Today I signed up for and installed Carbonite Online PC Backup on my HP notebook. This backup and recovery software is unlike the traditional backup-to-disk ones because it isn't just software but a service as well and backup is done over to Internet to secured remote servers (that aren't even mine).

I have to say that this is quite a novel idea. Previously I use EMC Retrospect and have my files shipped off to an external Maxtor 300GB harddisk. It was a fine solution as long as I remember to plug the USB cable in when I reach home. I guess this solution is much better for desktops than laptops.

My favourite thing about Carbonite is actually the "set and forget" nature of it. Installation is just a single wizard-driven setup executable and an online registration. After which you pick the files you want to back up (by default its My Documents and Desktop) and bob's your uncle! Backup is done is the background over your broadband connection and it picks up when you're computer's idle and slows down when you're working.

The only things to grapple with here is trusting these servers and the time it takes to backup and restore. It will take a few days to backup all my data (excluding programs) but once that is done, it is only incremental backups that take place. A complete restore will take about half that time depending on the speed of your broadband connection's downstream.

Apparently disk space is unlimited and the service will cost you US$49.95/year. I'm running a 3 month trial now, so I'll decide if I want to pay by September.

Next step, get my mum on it so I don't have to play tech support when things go wrong.

Screenshots: Above these two screens pop up upon successful installation for further customisation. Below the dots that appear on the files indicate their status of back up.

Was at BlogOut 2007 on Thursday evening at the Geek Terminal. I wouldn't dare say it was a blogger event, but more a geek convention with most in attendance happening to be bloggers.

Between song, food, and drink, serious discussion was had in breakout tables. The table I was at focused on the topic of corporate blogging. I was kinda forced to join it by Bernard who wanted "PR expertise" to be at the table.

Although I didn't stay all the way through I learned and got a feel of what Singaporeans think about corporate blogging:

• Most of us see it as a marketing / PR platform.
• Some want it for community feedback.
• The biggest inhibitor of starting a corporate blog is not so much lack of time but fear of relinquishing control.
• Most don't believe in setting a goal for corporate blog, rather let passion and honesty attract the community and work from there.

All this talk reminded me of the Wired 15.04's cover story on The See-Through CEO. In this article, Glenn Kelman, CEO, of Redfin took to blogging to be absolutely honest with the real-estate industry and it worked not just to drive business to his company but also to expose the "unethical" dealings of old-school agents.

But other than this example, I can't say that corporate blogging has really transformed businesses, especially in Singapore. In fact I was saying at the table that sometimes the individuals in your organisation that blog can have a stronger effect on branding, culture, and good will than a single corporate blog.

But we're still in early times and corporate blogging has got to be believed not just by the marketing / PR folks but by the top management themselves. At the end of the day, there's nothing better than hearing whatever it is from the horse's mouth--that means you Mr CEO!

(Photo from Kevin's Flickr set)

This waterspout was seen from the office of Hill & Knowlton in Singapore. Quite an amazing sight which my colleagues have come to call "The finger of God".

The first line on SE roundtable's blog post today about bookmarking reads:

Traditional bookmarking seems obsolete. Adding a bookmark to your browser, to many, is a practice that has been since seemingly replaced by newer methods -- social bookmarking sites, if you will.

I am a long-time del.icio.us user and absolutely love social bookmarking, but to make a statement as the one above is rather myopic in my opinion. There are very few technologies today that can claim obsolescence and replacement of a previous generation--especially one which relies heavily on a user's practice habits.

My take is that traditional and the many other kinds of bookmarking methods are far from obsolete simply because they are constantly useful in their own way. This is how I practice my bookmarking and I have to say social bookmarking can't replace them all:

Social Bookmarking: The main reason I use del.icio.us is to have these bookmarks shared with friends and the public who are interested in my finds. Although bookmarks on such systems can be made private, it fails as a quick access platform like the bookmarks bar on a web browser. Having to do a search or click the right tag in the cloud each time I want to do my online banking is just insane.

Widget Bookmarking: Some others call them bookmarklets. These Javascript enablers I often place on my browser's bookmark bar for no other reason than quick access. Ones I often use are "Subscribe to Feed", "Share on Tumblr", "Add to del.icio.us", etc.

Traditional Bookmarking: Maybe it is fair to say that traditional bookmarks within the browser's sidebar or menu item have evolved into private bookmarks. I tend to organise my bookmarks in folders such as a one for "The eOK .network" which contains a link to my blog, my blogger dashboard, blogrolling admin page, Winksite, ClickTale, etc. These are things I don't need and want to share, but yet don't click too often either. Just a good way to know where they are.

Resource Bookmarking: You can also think of these as BCP bookmarks for those URLs you can't possibly do without. I have the most essential sites such as webmail (for work), online services for clients, VPN, Citrix, etc, on my iGoogle page. In the case of a disaster or if I am overseas without my computer, I can access these quickly from any other machine. These are a mixture of private and quick access bookmarks, but highly essential to keep service quality at its best.

I don't normally blog about my personal life, and especially not my Saturdays, but yesterday was amazingly serendipitous that I had to share. Almost like living the above movie (just without the romance).

Yesterday I made an old friend. I did it by...

• showing up at her boyfriend's house warming party;
• accidentally making life difficult for her the previous day (without knowing who she was);
  
• attending her cousin's event (without knowing they were related);
• dating her cousin's sister while back in university (also without knowing they were related);
• attending the same church as her sister while I was a teenager (obviously without knowing who she was).

Her name is Tammy Yee and this is the serendipitous tale.

Yesterday evening I turned up at Aaron's (an industry friend) house warming party early because I had another appointment later that night. Tammy wasn't there yet so I took the grand tour and greeted the other early birds. In the midst of the multitude of guests streaming in, a girl that I didn't recognise walked pass me, took a look at me and exclaimed, "you missed the bus yesterday!"

Shocked and embarrassed I realised she was part of the event organiser for the launch of International Museum Day 2007 where my friends and I spent a bit too long down at the reception till we missed the charted bus tours throwing Tammy's well laid out plans out the window. But she was nice enough to get us another bus and we did enjoy the tour.

Back at the house warming, we began to chat thinking that yesterday's bad behaviour was our only common ground till I mentioned that I just came from the IMD 2007 Eastern Surprise Food Trail organised by HungryGoWhere. In a name-dropping reflex she said that HungryGoWhere was built by her cousin while I said I know the guy who built it.

She said, "but we're distant cousins". I said, "I went to uni with his sister".

Her eyes lit up as the neurons in her brain began putting two and two together.

Then she decided to ask a deeper question to probe, "did you go out with his sister back then?" remembering that her cousin's sister was dating some guy called Ben. I said yes.

At this point I was still thinking, "we haven't met before yesterday's incident, right? How come you know so much?"

Then she asked the question that made it click for me. "Did you attend a presbyterian church?".

"Yes...", I said with a curious frown.

"Then do you know Sam?"

While I was going "Sam.. Sam.. who? Which Sam...", Tammy went "I'm her sister!"

It was like finding that last missing piece in a 3,000 piece jigsaw.

Her sister was an old friend, Samantha Yee. In fact, I remember Samantha had two sisters, one named Tammy, and I've actually been to their family home twice when we were all in the same youth group back then.

Amazing isn't it? I'm yet to have such a serendipitous encounter online in the social media. I wonder what the chances are... or is it as Tammy said "these things can only happen in Singapore".

Singapore-based OSIM, known best for its massage chairs, has ordered YouTube to remove its copyright ads uploaded by users. My friend and fellow blogger I.Z. Reloaded has been sent a DMCA notice to remove the clip of an OSIM iGallop ad he uploaded in January 24, 2006.

I've used this particular uploaded ad in talks I've given at Hill & Knowlton and as a guest lecturer at SIM to prove the power the the social media to amplify the MSM content.

I find it so odd that for a company who's vision is to expand from 1,135 outlets to 3,000 worldwide by 2013 rather play the legal card and miss out on the most amazing Internet phenomenon.

Sometimes I imagine what goes though the minds of these marketing folks is: "Let's see, adopt a creative commons license and let the fans build a viral campaign or pay an ad agency bucket loads of cash to get the next 140,000 eyeballs... Hmm... alright ad agencies, send in your pitches!"

Now which would give you a better understanding? Boring textbook diagram above or fascinating 3D animation with useful captions and clear voice over? Now I know why I didn't do well in school. I was born too early! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjexZ88wIno] Jokes aside, the juxtaposition of the two is making me re-think communication and its effectiveness in this new world of multimedia. Most of us in the communications business can do a good job of writing a press release, but can you design an impactful infographic? Many can create effective PowerPoint presentations, but can you create meaningful Flash animation? Funny how "effective communication" is pegged to the limitation of our skills.

Dear Blogger,

The National Heritage Board of Singapore invites you to make museums come alive online during International Museum Day 2007 (IMD 2007). There will be more than 80 special events over 10 days (18 – 27 May 2007) taking place in 24 museums around the island and you are invited to join the chatter online!

Report “live” from Twitter…
If you’re a Twitter user, add us at http://twitter.com/imd2007 and receive official event updates as well as find out what other IMD friends are up to and what interesting artifacts they’ve found. If you’re not a Twitter user, you still can follow the conversations on http://twitter.com/imd2007/with_friends.

Join the shutterbugs on Flickr…
The IMD 2007 team will be uploading photos of fun and interesting findings from IMD on http://www.flickr.com/photos/imd2007. To join in the fun, simply upload your photos to Flickr and tag them “imd2007”. What a collection it’ll be! You are also free to use these photos on your blogs or send them around as you see fit.

Did we mention the prizes?
We have four S$150 Borders vouchers to give away! Simply join the conversation on Twitter or tag your photos “imd2007” on Flickr and stand a chance to win one of the four vouchers. Competition ends on 28 May 2007.

Not sure which exhibit to visit? Here’s our list of recommendations:

• “Singapore Childhood” Exhibition at Museum of Shanghai Toys
• Special Museum Guided Tours for the Disabled at Malay Heritage Centre
• “Down Memory Lane” – A Postcard Trail at Singapore Philatelic Museum
• Speakeasy by Beats Society: Hip Hop vs. Drum and Bass Party at Singapore Art Museum
• National Museum Architectural highlights tour at National Museum of Singapore
• MIA Trail along Kent Ridge Park
• “Window to the World” Open House at Singapore Philatelic Museum
• “Eastern Surprise” Food Trail at HungryGoWhere.com

(Full listings of events can be found at http://www.museums.com.sg/imd07)

Links that are worth a click…

• IMD 2007 Microsite: http://www.museums.com.sg/imd07
• “Live” updates on Twitter : http://twitter.com/imd2007
• Photo updates on Flickr : http://www.flickr.com/photos/imd2007
• Befriend Yesterday.sg on Friendster: http://www.friendster.com/41733335
• Visit our blog: http://www.yesterday.sg

See you at IMD 2007!

(NHB is a Hill & Knowlton client)

Today I had lunch with Ian McKee, CEO of Vocanic, a Singapore-based marketing company that specialises in word of mouth marketing. Ian was my tipping point into the world of marketing. Sometime in early-2006 he introduced me to the book Buzzmarketing by Mark Hughes. If you're into marketing, you'll definitely want to read it.

So to meet the man again was quite a delight and our conversation was no less exciting. Both of us are in the business of influence and it was fascinating to have the exchange of ideas one from a WOM expert and another from PR, but the part of our conversation that has stuck with me till now (evening) was this: Do we strive to be effective?

Sometimes we get so caught up in the processes and fulfillment of deadlines we forget to ask ourselves how effective our work is. Just because the KPI was reached and the money paid does it really mean it was an effective campaign? Does it impact our client's sales or change the public's perception of our client?

Here's a personal example. When Melvin and I were promoting our startup Scoopasia last year, we got ourselves on NewsRadio 938, Marketing Magazine, and PC Magazine, a few blogs, and others. We thought we did a decent job in terms of PR, but in actual fact the only media that did anything to boost traffic was the humble Marketing Magazine e-newsletter. How odd is that? All the time and effort being interviewed on radio didn't help very much at all. Yet daily we champion such media as "tier 1" to our clients.

It sounds like commonsense in hindsight, but how many of us truly consider effectiveness over KPIs? We should. I know I would.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

The Ruckus MetroFlex DZ is basically a super-powered WiFi receiving antenna that plugs directly into your computer's Ethernet port. The reason it's called the MetroFlex is because it is designed as a CPE to "extend" metropolitan WiFi signals and bring them into the house or premise.

In this review I show how it works on Wireless@SG, Singapore's first attempt at metro-wide wireless. This review is a follow up from a previous post on bringing Wireless@SG home.

This video was filmed by Kevin Lim at Geek Terminal.