Yen Kai's Idea Cast

The fall in USD/SGD exchange rates over the last few days (from 1.3 to 1.256), coupled with the Fed’s commitment that they will hold rates low through to at least late 2014 resulted in a significant fall in the SOR. As an analyst in the article points out, “What they’re doing is setting the table for some sort of additional monetary easing”.

I’ve been wanting to write this article for some time but interestingly, i’ve just lost my Android phone! So this is a bit like a post-mortem dump. After the excitement of getting a new phone and experimenting with Apps has worn out, the Apps i found myself using frequently were:

Sigh. Buy a new one. Sad to say, i lost my phone barely just two must months after losing my laptop, though this time not due to my own fault. I think the greater loss in these incidences is the weakness of the persons who picked up the laptop or phone who decided to keep it for themselves rather than return them to their owner.

It seems strangely coincidental, my webhosting account was suspended for almost a full day due to the presence of suspicious malicious scripts (which were actually uploaded by myself), and this happens around the same time that 400 DBS/POSB customers experienced ATM fraud and NUS servers were hacked into.

Since i have just opened both the UOB Gold and Silver savings accounts recently, i decided to create a chart to track the prices. Though charts for spot prices of Gold and Silver are available, they are denominated in USD. The prices as published by UOB probably has some transaction fee built into it, but nevertheless, they are useful for tracking the movement of Gold and Silver prices in SGD, not just for those who actually hold such accounts. So, there you go, the UOB Gold and Silver Prices chart!

I was quite astonished to see that some of the wordings on the sidewall have fallen off during my repeat visit to the Guangzhou Opera House. Only the English words came off, so one could postulate that this was an act of vandalism? Perhaps more surprisingly, nothing was done to fix it. The building is not even 2 years old.

Is there a Content Management System (CMS) that is so simple that it requires only basic word processing skills to be able to draft, edit and publish content? i found one – concrete5. The main feature that gives rise to its claim of simplicity is in-context editing. Nothing beats being able to directly edit a webpage within the browser while viewing it.

Touted as the last “book” you need, this particular model is actually targeted at students, with the claim that graduates will find the laptop adequate in serving their needs even after they leave school. I’d say this is an innovative marketing idea, since the student population is a sizable target audience. I bought this machine during the Sitex exhibition where obviously the “last book” tagline doesn’t apply. Instead, it is highlighted as being a “portable all-rounder”.

SOR rises above 0.5% for the first time since June 2010, as the USD/SGD moves close to 1.3 again and LIBOR hit 0.54% on its continued steep incline, while SIBOR remains muted at 0.38%. The massive flight-to-safety from the Eurozone’s trouble pushes the US dollar higher as investors piled into Treasuries. This, the result of ECB’s stubborn unwillingness to print money, though, as widely expected, they did further cut rates by another quarter points to 1%.

Discovered by accident – if you press the Windows logo key plus the left or right arrow key, the currently focused window will be resized to take up exactly half the desktop and moved to the left or right half of the screen depending on whether you pressed the left or right arrow button. That comes in handy when you need to refer to 2 documents at the same time or when you need to edit one based on another. Just put them side-by-side, one on the left and one on the right. Here’s the list of all keyboard shortcuts published by Microsoft, if you have the capacity to remember them..