Open Up Your Mind

"Incredible things happen when you are open to new possibilities"

A photographer for National Geographic said this in a video titled "Celebrate what's right with the World". Uhh.. need to find out his name..

I was fascinated when I saw the video. From a boring looking piece of landscape, he could think of impossible possibilities, turning that mundane-looking piece of soil into the most awesome picture of colours, hues and vibrancy. Impressive.

A picture speaks a thousand words. Let me see if I can get my hands on his photographs.

Life has been pretty good recently. I realised how incredible it is, with a slight shift of your attitude and mindset towards the positive and empowering side, things start happening. Great things are finally happening and there has been some new changes in my life. Finally I feel more alive!

There's additional responsibilities at work and there has been new work additions to my schedule too. Actually quite happy with it. Hmm.. am I a workaholic? Hahaha.. :P Well, at least I know I'm putting my time to productive use.

Going to be pretty busy for the next few weeks, and maybe going to be having less sleep too. Better zoom out to bed now while I still can enjoy late mornings.

Talking is Therapeutic!

In the book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, the author John Gray said that women loves to talk when they face problems while men, prefer to hide in their caves.

And yeah, how true. Chatting with my mum for hours has indeed been therapeutic. Worries just dissipated into thin air and things doesn't seem so bad anymore. How wonderful. It is really amazing, what talking does to women. Even though there are no concrete solutions, (actually we didn't even talked about what made me unhappy) but then, everything just seems alright again. Life is beautiful again.

So... to the guys out there. Be a good listener and a good person to talk to, to your girl friends, mum, sisters.. etc. You might feel it is boring listening to someone, but it does wonders to the other party. By just being there... and respond properly to the other person.. it is actually something liberating to the other person. Even though guys prefer to offer solutions, they could do it in the concerned way.

I felt so much better now.. after I've thrashed what I've been keeping inside and which I've attempted to forget earlier by going shopping but didn't work.

I was having quite a bad day, after someone spoilt it... uhmm okay, should stop blaming others right... haiz... but when you have to swallow something bitter and you have to control yourself from fighting or arguing back.. it is indeed not something nice.. and sometimes the situation doesn't permit, or.. it just doesn't benefit anyone even if I argued back.. so I just swallowed it.. .despite I felt so wrongfully accused... Indeed, what have I done wrong? It is the other party being prejudiced, calculative and petty...

Well anyway, let's not talk about that anymore, it shall be thrashed and forgotten. I shall have a trash bin soon, to thrash and throw away energy-zapping negative emotions which is so unproductive. Waste my memory space and make my heart cells suffer.

I can choose how I want to respond to it. And I choose to be happy, rather than get all upset and pissed off. Probably that's the person's intention, who knows. Rather than let the person achieve his/her aim and make him/her happy, might as well I love myself more, and make myself happy.

Yeah, I just bought a new pair of shoes. Like it very much! And I even travelled to another branch to get one, cos the branch that I went to, didn't have my size. Hopefully this doesn't give me blisters. If it doesn't, I would wear it everyday to work! Finally I have shoes to go along with my skirts. Yippie! :D

Revolutionary iPhone!

You have to check this out! iPhone from Apple!

An ipod, a phone and an internet communicator. All in one! Watch the introduction, and you will be struck how user-friendly it is. Nokia... here comes your biggest competitor!

Fell in love with it straight away. Set, gonna be my next phone. It will only come to Asia in 2008, middle of 2007 for the United States.

I have a feeling this iPhone is going to revolutionise the whole IT world.. from the phone, to the internet world and hopefully governments too - in making the whole country wireless-enabled.

Singapore government has started to implement its wireless blueprint, so I guess Singapore would be the biggest market for Apple in the Asean region.

I guess, not too long in the future, my desire of being able to be online during long bus rides will be a reality.

So brace yourself for an internet revolution. Wonder what would the future generation grow up with? iTV? iCar? iFridge? iBed?! *faint*

There's possibility... iBed with songs to lullaby you to sleep, built with body massager customized to individuals... the list goes on...

What the mind can conceive, it can be a reality!

Oh no.. I'm slowly being converted into an Apple's fan.. just like Adam Khoo who would not use anything other than Apple computers.

Target: After iPod, MacBook is next. Then comes along iPhone. What's next? :P

Free Flight Tickets to Regional Destinations!

Great news for budget travellers!

AirAsia is giving away 1 million free tickets for regional destinations for travel from April 1, 2007 to Oct 27, 2007. Online booking starts today Jan 10, 2007 to Jan 19, 2007. Regional destinations includes Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and Macau.

For people hoping to be able to book tickets for the recently announced super low fares of RM 9.99 for long-haul flights by AirAsia X, they might be in for a disappointment.

Last check with AirAsia website showed only its regional destinations. Currently, at posting time, all destinations are still green - meaning seats are still available. I've booked mine too! :D

Oh but of course there's a catch. You need to pay for airport taxes, fuel surcharges and administrative costs, which comes up to RM 40 for flights within Peninsular Malaysia.

For regional flights, the airport taxes varies, according to the countries' currencies. You need to check the site for a complete table of breakdown on the charges.

Another catch is that you need to be extra sure of your plans - you are definite that you will be catching the flight to the specified destination on the date you choose.

If your plan changes in the future, you would incur extra costs to change the name of the traveller or the flight date.

Anyway, I purchased a return ticket to Penang for less than the price of a one-way bus ticket from Singapore. Worth it! :D

Secrets of Free Long Distance Calls

One of my favourite discovery today is how to make free long distance calls, without incurring a single cent, with superb quality, as though you are making a normal call using your phone. The whole experience is just like making a normal phone call, mind you!

Oh what's the big deal, you might say, since you are able to make video calls using msn messenger, skype and yahoo messenger. Oh well, the difference is that you do not have to be confined to the laptop or pc if you uses an earphone with microphone, or have the whole world listening to your conversation if you uses the speaker.

The trick? Get a Wi-Fi enabled phone!

The catch? You need to have wireless internet connection.

The benefit? Talk for hours, limitless, "cook porridge" (oh just the cantonese expression for hanging on the phone) on the phone with just anyone in the world with internet connection, microphone and messengers such as skype.

But, some things to note is that the phone tends to get hot if you are on it for a long time (long as in, at least 1 hour or more)

Also better be prepared with extra batteries if you are away from electricity sources or be prepared to charge your phone more often, because it would use up battery life pretty fast!

For a conversation which lasted between 1.5 hours to 2 hours, about 40 per cent to 50 per cent of battery life was used up, judging by O2 Xda Stealth standards.

Good news for people who needs and wants to be connected with people or loved ones who are miles away and who, at the same time, wants to save on telephone bills, eh? Certainly! *wink* ;)

Mystery Solved!

I was encountering this problem of the MyHomeMalaysia website not appearing properly using Internet Explorer browser, where the sidebar would appear on the bottom instead of the side of the page. MEanwhile, the MyHomeMalaysia appears perfectly when using firefox browser.

There are others also experiencing the same problem, so I'm not alone.

An idea then struck me.

In order to prove what I thought could be the problem, this was what I did.

Previously, I did copy some articles from other websites to paste on my site, of course with credits. So I cut the whole article out into the notepad, and recopy the whole article back to my blog. I did this for all the copied articles.

The result: Perfectly normal again using Internet Explorer browser!

The trick: Use notepad as your coding 'neutraliser'. It is very good at cleaning up unwanted codings, esp those that makes your eyes go round and round after staring at it for some time.

Attempt this the next time you encounter some minor coding problems. I'm a newbie with html too, so it would be simple enough to do. Good luck!

Reformat Your Brain

uhmm.. just some updates. My laptop now feels like new! My dearest friend gave it a new lease of life by reformatting it - wiped off its entire memory of its old self and installed new software into it. Plugged in a new hard disk with bigger space and now it runs like a newborn laptop. Love it to bits!

Probably we should apply reformatting to our own brain too. Wipe off all the software which is slowing down the processor, which is preventing us from performing at our peak. Wipe off all the limiting beliefs we have, the negative thoughts we have and the restrictive outlook we have.

And then install in new beliefs, new positive thoughts and new borderless outlook of life! And also plug in a broader mindset and memory, to contain the new things that we will learn in the coming days!

I believe our processor will run smoothly and we will be able to perform at our peak, irregardless of how old we are! Just like my beloved laptop, which has been with me for more than 5 years! (in the IT world, 5 years' is pretty old technology)

So, let's all do this in ushering in the new year, and may many great things happen! Looking forward to a better and more wonderful year ahead!

Happy New Year 2007 to one and all! :D

No Posts = No Learnings?

I was chatting with a friend just now and I found out that there's actually people reading this blog! I thought it is just sitting in cyber space gathering cyber dust. Also my friend also remarked that I seldom update this blog too. Uhmm good observation.
I told my friend that I only update when I have inspiration.

Come to think of it, why have I not updated it as often as I would like it to be? This blog was initially set up to record down all the discoveries that I've made, things that I have learnt.

Could this mean I've not been learning? Oh no.. this is not a good sign. Maybe my mind has began it's slow decay with comfort. I thrive on challenges remember?!

So what have I learnt today? shall be the question to ask myself everyday at the end of the day.. at night, when I'm hiding in my own cocoon of comfort...

So, what have I learnt today?

hmm through my conversation with my friend, I've learnt that SIA does not only represents Singapore Airlines, it is also Singapore Institute of Architects.

And for an architect graduate, you have to have two years' of experience in any firm before you take exam with the board of architects to get the qualified persons (QP) licence, before you can start designing buildings.

For more information, can go to www.sia.org.sg to learn more about licensing and architecture.

Hhmm probably one day I can get to see the building my friend designs. What an honour! ;)