BlogOut 2009: Making Sense of the Social Media Landscape

Hey guys! BlogOut is back and this time with a blast featuring top speakers like Jon Yongfook, Joel Postman and Melvin Yuan. This time we have something for both big corporate boys, individual bloggers and even non-bloggers!

Here are more details:
Blogout! ’09 aims to help make sense of the social media landscape in Singapore. It is an event to celebrate bloggers’ independent voices, emergent forms of social, web technology, to create change for their organizations, communities and society. Register now!

There’s something for everyone at Blogout! this year. If you are an executive or business owner who wants to see how social media can work for your organization, you definitely do not want to miss Day 1 (Corporate Track) where we feature some of the best speakers and practitioners in the social media scene. Here’s a sneak peak of our programme:

- See what other corporations around the world have done right and wrong
- Enough of the buzz. Get the real deal of what social media strategy will work for your company
- Maximize the effects and potentials of your social media strategy
- and more..

For Day 2 (Open Track), we welcome everyone (bloggers and non-bloggers alike) to join us for a fun-filled day of learning and sharing. Topic includes “Turning your Blog into a Business”, “WordPress as a Blogging Tool” and more!
 

Details..details.. details…
Date: 6 – 7 March 2009, Friday and Saturday

Time:
Day 1 – Corporate Track (6 March 2009)
10.30am – 5.30pm
Fee : $120

Day 2 – Open Track (7 March 2009)
10.30am – 5.00pm
Fee: Free

Register here now!

Venue:
8Q, SAM – 8 Queen Street, Singapore 188535 (Google Map)
 

Key Speakers

Jon Yongfook

Yongfook is an award-winning web producer, a blogger (of 10 years!), a proponent of permission-based marketing and a big believer in metrics-based approaches to solving online business problems. A programmer-designer-marketer living in Tokyo. He specialises in usability, platform development and online marketing. He’s the creator of open source lifestream software Sweetcron and the recipe sharing website Open Source Food (now known as Nibbledish), which was acquired by Tsavo Media in January 2009. He helps companies improve user experience, to increase conversions and revenue, assist companies reach new markets, and building online applications to solve a business or communication problem.
 

Joel Postman

Joel Postman is senior partner and chief enterprise social business strategist for Intridea, a Washington, D.C. based developer of Web 2.0 applications including the popular microblogging platform Present.ly. His background includes a decade of Fortune 500 corporate communications leadership, four years as the speechwriter to the CEO of Sun Microsystems, and experience in print and broadcast news. He is the author of SocialCorp: Social Media Goes Corporate, published December 2008. Joel lives with his family in the Santa Cruz Mountains. To the extent that he could be said to have grown up. He did so in the Silicon Valley, and first lived there before the discovery of silicon. He is also an experienced Zamboni driver.
 

Melvin Yuan

Director, Digital Strategies Group (Asia) at Waggener Edstrom Worldwide. He’s a co-founder of Scoopasia.com and member of the Social Media Collective and The Digital Movement (Singapore). He is dedicated to helping PR practitioners understand the new world that we live in and to bridge the gap between the wired-world business objectives of today and the traditional PR methods that we’ve been used to.

NUS “Facebook” module info session

Hey guys! Remember all the hype and talk about the new NUS Facebook module(Formal name is CS3216: Software Developing on Evolving Platforms)? Good news is that this module is going to be offered again next semester and applications for it are now open (I’m a tutor for it this time yay! ^_~). We’re going to be having an information session on it coming Monday (10 Nov 2008) to answer all your burning questions about the module, requirements it can fulfill, workload, projects, share our experience, etc so do drop by if you’re interested in finding out more. I wrote an article about my experience with the module but coming semester, I heard that things will be quite different in the sense that we will not only be developing apps for the Facebook platform but also on Microsoft WPF/Silverlight. More info in the mailer below:

———-||———-

Have you dreamed about building your very own cool Facebook app? Here’s your chance to do it!

Building on the success of CS3216 (Facebook@NUS) in AY2007/2008, we will be offering CS3216 again next Semester. CS3216 : Software Development on Evolving Platforms is a 4-MC cross-faculty course offered by the NUS School of Computing. To avoid timetable conflicts for students from other faculties and because we will be inviting external experts to give guest lectures, the lectures and seminars will be held on Monday evenings from 6.30 to 8.30 pm.

This module is not your traditional software engineering course. Inspired by The Last Lecture (or “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”), this course is your chance to start realising your dreams today. You will get the chance to show off your creativity to do something different. Be it online games, community service applications or industrial collaboration, you are free to build almost anything under the sun. Some of the cool applications created by students who took this course last semester include:

Farmwars : A brilliantly executed Facebook game that attracted 8,000 players in three months
My Music : A virtual piano that allows Facebook users to compose their favourite tunes.
Get Help! : A joint effort between the students and Sillicon Valley startup, Discoverio to develop an app for market research

See Farm Wars and My Music on local TV here.

Enrollment is open to students of all faculties and students will work in small inter-disciplinary teams to create their killer applications. Programming experience for non-SoC students is not a pre-requisite (since work will be done in teams) and we have had students from FASS, Business (including an MBA student) and Engineering in addition to SoC.

Assessment will be project-based and there will be no examination component. The course will begin with several lectures on the fundamentals of web development. Subsequently, students will work in teams to analyze and critique existing Facebook apps in a series of seminars. Compared to last semester, workload will be reduced and instead of only Facebook, there will be two semi-structured assignments: one on Facebook and one on Microsoft WPF/Silverlight focussing on hybrid apps supporting “disconnected” operation (Microsoft will be providing training and technical support for WPF/Silverlight). For the Final Project, students are free to propose anything they think is “cool” and they will not be limited to Facebook like last semester (though some form of network-based/web application is expected). Students are also welcome to use this opportunity to develop applications that have commercial potential or can be used as entries to Startup@Singapore.

Places for the course will be limited and some places will be reserved for non-SoC students. Also, like last semester, the places will not be assigned by CORS bidding. Instead, interested students are to submit a personal statement (with their matriculation number clearly stated) to cs3216-staff@googlegroups.com latest by 15 December 2008. Students will be informed by 26 December 2008 if they are offered a place in the upcoming offering of the new course (and students will automatically be pre-registered for CS3216 on CORS if their bid to take the class is successful).

The personal statement should address the following questions:

Why do you want to take the module?
Describe your background and explain how do you think you can contribute to the diversity and vibrancy of the module and to the team projects.
EITHER (i) Describe a cool Facebook app that you *really* want to build. Explain why you think your app is really cool; OR (ii) Describe a business/project that you want to start. Explain how you think taking CS3216 will help you.
Students should probably throw in a resume or portfolio of sorts if they feel that it would be helpful in demonstrating that they have what it takes to succeed in this course. Students who want to be considered for the class as designers should most definitely submit a portfolio of their artistic works as well.

To help students decide if they should sign up for the module, an information session will be held at 5 pm on 10 November 2008 (Monday) in Seminar Room 2 (COM1/204). Interested students are welcome to come learn more about the course. Do check out the module homepage at http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~cs3216 or check out last year’s course report at http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~cs3216/report-CS3216.pdf. Also, perhaps join the Course Facebook Group at: http://mit.facebook.com/group.php?gid=14275350327 and ask former students about the course?

This is your chance to let your imagination run wild and do something cool — and add “Facebook and Silverlight Developer” to your resume while you’re at it! Questions? Please send email to cs3216-staff@googlegroups.com.

The Future of Search

2 weeks ago the TDM team and I organized a discussion panel hosting the world finalists of The Star Challenge, an international search engine competition focused on multimedia search. Each team had one representative on the panel, most of which consist of researchers in the field of media search.

They are:
Prof Wu Xihong (Team SHRC)
Prof Shinichi Sato (NII)
Neo Shi Yong (NUS) – Winner
Laurent Besacier (LIG)
Prof Thomas Huang (UIUC)

I’m going to try a new approach to writing about this event by writing what I found interesting about the discussion in point form. Hopefully the material here makes sense.
 

Visual search:
(includes both video and image)
- Problem faced in visual search is that unlike words, there is no grammar to connect things together. This is the biggest challenge facing image search at the moment until we find the “grammar”.

- Someone suggested using a bottom up approach like the DNA where you break it down into its bits of 1s and 0s to understand the content. Prof Huang says that this is harder than decoding a DNA as it is not that easy to understand the bits of 1s and 0s after it has been broken down. Sometimes these 1s and 0s mean nothing and are not unique representations of things.

- Current technologies store a huge database of certain images. Example given: Researcher stored and sorted thousands of pictures of celebrities in database gathered from Yahoo! News. Now if you put in a picture of a celebrity, the system will do a comparison and return results based on this database. The same approach can be applied to video search as well if there is enough data.

- Visual search on YouTube and Flickr rely on human tagging. A lot of times people have to provide data and systems build relationships among images via text around the data. Example: A computer knows that a picture of a smashed car is related to an accident based on the words on the page describing the accident. A more efficient system would be to enable computers to form an understanding of images and videos without relying on human tagging / text data around it.

- Example from audience: Son wants to find all videos of David Beckham playing soccer. It is a simple request but a complex task as the system has to understand what “playing soccer” means before producing the correct results.

- Another challenge is finding the context that these data are in. When looking for details about an image of a dress, the search would be better if there is information on what occasion the dress is for (e.g: a formal dinner, pool party, summer vacation).
 

Audio search:
- Audio recognition technologies are not that accurate yet. For humans, even if we don’t know the language we can still tell what language it is from the pattern of the sounds. Example: We don’t know Korean but can tell when a person is speaking Korean or not if we’ve heard some bits of Korean before. Computers at the moment are not able to do this. They need to be fed with lots of data about a language before being able to make the recognition.

- There is a lot of demand for this technology in American hospitals where patients speaking many different native languages come into the hospital. Doctors will be able to understand what they’re saying and translate it back into the patient’s native language.

- Example of another problem: Recording the sound of animals / insects and wanting to find out what creatures made those sounds and the reasons behind it. Computer is unable to tell the difference between a person screaming in joy and screaming in fear.
 

Conclusion:
I find the final end message by the panel really interesting. After all the talk about the technicalities and algorithms needed to make media search more intuitive and accurate for humans, the panel concluded that it all comes down to marketing and user experience that will determine how successful / popular a search engine will be. In other words, a good product isn’t really a good product unless the user is able to see and experience its goodness.
 

Resources you might want to check out:
Jiin Joo’s thought of the panel
The Star Challenge

Google Chrome: Only features you need to know

About a week ago, Mike and I were invited to the Google Chrome press conference in Singapore where we got the opportunity to talk to their product manager, Andrew McClinchey, learn from him about all the nifty little features of Chrome and also ask some of the dire questions which have been leaving users puzzled (e.g: about why Google suddenly decided to develop a browser despite being long-time partners with Mozilla). I wrote an article about these strategy-related questions on TDM so do pop on over there if you wanna read the article.

I’ve been using Chrome for about a week now and there are some things I would like to share about it. No, I’m not going to write a review as there are already thousands on the web. This is a write-up on 3 features of Chrome which I have found really useful and which, I think new users should know about.

 

Key Feature #1: Search INSIDE a website from address bar
Note: This is not the feature where you type in your keywords in the address bar and it automatically sends the search to Google.

Chrome has this feature where once you’ve searched within a website once, you can easily search within that website directly from the Chrome address bar. This website can be any website with search capabilities like Wikipedia, Technorati or even OpenGL. Example: If I wanted to search something in the Technorati website, I don’t have to go to technorati.com and search there but instead do it directly from the address bar.

 

If you look at the image above, I typed in “tech” and the word “technorati.com” came up as I’ve been there before. On the right side, you will see instructions saying to press “Tab” to search technorati.com.

Upon pressing tab, I see the image below:

I type in whatever I want to look for and the results page from technorati itself will load immediately. This cuts down the step of having to go to a website’s main page first before searching the website. Do note that you have to have visited and searched within the website at least once before this feature works.

Side note: This feature is a HUGE time-saver for me because as I’m learning Computer Graphics this semester, I tend to search API websites like OpenGL very often. Imagine being able to search your favourite unknown websites directly without needing to download any plug-ins or add-ons!

 

Key Feature #2: No more irritating download pop-up windows
The title says it all. Now when you click download, a slim, non-intrusive bar will show up at the bottom of your window showing the progress of the download. Once it is complete, you can click on the file within the bar itself to open it. This is one of those small features that improves usability a HUGE LOT. Why didn’t any of the other browsers do this in the past… tsk tsk..

The slim & non-intrusive download bar

 

Key Feature #3: New tab page
Like key feature #2, the new tab page is one of those subtle features I have come to love. When you open a new tab in Chrome, it will show you a page containing links to pages which you most often visit. This page dynamically updates itself based on your behaviour. Now when I wake up in the morning, I just open a new tab and start clicking away to go through my daily website-routine visit sequence .

My new tab page

 

Chromic thoughts..
There are definitely many more nifty little features under the hood of Chrome like the V8 Javascript engine which makes sites with AJAX calls run much faster. However, the above 3 features are the only ones which I have found to be really useful and deciding factors in me making Chrome my default browser. Then again, I’m not one of those power Firefox users who install tons of plug-ins and add-ons. So! If you’re a normal user like me who uses browsers as they are, then you should consider trying out the features I mentioned and seeing for yourself whether it improves your web browsing experience.

Code Xtreme Apps 2008!

Update: RESULTS!!
31 July 2008
Still haven’t found the time to blog but I’ll just write this here. THe results are out!! And no, we did not get top 3 but…. we got the Merit Award! I’m really excited coz this is my first “coding” competition and getting shortlisted for the finals was already a great enough surprise for me but to win an award as well? Yay! ^___^ Thanks everyone for your support and believe in this person who used to hate coding. Promise to blog about my experience within the next few days ya!

Hey guys! Sorry I haven’t been blogging for a loong while… been busy with both my internship and various activities including having just spent 24 hours of my weekend at Code Xtreme Apps 2008, a 24 hour coding competition. Still don’t really have time to blog but I just got some very exciting news I should share with you guys!!

My team got shortlisted for the Code Xtreme Apps finals!!!

Will promise to blog about my experience once I have more time. In the meantime, gotta go prepare for the final presentation! Wish me luck guys!! ^___^

Lets win a HP TouchSmart PC! :D

Yup! The title says it all! HP is having a competition for the bloggers who were invited to the HP TouchSmart Blogger’s Event last month. The unique twist of this competition is that 2 HP TouchSmart IQ500 PLUS PCs worth $1999 each are up for grabs, one for the blogger and one for the READER .
 

Here’s how the competition goes:

What will your life be like
with a HP TouchSmart?

All you have to do is leave a comment answering the above question as creative and innovative-ly as you can. HP will read through the comments of participating blogs and the reader who left the most interesting comment and the blog it is hosted on will be the winners. In other words, if YOU left a comment here and YOUR comment was selected as a winner, both you and I will win HP TouchSmart PCs!
 

Deadline: 12 July 2008 (00:00:00)

Time is running out so do comment before 12 July 2008 if you wish to participate. I understand that it is hard to imagine how life would be like with a HP TouchSmart PC as even I myself don’t own one. Hence I’ve put together some videos and articles that is sort of like my “Dummy’s Guide to the HP TouchSmart PC” to help you understand the coolest things about it in the shortest amount of time.

Witness the power of “TOUCHING”:

 

Demo showing some cool features:

 

Found this cool ad introducing the HP TouchSmart. Doesn’t say much about the PC but putting it here for fun!

Alright! So that’s about it for my “Dummy’s Guide”. Hope it helps and happy coming up with creative and wild comments! ^_~
 

Before I sign off, some basic rules & regulations:
* Only Singaporean based bloggers and readers are entitled to participate in the competition
* Collection of prizes by bloggers only (Bloggers to receive prize on behalf of readers).
* Bloggers need to ensure that all the comments are time-stamped. For different/duplicate ideas on different blogs, the earliest one will be selected.

So yea, don’t forget to leave your e-mail address when you comment so I can contact you if your comment won ^__^

HP TouchSmart PC Blogger’s Event

Update: Special competition announced: Lets win a HP TouchSmart! Click here

A quick introduction
Last night I was invited to attend the HP TouchSmart PC Blogger’s Event at the mod and cozy Brotzeit Bar in VivoCity. It was a really great event for me as apart from pressing, poking and hacking the gadget till my heart’s content I had a lot of fun putting faces bloggers whom I’ve only heard of or been Twittering with like the infamous Marina, Daphne and NTT.

Daphne and me!

Oh and I met NTT, Jerrick and Daniel, from Tech65 too! Bunch of fun guys!

The presentation…
The event started off with Hwee Koon (HP Director of Consumer PC & Handheld Business Units) giving a quick presentation of how the idea and concept of the TouchSmart came about with an emphasis on the idea of creating a touch screen PC that would revolutionize the way people used a PC and is small enough to fit into a messenger bag. By messenger bag, they don’t mean it will fit into your laptop but convenient to move from one place to another. It is after all a PC, not meant to be portable like your laptop.

The next part was about the purpose of the event which was to not only let us be the first in Singapore to toy with the prototypes but also gather feedback to be incorporated into future upgrades/versions of the product. At first I thought it was all just part of the PR “gimmick” to make us bloggers feel like we’re providing more value than just our blogs helping create some early publicity. However, upon conversing with the HP staff who were actively throwing us questions as we toyed with the gadget, I realize that they were quite serious about it (which of course motivated me to poke around more!).
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“Touching” The Gadget!

Haha sorry if I’m looking sleepy! Kind of tired after work ^^;;;

The TouchSmart actually runs on Windows Vista but has a specially written by HP program called the HP TouchSmart Home which hosts applications made specially for the TouchSmart like Calendars, Photos, Music Player, Video Player and etc.

The interface is very intuitive and friendly where all the icons and buttons are really huge making it easy to navigate by sliding and dragging stuff around (although I have to admit it kind of reminds me of the iPhone). I tested out their multi-touch technology which they fervently refer to as “dual-touch” by performing the infamous 2 finger zoom in and out feature. The technology is definitely there but currently only the main menu supports it. They have not incorporated it into the other softwares or applications in the TouchSmart Home as of yet.
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What I really like!

1) The huge high-resolution screen
The screen is really huge and sharp making it superb for watching videos, browsing through pictures and viewing notes. You can actually convert it into something akin to a fridge door where you have lots of “Post-It” notes with the Notes application. It really makes sense to do this as the touch technology makes it easy to write, drag and toss notes around.

2) Product design
Being like a flat panel and having a stand of its own, it is one of those devices that would be useful in the kitchen, living room or even on a shelf in the common area that would make your home look at lot more digital.

3) HP TouchSmart Home
I really like their software because it makes things intuitive even for a non-techy person like maybe a housewife or child. Even though the applications currently available are basic, the learning curve is quite flat making it easy for anyone to just poke around and get their favourite music/video playing in less than a minute.
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My recommendations
1) The SDK
I hope they will release an SDK for their HP TouchSmart Home program so developers can start developing some useful applications catered to different customer segments for a variety of purposes. This will really help boost what the HP TouchSmart is capable of doing as I believe the software combined with the touch technology has the potential to bring a new dimension to the PC and make it a truly centralized digital home system that even a techno-phobic person can handle.

2) Ease of adding applications
I’m not sure whether the developers have already thought of this but the HP staff present were unsure of the mechanism for adding applications in the future when more are released. If they can create a function in the HP TouchSmart Home where users just press a button, get connected to the Internet, see a list of latest applications with descriptions, select the ones they want added and everything will be downloaded and installed automatically. This would keep consumers engaged and more able to pack the TouchSmart Home with applications to suit their daily needs and activities.

3) Pre-set Windows Vista settings to huge icons
Currently when the TouchSmart is booted up, it goes directly to your typical Windows Vista interface. It is great that it runs Windows Vista meaning you can still go on with your daily PC activities that are not supported by the TouchSmart Home software. However, using Windows Vista in its default settings and a hand is a HUGE PAIN because the selection menus were all built for the “point and click” mouse. You have to literally position your finger to quite a high precision to select what you want. Usability would improve tremendously if Windows Vista was already preset to huge icons and selection menus that are touch-friendly upon start up.

4) Skype Video-Conferencing!!
This is in my wishlist of applications. I would really love to see Skype incorporated into the TouchSmart Home. Imagine pressing a button that opens up your contact list, selecting someone you want to call and a video conference starts immediately! It’d be like picking up a phone to call someone, only diff is that this is on a touch screen with a high-resolution video. If this was possible, even my grandparents would know how to do video-conferencing. (I tried teaching them how to use Skype and it didn’t work. Too many things to click).
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Some last words..
So that’s my account of the HP TouchSmart PC that has already been launched in Berlin(10th June) and will be launched in Singapore on 18th July (its coming to Asia quite fast I must say). Honestly, if I bought one I don’t think I would use it for heavy-usage like design/development work or hard-core gaming. Some casual games like Bejewelled and Diner Dash are fun to play on it but I would like to use it for things that I can’t do on my normal PC like those mentioned above that would enhance my digital lifestyle. Having said that, I am really thrilled by the technology and potential of it and am sort of impatient to see in what creative ways consumers use this device at the end of the day.

Alright! Before I leave, here are some pictures I took from the event. I’ll leave you to figure out who is who (and what is what) .

Links you might want to check out:
HP TouchSmart PC Announcement in Berlin
From Sheylara
From Darryl
Great video demo from Claudia!
My Qik videos from this event (very low quality though due to bad lighting … )
Bernard’s account of the event

ASEANpreneurs: Network for student entrepreneurs

Hey guys! Just got a request to blog about this from my friends. It is about the launch of ASEANpreneurs, a new network created specially for student entrepreneurs from the ASEAN region. I was in the founding committee a few months back but had to leave due to overwhelming commitments. If you want to meet other student entrepreneurs from the ASEAN region, do attend their launch and check out what this network is up to! ^_~

Here’s a quick introduction:
The ASEANpreneurs Youth Leaders’ Network is a student organisation dedicated to promoting entrepreneurship in the ASEAN region. It will serve as a platform for the youth to interact, share knowledge and ideas and collaborate on various projects which may be beneficial to the ASEAN countries and economies. This will be facilitated by means of an online portal.

Membership is open to all ASEAN universities and their students. There will be an annual exchange programme for which top entrepreneurial students will be either nominated by their universities/ clubs or through self-nominations. We hope this exchange or a conference will be hosted on a rotational basis among the ASEAN countries. Throughout the year, projects will be initiated and undertaken by ASEANpreneurs to tackle problems in their own countries or to promote cooperation between the countries – as a commitment to the network and to further economic integration of ASEAN.

Date: 21 May 2008 (Wednesday)

Time: 11.00am – 1.00pm (Registration starts at 10.00am)

Venue: Hon Sui Sen Auditorium,
NUS Business School
1 Business Link
Singapore 117592

Attire: Smart Casual

Register online here.

SG Tech events coming up in April

Noticed that quite a number of my friends are involved in organizing quite a number of interesting events this coming month! If you’re into entrepreneurship and technology, you should consider attending some of these:

Friday, 4th April 2008: Entrepreneurship in Asia & Europe
Europe has a long history in developing advance technologies, particularly in green energy technology, telecommunications and chemical technology. As Asia is growing, the need for such technologies escalates to accommodate the improving Asian living standards.

Together with venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, graduate students, and MBAs from INSEAD, NUS, and NTU, come learn from the entrepreneurial scenes across continents. Come network with an audience of Asian and European background, it will be thrilling explore the opportunities lie within.

Organizers: Asia-Pacific Student Entrepreneurship Society
Date: 4th April 2008
Time: 7.30 – 9.30 pm (Registration starts at 7pm)
Venue: Munchie Monkey, Yusof Ishak House, NUS (Map)
Fee: SGD10 (Dessert + Free-flow drinks provided)

Saturday, 5th April 2008: Live Recording: 65th Episode of 65Bits Podcast

Tech65 is the one stop place for all your tech information, witty rants, high pitched whining and NTT’s calm and collected voice. We come to you live every weekend with our flagship programme, 65 Bits.

On the week of 5 April 2008 (Sat), Tech65 will be celebrating their 65th Episode! Come and join them for their Live Recording session at Geek Terminal!

They also welcome audience participation – chip in and help shape the news.

In the spirit of 65-ness… they are aiming to get at least 65 people in the audience…

… because 64 just ain’t enough!

Organizers: Tech65
Date: Saturday, April 5, 2008
Time: 10:00am – 12:00pm
Location: Geek Terminal
Street: 55, Market Street (Near Raffles Place MRT, opp. Golden Shoe Complex)
City/Town: Singapore, Singapore

Wednesday, 9th April 2008: Tech Showcase: Beyond PHP
Listen to entrepreneurs from the Python/Django & Ruby on Rails community showcase their sites and strut the technologies used to build them.

Presenters:
Michael Lim, Founder of Comiqs.com
Chew Choon Keat, Founder of SharedCopy.com
More details…

Organizers: Singapore PHP User Group
Date:9 Apr 2008
Time: 7pm – 9.30pm
Venue: SMU, School of Information Systems (Seminar Rm 2.4 (level 2))
Fees: Free of Charge! (Just BYOL – Bring Your Own Laptop)

Feel free to drop me an e-mail if you know of any other upcoming events ^_~.

Heritage in Pictures

Highlighting an interesting event by a friend. ^_^

Pictures are a snapshot of moments in our lives, memories which we would like engraved in the stones of our heads as long as we live, to remind us of the few important words among the 1,000 a picture is worth. However, more often than not we fail to capture the tiny significant moments that have shaped our lives, culture and memories indirectly like the traditional ding dang candy stalls that used to roam the sidewalks of Singapore. Speak to elders about the ding dang candy and it should ring a bell with joyful stories of them craving while waiting in queue lines. Speak to the younger generations about it and you will get a model-perfect “o_O?” expression. As expected, these little intricacies have vanished over time as our priorities and lives are continuously sculpted around the ever-changing world. Many of them have waiver off to become only vague words which will only be remembered as long as the older generations live. Once they leave, so will these intricacies.

Some of you might say “Hey we have pictures. Why not just capture them?”. True, but how many of us have captured them? Most of us take pictures of our friends, festivals, beautiful buildings and sceneries but neglect these tiny tiny times. (Who knows, 2 generations in the future we might not have hawker centres anymore). Next time you roam the streets, just take out your camera and start shooting some pictures you had never thought of taking before; the Chinese music peddlers on the sidewalks, the folded grass origamis or even the scene of the 3 ice-cream stall uncles having territorial quarrels at Bugis Junction. Never know what happy thoughts these pictures will spark in your mind when you look back in the future.

Need an incentive?
Not a problem. I’m just as much a procrastinator as every other human being(sometimes probably more than usual). As part of the Explore Singapore! campaign by the National Heritage Board this year, there is a photo blogging competition where you can win a Nikon DSLR camera. Don’t have a blog? Start one just for the competition. All it takes is one blog post with a photo and your personal story. Dunno what to start snapping? Well, the 80 heritage events being organized might be a good place to start getting some ideas.

What would I personally snap? Haha well I already gave some hints about that earlier! (Pretty sure you can guess which of the examples I’ll be snapping right? ).

Till later! ^_~

Resources:
Sweet Sweet Ding Dang (One of the more interesting entries)
Explore! Singapore website
More about the photo competition