats the Creative set hands down. The audio is crystal clear and I am using a pretty low cost set of ear phone. So if you are really fussy about the music quality, the iRiver shouldn’t disappoint. In fact, I think it’s one of the best in the market nowadays. However, I bought this player mainly for it’s video functions. Normally, I would spend like about 2 hours traveling to and from work, so something to keep my mind occupied would be great. I wanted to spend that 2 hours watching my favourite TV shows or movies. Well, even thought the Clix2 has a smaller screen compared to other Portable Media Player (PMP), all the movies I played on the Clix2 looked great. It’s AMOLED screen is supposed to make it’s battery last long but I think the major problem is that if there is sunlight, the picture becomes oversaturated easily. This can be a big problem if you use the player outside, especially for me, in sunny Singapore.

The iRiver Clix2 is very fussy about what video format it can play. I tried playing around with several settings but all failed. I had no choice but to use the provided software but the encoding speed is very slow. And reading the documentation doesn’t help at all, because there isn’t any information on video settings and formats. My other experience with PMP (Archos model) read most of the videos I threw at it. For the Clix2, you don’t have the luxury. You need to correctly encode the video file first.

Although it is with faults, I would still recommend this player to anyone looking for a compact PMP, if you don’t mind a smaller screen. But if you are really serious about your video, then I should suggest to you to get those dedicated ones, with bigger screens and bigger storage. Clix2 comes in 4GB, 8GB and 16GB sizes. I feel that it is enough for my uses. And it uses solid state flash memory, you don’t need to worry about files skipping when you run.

Oh, it’s glossy surface is a fingerprint magnet. I don’t know why, but it can get really bad at times. Either you get a screen cleaner and clean the display constantly or you should get one of those “skins” or “shields” to cover your player. I think it’s an necessity for this player.

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