It's been a while ...

4th October 2009, that was the last entry on this blog.

Things have been pretty crazy in October and November.

First of all, the bid which we have been working hard on over the past year has just been awarded. HURRAH! What that meant was a whole bunch of preparation work in mid-October, followed by a LONG (2 week) training trip up to San Diego.


Pacific Ocean Sunset, La Jolla, San Diego (Click for slideshow)

San Diego Trip
Many people say that San Diego has got one of the best climates in the world, and I couldn't agree more. It's nice, cool and dry all year round. Not much natural disasters and generally a nice, peaceful place to live in.

Anyway, our training here was pretty tiring as we had a continuous 10 days of training (Yes, INCLUDING weekends). This is because of the tight schedule and as such we cannot afford to delay the start of the project because of training. In spite of this, we still managed to go out in the evenings for dinner, some shopping and generally to soak in some of the evening sights.

All in all, it was a fruitful trip. Fruitful in the sense that both the official (i.e. training) and unofficial (i.e. shopping and eating) objectives were achieved. :D

Back Home
After the tiring trip, we had only 1 day of rest before work started. And work was full day meetings and discussions for almost 2 more continuous weeks! Nothing much exciting to blog here though.

Finally
Now that the initial stage of the project is done, we can finally take a short breather before the next phase starts in a week's time. (Just to let you know in case you do not see any more updates here, you know I am busy working. REALLY.)

-= SONDAMBI =-

What do you get when you put a Korean chio bu together with some others plus catchy/funky music? SONDAMBI!! And very entertaining MVs :-D

iPhone 3GS

I was looking around for a phone for some time since a couple of months ago. My main criteria was that the phone must allow me to enter data fairly quickly and have a large enough screen for surfing the net, so I narrowed it down to the Nokia N97 because it has an external keyboard.

In the end, curiosity about the new iPhone 3GS got the better of me, and now I am the owner of a 32GB 3GS ... and a SingTel contract.

I've been using the 3GS for nearly a month now. My phone is not "jailbroken" and is currently running on OS 3.1. This is what I think:

Likes:
- fast and smooth user friendly interface
- a whole lot of applications available
- Huge built-in memory for all kinds of stuff
- keyboard in landscape mode works better than a physical one (I can type almost as fast as if I am on a full sized keyboard now!)
- Location based services aplenty, and current location is determined quite accurately
- many accessories in the market

Dislikes:
- iTunes not exactly very zippy or user friendly. Not used to their "sync" concept.
- Battery power lasts about a day (less if you use Wifi and 3G data)
- Proprietary OS imposes restrictions on developer's apps (e.g. developer's applications are single threaded and not multi-threaded) I used to have a timer application running on my Nokia to remind me when to put my eyedrops. The iPhone has a similar app but requires it to run in the foreground. If you close it, it doesn't work anymore.
- A number of restrictions on the OS, most noticeable is the lack of Bluetooth file transfer (i.e. I cannot send files or pictures to someone else using Bluetooth)
- You cannot replace the built-in Calendar application with a better third party application
- There is no TASKS and TODO lists available on the iPhone
- The battery is part of the phone and not user replaceable.

I'm sure there's more but these are just the main ones which I can think about right now. Overall it is a good phone, but does it live up to it's hype? Well almost ...

Updates

A friend told me that my blog has not been updated for some time now. My reply was that there was either nothing to blog about (totally unbelievable) or most of the recent events are more private and not suitable to be posted in a public blog. It is actually more the latter.

Anyhow, this is my first post after a long break (skipped the whole of September in fact), just to say that I am still around. :)

Lunch @ Vanilla Pod

Decided to try out Vanilla Pod for a nice quiet Saturday lunch as it was near our place. When we reached there just after 12pm, it was quiet. Wandered around and found the restaurant after asking the staff. The main restaurant is hidden behind the garden. There is also a cafe/bar at the front with nice cosy sofas (maybe next time can try chilling out here).

Anyway, we weren't big eaters so we ordered soup and shared a plate of pork knuckles which we almost couldn't finish. Overall the ambience was really nice and peaceful. Good place for a stress free lunch or chit-chat.

Will probably come back here to try other stuff on their menu like pasta, pizzas and dessert.