I love Gmail. I love the AJAX interface esp. the key shortcut. Overall, it is much better than my old Qmail+IMAP+SquirralMail setup. However, I still have my own domain (seng.sg) which I prefer. While sending out emails using my own email address isn’t a problem, I still need my own email server to receive and forward emails to my gmail account. How nice would it be if I could just put my MX to Google…

Thus, when I found out Google is beta’ing Gmail for your domain, I signed up quickly. I am realistic enough to know the chances for my domain to be selected is very low. But surprise surprise :-)

Woohoo! Thank you Google! And wow, now I have 5 MX for my emails :-)

ps: I tried to sign up Windows Live Custom Domains too but they does not accept .sg >.<

Finally went to Singtel shop yesterday and upgrade my SIM to a 3G USIM card. At the same time, I also got myself a brand new phone, Nokia N80.

So far, it is like the Series 60 phones that I had before so I am pretty at ease with the interface. Most important of all, the N80 comes with WLAN so I can use my home wireless lan or hotspot. It also comes with the new Nokia Open Source browser. I tried using it with GoogleMail (Mobile) and it works out very well. So far I am impressed.

Transfering contacts was also a breeze with the new transfer tool provided by N80. The apps provided allows me to transfer contact info from my old phone to this one via bluetooth directly. It was amazing…never had I got all my contacts over to a new phone so quickly.

I am going to try some of my staple Series 60 apps I use from Lonelycats, particularly their profimail (a much better email client) and smartmovie (xvid player :-) later today. I dont forsee much problem (except the upgrade in the processor which would help smartmovie a lot :-)

There is only one complain: They changed the power plug for the phone so it is not able to use the standard Nokia charger. They are nice enough to provide one converter but why change it in the first place? They just rendered my 7 chargers I had useless* >.< * Okay, not so useless since my wife still can use it with her Nokia 8800.

** The another phone I wanted is the Nokia E61 but they dont have it then.

Finally back at home in Singapore after 3 weeks in KL and Jakarta. As I step into the elevator, I almost forgot which floor I lived in. Gosh, thats not a good sign.

But I am glad to be back, even though it is only for the weekend.

The demo I want to talk about took 6 years to prepare:

NLS is an instrument for helping humans operate within the domain of complex information structures. By “operate” Doug means compose, study and modify. By “complex information structures” Doug says that content represents concepts, but there is also a relation between the content of concepts, their structure, and the structure of other domains of human thought that is too complex to investigate in linear text.

Sound like the world wide web? Except the demo is done in 1968 by Dong Engelbart :-)

I had dinner with Charles Lee* earlier this month when he is in Singapore. I considered Charles a mentor who has given me many valuable career advises, esp. at times when I need it most.

Anyway, I have being thinking over something he said over dinner: “世上所有的事都讲情，讲理，讲法。”. Loosely translated “the rules are relationship, logic and law”. The only difference is the order of the three.

In United States, it is “logic, law, relationship” whereas in China it is “relationship, logic, law”. There lies the difficulty when a Chinese and an American tries to do business because the priority is different.

Perhaps this also explained why many Singaporeans also fail to do business in China because the rules in Singapore are “law, logic, then relationship if any”. The assumption that a contract would be binding in China (as in the case in Singapore) is often an expensive mistake. In general, Chinese see contract as a paper formality to seal the relationship and there is no business otherwise.

Being in Malaysia the last couple of weeks also made me realized how different things is where the rules are “relationship, logic, law” just like China as in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Perhaps this is why Taiwanese, Hongies and Malaysians has more success in China. It also explains the difficulties between the cross bounder relationship between Singapore and Malaysia on various issues like water and the bridge.

So whats the rules of business in your country?

* btw, Charles is now the Dean of School of Management in Beijing University altho he also spend some of his time in Singapore lecturing in NUS. He also manages a seed fund (~50m USD) to help young aspiring technopreneurs in China using his past experience in helping entrepreneurs in US. Many years ago, he helped a young man to raise 1m seed fund for a crazy idea – The name is Steve and the company is Apple.

We Know is in the news again. This time, not just an article on Wired, but a video interview with Ross Mayfield, CEO of Socialtext, aka Kalevipoeg of We Know.

Link to C|Net Video

Damn, our guild seem to be getting all the press coverage, doing all these free promos for Blizzard. And we can’t even kill Onyxia.

When Pak John told me they have over hundreds of wifi base station on a single roof top in Indonesia, I don’t believe them at all. Until I see this…

And repeat that picture on every inch of the roof. Many microwave links of course but most surprising, most of them are 2.4Ghz base stations (microtik, senao, canopy are popular). Even with directional antennas, how they cope with the interference is amazing…

Just checked into JW Marriott Jakarta. Yep, the hotel that was bombed in 2003. It has since being renovated and it is a very nice hotel. Security are tied, cars are searched by 5 security personal, metal detectors at doors, and bags are checked before I step into the main door. I was stopped by the security when i was trying to take a picture of the beautiful entrance so all got is this picture of the keycard ^_^

This is another exploratory trip for me. First time in Jakarta, second time in Indonesia. Before I come over, I expected Jarkata to be a typical developing country like Vietnam or Cambodia. Downtown Jarkata took me totally by surprise, very clean, very neat, and very developed. Hotels (and I am talking about five/six star hotels like Four Seasons, Grand Hyatt, etc), Shopping malls, Starbucks, Coffee beans, Carrefour, you name it, you find it here. In fact, I dont see it very much different from Orchard Road.

Totally surprised and I already love the place.

Catch up Boon Kok for dinner last night. Had a long and interesting chat with him on various ICT topics wrt Malaysia, mostly me trying to pick his brain :-)

So we talk about outsourcing, something that is currently promoted by Pak Lah. We arrived to a conclusion that China is growing at such a rapid pace that they are going to be net importer of ICT products and services, like they did to oil and steel. This is unlike India which is still a net exporter but their fees are rapidly equalizing with the rest of the worlds. While Singapore may focus on the higher end of the value-chain, the mid-tier deals is the niche Malaysia is looking at.

It is also apparently to us many people still dont really understanding outsourcing.

1. Outsourcing is not sub-contracting.

Outsourcing is taking an internal coporate function and pay an external company to handle them. If it is a one-off deal, it is just sub-contracting. Outsourcing implies an on-going operational function.

2. You should only outsource internal corporate function that you know (or do) well.

You shouldn’t outsource functions that you dont know how to do, especially if you dont even know how to measure it. Ironically, many people do the opposite, ie outsource things they dont know about. They thought the third party may knows it better. Such deals often fall apart when there is a mismatch in expectations or desired outcome, expected when you don’t even know what you want in the first place.

If you don’t know how to do something, build that know-how internally first by hiring. Engage a consultant if need to be but don’t outsource.

Oh, while outsourcing traditional trives on cost-arbitraging, ie “I can do it cheaper than you do it”, I think the game is starting to change. Cost is still a factor of course, but companies are beginning to measure quality and performance of the outsource work. This is the reason we seeing some of the reversal in outsourcing deals. So for Malaysia to focus on outsourcing, skill and talent in the workforce will become important.