In the increasingly digital world that we live in, a lot of things that we hold dear are now in digital format – documents, photos, videos, art work, source code etc. Take a moment to think about it right now, what are the digital artifacts on your desktop/laptop/phone that you don’t want to lose? Make sure you have a backup copy!
The most critical part of your laptop is the battery, because it is what gives value to a laptop, allowing you to perform tasks without having to be plugged-in to a power source. At the same time, it is also the component that wears out quickest. If you don’t take care of the battery, it’s life may soon become shortened drastically. This was what happened to my previous laptop, and the battery life was cut short to only half an hour. Because of this, plus my own negligence, i put the laptop aside after the battery power was used up and forgot about the laptop altogether! So you see, not only does a short battery life render a laptop useless, it can also be dangerous.
As i’ve promised myself, one of the first things i wanted to do on my new laptop was to install anti-theft software. However, as i went about it, i realized that the anti-theft software is only useful if your laptop ended up in the hands of the right people. By “right”, i mean those people with no more than a basic level of computer knowledge. You see, for the typical anti-theft software to work, the “thief” would have to launch and use the laptop in its original configuration, i.e. with the anti-theft software intact. This could be easily circumvented if the “thief” just wiped the laptop. By “virtue” of laptop manufacturers who want to make laptop recovery (i.e. resetting it to the factory default state) easy and cheap, they usually embed the recovery software right inside the laptop harddisk, and the recovery function can be invoked during boot-up, before the existing Operating System starts up. This virtually renders all software-based laptop anti-theft software useless.
If money is no object, the best laptop will just be the most expensive one, which will be one with high performance, long-lasting battery life while being lightweight, plus having looks that will turn heads. Obviously, that’s not how the majority of us choose a laptop. Most of us will try to get the best laptop within a certain budget. Having recently lost my laptop, i just went through such an exercise. Here’s how i arrived at my new laptop.
Even as stimulus packages were announced for the US and much of Europe, the idea seems to be hinted at for Singapore as news of economic turmoil start to trickle in. Around the region, the Philippines has announced its plans for a stimulus package, and Indonesia has it in the works also, almost in a chorus.
A new clause was sighted in the latest SOR repricing letter from my bank stating that SOR/SIBOR will be capped at 0% even if it falls below. By now, all banks should have already put in place such logic in their interest calculation program. So i guess this goes down in history as the one and only time when banks in Singapore charged an interest that is lower than their “margin” for SOR/SIBOR pegged loans. In fact, banks are pulling out from SOR pegged loans since the use of SOR is cited as being “clearly inappropriate and unsustainable under the current market conditions”.
Don’t ask me why, but i’ve always been fascinated about label printing, especially when it comes with a barcode. Yes, i actually own a barcode scanner which is collecting dust somewhere. Anyway, barcodes were designed to relieve the need for human data entry (and hence reduce human error as well), which is why they are popular for Point-of-Sales applications. It may be the impression of many that it costs a lot of money to print these complicated looking barcoded labels, but it could actually be done for free (using a standard laser/inkjet printer and adhesive label sheets).
The 3-Month SIBOR has dropped a notch from 0.44% to 0.31%, bringing it lower than SOR once again. SIBOR-pegged loans are now more attractive than SOR-pegged ones. This is also partly due to the absence of SOR-pegged loans currently being offered. Banks probably withdrew them after being spooked by the negative SOR back in August.