From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Mon Dec 1 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 1 Dec 2008 18:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 1, 2008 Message-ID: <20081201181501.38157.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Simpson's Video Features Epic 'Mapple' (Apple) Store Spoof by iPhone Savior **** 30 Days With The New MacBook Pro by Dale Mugford, BraveNewCode Anyone getting one of these machines will be supremely satisfied, in my humble opinion. **** Apple's Black Friday Bestsellers by Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Fortune MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Waiting by Amos Oz, New Yorker **** As I Was Saying by Bob Hicok, New Yorker **** Terza Rima by Richard Wilbur, New Yorker **** Still On The Shelf by Cynthia Crossen, Wall Street Journal My self-imposed challenge this week was to save money by reading a book that I own but have never read. There were a shocking number of candidates for this challenge - books I had bought impulsively, gifts from well-meaning (or not) friends and relatives and books whose provenance has long been lost to history. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** 24 Hours In... Singapore by Kristie Kellahan, The Age A fast-paced city of skyscrapers, markets, boutiques and glamorous bars, Singapore also offers pockets of peace. **** Little India On Sundays by Shivaji Das, Chutney Spears At this place and at this time, they forget their hardships and their alienation. Here they are protected, though thinly, from the displays of opulence from the others, the ones who have already prospered in this city. **** Misleading Advert On Transferring CPF OA To SA? by Financial Planning Central **** Why Imposing A Moratorium Is Not Good Enough by Readings From A Political Duo-ble It is time the Singapore government stops half-hearted measures such as imposing a moratorium. Unlike what it has claimed, there is no humanitarian nor responsible manner to deal with the issue on the proliferation and use of cluster bombs. **** Why You Shouldn't Bring DVDs To Singapore by Angry Angmo From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Tue Dec 2 13:15:03 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 2 Dec 2008 18:15:03 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 2, 2008 Message-ID: <20081202181503.94672.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Why A Mac And No More Windoze by The Dads Center It works better than any computer I've ever had, and I can do more with it than any other computer I've ever had. Period. **** Is Apple OS X More Secure Than Windows? by John Viega, O'Reilly Broadcast **** The Very Best Macs: Sometimes Apple Just Nails It by Andrew Fishkin, Low End Mac **** Is Light MacBook Air Defect Heavy? by Joe Wilcox, eWeek Apple forums are abuzz about display problems affecting MacBook Air. **** Fix Your Clicks With Klicko by Matt Neuburg, TidBITS Klicko prevents clickthrough. To put it another way, it restores the pre-Mac OS X behavior: when you click on a non-frontmost window, that window comes to the front and that's all. **** ToCA Race Driver 3 by Franklin Pride, Inside Mac Games **** Calling Mac Users - Have You Installed Antivirus On Your Mac? by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, ZDNet.com Apple now recommends that users install antivirus software on their Mac systems. **** Apple Offers Free Licensing For Mini DisplayPort Spec by Chris Foresman, Ars Technica Mini DisplayPort is an Apple-designed miniature version of the VESA-approved DisplayPort, which fully supports the protocol while offering a more compact connector. **** Apple Adds DMCA Charge To Complaint Against Psystar by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld Lawyers for Apple said they have discovered additional information since the original complaint was filed. Without going into detail, lawyers said the new information is in regards to Psystar's products and marketing. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Open Source: The Model Is Broken by Stuart Cohen, BusinessWeek While the open-source business model may be broken, the concepts behind open source will continue to bring new value to customers and strong returns to software company stakeholders. But the value is in the collaboration, not in open source itself. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Government Commends AIMS Report by Straits Times The government has commended an advisory council for its comprehensive report and insgihtful observations on the pertinent issues and concerns arising from the emergence of new media. It will study the recommendations made by the Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media On Society and will announce the government's position in about 1 1/2 months' time. **** SIA Shut Out Of Lucrative Sydney, Los Angeles Route by Irene Chan, 938Live **** Singapore Falls Short Of Banning Production And Use Of Cluster Munitions by WorldWithoutWar.sg **** AIMS Review Of Internet Rules: Less Than Required, More Than Expected by Cherian George, Journalism.sg More significant than the nitty-gritty of hte recommendations are some of their underlying principles. **** Council Recommends Lifting Ban On Party Political Films In Phases by Asha Popatlal, Channel NewsAsia A committee looking into new media has recommended that Section 33 of the Films Acts that prohibits the making and distributing of party political films be repealed but in phases. **** SIA Unit To Buy Singapore Food Industries by Sundeep Tucker, Financial Times Singapore Airport Terminal Services, an airline caterer, on Tuesday unveiled a S$335m cash offer for Singapore Food Industries, a supplier to the country's military and to supermarkets in the UK. /I'm not sure why there is a need for a Temasek-owned company (Ambrosia Investment) to sell a company to another Temasek-owned company (SATS)./ **** Singapore Sentences TV Reporter To 10 Months Jail by Associated Press A court in Singapore sentenced Australian TV reporter Peter Lloyd on Tuesday to 10 months in jail for consumption and possession of methamphetamine. **** Commuters To Obtain New Ez-Link Cards by Channel NewsAsia Commuters will now have to get new ez-link cards supported by a new e-payment sysem. **** Singapore Air Shut Out Of West Coast Route, Australian Says by Gemma Daley, Bloomberg Singaproe Airlines Ltd. will be shut out of flying from Australia to U.S. west coast, the Australian newspaper reported, citing a government tatement to be released tomorrow. **** Daily KL-Singapore Flights Soar by B.K. Sidhu, The Star **** LGBTs Protest Singapore Bank's Charity Drive For Anti-Gay Focus On The Family by Sylvia Tan, Fridae Leave home without it, or better yet, cut it up. That is what some members of Singapore's gay community are saying in response to a credit card promotion by a Singapore bank in which up to S$15,000 will be donated to the infamous Focus on the Family (Singapore). In a letter posted on an email group, Dominic Chua, an educator, has written to the bank to say that he is "thoroughly disappointed to learn that DBS is supporting a right-wing Christian organisation as part of its corporate social responsibility drive this Christmas" and that it "could do better than support an organisation that wilfully perpetrates misinformation about and prejudice toward gay persons." **** MOE Asks More Of Homeschool Pupils by Martin Rushton, Straits Times Homeschooled children are required to meet a higher standard to pass the PSLE than their mainstream counterparts. **** Whte Tiger Mauling: Is There More To It? by Ng Tze Yong, New Paper A video has emerged showing a Sun City supervisor beating a worker. Sun City was the employer of cleaner Nordin Montong who was mauled to death after jumping into the white tiger enclosure at the Singapore Zoon on 13 Nov. **** Town Council Investments: Annual Reports Do Not Answer Questions by The Online Citizen Until and unless town councils disclose fully the answers to such questions as the ones above, it is of no use referring residents to the annual reports. For what you get are general statements which gives you only general answers. **** Residents Query But PAP Town Councils Keep Mum by Benjamin Cheah and Andrew Loh, The Online Citizen The two replies from the MPs are not explanations; they are, instead, excuses for excuses in lieu of answers. **** He's PAP And Dares To Dissent by Chong Zi Liang, The Enquirer "Someone wrote in an online forum that as a MP representing the people, I should represent the majority view," member of Parliament Baey Yam Keng said. "I beg to differ. There can only be one view in the majority and we shouldn't just have that view reflected in Parliament, we need some debate and hear different viewpoints." From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Wed Dec 3 13:15:02 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 3 Dec 2008 18:15:02 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 3, 2008 Message-ID: <20081203181502.66645.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** The Twenty-Fourth Annual Editor's Choice Awards by Macworld **** Living With Apple's MacBook Air: CPU Undervoltages And Fan OverRPMs by Brian Dipert, EDN **** Apple's iPod Problem by Arik Hesseldahl, BusinessWeek With fewer iPod users upgrading, the days of explosive growth are over. And that leaves iPhone and Macs picking up the slack. /When Apple make playing music on the iPod touch as easy and as cheap as the 'regular' iPods, people will upgrade. :-)/ **** MacBook Air, Second Inning: HomeRun! by Sebastien Arnaud, I Blog Therefore, I Am It is a very solid ultra portable system, that can act without shame as a desktop replacement for most of us when plugged t an external screen/keyboard/mouse. **** Windows Vs. Mac: Is The Price Debate Still Relevant? by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Datamation **** Apple: Our Ads Don't Lie, But You're A Fool If You Believe Them by Brian X. Chen, Wired Apple doesn't want you to believe what it says, even though the company claims it's not lying. That's the gist of the Cupertino company's legal response to a lawsuit regarding allegedly misleading advertising for the iPhone 3G. **** Apple Didn't Issue A /New/ Antivirus Advisory by Joe Wilcox, eWeek **** Apple's Antivirus Advice 'Big To-Do About Nothing,' Says Researcher by Gregg Keizer, Computerworld **** Apple Removes Antivirus Support Page by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld "We have removed the KnowledgeBase article because it was old and inaccurate," Apple spokesman Bill Evans told Macworld. "The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and secrutiy threats right out of the box." **** Apple Now Allows Devs To Offer Promo Copies Of iPhone Apps by Chris Foresman, Ars Technica Apple has added the ability for developers to generate promotional codes that can be redeemed directly through the App Store. **** Adobe Will Not Exhibit At Macworld Expo 2009 by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld Adobe, a major player in the Mac software market, will not be among the developers exhibiting on the show floor at next month's Macworld Conference & Expo. **** PerfectTablePlan Helps You Avoid Event Seating Disasters by Dan Moren, Macworld **** Save Time With OS X Services by Ted Landau, Macworld Service sprovide systemwide commands that allow you to quickly accomplish a variety of tasks, such as sending Mail messages lickety-split or making a new Stickies note from a selection. If you're not already using the Services menu, you'll soon discover how it can boost your productivity. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Google Gears Down For Tougher Times by Jessica E. Vascellaro and Scott Morrison, Wall Street Journal **** Getting OpenID Into The Browser by David Recordon, O'Reilly Radar MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Mother Justice by Christopher Ketcham, Vanity Fair When her son was sentenced to 25 years for Brooklyn's 2003 "grid kid" slaying, Doreen Quinn Giuliano was sure he'd been wrongfully convicted. To prove it, she went undercover, testing her sanity, her marriage, and the justice system. It was a desperate move—and it may have worked. **** What Tina Wants by Maureen Dowd, Vanity Fair Tina Fey has rules. They've guided the 38-year-old writer-comedian through marriage, motherhood, and a career that went into hyperdrive this fall, when her Sarah Palin impression convulsed the nation, boosting the ratings of both /Saturday Night Live/ and her own NBC show, /30 Rock/. **** Haydn Leaves London by Rita Dove, Slate SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** MND Announces Another 10 Temporary Dorm Sites For Foreign Workers by Channel NewsAsia **** Terrible Straits Times Article, Letter Rejected by City-State Life The fact that this article decided to focus on her drinking does a couple of things I disagree with. First, it suggests that she is partly responsible, which is not OK. **** Lee Kuan Yew Drops A Bombshell At CGI by Roger Hamilton XL Blog Lee Kuan Yew's answer was on the lines of "renewable power will be insignificant to the world's needs - even if iit's successful it will reach 5% of our needs at the most." So, is LKY right? Is nuclear power the only viable alternative? **** Aren't AIDS Sufferers Singaporeans Too? by Everyday's Life In A Snapshot **** Singapore Jobs: Nearly 80 Complaints Every Month by Daily Express An average of 78 complaints from Sabahans working in Singapore are forwarded to the Labour Department here every month by the Malaysian Labour Attache in Singapore. **** Don't Look The Other Way by S. Murall, New Paper The zoo now knows that some of its staff are aware of abuses. Should it continue to look the other way, claiming that contract workers are the responsibility of the company that hires them? Surely not. **** Temasek Sells PowerSeraya To YTL Power For S$3.8B by Rachel Kelly, Channel NewsAsia **** Say Yes To AIDS Treatment Subsidies! by Mathia Lee **** Is Tan Kin Lian Going Burn His Bridges With The PAP Soon? by Fang Zhi Yuan, The Wayang Party Club Of Singapore **** AIMS's Final Submission To MICA - My View Of Its Recommendations Regarding Online Political Content by Ng E-Jay, Sgpolitics.net The AIMS recommendations, due to their lack of willingness to move ahead decisively on what is right and their insistenc eof retaining unjust legislation, would not prevent another episode of Martyn See from occurring. **** DBS Replies. by Musings "It was never the intention of the Bank to discriminate against any group through this initiative. Nevertheless given feedback received, to demonstrate that DBS believes in diversity and inclusion, with immediate effect we will be removing the Christmas charity campaign." From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Thu Dec 4 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 4 Dec 2008 18:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 4, 2008 Message-ID: <20081204181500.7874.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** 'Tap Tap Dance' An iPhone Stage For Hot Musicians by AFP **** Apple WInner As Smartphone Sales Slow by Mikael Ricknas, IDG News Service **** Mac Malware - Were We Wrong? by Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC One thing that this incident does show is Apple's split personality when it comes to communicating with its users and with the medai. **** Amazon.com Invades The APple App Store by Brad Stone, New York Times There is one unusual and noteworthy aspect of the app called Amazon Remembers, which Amazon is calling "experimental." The tool lets users take a photograph of any product they see in the real world. The photos are then uploaded to Amazon and turned over to the far-flung freelance workers in Amazon's Mechanical Turk program, who will try to match them with products for sale on Amazon.com. **** The Killers: Virtual Sessions by Joe Cellini, Apple **** Apple Tells Court It Believes Someone Is Behind Psystar; Adds New Claims, Including DMCA Violation by Groklaw **** Apple May Be Chilling iTunes Competition: Critics by David Lawsky, Reuters Everyone agrees Apple achieved its dominance n music downloads and players with good products and marketing, which makes it entirely legal. Nevertheless, rivals and a technology rights group are concerned Apple is overly aggressive. **** Giz Explains: Why OS X Shrugs Off Viruses Better Than Windows by Matt Buchanan, Gizmodo Bascially, Unix-based systems are architectued so that they require administrator privileges to modify the OS and are traditionally more strict in enforcing them. **** Trojan Horse Targets Anti-Virus Maker Intego by Ed Sutherland, Cult Of Mac Another wrinkle in the spy-vs-spy Mac security game appeared Wednesday when a Mac Trojan horse attempted to disguise itself by naming a file "intego," a reference to Intego, the anti-virus company. **** EFF Proposes DMCA Exemption For iPhone Jailbreaking by Dan Moren, Macworld The proposal was submitted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and argues that end users should be allowed to jailbreak their phones to use legally-acquired third-party applications. **** FlatOut 2 by John Samsel, Inside Mac Games **** Review: ToCA Race Driver 3 by Chris Holt, Macworld **** iPhoto, The Secret Disk Space Thief by Scott McNulty, Macworld iPhoto is a paranoid application. When you hit delete in iPhoto the offending picture isn't actually deleted. Instead, it's whisked away to the iPhoto Trash. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Who Needs A TV? I'm Watching On A Laptop by Laura M. Holson, New York Times There is much to suggest that watching shows online is more than just a passing fancy. **** A Winning Web Formula by Kate Greene, MIT Technology Review Advertisers could benefit from analyzing the early popularity of online content. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** The Fine Art Of Literary Rejection Letters by Hannah Edelstein, The Guardian Writing rejection letters is a delicate skill, one that must be fine-tuned over time (weeks, even) as one digs out from under the slush pile. For it is not easy to achieve and balance the two central goals of a truly accomlished rejection letter: trying not to make the writer feel distraught whilst also discouraging him or her from ever contacting you ever again. **** Laugh Factory by Carolyn Omine, Los Angeles Times Being a /Simpsons/ writer is hard work—unless you're a genius. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Labour Chief Urges Employers To Give Priority To Local Workers by Satish Cheney, Channel NewsAsia **** Singapore Is 12Th Most Expensive City In Asia by Cheryl Foris, Channel NewsAsia Singapore is the 12th most expensive city in Asia, according to a global survey on cost of living by international human resource company ECA International. The country jumped 27 places, and is one of Asia's biggest movers. **** The Face Of Pro-Family (Singaore Edition) by Ethan Pang, Better, Higher! Is this what "pro-family" is about? And to think that we live in an equal opportunity society. **** Postcard From Singapore by Sramana Mitra On Strategy In America, by and large, we don't see much of this kind of formality anymore. **** Singapore To Cut Government Land Sales To Help Property Market by Reuters Singapore said on Thursday it will cut back on government land sales next year to support the property market as the city-state battles recession. **** Why Change? by Tang Li, Desparatebeep Media is just one example of how "Not Changing" is stunting Singapore. It's disturbing that the government seems content with dwarfism and even encourages it. **** Singapore And Singapore Inc: The Difference by Blowin' In The Wind **** Why We Cannot Respect Human Rights In Singapore... by Diary Of A Singaporean Mind There is no way for the UDHR (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) to be adopted in Singapore, here's why. **** Open Letter To Mr Gopalan Nair by The Singaporean Gamer How is this standing up like a man and living like a man? **** Electricity Bills To Fall 25% by Liaw Wy Cin, Straits Times Electricity tariffs for households will be cut by about 25 per cent for January to March, in line with lower fuel oil prices. The reduction is the first since April 2007, and is lower than the 21 per cent spike in October - the biggest one-time increase in seven years. **** THe Great Singaporean Hamburger Battle by Joakim Enegren, Namaste Express Now you know what my visit to Singapore was all about. Please don't tell my wife. **** Your Accusations Against Singapore Are Scandalous by Chan Heng Chee, Ambassador of Singapore to the United States, Wall Street Journal The fundamental disagreement between Singapore and the Journal (and its sister publications) has been that you want to force Singapore to change its rules to comply with U.S. norms, so that journalists will not be sued even if they denigrate our judiciary or publish false, defamatory articles. This was the basic issue over which The Asian Wall Street Journal and the Far Eastern Economic Review clashed with the Singapore government two decades ago. We allowed these journals to resume circulation after they signaled clearly that they would henceorth abide by Singpaore laws. But as shown by your articles, affidavits filed on your behalf in court, and statements made by your counsel, you are now again campaigning for a change in the laws. **** AirAsia Pioneer Talks About More KL-Singapore Flights by Jennifer Chen, Today "My aim now is to tell people that we are as good as ... in the back end. I think we can be as good in the economy section. That's my goal before I leave my job as CEO." **** Singapore Does Uphold Human Rights' Norms by Koh Jie Kai, The Online Citizen **** Singapore Arrivals Plunge by AviationRecord.com **** Benchmarks For Homeschooling Students by Tan Teck Ann, Ministry Of Education, Straits Times The PSLE benchmarks for designated schools (madrasahs and San Yu Adventist School) and homeschooling students were developed while taking into account the profile of the students who wish to be exempted from Compulsory Education, and were set after public consultation. The benchmarks and the need to meet these benchmarks from this year have been communicated to the homeschoolers since 2003. **** Reflections On The DBS-FOTF Faux-Pas by Musings I think DBS did what they did simply because they believed it was the right thing to do. And for that, I say yay for DBS. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Fri Dec 5 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 5 Dec 2008 18:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 5, 2008 Message-ID: <20081205181501.67705.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** The Debate Resumes Over Mac Security by Michael DeAgonia, Computerworld The BSD code underpinning Mac OS X goes a long way toward preventing malware problems — as any Linux and Unix user can attest - and there's a decided lack of interest in the Mac from cybercriminals. **** More Big Names Downsiging, Pulling Out Of Macworld Expo by Aidan Malley and Kasper Jade, AppleInsider Those familiar with show organizer IDG's trouble snote that the Adobe pullout has now been accompanied by Belkin and Seagate. The move is deemed especially surprising for Belkin, which is believed to have already paid for its booth space this year. **** Apple More Closed Than Microsoft by Dale Vile, The Register Those of us making a more objective assessment of what's going on look at how Apple's business is evolving and see a lot of similar traits to those that were apparent as Microsoft was gaining power. **** Apple In-Ear Headphones Hands-On, Ears-On, And Impressions by Joshua Topolsky, Engadget They not only sound really, /really/ good (warm lows and crisp highs, a distinct lack of that modern, pushy mid-range), but they /do/ work with the iPhone (the 3G we've got here, at least). **** FuzzMeasure Pro 3.1 Brings New Measurements by MacNN **** Apple Faces Another 3G Speed Lawsuit by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld **** Smartphone Numbers Are In: iPhone Sales Exceed Windows Mobile Sales For First Time by Darren Murph, Engadget **** Review: 17-Inch MacBook Pro 2.5GHz by James Galbraith, Macworld The changes to this latest version are subtle, and there are, most likely, more substantial changes for Apple's largest laptop down the road, but if you can stand carrying the extra weight, or require a matte screen, the 17-inch MacBook Pro is a big, beautiful, and fast portable. **** Netflix Offers Up Streaming To All Mac Users by Dan Moren, Macworld **** Minimize Desktop Distractions by Doug McLean, TidBITS **** Google Brings Google Earth To Mac Browsers by David Chartier, Ars Technica **** Apple, AT&T Ask Court To Dismiss 3G Speed Lawsuit by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Back-Button To The Future by Erica Naone, MIT Technology Review A new tool makes it easier to see the web changing over time. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** 'Wishful Drinking' By Carrie Fisher by Matthew DeBord, Los Angeles Times You could say this book is a blistering stream of witty comments, or a dazzling romp through the experiences of a woman who once sought drug-addiction counsel from Cary Grant. But it isn't really about any of that. It's about the dizzying, dissonant music of Carrie Fisher's existence. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Nuclear Power Possible: PM by AFP Singapore may consider using nuclear power and culd even look into building an underground plant because of its limited space, prime minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Friday. **** Singapore Unsure Where Militant Is by AFP Singapore does not know if the country's most wanted man is still in the country more than nine months after the alleged Jemaah Islamiah terror cell leader escaped from detention, prime minister Lee Hsien Loong says. "We don't know. He could be here, he could be overseas," Lee said. Two months after the escape, home affairs minister Wong Kan Seng told parliament that security agencies believed Kastari was still in Singapore, but analysts said Kastari had likely fled to nearby Indonesia. **** Muddy Singapore Swallows China Workers by Au Waipang, Yawning Bread The source of the problem is the employer, but by action or inaction, our government is abetting all these abuses, ranging from cheating people of their wages, to robbery of their handphones, to kidnap. **** Singapore's Lee Defends Performance Of Temasek, GIC In Banks by Shamim Adam and Chen Shiyin, Bloomberg Singapore's prime minister Lee Hsien Loong defended the performance of the city's state-owned investment companies after a plunge in the value of their stakes in Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and other global banks. "The situation looks a lot gloomier now than when went in but these are long-term investment. It looks under water now, but the situation can change," Lee told the Foreign Correspondents Asociation at a lunch today. "But if you are taking a long-term view, you have to be in on the downs as well as the ups." **** Sustainable Singapore - My Trip To Marina Barrage by City-State Life Environmentalism is big here. Lot of 'green' promotions and recycling centers. Interestingly, I rarely see bottle/plastic recycling, but they are getting there. **** Responsible Blogging, Self-Censoring? by Deadpris **** Singapore Fling by Ivy Ong-Wood, The Standard Ever since I came to Hong Kong a year ago, I've been on a quest for genuine Singapore/Malaysian food I know from home. It hasn't been easy, as most I've tasted have been watered down to suit the local palate. But I'm glad to say I have located two that have stuck to their guns and are serving the spicy cuisine as authentically as possible. **** Expat Life In Singapore: Sitting Comfortably? by Rosie Milne, Telegraph **** Death Over CCA: Every Child's Voice Should Be Heard by Samuel Wittberger, Straits Times **** Would Singaporean Be The Last To Be Retrenched? by Alice Cheong In Wonderland **** Senior Counsel Davinder Singh To Advise MAS On Lehman Proceedings by Ng Baoying, Channel NewsAsia From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Sat Dec 6 13:15:02 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 6 Dec 2008 18:15:02 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 6, 2008 Message-ID: <20081206181502.89206.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Steve Jobs Keeps MacFaithful Guessing by David Needle, InternetNews There's not much doublt, health concerns aside, that Apple CEO Steve Jobs will give the keynote early next month at Macworld Expo in San Francisco. But pity the show producers. You'd have to think they would love the chance to promote Macworld Expo months in advance as featuring a keynote by the best known CEO in tech with a penchant for taking the wraps off brand new products and technology. No such luck. **** Top 10 Apple Stories Of 2008 by Mitch Wagner, InformationWeek With the launch of MacBook Air, an improved iPhone and smashing sales in the Apps Store, Apple sliced through the global economic gloom of 2008 and turned in a solid year. **** Apple Sees 300 Million App Store Downloads by Marin Perez, InformationWeek Apple announced Friday it has had over 300 million downloads from its App Store, a whopping total considering the store opened only five months ago. **** Hidden SDK Features Transform iPhone Into TV Gaming Device by Erica Sadun, Ars Technica **** Electric Entertainment: Inside Job by Joe Cellini, Apple **** OpeniMac Try To Pick Up Where Psystar Is Leaving Off by Sean Fallon, Gizmodo An Agrentinian company is choosing to push their luck by building more Mac clones. **** Review: Apple LED Cinema Display by James Galbraith, Macworld Its lack of compatibility with other Macs and its lack of customization settings are disappointing, but it's a good fit for its limited target audience. **** Promising Prospect: Hyperspaces by Dan Frakes, Macworld For making quick switches and adjustments to your Spaces configuration, and for making it easier to identify different workspaces, Hyperspaces looks like a promising prospect. **** Group Minimized Windows In Witch by Rob Griffiths, Macworld **** Safari 3.2 Plus Input Managers Equals Crashes by Ted Landau, Macworld Input Managers are on the way out. And while they may still work for now, don't count on things to go smoothly. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Thieves Winning Online War, Maybe In Your PC by John Markoff, New York Times Internet security is broken, and nobody seems to know quite how to fix it. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Onion Nation by Wells Tower, Washington Post If its absurdist twists and wicked parodies of conventional journalism are just a joke, the country's leading satirical newspaper is having the last laugh. **** The Rich Satisfaction Of A Decadent Ingredient by T. Susan Chang, Boston Globe Jennifer McLagan's cookbooks are joyously contrarian affairs. In 2005, she published the finger-licking and terrific "Bones." Now she has "Fat." This is no quick-and-easy book featuring chicken cutlets with breakfast cereal "crust." It's a rollicking journey through the kingdom of unrepentant, glorious, and filthy rich fat. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Singapore May Face U.S. Challenge On Bank Secrecy Laws by Neil Chatterjee, Kevin Lim and Jan Dahinten, Reuters **** MM Lee, Climate Change And Air-Conditioning by Random Thoughts Of A Free Thinker **** My Stories About Singapore by Bald Runner **** My Singapore, My Calcutta by Mathia Lee **** Singapore Hopes For Smooth Leadership Transition by New Straits Times The republic hopes there will be a smooth transition of leadership in Malaysia when prime minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi steps down next March. Lee Hsien Loong said Malaysia had gone through a number of major political developments in recent months and he hoped the power transition in Malaysia would go well. **** Students Cautioned Against Singapore Educational Institutions by PTI Students in Sri Lanka have been cautioned against pursuing courses in certain institutions in Singapore which charge high fees and fail to fulfil the promise of providing immediate jobs. **** Report Card For Town Councils by Mavis Toh, Straits Times A report card on the performance of town councils will be drawn up next year and one possible new indicator is the adequacy of town councils' resident sinking funds, said senior minister of state for national development Grace Fu. **** Educating DBS by Au Waipang, Yawning Bread We're confident that bit by bit, we are nudging corporate social responsibility in the right direction. **** Fourty Years Of Human Rights "Corruption" By The PAP by Fang Zhi Yuan, The Wayang Party Club Of Singapore Without human rights, we will never have political or economic rights. Instead of waiting for the pAP to throw us crumbs of "rights" which should be rightfully ours, why not fight for it and demand an equal share of what we truly deserve? **** Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve To Undergo Expansion by Valarie Tan, Channel NewsAsia A draft masterplan was launched on Saturday to expand the 130-hectare Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve. There will also be rooms for nature experts to conduct research. **** TOC Exclusive - MP Instructs TC Manager After Meeting Minister: "We Will NOT Disclose Any Further Details" On TC Investments by Choo Zheng Xi, The Online Citizen In the email, Dr Ahmad Magad of Pasir-Ris Punggol GRC seems to tell his town council general manager not to reveal any more information "beyond what we have already uploaded on line..." Could it be that mnisters are giving different instruction in private than they are in public? From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Sun Dec 7 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 7 Dec 2008 18:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 7, 2008 Message-ID: <20081207181501.11507.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Wireless Turns iPod Into A Phone by BBC News A freeware application for the iPod Touch can turn the music player into a virtual mobile phone. **** Apple's Munich Opening Is Mobbed - In Fullscreen Panorama by Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Fortune MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Biomorality by Steven Lenzner, Weekly Standard The uses and abuss of science in political life. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Singapore Intelligence by Flight Of The Avocados This country is a melting pot of the Asian elite. One has to be pretty well-off to live here. Besides being a playground for everything posh and high-end, it really is a melting pot of cultures. **** The Last Non-Airconditioned Single Deck Bus Bows Out Of Service by Singapore Bus Page **** State Media: Town Council Fiasco - It's Time To Move On!! by Eugene Yeo, The Wayang Party Club Of Singapore The PAP wants us to pay them first world salaries for transparency and accountability in the government. Where is the transparency? Where is the accountability? From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Mon Dec 8 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 8 Dec 2008 18:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 8, 2008 Message-ID: <20081208181501.88457.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Apple Computer: The (Very) Early Years by Stan Veit, Computer Shopper We were just beginning to realize that the Computer Mart of New York might be a success beyond our dreams and that the little space in Polk's Hobby Store might not be enough, when I received a phone call. It was a very fast-talking young man who told me, "I'm Steve Jobs." **** How Apple, Others Have Cultivated Religious Followings by Martin Lindstrom, Advertising Age Have some brands actually managed to create their own religions by, coincidentally or deliberately, adopting triggers and tactics from the world of religion? **** Apple Is Greener Than Greenpeace Says by Arik Hesseldahl, BusinessWeek That Apple continues to fall short says less about Apple's standing as an environmentally friendly company than it does about the company's willingness to play by all of Greenpeace's occasionally inconsistent and illogical rules. **** Apple To Sell iPhones In Wal-Mart Stores This Month by Connie Guglielmo, Bloomberg Employees in the cell-phone departments at five California stores, contacted by phone today, said Wal-Mart will offer iPhones by the end of December. Employees are currently being trained on how to sell the device, all five said. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** The Freedoms That Technologies Help Bring by Noam Cohen, New York Times MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Fought Over Any Good Books Lately? by Joanne Kaufman, New York Times What happens when there is more drama in the book club than there is in the books? **** My Autopsy by Michael Dickman, New Yorker **** Acting Like A Tree by Jonathan Aaron, New Yorker SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** A Public Enemy In Singapore by Fred Hiatt, Washington Post Canadian lawyer Robert Amsterdam, who is assisting Chee Soon Juan, said that in his experience, which includes representing persecuted clients in Russia and elsewhere, governments do not go to great lengths to monopolize the media and control speech unless there is something they would rather their people not know. If he is right, Chee Soon Juan's rap sheet would indicate there is much this government would rather not share with its public. **** The Importance Of Speaking Up by Mr Wang Says So Too often, too many Singaporeans fall to speak up on important issues, even issues that should concern them directly. **** Singapore Maneuvers In Response To Chee by Garry Rodan, Far Eastern Economic Review Singapore Democratic Party leader Chee Soon Juan may have been neutralized as an electoral force, but he exerts a growing influence on the political agenda of the PAP. **** Wife Of Ex-NKF Chair Guilty by Selina Lum, Straits Times The wife of former NKF chairman Richard Yong pleaed guilty in Hong Kong on Monday to a charge of money laundering, more than a year after she and her husband were arrested in the territory. **** Why Are Singaporeans Emigrating? by Byon's Blog We look around us and see all the privileges handed out to foreigners on silver platters on a regular basis and wonder what is it we serve National Service for. **** The Extent Of Apathy In Singapore by Mathia Lee **** Is Fear Of Politics Keeping Worthy Singaporeans From Public Office? by Fang Zhi Yuan, The Wayang Party Club Of Singapore **** Raise Service Standards: As Bus Lanes And Bus-Bay Exits Take Effect by Ang Eng Liang, Straits Times LTA needs to observe carefully whether such time-saving benefits have been passed on to commuters or have been absorbed by bus companies in their incessant quest to cut cost and maximise profits. **** Transparency, Please, ICA by Gerald Giam **** Opposition Parties: No Time To Cross Swords by The Online Citizen **** Dr Teo Ho Pin, Where Is Our Money? by Dhevanrajan, The Online Citizen We do not need stock replies and interviews from you reassuring us. We want to know the exact details of your investments. And don't you dare keep referring us to the annual reports as if they contain the information we want. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Sat Dec 13 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 13 Dec 2008 18:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 13, 2008 Message-ID: <20081213181501.20263.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Hack Of The Clones: Why Apple Can't Stop The Copies by Brian X. Chen, Wired Just hours after announcing plans to sell a high-end Mac clone, niche electronics reseller EFI-X changed course in order to avoid a nasty legal confrontation with Apple. **** Apple: "The iPhone Is A Gaming Console" by Joshua Topolsky, Engadget **** How Many U.S. Jobs Does The Apple iPod Create? by Michael Mandel, BusinessWeek The answer: 13,920, including engineering and retail. But there are 27,250 iPod-related jobs created outside the U.S. **** The Digital Home Hub Is Finally Happening by Charles Arthur, The Guardian It's taken a long time - seven years to be precise - but the promises of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates from 2001 are finally coming true. **** Review: World Of Goo by Chris Holt, Macworld World of Goo is a trippy puzzle game that pushes your knowledge of physics to its gooey limits in a post-modernistic setting. Fun, quirky, and highly-addictive, World of Goo is one of the most entertaining puzzle games to come to the Mac in years. **** No Jobs At Macworld? by Daniel H. Steinberg, O'Reilly Digital Media Blog Is there no Apple keynote at Macworld? **** Apple Adds New Genre As PullMyFinger Makes It To App Store by Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica **** Amju Pet Zoo Released For Mac by Peter Cohen, Macworld In Amju Pet Zoo, you find eggs and hatch them to make your own zoo of little animals. You can feed them and watch them grow, and when they grow up, they make more eggs, which you can also care for. **** App Store Tweaks Give Paid Apps More Exposure by Chris Foresman, Ars Technica Apple has added sidebars that highlight the top 20 paid and free apps separately. **** Converting From Now Up-To-Date To iCal And BusySync by Adam C. Engst, TidBITS MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Choosing Not To Choose by T.M. Shine, Washington Post Ever feel lost in a maze of too many options? Here's how one man let indecision be his friend. **** Don't Say The D Word by Justin Fox, Time "Shall we call it a depression now?" **** Salad Days by Nick Laird, New York Times It was on the volcanic island of Santorini, in a whitewashed restaurant perched on the clifftop with views across the lagoon and out to the vast horizon, that I encountered a Roquefort salad. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Time To Lift Singapore-Malaysia Newspaper Ban by Raymond Lo, Straits Times In this globalised and digital age, the ban on Malaysian papers in Singapore and Singapore newspapers in Malaysia makes no sense. **** Social Mores Online Creating Ripples by Seah Chiang Nee, The Star There is no doubt that the level of permissiveness has risen — and will continue to rise — throughout the island, with youths the most affected. **** He Refuses To Pay, Faces Cut-Off Of Water Supply by Amanda Yong and Lediati Tan, New Paper **** PAP Engagement In The Internet: Beyond Coutner-Insurgency by The Void Deck Despite the shift in styles of engagement, the internet constituency will largely remain sceptical of the substance the PAP swirls around in the blogs, social media networks etc. **** Enough Is Enough by Yaw Shin Leong **** Smoking Ban To Be Extended To All Indoor Public Places By Jan 2009 by Lynda Hong, Channel NewsAsia From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Sun Dec 14 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 14 Dec 2008 18:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 14, 2008 Message-ID: <20081214181500.86294.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** There's Gold In Them iPhones by Daniel Lyons, Newsweek Some kid in his bedroom can make a million bucks just by writing a little application for the Apple phone. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** "Don't Save Face, Go To C-Class Wards," Says Tan Kin Lian by Terence Lee, The Online Citizen Helathcare in Singapore is affordable as long as one is willing to accept the B2 and C-class wards without fear of losing face, said Mr Tan Kin Lian at a forum on economic rights. **** Decision On Allowing Cycling On Tampines Footpaths Expected After Jan 31 by Asha Popatlal, Channel NewsAsia **** School Killed Confidence And Creativity? by Mathia Lee Our education system that breeds a culture where there is a right answer to everything, and that right answer is determined by qualified authorities opens up a huge potential for abuse, where qualified authorities recommend policies out of their own self-interest, and no one questions them because of the strength of their qualifications. **** Reply From Singapore Authorities On Their Israeli Delegation Trip by Readings From A Political Duo-ble **** Turning The Tables In Asia by Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop, Newsweek >From SHanghai to Singapore, gourmets have been partaking of the finest European cuisines, while wealthy businessmen entertaining clients have spent thousands of dollars on the best wines in the world. **** Singapore's Star Rises As Switzerland Stumbles by Neil Chatterjee and John O'Donnell, Reuters As pressure mounts on Switzerland's flagship bank UBS and the country's secrecy code comes under fire from the United States and Germany, Singapore's star as a haven for the super-rich is rising fast. With close ties to powerful Asia, Singapore is in a stronger position to resist pressure from the U.S. than rival Switzerland or Alpine retreat Liechtenstein, which recently partially surrendered bank secrecy. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Mon Dec 15 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 15 Dec 2008 18:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 15, 2008 Message-ID: <20081215181500.98848.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Dream Pinball 3D by David Allen, Inside Mac Games **** Review: NovaMind Platinum 4.6.1 by Stuart Gripman, Macworld NovaMind Platinum 4.6.1 gets high marks for a deep feature set and excellent user interface. If you regularly edit complicated mind maps, performance issues may dampen yourenthusiasm. Still, if you're looking for a full-featured mind-mapping tool, NovaMind should be on your short list. **** Researcher: Apple Safari, Google Chrome Password Managers Need Work by Robert McMillan, Macworld UK Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome browsers could do a better job of protecting passwords, according to a security researcher who released a study of browser password managers on Friday. **** Is iTunes The Evolution Of Music? Maybe Not by Reuters Where iTunes fits into album sales strategies will almost certainly be one of the main topics of 2009 and beyond. **** Apple App Addiction by Joe Wilcox, eWeek App Store is a potentially killer platform because the devices are so personal and people can't give up the applications. **** In IBM, HP And Apple We Trust by Ellen Messmer, Network World **** The MacBook Air's Fatal Wireless Flaw by Brooke Crothers, CNET News.com Because of the price and the way it's marketed, 3G should be built in. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Palm Pins Its Hopes On Nova by Peter Burrows, BusinessWeek The smartphone maker debuts its new operating system, code-named Nova, at January's CES. Palm says its phones for it will bridge the BlackBerry-iPhone gap. **** Google Not Turning Its Back On Network Neutrality by Om Malik, GigaOM **** You Have Too Much Mail by Christopher F. Chabris, Wall Street Journal Our brains, overloaded and distracted now, evolved in a simpler environment. **** Google Wants Its Own Fast Track On The Web by Vishesh Kumar and Christopher Rhoads, Wall Street Journal The celebrated openness of the internet — network providers are not supposed to give preferential treatment to any traffic — is quietly losing powerful defenders. Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Google has traditionally been one of the loudest advocates of equal network access for all content providers. **** A Software Secretary That Takes Charge by John Markoff, New York Times Shouldn't your computer know a reasonable amount about your likes and dislikes? Wouldn't it be great if it could anticipate your needs and take action without you pressing a key? MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Rhyming Name Dropper Returns by Dwight Garner, New York Times /Fair readers, hail! Now here's a teaser:
Who's this pale, familiar geezer
Appearing through the mists of time
Atop a tow'r of creaky rhyme?/ With those lines in this week's issue of The New Yorker magazine, Roger Ngell introduces himself — or, rather, reintroduces himself — at the start of a page-long holiday poem titled "Greetings, Friends!" **** The Fifth Season by Arthur Vogelsang, New Yorker **** Thread by Dan Chiasson, New Yorker **** Greetings, Friends! by Roger Angell, New Yorker **** Shop And Awe by Joy Press, Salon Yesterday I did something that made me feel sickened and confused: I went Christmas shopping. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Singapore Oct Retail Sales Fall As Recession Bites by Associated Press Singapore's retail sales fell in October, more evidence the city-state's economy likely contracted for a third straight quarter as dwingling consumer demand adds to drops in manufaturing and exports. **** Labour Market, Third Quarter 2008 by Ministry Of Manpower, Singapore Government The labour market shows signs of softening as a result of the global downturn. **** No Salary Increase For Part-Time Workers In 9 Years? by Leong Sze Hian, The Online Citizen **** The Art Of Passing The Buck by Andrew Loh, The Online Citizen This woeful lack of accountability and transparency, and not to mention responsibility, is characteristic of a government and a party which have become too arrogant. But more importantly, it is a danger for a country which puts so much stock in its finances and economy to just sweep such failures under the carpet. **** Defence Minister Teo Outlines Strategies For Dealing With Security Challenges by Patwant Singh, Channel NewsAsia From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Tue Dec 16 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 16 Dec 2008 18:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 16, 2008 Message-ID: <20081216181500.28308.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Apple Loses Some Shine As Mac Sales Slow by Yukari Iwatani Kane and Justin Scheck, Wall Street Journal Apple, which has outpaced the overall personal computer market this year despite its strategy of eschewing discounts, showed its first signs of weakness in November. Sales of Macs in U.S. stores last month declined 1% from a year ago, while industry-wide PC sales rose 2%, according to research firm NPD Group Inc., which tracks retail sales. **** Apple Debuts Two Holiday Get A Mac Ads by Cory Bohon, The Unofficial Apple Weblog **** Aluminum MacBook Review by Patrick Braga, The Unix Geek **** Apple iPhone Vs. Blackberry Storm by Agile UI It doesn't really matter if one product is "better" than another, what matters is whether it provides "a better experience for me." **** Apple Kills iPhone App, Claiming API Violation by Tom Krazit, CNET News.com Apple has rejected an iPhone application that supposedly uses off-limits technology just like Google's mobile application—only the developer swears it's not true. **** 'MacHeads' Film To Debut At Macworld by Daniel Terdiman, CNET News.com **** An Apple A Day by Ginny Miller, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal While playing around at home with her new Apple MacBook, Valnisi came across a reference to field trips. One thing led to another, and last month some of her students got a technology treat at the Apple store in Germantown, Tenn. **** What Your iPod Says About You by Elizabeth Woyke and Brian Caulfield, Forbes Apple was the first company to realize that gizmo players are as much about personal expression as they are about function. **** Apple's 24-Inch LED Cinema Display Rreview by Darren Murph, Engadget The 24-inch LED Cinema Display is a well thought-out product. It's the first display that isn't ashamed to be built for notebook owners, and the simple inclusions that make it unique are incredibly handy and entirely useful. **** DRM's Lingering Hold At iTunes by Jon Healey, Los Angeles Times What seems clear is that the issue is caught up in the long-running negotiations between the labels and Apple over variable pricing. The truly strange thing here is that neither side is well served by DRM. **** Apple's iPhone Takes Off by Tom Krazit, CNET News.com While 2007 might have seemed like the year of the iPhone, Apple will probably look back on 2008 as the year it became a cell phone company. **** 10.5.6 Update Disables Direct iPhone Pwnage Jailbreak by Erica Sadun, Ars Technica **** Apple Lists Carriers With Authorized iPhone Unlocks by MacNN Apple is now listing which countries and carriers around the world are carrying unlocked versions of the iPhone, the company's website reveals. **** Apple Releases Securty Update 2008-008 For Tiger, Server by David Chartier, Ars Technica **** Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.5.6 by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld A big chnage has been made for users of Apple's MobileMe syncing service. According to Apple, contacts, calendars, and bookmarks on a Mac automatically sync within a minute of the change being made on the computer, another device, or the web at me.com. See Also: A Deeper Look At Mac OS X 10.5.6 , by Rob Griffiths, Macworld. **** BBEdit 9.1 Improves FTP Performance by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld Bare Bones Software released an update for its HTML and text editor, BBEdit, on Monday, adding a new font and improving the performance of FTP. **** New Mac Notebooks Still Having Problems With 4GB Of RAM by Justin Berka, Ars Technica Many owners of the new laptops have had their machines crash frequently with 4GB of memory installed. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Journal Steps In Net Neutrality Hornet's Nest by Scott Rosenberg, Wordyard **** The Made-Up Dramas Of THe Wall Street Journal by Larry Lessig MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Get Along Without A Pinkie? It's Tougher Than You Might Think by Dana Scarton, New York Times The pinkie, the humble fifth finger, has long been viwed as a decorative accessory, something to extend daintily from a wine glass. So what would you lose if you didn't have one? **** Specializing In Problems That Only Seem Impossible To Solve by Bina Venkataraman, New York Times For Dr. Fridrich, tackling an impossible puzzle is not a hobby, and the Rubik's Cube is not simply a game. They are obsessions. **** "The Wind In The Willows" At 100 by Gary Kamiya, Salon Mole, Rat, Toad and Badget kept me up late reading as a kid. Now I love Kenneth Grahame's classic even more. **** So Your Kitchen Is Tiny. So What? by Mark Bittman, New York Times I'm here to help you feel better. **** Leaving Literature Behind by Bruce Fleming, Chronicle Of Higher Education The good news is that we've created a discipline: literary studies. The bad news is that we've made ourselves rulers of a realm that has separated itself almost completely from the rest of the world. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Rolex Appeal Fades As Recession Blues Hit Singapore by Melanie Lee, Reuters **** The Possibility Of The Impossible Wage Increase In Singapore by Mr Wang Says So The essential question is - in these bad times, how would companies be able to afford a relatively generous 4% wage increase? A rather brutal answer came to my mind. The 4% wage increase would be possible, if firms retrenched more employees now. /Of course, a recession will not affect everyone equally. There will be retrenchments, but there will also be jobs that will still pay well./ **** Singapore Safe From Tsunamis by Liaw Wy Cin, Straits Times A two-year study has confirmed what has been anecdotally known about Singapore - that its shorelines are relatively safe from tsunamis. **** Singapore To Convene Wage Council, May Cut Pensions by Reuters Singapore will convene its National Wages Council (NWC) in early January, four months ahead of schedule, in what economists say may be a prelude to a cut in employers' pension contributions. The government last cut employers' contributions to the CPF, the retirement fund for Singaporean workers, by 3 percentage points to 13 percent in October 2003 to help firms cope with the effects of the SARS outbreak. **** National Wages Council To Reconvene In January 2009 by Ministry Of Manpower, Singapore Government The National Wage Council (NWC) will reconvene in early January 2009 to review its guidelines issued in May this year. **** Jobs Available In Singapore by Blowin' In The Wind The current recession looks set to turn Singapore into a nation of teachers and civil servants. **** Weird Cases: Kangaroo Court by Gary Slapper, The Times **** Bye-Bye Causeway Checkpoint, Hello CIQ by Farik Zolkepli, The Star After 41 years of being in operation, the Malaysia-Singapore Causeway checkpoint finally closed its doors at 12.01 am on Tuesday. **** Singapore Air Traffic Falls Most In Five Years On Recession by Anand Krishnamoorthy, Bloomberg Singapore Airlines Ltd., the world's largest carrier by market value, reported its biggest slump in traffic in more than five years as a global recession cuts travel demand. **** Fremont Attorney, Activist Home After Four-Month Detention In Singapore by Matthew Artz, The Argus In standing up for free speech in his native Singapore, Gopalan Nair unwittingly thrust himself into a one-man economic crisis. **** Singapore Sets A More Humane Cap To Caning by Mitch Kowalski, National Post **** Drug Smugglers Using Singapore For Transit - Report by Reuters Drug smugglers are increasingly using Singapore as a transit point to ship heroin to the United States and Europe, despite some of the world's strictest drug laws in the city-state, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. **** Important For HDB To Reveal Building Costs by See Leong Kit, The Online Citizen For the average Singaporean, his HDB flat is the single most expensive purchase item in his lifetime. Thus, it is important for HDB to clear to air once-and-for-all by providing transparent replies to the above two simple questions, and disclosing detailed cost figures for its Pinnacle project. /It is to the government's advantage to keep prices artificially high, it seems./ **** Sister Stands Outside Classes Daily To Take Note For Sick Girl by Genevleve Jiang, New Paper From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Wed Dec 17 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 17 Dec 2008 18:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 17, 2008 Message-ID: <20081217181500.288.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** iPhone 3G Successfully Unlocked By Hackers by Dan Moren, Macworld Five months after the release of the iPhone 3G last July, a team of hackers has finally figured out a way to alter the device's software so that it can be unlocked for use on networks other than AT&T's in the US for example. **** Control Freak Steve Jobs's Chaotic Macworld No-Show News by Owen Thomas, ValleyWag I think there must have been a ferocious debate within Apple about whether he should go on with his keynote, which was brought to a head by the /BusinessWeek/ story. It's the opposite of how Jobs likes to operate. And it's the clearest sign that something is wrong with Jobs. **** Why The Mac Mini Is The Best Mac On The Market by Don Reisinger, CNET News.com Besides pricing, the Mac Mini offers the best value of any Mac on the market. **** Battery Life Still Bane Of Apple iPhone User Experience by Alexander Wolfe, InformationWeek **** Mac OS X 10.5.6 Users Report Crashes, Blue Screens by Paul McDougall, InformationWeek Apple's latest update to its Leopard operating system, OS X 10.5.6, appears to be creating more problems than it's fixing on users' Macs. **** AT&T Starts Selling Refurbished iPhones by Antone Gonsalves, InformationWeek **** Without Macworld, How Will Apple Create The Buzz? by Tom Krazit, CNET News.com It may seem obvious to say this, but Apple's performance in the future will mostly rely on the quality of its products rather than its marketing vehicle of choice. **** Why Is Steve Jobs Skipping Macworld? by Josh Quittner, Time Why wait until the last minute and raise the obvious questions about Jobs's health? **** Apple At Expo: What Went Wrong? by Jason Snell, Macworld I don't want Macworld San Francisco 2010 to be like Macworld Boston 2005. But that's still the most likely scenario, and it's a crying shame. I may understand Apple's motivation, but I can't agree with it. Macworld Expo and its community of users and vendors deserve better. **** The End Of An Era For Macworld Expo by Rob Griffiths, Macworld For the developers, and for myself and my fellow mebers of the Mac community, I really hope that Macworld Expo finds a way to survive and thrive in the post-Apple era. Unfortunately, it seems to me that Macworld Expo is now like a mall that's lost its large anchor tenant. While the mall may continue to operate for some period of time, the number of shoppers will decline, smaller retailers will fold up shop, and—eventually—the mall will close with a whimper, leaving people only with memories of what used to be. **** Politics Not Pancreas The Reason For Jobs' Macworld Exit by Jim Goldman, CNBC Steve Jobs is fine. It's Macworld the expo that's on its last legs. **** Netbook From Apple Next Month? Don't Bet On It! by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, ZDNet.com This whole brouhaha is based on little more than speculation, and to me it seems highly unlikely. See Also: Apple 'Netbooks', Eh? , by John Gruber, Daring Fireball. **** Mac Sales Down? Hold On Just A Minute! by Arik Hesseldahl, BusinessWeek By nearly any measure November of 2008 is difficult to compare to November of 2007. **** Adobe Lightroom 2.2 Now Available by Nick Spence, Macworld UK Adobe Lightroom 2.2 includes additional camera raw support for a range of camera makes and models and numerous bug fixes. **** iCash 5.0 Offers Personal Finance Tools by MacNN **** Does Apple Need To Learn How To Make A $500 Computer That's Not A Piece Of Junk? by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, ZDNet.com The problem is most of these people would like a cheap Mac because they are disillusioned with their cheap PCs. I don't think that cheap Macs are the answer. **** NVIDIA: MacBook Pro GPU Material Not Faulty by Electronista **** Apple Announces Its Last Year At Macworld Expo, No Jobs Keynote by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld Apple on Tuesday announced that Macworld Conference & Expo 2009 will be the company's last. The company also said Steve Jobs will not deliver his traditional keynote at the event htis year. In his place, Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, will deliver the keynote on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 at the Moscone West hall. /The shifting of Apple's product releases timetable is almost completed, a decade later./ See Also: IDG: Macworld Expo Still On For 2010, Even Without Apple , by Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica. **** AOL Releases AIM 1.0 For OS X by Dan Moren, Macworld **** Pair Of Mac Fandom Films To Be Shown At Macworld Expo by Derik DeLong and Cyrus Farivar, Macworld The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Avoiding The Uncanny Valley Of User Interface by Jeff Atwood, Coding Horror MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Sewage Has Its Say by Steven Cramer, Slate **** Twenty Years On: Internalising The Fatwa by Kenan Malik, Spiked Twenty years later, the Rushdie Affair seems equally like a conflict from a different age - but for the opposite reason. Not only have the issues that it raised - the nature of Islam, and its relationship to the West; the meaning of multiculturalism; the boundaries of tolerance in a liberal society; the limits of free speech in a plural world - become some of the defining problems of the age. But the politics of the pre-Rushdie age are now what seems anomalous. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** 'Old Faithful' To Go In Three Months by New Straits Times **** Singapore Reports Fall In Shipping Traffic by John Burton, Financial Times Singapore, the world's biggest container port, suffered last month its first fall in throughput traffic since 2001 due to a slowdown in global exorts that has affected the Asian shipping industry. **** Traffic Jams, Confusion At Newly Opened Malaysian Checkpoint by Cheryl Lim Mei Ling, Channel NewsAsia Motorists at the checkpoint were greeted with long queues, traffic confusion and teething problems. See Also: Massive Traffic Congestion At CIQ , by The Star. The congestion involved traffic into Johor that snaked all the way to Woodlands in Singapore during peak hours due to motorists being caught off guard that the toll collectin system at the complex was cashless. **** North East CDC Sees 25% Spike In Number Of Walk-Ins Looking For Jobs by Asha Popatlal, Channel NewsAsia Unlike the past, there is a significant number of professionals, managers and executives who are also seeking help. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Thu Dec 18 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 18 Dec 2008 18:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 18, 2008 Message-ID: <20081218181501.1093.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Apple May Not Need Macworld, But Many Apple Partners May by Peter Burrows, BusinessWeek **** That He Not Busy Being Born Is Busy Dying by John Gruber, Daring Fireball It seems so ugly, the way this has gone down — but there's no way to break with tradition in a nice way. **** Shhh... by Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu Speak volumes... by not saying a word : My name is Lesa Snider King and I'm mad at Apple.

Permanent Link to This Post **** Good Reason, Faulty Argument by FarukAt.es Macworld Expo may have been an important venue for many historic Apple announcments, but it's certainly not been the /only/ one over the past ten years and it would be a mistake to give Macworld Expo that kind of credit. **** iPhone Developers Finally Starting To Dictate What Day Their Apps Goes Live In The App Store by Mg Siegler, Venture Beat /If Apple doesn't want IDG to dictate its own launch dates, it shouldn't dictate others' too, obviously./ **** Apple's Snow Leopard Prepares To Show Off Its Spots by Chris Edwards, The Guardian When Appel senior vice-president Phil Schiller gets up on stage at next month's Macworld, a couple of weeks ahead of the Macintosh computer's 25th anniversary, he will have the opportunity to alter the direction of computing. **** 'Jobs Premium' Is Worth Billions by Rob Cox and Richard Beales, New York Times Steve P. Jobs has turned Apple into a technology powerhouse — twice. But how much is he worth to the company? If one compares the value of Apple's revenue streams to the company's market capitalization, nearly $20 billion. **** Schiller Vs. Ballmer: The Inevitable, Unexpected Keynote Smackdown by Harry McCracken, Technologizer **** The Mac Is Dead (Again), Pass The Cider by Ed Burnette, ZDNet.com I think what we need is a Mac run-time layer that lets those great Mac programs work well on other operating systems. /By the time one gets all that underlying libraries running on other platforms, you might as well have ported the entire OS X. Which is no easy task, even for Apple./ **** Tilt Shift Photography On Apple iPhone by James Rivington, TechRadar.com As a novelty app, it could prove to be quite popular among casual snappers. **** Mac Beats All Comers On Reliability, Support... Again by Gregg Keizer, Computerworld For the second year running, Apple Inc.'s computers are the most reliable, and its support is the most dependable of all computer makers selling in the U.S., a national chain of computer service shops said today. **** How Apple Could Survive Without Steve Jobs by Justin Scheck and Nick Wingfield, Wall Street Journal There is reason for optimism, based on the evolution of the team that develops Apple's hardware, software and services, some people familiar with the company's internal workings say. Some of them believe the group is now strong enough that, barring an exodus of top talent, the company could keep churning out innovative products without Mr. Jobs. **** Dave "Switch" Taylor: Producing M.I.A. by Joe Cellini, Apple **** Apple And Steve Jobs Had Good Reason To Dump Macworld by Andy Ihnatko, Chicaco Sun-Times Folks have wondered about the timing of Apple's announcement, coming as it does just three weeks before Expo. I've seen no hard data supporting to any firm conclusion, but I suspect that it was an act of consideration. If Apple had made this announcement a few months sooner, it would have rightly or wrongly been seen as a tipoff that this would be a good year to stay home. It would have sandbagged the show. **** Fearless: Apple's Macworld Expo Exit Is Part Of Its DNA by John Siracusa, Ars Technica While other companies are paralyzed with indecision, or cling relentlessly to what has worked in the past, or are seduced by sentimentality, Apple is busy murdering its darlings. **** Apple And The Peril Of Innovation by Don Reisinger, CNET News.com Apple's capacity to deliver groundbreaking products every few months at its varous events is severely diminished. Simply put, Apple doesn't want to have to force itself to innovate for the trade show just to satisfy hype-driven media outlets. **** Macworld Expo Minus Apple: Traditions Meet Market Reality by David Morgenstern, ZDNet.com The Macworld Expo has been a way to bring customers and solutions together. That confluence now appears in peril, and it can't be done at the stores. **** Blood Ties by John Samsel, Inside Mac Games Purely as a hidden object game, there are better ones, but there are much worse. What hurts the game most is just the lack of mini-games to add variety. **** Analyst: A Post-Jobs Era Is Looming by Jeff Smykil, Ars Technica **** Migrate Data From PC To Mac by Christopher Breen, Macworld **** Digidesign Releases Pro Tools 8 by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld Among the many changes in Pro Tools 8 is completely redesigned user interface. **** AT&T's Refurbished iPhone 3Gs Are A Lame Deal by Erica Sadun, Ars Technica For that $50 you save, you get a used, possibly scratched unit with a possibly much-reduced warranty and you're /still/ stuck with a two-year commitment. **** iPhone Gaming Is Maturing As More Major Games Join The Fray by Chris Foresman, Ars Technica **** Orange In France Loses iPhone Exclusivity by Mikael Ricknas, IDG News Service The iPhone will no longer be available for just Orange subscribers in France after a decision by the national competition council announced Wednesday. **** Apple Expo Paris Cancelled by Jim Darlymple, Macworld Reed Exhibitions will not hold Apple Expo Paris in 2009. The show organizers confirmed its plans for /Macworld/ on Wednesday. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** In Business, It's Better To Be Mediocre Than Great by Jeff Bertolucci, PC World **** Yahoo To Scrub Personal Data After Three Months by Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service Yahoo said Wednesday it will anonymize most of the data it collects about people's web searches after three months, a move that could put further pressure on competitors Google and Microsoft to do the same due to privacy concerns. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** John Milton's Vision by Theo Hobson, Open Democracy If we are to honour Milton on his 400th birthday we must clealry recognise the persistence of his otherness - the fact that he cannot be claimed as a noble exemplar of the national soul. The nation chose against him, and still does. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Memories @ Old Ford Factory by Yesterday... Today... Tomorrow **** A Few Notes On Singapore by All The Electric Stars Are Shining The Bangladeshi and/or Indonesian construction workers are some of the most shunned and disfavoured people on this island. **** Singapore Mulling A Pensions Cut? by Blowin' In The Wind Why not tell it like it is? /Because cutting CPF rates can be considered a major failure of the current government - the whole point of the variable salary component initiative is to remove the need to use such a blunt instrument in cutting business costs./ **** Will The PAP Allow Singaporeans To Review Its 'Welfare' System? by Fang Zhi Yuan, The Wayang Party Club Of Singapore **** Mukhriz Supports Call For A New Johor-Singapore Bridge by Bernama Umno Youth executive council member Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir has expressed support to the call to revive the construction of a new bridge connecting Johor and Singapore. **** Global Warming Fight: Singapore Ranks Thirty-Eighth by Vijay Ramani, CSR Asia **** Singapore's Exports Decline On Electronics, Drugs by Shamim Adam, Bloomberg Singapore's exports fell the most in more than six years in November as weakening orders for electronics and drugs from developed and emerging markets led to the longest slump in overseas sales since 2002. Singapore's economic growth this year may miss the government's forecast of 2.5 percent as the global economy worsens amid a credit crisis, trade minister Lim Hng Kiang said yesterday. **** Answers To An Unexplainable World by Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu The Explainer is one of the regular features of Slate that I enjoyed. And it has come up with list of questions that it didn't answer this year. And the two questions I'm interested in finding out the answers are: "I live in Washington, D.C., and we have very long escalators coming out of the Metro. If I grabbed the handrail when I first step onto the escalator and did not let go until I was at the top, my body would be almost prostrate across the steps. As I go higher on the escalator, I have to readjust the hand that is grabbing the rubber handrail. Why can't the companies that make escalators sync the steps and the handrails so that they go the same speed?" /Yes, I've noticed this in Singapore's MRT too./ "Why don't humans have a mating season?" /But, honey, this *is* the time./

Permanent Link to This Post **** Bank RM Has Courage And Integrity by Tan Kin Lian A RM of a bank called me. He is willing to come forward to sign a statement that he has been giving the wrong information about the credit-linked notes to the bank customers, due to his ignorance. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Fri Dec 19 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 19 Dec 2008 18:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 19, 2008 Message-ID: <20081219181500.80218.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Steve Jobs Didn't Make The First Macworld, Either by David Bunnell, San Francisco Chronicle **** Steve Jobs Sets His Priorities Right by Joe Wilcox, eWeek There's a saying that you can always get more money. But the same doesn't apply to time. You can't take back time. Steve has given enough time to Apple. **** Where Is Steve Jobs? by Brian X. Chen, Wired **** Apple Sued Over Apple TV by Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek EZ4Media's lawsuit alleges that Apple TV, Airport Express, and Apple Macintosh personal computers infringe four of its patents. **** Apple Offers Advice On 10.5.6 Upgrade Problems by Tom Krazit, CNET News.com In a support document posted to its site, Apple described an issue in which Mac would hang on a "Configuring installation" window when trying to install Mac OS X 10.5.6. That was apparently the result of an incomplete update getting seeded into the Software Update process, and Mac OS X will freak out if it tries to install a partially downloaded update. **** DId Adobe, Belkin, Seagate, And Google Know About The Jobs-Less Macworld? by Chauncey Dupree, 9 To 5 Mac **** Apple Approved 14 New iPhone Fart Apps - Yesterday Alone by Mg Siegler, Venture Beat **** Apple Releases Camera Raw Compatibility Update by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld **** Apple Updates Windows Driver For Multi-Touch Trackpads by Chris Foresman, Ars Technica **** Opinion: The Beginning Of The End For The iMac? by Ian Lamont, The Industry Standard The iMac won't be able to survive a recession, or the unstoppable trend toward less-expensive, smaller, and more powerful compting hardware. **** Apple 'Disappointed' By French Ruling On iPhone by Mikael Ricknas, IDG News Service **** First Look: Songbird by Christopher Breen, Macworld Songbird is a free, open source, cross-platform media player/web browser based on Mozilla's XULRunner platform. **** A Mother's Letter To Apple About Macworld Expo by Tonya Engst, TidBITS Macworld Expo is our family's annual reunion. You don't go to reunions because they are convenient, or because they are cheap. You go to reunions because you are a member of the family, and that's what families do. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Plugging A Password Leak by Rachel Kremen, MIT Technology Review How a simple fix made password managers more secure. **** The Rise Of The Netbook by Erica Ogg, CNET News.com MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** A Walk In The Park by Cindy Price, New York Times For the holiday season, many amusment parks dress up, slow down and attract a different crowd than thrill-seeking teenagers. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Whose City Is It Anyway? by Re-claim **** SIA May Be Forced To Cut Pay, Jobs In 2009 As A Last Resort by Asha Popatlal, Channel NewsAsia **** Standard Chartered Says Temasek Retains 18.8 Pct Stake by AFP **** Congestion At CIQ Complex Not Due To Absence Of Crooked Bridge - Shahrir by Bernama The congestion at the Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) complex in Bukit Chagar, Johor Baharu is not due to the absence of the crooked bridge after the project was cancelled. Domestic trade and consumer affairs minister Datuk Shahrir Abdul Samad who said this, attributed the congestion to the haphazard entry and exit at the complex since the first day it was opened to the public. **** Johor's Border Crush by Diana Othman, Straits Times Malaysian police were called in yesterday to keep the morning crowds in check at the new Johor checkpoint as chaos reigned. Thousands of Malaysian bus commuters pushed, shoved and beat on bus doors, trying to get a seat on a bus travelling to Singapore. **** Singapore Says 10,000 Homes Bought Via Deferred Payment by Kevin Lim, Reuters Singapore said on Friday there were 10,450 uncompleted private homes purchased under the country's deferred payment scheme, revealing for the first time the potential number of homes that may be returned to developers. **** Khaw Boon Wan Still Hasn't Learnt From His NKF Blunder by Eugene Yeo, The Wayang Party Club Of Singapore Why should Singaporeans believe his assessment of the PAP Town Councils this time round? **** Reform School by Sarah Garland, Newsweek An Obama education advisor thinks U.S. schools could take a lesson from Finland and Singapore. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Sat Dec 20 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 20 Dec 2008 18:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 20, 2008 Message-ID: <20081220181500.61453.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** A 'True' Apple Expo? by Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu The question that is on my mind: will Apple organize its own expo-like show? Or mini expos rotating among its stores? Where is Guy Kawasaki to cheer for the third-party developers?

Permanent Link to This Post **** The Silence Of The Fans by Harry McCracken, Technologizer The strongest argument against Silent Keynote is probably this: It's very, very unlikely to make Apple reconsider its decision to end support of Macworld Expo. It might even make it dig in its heels. **** It's OK To Be Mad At Apple But Give Schiller Some Respect by Sam Diaz, ZDNet.com Don't intentionally disrespect Schiller because the company made a business decision that you don't agree with. **** App Store Pricing (It's Not A Free Market!) by AppCubby Ranking apps by volume incentivises cheap gimmicky apps, and makes it difficult for developers to charge a fair price for quality apps. **** Steve Jobs, Tech's Last Celebrity Tech CEO? by Jon Fortt, Fortune With the Apple chief's decision to step out of the spotlight at next month's Macworld Expo, an era comes to an end. **** Aquaria by Franklin Pride, Inside Mac Games If you want the best ten hours (twenty for te completist) of entertainment you've had since World of Goo, Aquaria is definitely worth the $30. **** Ambrosia Releases Fifteenth Anniversary Game Bundle by Peter Cohen, Macworld Ambrosia Software has put together a collection of some of its most popular games, including a few that have been updated to run on newer Macs. The 15th Anniversary Holiday Bundle costs $19. /I spend countless hours of my waking life playing Apeiron by Ambrosia. Maybe you should too? :-)/ **** Apple Shocks World, Reveals It Is A Huge Corporation by Scott McNulty, Macworld Let's face it: the people crying foul the loudest about Apple's Macworld Expo plans are also the kind of people that will buy whatever Apple comes out, with nary a moment's hesitation. **** App Store Lessons: Bad Karma Tricks by Erica Sadun, Ars Technica Google spends a lot of time trying to develop algorithms to discount page rank spammers. Clearly, App Store is going to have to invest in that same kind of approach. **** Apple Co-Founder To Advise ModBook Maker by Dan Moren, Macworld **** Mac Game Arcade Debuts by Peter Cohen, Macworld Mac Games Arcade lets you browse, download and buy nearly 400 downloadable games. **** Silent Protest Planned For Jobs-Less Keynote by Justin Berka, Ars Technica MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** You Never Know What You'll Find In A Book by Henry Alford, New York Times We may never fully understand what prompts people to leave unusual objects inside books. **** Mind-Body Problems by Maria Russo, New York Times To the list of fiction-writing British explorers of the modern feminine condition add Patricia Ferguson, a former nurse and midwife whose sixth book, "Peripheral Vision," is both cheerful and emotionally wrenching. **** Have You Seen My Daughter? by Erica Wagner, New York Times This is a novel about loss and healing; a novel that acknowledges the depth of loss and the limits of healing. **** My Tiny, Briny Luxury Item by Mary Roach, New York Times Every time we go, I peel off to indulge a luxury I will never give up: a single Kumamoto oyster, $1.75, shucked on the spot, at Rudy Figueroa's little altar of ice chips. **** Grabbing A Bite Between Flights by Matt Gross, New York Times No one likes to eat in airports, but eat in airports we must. **** B-Ball With Barack by Craig Robinson, Time Your ball, Mr President. I know you're going to drain the big shots. **** Why Music? by The Economist What appetite drives the proliferation of music to the point where the average American teenager spends 1½-2½ hours a day—an eight of his waking life—listening to it? SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Pedra Branca - KL 'Uses Papers Given By Singapore'! by OpEd **** Taken Aback by The Star My family and I have just come back from a trip to SIngapore. We had anticipated the unfavourable exchange rate but not the unease I felt seeing one aspect of our neighbour's development — working senior citizens. **** Bus Passengers Unhappy With CIQ by Farik Zolkepli, Yee Xiang Yun and Suan Song, The Star What was previously a five-minute walk for bus passengers from Singapore to reach the city centre now takes almost 20 minutes from the Sultan Iskandar Customs, Immigration and Quarantine complex. **** Singapore Shows Wales How To Survive Recession by Dylan Jones-Evans, Wales Online What is encouraging for the Singaporean economy is that large technology-based firms continue to see this small country of 4.5 million as the place in which to invest for the future. **** Singapore's Very Own Subprime Crisis In The Making? by Mr Wang Says So I can't see how this can work out well. **** 19 Of 26 Homeschoolers Met Ministry's PSLE Benchmark by Tan Teck Ann, Ministry Of Education, Straits Times The request by parents to lower the benchmark does not serve the interests of these students. Instead, parents should consider enrolling them in our national schools to avail themselves of the full opportunities and resources our schools provide. /I think the issue is not of lowering the benchmark, but to standardize the benchmarks so that they are the same for students in national schools and home-schoolers./ **** How Much Is HDB Profitting From Resale Levies? by The Wayang Party Club Of Singapore **** Public Gambling by Singapore Life And Times The TCs were just lucky this time around. I know of people, and you will too, whose investments have almost been wiped out, or at least reduced so drastically that it would be a pain greater than going to hell, to liquidate now. /Of course, these people didn't understand the meaning of the word 'diversify'. The policy of limiting 'risky' investment to 30% cannot be ignored in the argument./ **** Our Dumb World by Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu >From The Onion's Our Dumb World atlas about Singapore: The hermetically sealed corporate biosphere of Singapore protects each of its carefully monitored 4.4126 million citizens from germs, crime, emotion, and dust.

Permanent Link to This Post **** Food Hawkers The New Folk Heroes by Seah Chiang Nee, The Star I believe it is the simple food hawkers who keep their prices low in adverse conditions, something that exerts a major, repeated impact on every family. /Note who was not chosen by this columnist as heroes: the politicians. In fact, to most people, the last politicians who can probably qualify as heroes are from the Lee Kuan Yew's generation./ From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Sun Dec 21 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 21 Dec 2008 18:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 21, 2008 Message-ID: <20081221181500.39396.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** The RIAA Gives Up On Finding A Competitor To iTunes by Seth Wintraub, Computerworld **** Dell Comments On Apple's Green Commitment, TUAW Translates From PR-Speak To English by Robert Palmer, The Unofficial Apple Weblog **** Mac At Work: Day One by Sharon Machlis, Computerworld The hardware has a clear attention to design details, offering happy surprises like a magnetic socket for the power cord. The OS X eye candy also seems well designed, offering not just gratuitous razzle-dazzle but helpful visual cues. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Will The Recession Kill Web 2.0? by Jeremy Liew, Wall Street Journal **** The Year Of The Simpler Gadget by Damon Darlin, New York Times **** Chief Of The Year: Amazon CTO Werner Vogels by John Foley, InformationWeek SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** 'Malaysia Used SIngapore Papers For Pedra Branca' by New Straits Times Malaysia had relied on Singapore documents in its fight over the sovereignty of Pedra Branca, the republic's chief justice, Chan Sek Keong, said yesterday. Chan said he was disappointed with Malaysia for accusing Singapore of withholding a letter from the ICJ that would have supposedly damaged the republic's case. "The truth is that we had gone round the world looking for it (the letter) for some 30 years without success." **** Importation Of Dolphins Slammed by Tonette Orejas, Philippine Daily Inquirer A marine park at the Subic Bay Freeport has been assailed by a concerned group for importing 18 bottle-nosed dolphins from te SOlomon Islands to be trained for performances at a similar park in Singapore. Trixie Concepcion, representative of Earth Island Institute in the Philippines, said the export of dolphins from the Solomon Islands was controversial because the animals could not be declared sustainable since there were no scientific or baseline studies on the current stock nd pouplation of dolphins in that area. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Mon Dec 22 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 22 Dec 2008 18:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 22, 2008 Message-ID: <20081222181501.9708.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** MacBook Air Late 2008 by Stephen Dean, Register Hardware We'll concede that the recently updated MacBook represents much better value for money, and it's hard to imagine that the MacBook Air will sell well in these credit-crunch days. And yet - we still want one. THat's how good the design is. **** TinkerTool Review: Adjust Hidden Mac Settings by Reality Distortion **** Banned In Cupertino by Tom Krazit, CNET News.com Add one more headache for whoever is running Apple's App Store approval process: edgy books. **** Apple Sidelines Humanitarian Effort, Attracts Bad Press by Softpedia **** Alternatives To Macworld Expo by The Joy Of Tech "Hello, again." **** Apple Has Winning Touch In Festive Sales by Chris Nuttall and Richard Waters, Financial Times Apple, with its iPod touch, appears a clear winner this holiday season as US consumers shop for smaller, cheaper, more versatile electroncs. Michael Gartenberg, vice-president of Mobile Strategy at Jupitermedia, says: "The iPod touch is being positioned as a product that can do multiple things. That gives it that strong value proposition of having lots of capabilities at one price point." **** Apple Inc: Taking A Look At Mac Pricing by Turley Muller, Financial Alchemist The popularity of low-priced PCs stems from the lack of added value for pricier Windows computers, rather than the inability/unwillingness to spend more for a computer. It's incorrect to assert that Mac sales growth is vulnerable to netbooks or cheap PCs. The real challenge facing Apple in this rough economy is attracting new users and enticing current users to upgrade/replace. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Newspaper Shuns Web, And Thrives by David Carr, New York Times **** Washington Is Killing Silicon Valley by Michael S. Malone, Wall Street Journal Entrepreneurship was taken for granted. Now we're seeing a lot less of it. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** What Your Loneliness Is Telling You by Katharine Miezkowski, Salon According to the new science of loneliness, those holiday blues have an important message for you. **** The Art Of Prize-Fighting by Tom Chatfield, Prospect Prizes are a vital part of the modern market for serious literature, but they're also increasingly flawed and compromised. At their best, however, they can still be an important mechanism for ensuring literature's future as a public art. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Singapore Takes On ACCC by Matt O'Sullivan, The Age Singapore Airlines is the first carrier to fight the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's claims that it broke the law by colluding with rivals to set high freight and security surcharges. **** Will Singapore Require A New Paradigm Of Nuclear Power? by Stretegic Thinking **** Report: Singapore Airlines To Deny Freight Price Fixing Charge by DPA **** Flexi Working Hours Catching On In Singapore by Zakaria Abdul Wahab, Bernama **** CPF Cut Not Justified At This Point In Time, Says Lim Boon Heng by Imelda Saad, Channel NewsAsia Speaking to unionist, minister in the prime minister's office Lim Boon Heng said on Friday that the wage structure in Singapore has enough flexibility such that a CPF cut should be a last resort. **** Kong See Wah Is An Audit Manager At DBS by The Wayang Party Club Of Singapore **** Raise GST By 1.5 Percent To Provide Free Public Transport Please by This Lush Garden Within /Next, while we are at it, increase further so that we can all have free clothings, food, and flats too./ **** So Now Our Transport Fares Are Not Linked To Oil Prices by mrbrown /I think Raymond Lim's statement need further parsing. What he is saying, which is true, is that the government does not regulate public transport fares directly via the cost of oil price. If one reads between the lines, Raymond Lim is saying either that the public transport companies should be the one taking the initiatives to lower fares, or we should go pressure ComfortDelgro and SMRT, and leave the government out of this./ **** Transport Minister Gunning To Be Finance Minister? by Everyday's Life In A Snapshot **** Wife Of Former NKF Chairman Sentenced To 22 Months' Jail by Roland Lim, Channel NewsAsia **** Conditions Of Employment, 2008 by Ministry Of Manpower, Singapore Government Many employers are going beyond the basic statutory requirements to provide various family-friendly levae benefits. **** Mainstream Media Going Downstream: PN Balji by Andrew Loh, The Online Citizen Change in the local media will only come if there are threats to its dominance and if there are pressure on its bottomline, said PN Balji. And with the government as its 'biggest stakeholder', policies towards the media will change only if the government feels there is a threat to its position. **** Transport Fares Not Linked To Oil Prices? Really? by Andrew Loh, The Online Citizen In past years transport operators have cited increases in oil prices as a reason for asking for fares to be increased. **** Will Singapore Stay On The Map? by Alicia Wong, Today Singapore's name for high-end treatment still draws foreigners, but patients are counting the costs. **** Keeping Transport Costs Low by Li Xueying, Straits Times With 2009 shaping up to be a 'diffcult year', the government will try to moderate public transport costs next year, said transport minister Raymond Lim yesterday. **** Merry Chinese New Year? by Ho Liam-Yi, New Paper Even before the choir boys have cleared their throats for Jingle Bells, the chorus ringing out Chinese New Year promotions and fun activities has already begun. **** So Sad, So Tragic. Then... Out Come The Camera Phones by Hedy Khoo, New Paper **** In Between The Silence by KJ, The Online Citizen Total power is arrogant; it is corruptible, and it is begrudged too. The knee-jerk resentments are but symptoms of desperation. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Tue Dec 23 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 23 Dec 2008 18:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 23, 2008 Message-ID: <20081223181501.34395.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Review: Billings 3 by Jeffery Battersby, Macworld The updated Billings is an excellent time-tracking, invoicing, and estimate program that allows small companies to create a big impression. **** Is The iPhone Really A Bad Phone? by Lonnie Lazar, Cult Of Mac **** Look Out, Amazon: iPhone Gets Real E-Books by Dan Frommer, Silicon Alley Insider **** Private by John Gruber, Daring Fireball App Store guidelines aside, my take on the use of private APIs is not absolute. If you, as a developer, want to use Private APIs for /non/-essential aspects of an app, and take care to check for their existence before actually calling them, and write cod ethat fails gracefully if they don't, then maybe it's OK. **** Less Cheer As Apple Confronts An Uncertain 2009 by Reuters Apple remains an iconic brand, whose marketing, balance sheet and strong growth are the envy of competitors. But with expectations of a major product launch now muted and consumer spending pinched, the outlook is a bit cloudier. **** I Still Can't Recommend iPhone As Phone by Joe Wilcox, eWeek **** Apple Releases Fix For Crashing Mail App Under OS X 10.5.6 by Jonathan Seff, Macworld Mail Update 1.0 addresses a problem where a copy of Mail that wasn't properly updated while installing the 10.5.6 update unexpectedly quits. **** Why Apple's 'Consumer' Macs Are Enterprise-Worthy by Seth Weintraub, CIO.com There is no comparison between Apple's "consumer" machines and the consumer lines of its competitors. All of Apple's machines are ready to move into the enterprise, depending on the job at hand. The company's simple and elegant product line, which is also highly customizable, will be Apple's entree to the business market—if IT decision-makers can get over their prejudice against equpment that's traditionally been aimed at consumers. **** The Need For iPhone App Folders And Search Is Quickly Approaching by Mg Siegler, Venture Beat Users are going to start coming up on the nine page limit problem. e're going to need a better way to organize the apps. /Plus, my six-year-old daughter has figured out how to rearrange the applications on our iPod touch.../ **** Psystar Claims Apple Has Invalid Mac OS X Copyright by Aidan Malley, AppleInsider In an agressive response, unofficial Mac clone builder Psystar has made a controversial claim that Apple doesn't legally own the US rights to protect Mac OS X, invalidating a major component of its lawsuit. **** Updated A Moment Ago by FJ De Kermadec, O'Reilly Digital Media Blog Call me old-fashioned, but nothing irritates me more than these attempts at dumbing down interfaces. **** Highbrow 1.0.1 by Dan Frakes, Macworld **** Evernote - The Perfect GTD App? by Chris Bowler, The Weekly Review It's a package that's hard to beat. **** Mariner Software Releases Story Development Software Contour 1.0 by Macworld UK **** Aspyr Confirms Layoffs, Sources Say As Much As A Third by Brian Crecente, Kotaku **** iPodhash Project Moves To Wikileaks Following DMCA Notice by Justin Berka, Ars Technica **** References To New iMacs, Minis With NVIDIA Graphics Found by Justin Berka, Ars Technica The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Is The Web Helping Us Evolve? by David Brin, Salon The truth lies somewhere between "Google is makng us stupid" and "the internet will liberate humanity." **** Interview With Clay Shirky, Part I by Russ Juskalian, Columbia Journalism Review "There's always a new Luddism whenever there's change." **** Mozilla CEO: Ties With Google 'Complicated' Since Chrome by Gregg Keizer, Computerworld MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is by Roy Blount Jr., New York Times Let's digress from anything ending in -ession. Let's entertain some new, upbead holiday words. **** The Doors Shut On An Emporium Offering A Hodgepodge Of Essentials by Sarah Yall, New York Times It was not that its products were particularly exciting in themselves, or that its service was particularly attentive. But Woolworths was always there, a comforting part of the landscape, offering everything you wanted and more besides: ice trays and ironing boards; birthday cards and bars of soap; Play-Doh, pet food, paper clips and pajamas. **** God Is A Problm, Sources Say by Vincent Carroll, Wall Street Journal How secular newsrooms handle stories with a religious component. **** Read It And Weep by Jason Boog, Salon The economic news couldn't be worse for the book industry. Now insiders are asking how literature will survive. **** Dickens's Enduring Gift To Christmases Future by Michael Kenney, Boston Globe On recently revisiting "A Christmas Carol" - virtually a first reading after so many years — it was striking to find how early it is in the tale tht Charles Dickens telegraphs his message. **** Wind Chill Blows by Daniel Engber, Slate It's time to get rid of a meaningless number. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Singapore: The One Everyone Will Have To Crack by Richard Murphy, Tax Research UK **** Singapore: An Increasingly Attractive Offshore Tax Haven by Shelter Offshore One location has so far managed to benefit and profit from other jurisdictions' reduction in favourability, and the jurisdiction in question is Singapore which is becoming an increasingly attractive offshore tax haven. However, with a greater in-flow of international money comes greaty scrutiny from the OECD... so how will Singapore continue to fare? **** Sngapore To Keep Money Rates Low As Economy Sags by Kevin Yao, Reuters Singapore's central bank is likely to flood the local money market with liquidity in the coming months as it prepares to let its currency weaken to head off a sharper economic slowdown, analysts said on Tuesday. **** GST 8.5% For Free Transport, I Wouldn't Mind! by Lee Lilian, The Itch To Write **** Transport Minister: Bicycles Good For Just Intra-Town Travel by mrbrown **** Road Diversion Trial At Woodlands Centre Road To Be Extended by Hetty Musfirah Abdul Khamid, Channel NewsAsia **** Which Are THe Venues That Can Be Considered Singapore's 'National THeatre' Historically? by Library at esplanade **** Singapore's November Inflation Eases Amid Lower Crude Oil Costs by Chen Shiyin, Bloomberg Singapore's inflation eased in November for a second month as lower oil prices cut transportation costs in the city state. **** First Signs Of 'Long Island' Reclamation Off The East Coast? by Wild Shores of Singapore Vessels are now prohibited from anchoring in a large area opposite the East Coast. **** PAP Wayang To Pave The Way For An Eventual CPF Cut by Eugene Yeo, The Wayang Party Club Of Singapore Notice that both have stopped short of repudiating the possibility of CPF cuts entirely in their speeches. /That would be stupid, and you can't accuse them of being stupid./ **** Don't Be Blunt by Singapore Life And Times Singaporeans may be an obedient and disciplined workforce, but we are not stupid. **** Singapore Ministers' Stupidest Remarks by Singapore Dino **** That's Not A Wheel, This Is A Wheel by Peter Litras, The Age **** Transport Minister Raymond Lim Says: Heads We Win, Tails You Lose by Ng E-Jay, Sgpolitics.net **** Hyperbolic Wisdom From The Transport Minister by Gerald Giam Why was the minister talking down to Singaporeans like that by using such hyperbole? From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Wed Dec 24 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 24 Dec 2008 18:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 24, 2008 Message-ID: <20081224181501.3048.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Apple Just Killed Microsoft by Tim Beyers, Motley Fool Can we /really/ say that Microsoft isn't one of the world's most influential? **** Apple Dashboard Widget Vulnerability Published by Jason D. O'Grady, ZDNet.com The vulnerability exploits the fact that dashboard widgets are easily installed by a user and aren't generally thought of as a security threat. **** Five Creative Apple Shirts by Dean Putney, Cult Of Mac **** Alpha Pinball by Ted Bade, Inside Mac Games Alpha Pinball is a basic, no real frills, pinball game for the Mac that is dirt cheap. **** iPhone Ends Year With Strong Market Share, Faces Challenges by David Chartier, Ars Technica **** More Developer Complaints Mount Against The App Store by Jeff Smykil, Ars Technica **** Manga Studio 4 Improves Text Input, Adds More Screen Tones by Peter Cohen, Macworld Manga Studo 4 is aimed at professional artists who create manga — Japanese comics — and Western-style comics. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Learning From Venturl by Christopher Caldwell, Weekly Standard Time has killed off a lot of modernist art. But the architectural remnants of the age cannot be avoided. **** The New Feminists: Lipstick And Pageants by Gemma Soames, The Times Yes, you can wear lipstick and be a feminist. The F word is being rebranded. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Singapore Flyer - This Wheel Needs A New Spin by Ian Tan, Empty Vesel The Flyer risks becoming Singapore's biggest white elephant. **** Survey Shows Singaporeans Jittery Over Jobs, Personal Finance by Desmond Wong, Channel NewsAsia Singaporeans are worried about job security and their personal finances, according to a Citibank survey. **** In Peaceful Singapore Students Learn Of 'Terrorist' Threat by AFP **** Harrowing Rope Rescue by Carolyn Quek, Yeo Sam Jo and Diana Othman, Straits Times One woman cried while she was being lowered down by a rope from a capsule about eight storeys high. Another kept her eyes tightly shut until he feet touched solid ground before bursting into tears of joy. **** Who Put Up This Giant Banner? by Benson Ang, New Paper Police alerted after banner with escaped JI detainee's face on it hung at Toa Payoh. **** More Than 100 Trapped In Biggest Observation Wheel In Singapore by AFP See Also: 173 People Stranded For More Than Six Hours On World's Largest Ferris Wheel , by Daily Mail. Passengers Rescued After Singapore Flyer Breaks Down , by The Guardian. **** Don't Shake Hands, Hold Fingers! Or Are We Not Paying Our Ministers Enough? by Feed Me To The Fish **** The Online Media Vacuum by The Extra Scoop The Straits Times has been slow in adopting changes. The mass migration of news consumers to the internet is unstoppable. While The Straits Times is hoping to capitalise on the online market by charging its readers, this tactic actually hurts online advertisement revenue. /There is no financial motivation for the Straits Times to be free on the internet. Firstly, there is no proven online business model: even the New York Times cannot get enough revenue from its online operations to run its journalistic operations. Secondly, there is very little competition in Singapore./ **** HDB Calls For Tender For Wet Market At Sengkang Square by Pearl Forss, Channel NewsAsia The Housing and Development Board (HDB) has reinstated the practice of building wet markets. But for the first time, private developers will be responsible for building them. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Thu Dec 25 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 25 Dec 2008 18:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 25, 2008 Message-ID: <20081225181501.49075.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** So You Just Got A MacBook - Now What? by Megan Lavey, The Unofficial Apple Weblog **** Google, Apple, Microsoft Sued Over File Preview by Robert McMillan, IDG News Service A small Indiana company has sued tech heavyweights Microsoft, Apple, and Google, claiming that it holds the patent on a common file preview feature used by browsers and operating systems to show users small snapshots of the files before they are opened. **** Promising Prospect: Choosy by Dan Frakes, Macworld **** An Interview With An Apple Newton User by The Gadgeteer **** Apple Stock Should Shine Again by Michael V. Copeland, Fortune If you hold on long term Apple ought to bring some rewards, especially if you are getting in now. **** Faltulence App For iPhone: The Smell Of Sweet Success by Michelle Maltais, Los Angeles Times **** OS Shoot-Out: Windows Vs. Mac OS X Vs. Linux by Galen Gruman, Infoworld The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Internet Overtakes Newspapers As News Source by Pew Research MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** The Intersection Of Poetry And Politics by Dwight Garner, New York Times There is little doubt that Elizabeth Alexander's verse will be broadcast to more people at one time than any poem ever composed. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Singapore Spray! by Casey Liew **** Wedding Feast Transfers 'In' by Melissa Sim, Straits Times Transferring wedding banquet bookings has become common for couples who have to cancel their packages. And the process has become easier with more wedding websites and forums. **** Silent Solo Protest To Shame DBS May Be A Solution To Break Minibond Impasse by Eugene Yeo, The Wayang Party Club Of Singapore **** City State Gloom by Mariko Oi, BBC News Until the global economy emerges from this gloomy winter, Southeast Asia's wealthiest country may face a frosty year ahead. **** Budget Carrier Grouses Hit New Heights by Desmond Ng, New Paper Tiger Airways, the budget airline with the largest number of flights at Changi airport, also drew the most complaints. **** Singapore Flyer Rescue Team Targeted Critical Capsules First by S Ramesh, Channel NewsAsia **** Singapore Flyer Will Not Resume Operations Till After The New Year by Dominique Loh, Channel NewsAsia From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Fri Dec 26 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 26 Dec 2008 18:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 26, 2008 Message-ID: <20081226181500.598.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Re-Gifting: You Shouldn't Have. But If You Did, Here's How To Get Away With It by Joyce Wadler, New York Times The rules of re-gifting are but simple common sense. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Crooked Bridge Project May Not Be Revived by The Malaysian Insider **** Singapore November Visitor Arrivals Fall 9.7 Pct Y/Y by Melanie Lee, Reuters Singapore's visitor arrivals dropped 9.7 percent in November compared with the same period last year, as a worsening global economic climate crimped demand for travel, the country's tourism agency said on Friday. **** The Best News In Singapore Journalism In 2008: Our List by Journalism.sg **** Mysterious Patch Reefs Of Singapore by Loh Kok Sheng, God's Wonderful Creation The list of Terumbus and Betings are definitely not perfect, as some may have been missd out. They are indeed mind-boggling and hopefully in the future we will know more about them. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Sat Dec 27 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 27 Dec 2008 18:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 27, 2008 Message-ID: <20081227181501.57545.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Remote Turns Apple TV Into Music Source by Jeff Carlson, TidBITS This is a short story of using one device to route around another, misbehaving, device, and trying very hard to not let technology get in the way of what matters. **** Don't Trade On Apple Tradeshow Rumors by Marek Fuchs, TheStreet.com **** Why I'd Buy Apple Today by Brett Arends, Wall Street Journal If a PC coss $400 less than a Mac but wastes half an hour of your time each week, over three years you've puttingg in 78 hours to save $400. That's barely $5 an hour: Not even minimum wage. **** OpenCL Gives Your Computer Wings by Stacey Higginbotham, GigaOM OpenCL Is a programming framework that allows software to run on botht he CPU and the graphics processor of the coputer. **** Review: OpenMind 2.0 by Jeffery Battersby, Macworld **** iPhone Becomes Flickr Phenom by Erica Sadun, Ars Technica **** Wal-Mart To Start Selling iPhone On Sunday by Philip Michaels, Macworld The iPhone goes on sale at Wal-Mart on Sunday, the retailer said. An 8GB iPhone will cost $197 at Wal-Mart, while the 16GB model will sell for $297. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Communication Breakdown by Good Iqbal Quadir, the founder of Graeenphone, and Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of One Laptop Per Child, debate the merits of technologyin the developing world. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** A Very European Hero by The Economist A Tintin blockbuster is on the way. Baffled Americans hoping to understand him should look at him through the prism of post-war Europe. **** Irrational Numbers by Jincy Willett, New York Times A first novel takes a brilliant, troubled and terribly young mathematician off to college and back. **** Brought To You By The Letter S by James Panero, New York Times "Street Gang: The Complete History of 'Sesame Street,'" by Michael Davis, a former columnist for TV Guide, now offers the behind-the-lens story, the first comprehensive account, of this 39-year-old show. **** Plowing Through The Door by David Carr, New York Times Michael Wolff attacks Rupert Murdoch with casual delight in this portrait of the media titan and his quest to buy the Wall Street Journal. **** The Libertarian Moment by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, Reason Magazine Despie all leading indicators to the contrary, America is poised to enter a new age of freedom. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Singapore - First Impressions by Nilanshuk Haldar, Rumination And Reflection **** Why Inter-Nation Sports Is War, Why Singaporeans Had Mixed Feelings When We Won Silver At Olympics, And The Singaporean Anxiety by Warren Tan **** Wishful Thinking Or Wicked Intent? by My Singapore News **** Restaurant Review: Tippling Club, Singapore by Peter Gordon, Financial Times This skilfl matching of food and drink is quite extraordinary and although it may sound like an awful lot of posturing and cleverness, it lovingly focuses fully on the palate and the mind. **** Output In Recession-Hit Singapore Down 7.5 Pct In Nov: Government by AFP Singapore's manufacturing output fell 7.5 percent in November, according to the latest data, as exports from the recesion-hit economy suffer during a global slowdown. Singaore's manufacturing sector accounts for nearly a quarter of economic output. Virtually allof the production heads for foreign markets, an indicator of Singapore's dependence on the health of the global economy, analysts say. **** Indian Travel Agents To Boycott Singapore Airlines by Mithun Roy, Economic Times Indian travel agents associations and travel portals on Friday decided to completely boycott Singapore Airlines, after the foreign carrier declined to give any commission to the agents on the sale of tickets. **** Changes Today Comes Unbidden by Seah Chiang Nee, The Star Twenty-five years ago, when the government had a stronger hold, the day unfolded according to plan. Today's news headlines reflect its vastly changing citizenry. **** Political Space In Singapore Unlikely To Expand Beyond Mere Tokenism by Fang Zhi Yuan, The Wayang Party Club Of Singapore **** IDA Proposes Shorter Telco Deals by Tan Weizhen, Straits Times **** Are Responses Slower Now? by Yong Sing Wee, Straits Times From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Sun Dec 28 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 28 Dec 2008 18:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 28, 2008 Message-ID: <20081228181501.94060.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** An Evidence-Based Evaluation Of App Store Pricing by Lukas Mathis, Ignore The Code **** How To Switch To The Mac Without Losing Your Windows Lifeline by ITworld.com **** On The App Store And Free Market by Brent Smmons, Inessential.com **** Touch And Go Pricing by Daniel Jalkut, Red Sweater Blog **** AT&T's Updated Refurb iPhone Prices Not As Lame: $99 For 8GB by Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica AT&T has lowered the price of its refurbished iPhones until the end of the year or until stock runs out, whichever comes first. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** What Cariers Aren't Eager To Tell You About Texting by Randall Stross, New York Times MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** A Return To Java by Lisa Reed, New York Times A mother and her son retrace a visit to the Indonesian island, finding worldly comfort on a coffe plantation and spiritual calm at sunrise in an ancient temple. **** Contemplating The Boobs We Were by Peter Applebome, New York Times Before we toss the latest unopened 401(k) statement into the trash, a year-end toast to us all — the boobs and easy marks who from time immemorial have mastered the art of bying high and selling low, investing in bubbles as transparent as an open window, making crashes and swindles as much a part of the human experience as love, vanity and bad breath. **** A Reading Life by Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe The looking-glass, closed to traffic. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Mon Dec 29 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 29 Dec 2008 18:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 29, 2008 Message-ID: <20081229181501.21130.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Mac Games In 2009: What To Watch For by Peter Cohen and Chris Holt, Macworld Keep an eye on these six trends in the coming years. **** New MacBook Pro Is A Sturdy Step Up by Bob LeVitus, Houston Chronicle **** Brian Cox. Smashing Research At CERN. by Apple Physicists prefer Mac OS X. **** Win To Mac - Why Leave Windows? And Why Choose The Mac? by Michael W. Jones, Mac.Blorge.com **** Apple Plans To Grow Number Of Embedded Devices by Softpedia Job listing reveals plans for future Apple portables. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** The Limner by Julian Barnes, New Yorker **** Icons In Reflection by David Patrick Stearns, Obit Bernstein and Williams: Similar lives, different legacies. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Telcos Could Face Extra Costs If IDA's Proposed Measures Go Through by Rachel Kelly, Channel NewsAsia **** Government To Proceed With Jurong Lake District Development by S Ramesh, Channel NewsAsia **** Those Kiasi And Kiasu Singaporeans! by Thoughts —-> Blogs **** Japanese Firms Investing In Singapore's Newest R&D Hub by Kyodo News **** Time To Cash Out by My Singapore News **** Stars On Sembawang Beach? by Wild Shores of Singapore **** Changi's T3 Not User-Friendly by Tan Chin Aik, Straits Times Architecturally, Changi Airport's Terminal 3 is almost beyond reproach. But the same cannot be said of the directional signs and communication skills of the service staff we encountered. **** Boom To Gloom For Fresh Grads by Fiona Chan, Straits Times **** Do They Know Their Stuff? by Serene Luo, Straits Times Telco customer service agents helpful but knowledge is a bit too specialised. **** Better To Have Smaller Theme Park For Locals by S.B. Jamaran, The Star The notion that Malaysia always plays second fiddle to Singapore is not true. **** Singapore Air Halves Fare, Kingfisher Vows Cut by Lalatendu Mishra, Hindustan Times Singapore Airlines has slashed the economy fare by 52 per cent to Singapore and other destinations from India to counter boycotting travel agents and to woo passengers from rival Indian carriers. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Tue Dec 30 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 30 Dec 2008 18:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 30, 2008 Message-ID: <20081230181501.31841.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** 2008 In Review: The iPhone Comes Of Age by Dan Moren, Macworld If 2007 was Year Zero in the life of the Phone That Changed Everything, then 2008 skyrocketed forward to the year that the device truly came of age. **** It Was Definitely A Year For Apple To Shine by Bob LeVitus, Houston Chronicle **** Opinion: For Apple, '08 Ends With The Macworld Clunker by Dan Turner, Computerworld **** Apple Mini DisplayPort Suffers Distortion Issues by MacNN **** No Apple Store For D.C. Anytime Soon by Mike DeBonis, Washington City Paper **** Apple 2008: From Mindshare To Mac Share by Joe Wilcox, eWeek **** Apple's Nightmare After Christmas by Robert X. Cringely, InfoWorld Apple fans weren't so jolly when the iTunes servers went down on Christmas morning — and stayed down for several days. **** iPhones On The Cheap: An Updated Look by Erica Sadun, Ars Technica The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Broadband On Rails by Rachel Kremen, MIT Technology Review A compact lens could make high-speed internet access commonplace on trains. **** Microsoft Outlines Pay-Per-Use PC Vision by David Meyer, CNET News.com **** More Over Kindle; E-Books Hit Cell Phones by Olga Kharif, BusinessWeek Who needs an e-book reader from Amazon or Sony when you can download tomes to a smartphone, often at a fraction of the cost. **** Time For A Tablet by Farhad Manjoo, Slate What the "netbook" craze tells us about the future of laptops. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** The Darkling Thrush by Robert Pinsky, Slate Thomas Hardy's timely meditation on the turning of an era. **** The Fight Over NASA's Future by John Schwartz, New York Times Is the next generation of spacecraft fundamentally flawed? Or are the troubles routine? **** Even For Neil Gaiman, 'The Sandman' Is A Singular Dream by Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times A comic-book series' special character has helped define a writer who brought new ambition to a pop medium. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** A Look Across The Straits Of Johor by The Star Even at the peak hours, there were not traffic jams like in KL, JB, Georgetown or even anything like that in Ipoh! **** Did The Stronger Singdollar Worsen The Singapore Economy? by Bernard Aw **** Rare Multi-Million-Dollar Watch Theft In Singapore by AFP **** Tan Kin Lian's Coninuted Liaisons With SDP May Prove More To Be A Hindrance Than Help by Fang Zhi Yuan, The Wayang Party Club Of Singapore **** A Time To Reflect by Lucia Maes, Today Singapore can boast of countless international accolades for its first-class services, infrastructure and attractions. Unfortunately, when it comes to helping others, this country still retains a very third-class mentality. **** Why Taipei's MRT Trumps Singapore's by Sunita Sue Leng, The Edge **** Sad Farewell To Tranquil Seletar Airbase by Jeremy Sim, Straits Times **** We'll Cover Your $1,200 Water Bill by Amanda Yong, New Paper Mr Francis Tan had wanted government agencies to foot a $1,200 water bill he felt he was not responsible for. And that is exactly what the National Environment Agency (NEA) and hte Public Utilities Board (PUB) have agreed to do, even if they do not admit liability. **** Scatter My Ashes At Tiong Bahru Park by New Paper Mr Lawson's family sent his ashes to Singapore, following his instructions. But he could not hav ehis park wish fulfilled. **** New EZ Link Cards Can ONly Be Used On Buses, Trains Until Further Notice by Cheryl Frois, Channel NewsAsia From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Wed Dec 31 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 31 Dec 2008 18:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Dec 31, 2008 Message-ID: <20081231181501.81406.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** 2008 In Review: Mac Developers Who Made News by Peter Cohen, Macworld >From major releases to Mac clones, third parties had plenty to offer in 2008. **** A Computer Revolution Through A Child's Eyes by Stephen Shankland, CNET News.com I have proof from an expert that the iPhone interface really is better. Who's the expert? My 3-year-old son. **** Does Your Application Create Value? by Lukas Mathis, Ignore The Code You can make it easy for your users to create awesome things, or you can make it easy for them to create crappy things. It's not only your job to make your application usable, it's also your job to make sure that the things your users build with your application are valuable. **** Local Yogurt Store Tells Blogger That Steve Jobs Is "In Great Health" by Mg Siegler, Venture Beat While a yougurt store employee may not seem like the best source in the world, look at the sources attached to the other stories about Jobs' health — in quite a few cases there are /none/ and it's all speculation. **** Apple's Five Biggest Moments In 2008 by Ryan Faas, Computerworld It's worth reflecting on some of the most notable innovations from Apple in a year that easily ranks as one of the most significant in its 31-year-history. **** Top Ten Innovative Apple Products - That Steve Didn't Dream Up by Michael Simon, MacLife /I wouldn't call the Macintosh TV or eWorld innovative. They really added nothing new, in my opinion./ **** Why Does Apple Stifle Mobile Safari's True Potential? by Derek Perez The iPhone has immense data harvesting capabilities, from geo-location to the accelorometer, etc. But all of these fantastic APIs are available only to native, objective-C based applications, not Mobile Safari? **** Just Propose A Federal Style Store Already, Apple by David Alpert, Greater Greater Washington A permanent Apple-shaped architectural feature and all-glass first floor facade may fit Steve Jobs' megalomaniacal personality and Apple's brash corporate image, but if the Old Georgetown Board says it doesn't fit in Georgetown, they may be right. **** Adobe's Flash And Apple's Safari Fail A Privacy Test by Brad Stone, New York Times Apple's Safari fared the wrost of the browsers in tests by iSec Partners, a San Francisco security firm. **** How Green Is Apple? by Ben Charny, Dow Jnes Newswires Determining Apple's "green-ness" is difficult because so much of the information reported to authorities is provided voluntarily. **** Apple's Jobs Is (Still) Fine by Jim Goldman, CNBC I was told two weeks ago by sources inside Apple that the decision had nothing to do with Jobs' health. I got the same message today. Period. **** Apple's Got A War Chest Of Cash by Jason Guthrie, The Apple Blog Apple is currently sitting in Cupertino with a cool $12 billion in the bank. And if you throw short-term investments in the pot, Apple has quick access to $25 billion. That's a /ton/ of money — especially for a company with $32 billion in revenues. **** Lightroom Vs. Aperture: The Continuing Saga by Thomas Fitzgerald Both are good pieces of software and both are aimed at slightly different markets. **** How iPod Touch Will Help Apple Win New Platform War by David Zeiler, Baltimore Sun The contribution of the iPod Touch can't be overestimated. The Touch brings in millions of customers Apple's phone-making competitors can't reach — people like myself who want many of the capabilities of a smartphone without the steep monthly fees. **** Ambrosia's EV Nova Makes The Jump To Universal Binary by Dan Moren, Macworld Nostalgia is by far the most powerful thing in the entire universe. There is no other way to explain my glee that AMbrosia has released a Universal version of their classic game EV Nova. **** Macworld Expo '09 Will Feature Town Hall To Plan For 2010 by Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica IDG announced today that next week's Expo will feature a Town Hall meeting, which will be open to all attendees who want to help "shape Macworld in 2010 and beyond." **** App Store Lessons: Abandoning Settings Bundles by Erica Sadun, Ars Technica It's an elegant approach that allows you to forgo the extra design needed to create and maintain settings screens from within your program and to focus your design work on application semantics. There's only one problem: most users may never see your settings. **** Apple's Biggest Blunders Of 2008 by Chris Foresman, Ars Technica Despite the issues with the iPhone 3G launch, Apple has had a great year, full of exciting new product introductions, record sales, and record profits. **** Analyst Predicts No Revolutoinary Products At Macworld '09 by Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica In a note sent out to clients this morning, Gene Munster pointed out that it's near impossible to predict an upcoming announcement what with updated iPods, MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and the iPhone 3G having been released late in 2008. **** Five Top Tips For New iPhone Users by Dan Moren, Macworld The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Web Browser Flaw Could Put E-Commerce Security At Risk by CNET News.com A key piece of internet technology that banks, e-commerce sites, and financial institutions rely on to keep transactions safe suffers from a serious security vulnerability, an international team of researchers announced on Tuesday. **** Rising In The East by The Economist Asia is steadily eroding America's leadership in research spending. **** Internet Use Grows At Meetings, As Do Challenges by Martha C. White, New York Times Until recently, travelers attending conferences or trade shows had simple internet needs. Now, meetings are likely to include streaming video and online interaction. And back in their rooms, travelers are downloading movies and logging onto peer-to-peer networks. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** What To Do About The Torturers? by David Cole, New York Review Of Books America's experiment with torture presents the Obama administration with one of its most difficult challenges: how should the nation account for the abuses that have occurred in the past, what are the appropriate remedies, and how can we ensure that such abuses not happen again? **** The American Blair by Jennifer Senior, New York Magazine Tony Blair was both Britain's Obama, transforming its politics, and Britain's Bush, prosecuting a deeply unpopular war. But at Yale last semester, as he moved into his afterlife, he seemed oddly unencumbered by his past. **** The Long Decline Of Reading by Mssv The situation is undeniably bad. What's going to happen next? **** Did Our Cosmos Exist Before The Big Bang? by Anil Ananthaswamy, New Scientist If the loop quantum cosmology (LQC) theory turns out to be right, our universe emerged from a pre-existing universe that had been expanding before contracting due to gravity. As all the matter squeezed into a microscopic volume, this universe approahced the so-called Planck density. At this stage, it stopped contracting and rebounded, giving us our univese. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Observers Say PM's New Year Message Helps To Manage Expectations by S Ramesh, Channel NewsAsia Political-watchers and economists in Singapore said the prime minister's new year message will help to manage expectations of Singaporeans in 2009. They said it is important for Singapore to realise that times are going to be tough and to band together to ride out the economic storm - a point that was stressed in PM Lee Hsien Loong's message on Wednesday. **** Prime Minister's New Year Message 2009 by Singapore Government Singapore's key strengths are our honest and capable leadership, sound policies which look beyond the short term, social cohesion and talented and hardworking people. These strengths have brought us peace, prosperity and progress for decades, and they will see us through these difficult times. When the environment was favourable, we upgraded and grew our economy, lived within our means and patiently build up sizeable reserves. So when this sudden, severe storm struck, we were ready. **** Singapore Appoints Permanent Representative To ASEAN by The Nation Singapore's permanent representative to ASEAN, Lim Thuan Kuan, is scheduled to present his credentials Monday to the secretary-general of ASEAN, Dr Surin Pitsuwan, at a ceremony held at the ASEAN secretariat. **** Hello 2009, Goodbye "Honest Mistakes"! by Feed Me To The Fish It looks like 2008 is a nightmare year for the 1st world Singpore million dollar ministers. I guess it was a year of one "honest mistake" after another. **** PAP Moves In To Shore Up Its Support Base During Troubling Times by Eugene Yeo, The Wayang Party Club Of Singapore A weak and divided opposition coupled with the typical "kiasi" mentality of Singaporeans will ensure the PAP be elected to power again on another "overwhelming mandate". **** Singaporeans Are No Longer Sheep by Kenny Chee, My Paper In a country often criticised for the sheep-like mentality of its people, it may surprise some that dialogue and engagement on issues between the government and Singaporeans this year reached new levels, according to a political analyst. **** Are These Workers Just The Tip Of The Iceberg? by Leong Wee Keat, Today In what is becoming a familiar sight, a group of about 200 China national workers turned up at the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) yesterday morning to complain about unauthorised salary deductions and wages owed to them. **** Do Something Quick For CIQ Commuters by Carol Wong, The Star Let's hope that someone will come up with a brilliant idea to solve the traffic woes at the new Johor Baru CIQ. A workable solutoin is all we commuters ask for. **** Singapore Warned On Dolphin Imports by Ednal Palmer, Solomon Star Singapore has been cautioned not to accept the bottlenose dolphins exported from the Solomon Islands. Chairman of the Mexican Congress, Committee of Environment of Environment, Natural Resources and Fisheries senator Jorge Legorreta wrote to the Singapore minister for national development Mah Bau Tan on this. The senator said the 28 bottlenose dolphins exported to Mexico from the Solomon Islands in 2003 has tained their country's reputation. **** Singapore Air May Ask Pilots To Take Unpaid Leave: Report by Melanie Lee, Reuters Singapore Airlines, the world's largest carrier by market value, may ask its pilots from its cargo arm to take unpaid leave in a bid to cut costs and reduce capacity, a newspaper reported on Wednesday. **** MOE To Hire 7,500 by Amelia Tan, Straits Times The Ministery of Education (MOE), which will aim to add 7,500 employees to its payroll next year, also plans to give the economy a fillip by speeding up its scheme to equip every school with an indoor sports hall by 2014 and look into building centralised facilities for arts, music and sporting activities.