6 Volt Battery Hack! You'll Be Amazed! - video powered by Metacafe

This is one of the best lifehacks I've ever seen. So simple. Makes me wonder how it is that no one discovered and shared it before.

My colleague, Audrey, just came back from VMworld 2007 in San Francisco and guess what I got? A brand spanking new MacBook Pro!

OK, so I paid for it. But it's such a bargain. This is the deal I got:

Singapore store price: S$3,452.00
Singapore student deal: S$3,106.00
US store price: US$1,999.00 (w/o tax)
What I got: US$1959.52 (incl tax)
What it means to my countrymen: S$2,970.00

I was on cloud nine till my friend told me there was a ADC price of S$2,700+ (or something like that).

But hey, still a S$400 saving!

P.s. You know what else is good about having VMware as a client besides cheap MBPs from San Francisco? (Look at the photo above for the answer.)

I wrote an article on reaching out to bloggers that appeared in Marketing Magazine this month. This article was written with tip & tricks contributed by the Media Socialists.

For some strange reason, the article was cut off just before it ended. Sub-editor must have been asleep.

Download the page as a PDF or read the original (unedited) full-text here.

Just read a great post on Seth Godin's blog about ideas. He says:

I responded that ideas are easy, doing stuff is hard.

My feeling is that the more often you create and share ideas, the better you get at it.

This is a philosophy I absolutely agree with.

I work in a business that's all about ideas (some say relationships, but that's for the folks without ideas I say. hee...). On this blog I sometimes share ideas, share methods, share tips and tricks, and I like that and I believe it benefits PR practitioners like myself.

At the end of the day, it's the successful execution of these ideas that get you ahead. And that's the part that separates and winners from the losers. My gut feel is that most of us have the same ideas... say around the using the social media for PR. But how many successful campaigns and application of these have you seen? Impressive? Hardly.

Yes the social media is an amazing phenomenon and we love to talk about it as that. I think it's time to up the ante and move beyond the "wow" and try sharing some "how".

I love wikis. The concept of the open canvas empowered by crowdsourcing is simply one of the best things to happen on the social media. Recently I've been looking around for Singapore resources on wikis and realised there aren't too many that are really exciting.

Apart from the Singapore Social Media directory which was put together by my Media Socialist friends, I thought up some ideas that could be worth creating a wiki about:

• Singapore-wide carpark rates - It helps a lot to know the next building is charging less for parking.
• Mobile phone & plan prices - I've come to realise that those ads with phone prices that appear in the newspapers everyday are one of the most read resources by Singaporeans. I think it's time it became a dynamic resource online, don't you?
  
• Singapore media directory - OK, this is a selfish suggestion simply because I work in PR. But still, a directory that's more complete and updated than MICA's media guide would be a nice to have.
• Yellowpages & Whitepages wiki - Why not turn our trusted directories into wikis?
• Wi-Fi hotspot wiki - Listing and maps of locations with public Wi-Fi. Or should we just do wardriving and map the locations on Google Maps?
• Hotel rates - This is more for visitors to Singapore. Since hotel rates fluctuate so often, it'll be nice to see a consolidated view. It'll also help keep the hotels competitive.

Anymore wiki ideas? If anyone wants to take these ideas and run, please do so. Let me know and I'll be your top power user.

I'm disappointed. According to an article in PRWeek on Facebook:

Ketchum, Edelman and Hill & Knowlton have put policies in place, particularly with regard to blogging.

And to make things worse:

Off all the agency bosses, Sally Costerton, CEO of Hill and Knowlton, was most reserved about Facebook use. She said it had been 'discussed a lot in recent management meetings due to its popularity and the blurring of lines within it between individuals and company representatives'.

She added that there were concerns about staff wasting time on the site and whether it was appropriate to use it in a work context. The agency will make a decision on whether to implement a policy by Christmas.

'Everyone has to take a position on Facebook that is right for their organisation,' she said.

I understand the concern with it being a waste of time at work, but that's not a Facebook issue but a HR issue. Staff wasting their time on anything should be dealt with accordingly, why are companies putting walls up against Facebook?

Quite contrary to having policies against Facebook, blogs, and other social media participation, I believe it should be encouraged. Sure it isn't the perfect representation, but isn't it similar in effect to business networking? Meeting people, having conversations, etc. In fact, it's better as this is a conversation that goes on 24/7.

Well, that's my take anyway. And it's funny to see Edelman in the same list, always thought they were more clued in to the social media than the rest of the agencies.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v42LVMi6Suk]

I watched Ratatouille tonight on a 22.4m wide movie screen in 2K digital. I'm not sure if I've got this right, but I hear that 1K refers to the 1080 resolution on current HDTV, and 2K is twice as many pixels.

Well, whatever 2K digital really means, the experience was amazing. The graphics were amazing, clarity was crisp, and sound was clear (although a bit loud). The only thing that didn't render well on the screen for some reason was text. Text in the opening and closing credits had a "rainbow" lining that was kind of distracting. Almost like anti-aliasing that went bad.

As for the content of the show... it was good, but I'd give it a 4 out of 5. Somehow it lacked that one magic ingredient. Can't pinpoint it right now, but ya, it lacked that special something.

Yesterday I lay on the grass looking up at the war memorial in the middle of the city. Lovely weather, I lay in the shade on my laptop bag.