Except for China and India (1.3 and 1.2 billion respectively) all other countries in the world have less than 1 billion in population. So what country came in third at 350 million?
Facebook.
Can you imagine how big is Facebook? It is so vast that when ‘President’ Mark Zuckerberg (actually Facebook CEO) said recently it will overhaul its privacy controls; it means 350 million users will be affected.
So the astounding thing is not about another American controlling the world (besides the US President), but a 25 year-old guy on top of the world!
I have been playing with Joomla! for a bit and I think it is one of the easiest open source Content Management System (CMS) to adopt for an organization. Its setup and intuitive use are a treat. Very minimal technical expertise/knowledge is required for the installation, running, and employment of this CMS.
It is impossible for a solution to meet all the needs of all people. So for me, Joomla! shortfalls are:
Not hospitable to ’spiders’; and this translates to not Search Engine Friendly
No LDAP integration for Single Sign-On (SSO)
No dynamic nor personalized content and presentation available
Not suitable for performing as a Blog site
Difficult to extend the site functionalites (when including custom PHP codes)
Poor product documentation
However, all these limitations can resolved because it is an open source software that can be tweaked. But if you do not want to dabble into hardcore programming, then I believe Joomla! is a nice and simple CMS for most organizations and individuals to use.
I went for another PC, IT, Computer, or whatever “Show” last weekend at Suntec. I really don’t know why I visit such events, but it is just feels like a kid in a candy store. There are so many things to look and crave for.
I relented, and got myself a Targus AMP17AP - Wireless Presenter with Cursor Control for S$109. Cool stuff (I think). Now I can walk around while giving a talk with slides. I particularly like the feature of having being able to control the computer’s cursor with this Presenter. It really makes the difference.
So the Apple iPhone 3G S is out in the US. And from SingTel website we can register our interest, and they will inform us when the phone will be on sale here.
In my opinion, rather than concentrating solely on hardware sales, Apple should work on getting iTunes working in Singapore. I believe music is the most important component of any Apple product. And they should get it sorted quickly! I always feel I am holding on to a crippled iPhone and iPod (I still have the Classic 30GB, but seldom use now; and that is another story).
Wouldn’t Apple and SingTel love to have a cut from every song I download? Think Nokia Ovi. Although the Music Store is not comprehensive, at least it is a step in the right direction towards making life easy for music lovers and building product loyalty.
If you have gone down to Suntec like I did during this year’s IT Show then you will realise how rich the folks in Singapore is!
Within the crowd madness, I definitely found many good deals. I got myself a Kingston 4GB microSD for my camera, and a Philips stereo PC headset for my office music and telephony needs. I got good prices for the two items. Yeah!
Considering the currrent economic slowdown, IT Show 2009 was a great success with sales of S$58.5 million (of which I contributed $42). I think if there are value for money deals, naturally the sale will come regardless of the economy situation.
I am sure you bought some things for yourself too. Well, happy playing with your new toys!!!
So my Google ad (found in thi site) presented a SingTel advertisement on HTC-Dream. Wow, Google really know their stuff here. So what a perfect situation where I was talkng about the phone and the advertisement appear next to it. Just a click away to a purchase!
Although this is cool, nevertheless it does add to another concrete reason, to the folks who fear Google, that this company is out to control the web and eventually the world! (Just like the fear of Microsoft, once a upon a time).
My phone is here! Honestly, I did not expect it to be here so soon. It took just three days from online order to home delivery by UPS.
I am excited with this new phone, but from the initial impression is not as easy to use as iPhone. The interface is between Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6 Professional and Apple’s iPhone OS - not that difficult but not friendly either.
BTW, I just discovered that this Android phone requires SIM card to work. It refuses to function as a stand-alone PDA. Which I sometimes do with my iPhone and Sumsung i780. Bummer!
Last weekend, after much consideration between SingTel’s offer of HTC Dream and Google’s offer of Android Dev Phone, I have decided to proceed with my purchase of the later phone. Physically, they are the same except that the Dev one is wired for developers.
I had wished that SingTel would make the phone more affordable, but alas the cost is about the same as the one I import from the US. Anyway, I should be getting the phone middle this week. Hooray! New toy to play!!
I now need a data broadband plan for my 3G SIM. Hopefully, this week’s IT Show at Suntec, SingTel will give a good deal. But then, I should not keep my hopes high…
After a prolonged resistance, I have finally joined the millions of bloggers and succumbed to advertisement as a means to sustain our journalistic effort.
Ok, I am over-dramatizing here. Actually, I have decided to see for myself how online advertisement is done and analyse the results from it. I have been on the opposite end of the divide (i.e. being the advertiser), hence it will be good to understand the situation from the other side.
I will be using Google AdSense for this appreciation endeavour. There are other advertising hosts like Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter, but AdSense is by far the dominant market leader (You can read on this matter from an excellent post by Marshall Sponder).
Of most certain, I will give you updates of my findings in future blogs. So stay tuned!
More on Microsoft Surface: I am still using my pessimistic lense, and I view Surface as a hyped-up iPhone/iTouch interface on a table with low commercial success possibilities.
Don’t get me wrong, I can certainly see the potential of this product, and its promise excites me. Hence, I really hope this product will provide cool and useful features for us. But as with many new products, the promise always seems to fall short of the reality.
(Just look at Surface’s official website, and you get what I mean. It is a half-hearted attempt to create a platform for a new, and possibly lifestyle revolutionalizing, product. If this is what is installed for the product then I think it is a bad omen for Surface’s partisans).
I came across two videos on this product. One from Microsoft, and the other is a parody of that video. Check them out:
Although the parody is quite funny, nevertheless it did touch on some valid points. And these points raise serious questions to the success of Surface.
