Thursday 26 May 2011
Saturday 16 January 2010
The Haiti Issue - Beyond Imagination
My heart goes out to the people of Haiti - a people who find themselves on an island somewhere far from where their ancestors actually originated from. Well, we all know the story (can we call this a story?) of the origins of the slave trade, so I am not going into that at this stage. How and whether it has ended or not is another issue.
The scale of the disaster is actually beyond imagination and I would urge us all to pray and intercede on their behalf. I do not think they have done anything to deserve this, and even if they have, we beg of the Good Lord for forgiveness. We can also go a step further in actually donating something “small” towards their upkeep and support. I would personally recommend the Google site below to ensure the funds get to the intended recipients.
http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake/ - Main Google relief effort site.
Meanwhile stay tuned at this site for more information and updates.
http://haiti.ushahidi.com/
Let’s help the people of Haiti, and please, let’s act now.
Thank You.
The scale of the disaster is actually beyond imagination and I would urge us all to pray and intercede on their behalf. I do not think they have done anything to deserve this, and even if they have, we beg of the Good Lord for forgiveness. We can also go a step further in actually donating something “small” towards their upkeep and support. I would personally recommend the Google site below to ensure the funds get to the intended recipients.
http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake/ - Main Google relief effort site.
Meanwhile stay tuned at this site for more information and updates.
http://haiti.ushahidi.com/
Let’s help the people of Haiti, and please, let’s act now.
Thank You.
Saturday 26 December 2009
The Year of the Smartphones and the Social Network Revolution - A brief look at 2009
Even though Facebook (FB) and most social networking sites have been around since at least 2004, not until the latter parts of 2007 did the real explosion begin to happen. I personally recollect the aversion I had towards Hi5, MySpace, and even FB prior to this era. This was mostly due to the strict rules that my last work place had about the patronage of social network sites, to the extent that most of us decided not to create accounts, let alone login at work. Anything one did and the amount of time one spent online was logged, and going against corporate policies could result in severe repercussions, sometimes even leading to outright dismissal. That said I ended up joining FB anyway, after persistent invitations from some close friends.
A couple of years and some 350million-plus users later, here are the realities on the ground:
- Many people now check and update their FB profiles as they used to do with their emails, with many logging on more than five times a day. Some friends even tell me their FB pages are "always on".
- Some people go as far as to claim that they are usually close to suicidal if deprived of any access to FB for even a day! Hmmmm ...
- I remember reading the story of a boy in the US who quit boot camp and all because the supervisors did not allow him to bring his phone along. He was even checking his FB pages in Church at the least opportunity!
- FB is now available on many smartphones with RIM (Blackberry), Motorola (DEXT/Cliq with Motoblur and Droid), Sonyericsson and Samsung being some of the major vendors pushing in this direction.
- FB is now joining Google as the latest company with name-turned-verb. Statements such as "I am Facebooking ..." are all too common these days.
- Companies and institutions which once spurned any form of social networking are now actively joining the bandwagon. They have special pages dedicated to their products, social events, recruitment and the like. Popular sites include those of IBM, Motorola, Cisco, Vodafone, Oracle and Ericsson ... Well, I know because I have used some of their pages on my profile.
- I hear many companies these days even check out potential employees' profile before taking them on, so guys, watch what you post online.
- I cannot believe that some companies are even scouring FB for potential recruits - yes that is what a bird whispered in my ear - similar to what some recruitment agencies do on LinkedIn.
- Online gaming is now the latest craze, talk of Mafia Wars and Farmville, two of the most popular to date.
- When you do not appear nor post on FB for a while, you have friends going crazy (on your page).
- Even M$ has joined the bandwagon and acquired shares in FB. They realise the potential all too well. Where's Google in all these? There are rumours they do not get on too well with FB, but hey, that is just a rumour, ain't it?
- You have schools, presidents, ministers and even countries represented on FB, most with dedicated pages.
- FB (like Twitter), is often used as tool for galvanising support for various causes, be it political (Iran), Social (T-mobile flash dancing, rage against x-factor), environment protests (climate change), or something more radical.
- Just a couple of days ago, I read that FB was now the cause of almost 20% of all divorces, according to an online study by some group called DivorceOnline! Ridiculous as it might sound, this was carried widely on the Web.
These are but a few of the trends and uses today and only God knows what it would evolve into and be used for tomorrow. This is not to say that social networking does not have its negatives, but that would be the subject of another post some other time.
Stay tuned people and a Merry Christmas to y'all.
===================================================
This post by Tony G - 26th December, 2009
===================================================
A couple of years and some 350million-plus users later, here are the realities on the ground:
- Many people now check and update their FB profiles as they used to do with their emails, with many logging on more than five times a day. Some friends even tell me their FB pages are "always on".
- Some people go as far as to claim that they are usually close to suicidal if deprived of any access to FB for even a day! Hmmmm ...
- I remember reading the story of a boy in the US who quit boot camp and all because the supervisors did not allow him to bring his phone along. He was even checking his FB pages in Church at the least opportunity!
- FB is now available on many smartphones with RIM (Blackberry), Motorola (DEXT/Cliq with Motoblur and Droid), Sonyericsson and Samsung being some of the major vendors pushing in this direction.
- FB is now joining Google as the latest company with name-turned-verb. Statements such as "I am Facebooking ..." are all too common these days.
- Companies and institutions which once spurned any form of social networking are now actively joining the bandwagon. They have special pages dedicated to their products, social events, recruitment and the like. Popular sites include those of IBM, Motorola, Cisco, Vodafone, Oracle and Ericsson ... Well, I know because I have used some of their pages on my profile.
- I hear many companies these days even check out potential employees' profile before taking them on, so guys, watch what you post online.
- I cannot believe that some companies are even scouring FB for potential recruits - yes that is what a bird whispered in my ear - similar to what some recruitment agencies do on LinkedIn.
- Online gaming is now the latest craze, talk of Mafia Wars and Farmville, two of the most popular to date.
- When you do not appear nor post on FB for a while, you have friends going crazy (on your page).
- Even M$ has joined the bandwagon and acquired shares in FB. They realise the potential all too well. Where's Google in all these? There are rumours they do not get on too well with FB, but hey, that is just a rumour, ain't it?
- You have schools, presidents, ministers and even countries represented on FB, most with dedicated pages.
- FB (like Twitter), is often used as tool for galvanising support for various causes, be it political (Iran), Social (T-mobile flash dancing, rage against x-factor), environment protests (climate change), or something more radical.
- Just a couple of days ago, I read that FB was now the cause of almost 20% of all divorces, according to an online study by some group called DivorceOnline! Ridiculous as it might sound, this was carried widely on the Web.
These are but a few of the trends and uses today and only God knows what it would evolve into and be used for tomorrow. This is not to say that social networking does not have its negatives, but that would be the subject of another post some other time.
Stay tuned people and a Merry Christmas to y'all.
===================================================
This post by Tony G - 26th December, 2009
===================================================
Friday 20 November 2009
Outwitting the next Pandemic: A presentation by Dr. Nathan Wolfe
When I came across this video initially and saw the words "poor" and "Africa" in the textual introduction, I nearly brushed it off as one of those ... you know what I mean. However, something about the speaker and the fact that it was a video featured on the home page of the Google Foundation made me want to listen to, at least, the first few seconds. Well, to put it simply, I ended up watching the entire thirteen-minute video.
We as humans owe it a duty to our children and children's children to do something, however small, for the underprivileged and poor in our societies. Anything that would help tackle the root cause of poverty, disease, strife and the like is worth pursuing. Just as it is the trend these days not to just patch, but rather examine in depth and conduct a root-cause analysis of bugs in a computer program in order that permanent solutions could be fashioned out for them, we need to go back to basics, look deep down into our human consciousness and ask ourselves what we have done to aid the underprivileged when we were well capable. Then, we need to begin to act NOW.
After all, the effects of the HIVs, H1N1s and SARS of this world are not confined to the jungles of Central Africa, South America nor Central Asia. The rich and the poor alike are susceptible to H1N1. I do not claim to have statistics personally, but has anybody heard of African governments worrying about Swine Flu? It might well be that it is not deemed newsworthy in view of other teeming issues, but I am aware that as of November 16, 2009, there are a number of countries that have less than ten reported cases with no deaths at all, according to WHO. Such governments would rather worry about malaria and the like anyway.
"Heal the World!", to paraphrase my all time favourite artiste (another key activist in the area of rectifying the ills of humanity, who rather met an untimely death this year).
Tuesday 10 November 2009
The Android Revolution: Motorola Droid Released on Android 2.0
Being a self-proclaimed fan of the Android platform, I can only cross my arms and wait with half-bated breath while Motorola and Verizon continue to tout the "Everything iDon't, Droid does ..." punchline. The Droid is a follow-up to the successful launch of the Moto Cliq (Dext in UK), and debuts on November 6, 2009 on Verizon Wireless in the US. It is the world's first Android 2.0 based smartphone!
With the Linux code base from Google and processor from Texas Instruments (TI), I don't doubt its multitasking and reportedly fast touch-screen response abilities at all. The 3.7" wide screen (WVGA 480 x 854 pixels - odd one though) and Qwerty keyboard only go to add to its appeal for those of us who treasure web mobility and PC-type picture and screen clarity over anything else. With the TI 600MHz OMAP 3430 processor, PowerVR SGX 530 GPU for intensive graphics processing, anything is possible. One should be careful though not to be quick to compare the TI 600MHz processor to Qualcomm's 1GHz processors being used by HTC, Samsung, and the rest just as we would not compare an Intel Xeon X3460 2.80GHz processor to a Sun 1.2GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor without proper benchmarks. There's more to processor performance than just raw MHz/GHz.
The launch of the Android 2.0 (Eclaire) platform is sure to give the iPeople, Symbian, Windows Mobile, and all the rest a run for their money. Throw in the innovative Google Compass - Google Maps Navigation™ Beta, where DROID gives you spoken turn-by-turn directions, and your route overlaid on Google Maps Street View™ - and we might actually be getting somewhere. Find below some interesting views of the Droid.
With the Linux code base from Google and processor from Texas Instruments (TI), I don't doubt its multitasking and reportedly fast touch-screen response abilities at all. The 3.7" wide screen (WVGA 480 x 854 pixels - odd one though) and Qwerty keyboard only go to add to its appeal for those of us who treasure web mobility and PC-type picture and screen clarity over anything else. With the TI 600MHz OMAP 3430 processor, PowerVR SGX 530 GPU for intensive graphics processing, anything is possible. One should be careful though not to be quick to compare the TI 600MHz processor to Qualcomm's 1GHz processors being used by HTC, Samsung, and the rest just as we would not compare an Intel Xeon X3460 2.80GHz processor to a Sun 1.2GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor without proper benchmarks. There's more to processor performance than just raw MHz/GHz.
The launch of the Android 2.0 (Eclaire) platform is sure to give the iPeople, Symbian, Windows Mobile, and all the rest a run for their money. Throw in the innovative Google Compass - Google Maps Navigation™ Beta, where DROID gives you spoken turn-by-turn directions, and your route overlaid on Google Maps Street View™ - and we might actually be getting somewhere. Find below some interesting views of the Droid.
Motorola Droid - Taking Android to a new level with Android 2.0
Motorola Droid Front View
Motorola Droid Rear View
Well, here's the story:
# 550 MHz CPU
# Android 2.0 (Eclair) OS
# 3.7, WVGA (480 x 854 pixels); 16:9 widescreen touchscreen display
# 5mpx camera with 4x digital zoom, autofocus, image stabilization, dual LED flash and up to 24 fps; D1 (720 480) resolution video capture (DVD quality)
# Full QWERTY side slide keyboard
# Accelerometer, aGPS and sGPS support, proximity and ambient light sensors
# Wi-Fi b/g, Stereo Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR, USB 2.0 high speed with micro USB connector, 3.5 mm headset jack
# 16 GB microSD pre-installed; supports up to 32 GB microSD expandable
# Webkit HTML5 support, Flash 10 (available 2010)
# 1400 mAh Li Ion battery with up to 270 hrs. standby and 385 mins talk time
# Dimensions: 2.4 x 4.6 x .5 in.; 60.00 x 115.80 x 13.70 mm
# Weight: 6 oz.; 169 g
For additional information on the Droid smartphone, checkout:
http://phones.verizonwirel
http://www.youtube.com/ver
http://phandroid.com/2009/
http://www.motorola.com/Co
For information about Android development, please see:
http://developer.android.c
http://code.google.com/and
http://developer.motorola.
http://www.androiddevelopm
Friday 24 April 2009
Announcing my blog site:
Just created my personal blog account. Will be posting stuff here in due course so keep visiting.
Cheers,
Tony
Cheers,
Tony
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