For those who have been following my blog for a while will know that I've been quite fascinated by Tumblelogs and in particular the hosted service provided by Tumblr.

I like blogging and the nature of blogs, but I always felt uncomfortable with the formal nature of traditional blogs. Blogs like this one hosted on Blogger are designed for structured posts where you begin with a title and create your content in the body. Every post is an episode and a complete story. Personally I find that I am too busy to keep up with such structured posts and really want to share what it is in as few words as I can.

The rational is like this: what if I just wanted to share a link? Caption a photo? Embed a YouTube video?

I know it can be done in Blogger too, but not nearly as naturally and easily as a Tumblelog. And besides, why is there a need to create a title for YouTube video that already has one?

That's why I like Tumblelogs, they're organised by date and are updated with greater freedom and ease. But there are down sides to Tumblelogs too. If a post was merely a link, why would anyone permalink to a post that's only a link? I end up losing links to good finds/content. Also, the lack of structure might throw some readers off.

The above concerns aside, the biggest bug bear I had with Tumblelogs was the absence of comments. I like sharing my thoughts and finds, but that's only 50% of the conversation. Feedback, encouragement, and fresh ideas are vital to taking part in the social media. But that problem is now solved thanks to a simple hack using the JS-Kit Comments script.

So, here is my experiment.

I plan to leave this blog as it is and try blogging on my tumblelog at http://eok.tumblr.com/ for a month week (shouldn't over promise). I'm not entirely sure if I'll succeed, but it's something I have to try.

If it works out to be a better alternative, I'll even consider pointing http://eok.net/ over to the tumblelog making it my permanent blog. I've also pointed my FeedBurner link to the RSS at Tumblr for consistency.

OK, so here goes. Wish me luck!

This phone above is powered by water. Yes, the stuff you get when you turn the tap. This hydrogen fuel-cell technology fascinates me more than solar or wind power and all that "green" jazz. This is not simply about alternative power but possibilities.

If all it takes to power a 3.7V mobile device the equivalence of an hour's electricity charging is water you can get from the toilet, then a new dawn of gadgets have arrived.

Think about the humble wrist watch, it no longer is another functional device but an accessory, a piece of jewelry to those who bought expensive timepieces, simply because it works constantly without the need to dock or charge. What happens when your MP3 player, portable gaming rig, or even your laptop starts running on water?

Once upon a time, I though induction charging was good, but not anymore now that the game is changed. Instead of working at a cafe for a maximum of 5 hours, I could stay the whole day if I liked. Instead of running out of juice and borrowing a friend's mobile, I just need to top up the phone after I pee!

If this technology develops as it promises, then I'd seriously like to see robotic powered prosthetics, a high adoption of UMPC or tablet PCs, always-on IM on mobile devices that are phones, PDAs, GPS, camera, and multimedia player in one.

I reckon the applications are endless and not to mention "clean". How are wireless mice and keyboards powered by spilled drinks for an idea?

That's what my hacker friend Michael Boman (pictured) asked me about yesterday evening. As a professional (read ethical) hacker, Michael is always on his Linux-powered ThinkPad everywhere he goes, and like many of us he's fed up of paying for a laptop and giving free publicity to the computer maker's brand.

His suggestion was to use customisable stickers like the one on his ThinkPad in the picture. It costs about $40 for a single custom one, bulk printing of these for the purpose of advertising could potentially make sense.

When he first mentioned it to me, I had a feeling that it wasn't the newest of ideas. Sure enough its been thought of by Sacha Chua and productised by LapLooks.

But as we continued to think about it, I thought the success of it didn't lie in the laptop lid as an isolated mini-billboard, but it had to be part of a bigger integrated campaign. Off the top of my head I thought it would best complement up and coming blog advertising outfits such as Advertlets and Naffnang in this region. Since their clients are already willing to advertise on bloggers' online space, why not offer the value add of following the blogger's physical "space"?

Since then, I've thought of a few other possibilities:

• Conference sponsors could give pay for delegates entry in exchange for their laptop lids
• Brands targetting youths could possibly buy the lids of university students laptop lids for $20/month
  

Other ideas from Michael were:

• Corporate branding of all their purchased laptops creating ambassadors of every mobile employee
• Affiliate marketing promotion codes could be on the ads to encourage visibility
  

Any other ideas? We would love to hear more in the comments.

I normally advise people to bidget S$1,000/year for personal computing procurement. In other words, get a S$3,000 laptop keep it for 3 years and dump it. It makes sense because that's as long as any warranty would cover you for.

But I now have a new theory on how to make that purchase last longer. And for this theory, I'll use my MacBook Pro as the subject.

So here goes...

2007
Bought my 15" MacBook Pro new for the cheapest price you can get. (S$2,970)

2008
Upgrade RAM to 4GB. Get good quality chips like this one from Crucial which I got. This will help the computer perform at its best. And why get it so early? Because RAM has a life-cycle and may not be produced in later years making it a rare commodity which raises the prices again. (S$351)

Before the first year is up, I have to remember to get Apple Care which would cover me for the next two years. (S$629)

2009
By this time, the lithium-ion battery would have been reduced to a 30min UPS and need replacement to accompany my mobile lifestyle. (S$232)

2010
The MacBook Pro will probably start feeling its age here even with 4GB of RAM because applications developed at this time will want a faster processor. To keep up with performance, my best bet is to replace my HDD with an SSD which could give as much as a 5x improvement in performance. Today they are amazingly expensive, but by 2010 they should drop dramatically in price. (~S$350)

At this point, AppleCare doesn't cover the MacBook Pro any longer, but since I'm ripping out the only moving part of the computer, I'm relatively safe.

2011
No more upgrades, just hope the LCD doesn't develop dead pixels. But it should perform perfectly for the rest of this year.

I would have spent a grand total of S$4532. A S$500 saving over my S$1,000/year plan.