Sickness super-drug

Drugs are the best tech the world can produce. And the best of the lot is probably:



Yes, despite the fantastic premiere of The Dark Knight yesterday, I guess age is catching up and running late night events followed by early morning ones do not agree. Nevertheless, thanks to wonderdrug above, I hope to be back up and kicking tomorrow!

Don't worry, this isn't going to turn into a medicine blog (do those exist?)

Flackery or real conversation?

As both a guy with a blog and a PR dude in real life, I've had the incredibly joyful experience of pitching and being pitched to. Of course, I don't understand why some companies would want to pitch to a small fry like me whose got absolutely no theme to his blog, but, "hey!" if its an interesting product or thing, I'll listen.

The thing is more companies are beginning to see the importance of the blogosphere for their political marketing campaigns, thanks (in no small way) to March 8. But the attitude and reaction many marketers are taking towards engaging bloggers is summarised by the GMOOT syndrome - in the words of AdAge columnist Scott Donaton.

To paraphrase Scott, GMOOT is short for the "Get Me One Of Those" syndrome that company heads adopt when they don't really understand the new-fangled trends but want in on it for marketing gain anyway. Read Todd Defren's post on how dangerous but widespread this syndrome is.

But my point is this: more and more companies are now looking to reach out to bloggers. Each is doing this in a vastly different way and there are definitely more than one way to succeed. But then, you start coming across posts like this, this and this.

Did we miss the point?

So I was having a conversation with someone who works admittedly closely with the local blogging scene and he's adamant that blogs are the "new media." And that marketing efforts should be directed at bloggers as this is the new channel for clients to get the message of their products and services out. After all, teenagers a reading less and less newspapers these days (yes, US stats I know).

Yes, I'd agree that we should be talking to bloggers, but I'd also disagree that we see bloggers for anything less than what they are - people. Blogs aren't just a "communications channel". They aren't just media for you to push messages thru. They are people who have something interesting to say, the right tools to say it (the blog) and the audience who's interested in hearing what they want to say.

When I get pitched, I'm really interested in starting a conversation. I'd like to know what's great about your product or solution and why it would matter to me or people like me (who, coincidentally, might read my blog). I don't want to be pushed information and be expected to "publish." That's just flackery.

Don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean you shouldn't email me about your interesting product. It just means that you should:
1. Talk to me as a human being. Don't expect a bot on the other end that auto-publishes news releases as they are sent across. I've got feelings too. I've also got a healthy dose of opinion and common sense.
2. Understand what I write about and my motivations for writing. Don't assume. If after reading a couple of my posts you're still unsure, hey, just ask :)
3. Be prepared to dive into the conversation. Because what I'm going to want, if I'm interested in what you're saying, is to actually talk and discuss the subject matter with you.

If you're reading this and you've pitched to me before, I assure you, I don't mean you in particular. This post is a summary of interesting experiences past, present and possibly last week. Please do pitch to me again and let's have a proper conversation this time round.

davidlian live on lively!

Exit Second Life. Enter Google's Lively.



So Google launched it's Second Life would-be challenger Lively yesterday to much aplomb. I've taken it for a spin and I must say, it's actually pretty darn good. Leaps and bounds over the experience I had with Second Life in my first hour.

But whilst people are comparing Lively to Second Life, I actually wonder - is Lively more akin to The Sims Online (now called EA Land)? Simple interface. Effortless item placement and ready-made building templates. Numerous ways to connect with people and zip from room to room (so long flying). And thousands and thousands of people just waiting to be talked to (or not) and whom you'll meet just but once in your lifetime.

But by far, for me, the winning feature has got to be the fact you can install a widget to the side of your blog, and have people visit your effortlessly from within the same page as your blog. This has got to be the killer feature for Google.

Why? Well, quite frankly, because I've always hated booting up a programme to log-in to virtual worlds (life Second Life). Now that I can do it from the convenience of my own blog (or anyone elses blog for that matter), I AM fascinated by what virtual worlds can do. The number one hurdle has been cleared.

Am I singing too much of Lively's praises? Well, yes. I reckon as with any interesting new toy, the novelty will wear out soon and problems will surface. But for now, one hour's passed and I'm still loving it. That's quite a record, really.

I never thought I'd miss Windows this much

There, I said it. I never thought I'd miss Windows this much. The XP variety, that is.

About a month ago, I was really all fired up about Ubuntu - and rightly so. From the horror stories of how complicated Linux is, Ubuntu's real-world experience (and looks) were amazingly great. Of course, then I realised that despite how great the open-source community was, it still had its limits. And the cruncher for me was that the email application, Evolution, didn't quite agree with the wierd resolution on my Eee PC.

So I ventured into loading an old copy of Windows I had lying around onto the Eee. It wasn't as simple a process as I had thought. Simply borrowing Kelvin's USB external CDROM drive wasn't enough as somehow, my Eee PC refused to boot from the CD. Resignedly, I had to search up instructions to install XP via a USB stick. Follow the instructions step by step and you shouldn't get into trouble.

After the install, I realised just how capable a machine the Eee 900 is for Windows XP. Boot up time is a respectable 18 seconds, even if it's not the 13 seconds promised by nLite (I ended up not using nLite). I've done manual cleaning and disabled stuff I don't believe I'll ever use.

I gave it a test run with Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Office 2007 and it works great. Documents open pretty fast (about 2 seconds) and the browser didn't stutter none. It might be because I have 2GB of RAM.

Shifting back from Ubuntu to XP, I realised just how under appreciated Windows is in general. Sure, a lot of times, we think it's the most boring operating system out there - wowed by the Mac OS and fancy Linux builds. But in its own way, XP is elegant and simple too. For one, I found the launch bar at the bottom (a la Mac, which I insisted on having in Ubuntu) was more pretty than useful. The Windows Start Bar method still appeals to me.

Also, maybe I'm just a noob, but I understand how applications ,files and folders work on XP a lot better than I did on Ubuntu. There's a certain logic to how Windows works and, maybe its because we were mostly brought up on Windows but, it DOES make computing simpler.

The one thing I loved best about the whole process? The untouched, unsullied desktop. I'd like to see how long it lasts :)

Off to the Gold Coast!

Dear readers,

Just dropping a note to tell you I'll be off to the Gold Coast, Australia with my wife for a long awaited second honeymoon kinda thing. This means I'm not entirely sure when I'll be posting again - it all depends if I can find some free Wi-Fi over in OZ.

Like now. Amazingly, our Low Cost Carrier Terminal has free Wi-Fi! So, I can share this parting picture with you.



At the very latest, this blog will resume usual service when I get back next week. I plan to do some really geeky stuff over at Australia like geo-tagging my routes and such so I'll blog about it as and when I can.

So, till the next post, have a bash!

Back from camp

The back ache has finally struck - the after-effects of Camp Transformation 2008.

You see, we had this interesting game where we pushed people beyond their limits by making them do a modified deathcrawl (clip below from the movie 'Facing the Giants') for an hour and a half. I don't have pictures of what we actually did, but I was one of the guys below and boy, does my back ache now.



Still, this was an opportunity not to let go of, because simply, the game is not so much physical as it is mental. One brother told me after the game: "I wanted to give up and just walk away because it was so painful. But then I looked at the person next to me and he looked to be in more pain than me, and if I gave up I would let the entire team down." Then he wept. There are few things better for building brotherhood.

On a lighter note, I have to be thankful for Yow Looi and Adam's kind advice and counsel throughout the camp. Many, many times difficult decisions had to be made and without their solid perspectives, we might have made the wrong ones.

If I thought I was tired, you should have seen Yow Looi right after the camp:

The "Guess what am I coming as?" game

Coming up this week is... Camp Transformation 2008: BigGER Camp.

That's right, about 150 young people and I will be heading down to Port Dickson for five days and four nights in what looks to be a very, very packed programme. Still, I look forward to this to be a good time of spiritual refreshment.

What's more, I've recently started constructing my costume and hope to finish it by tomorrow night. The theme's Sci-Fi night, but I doubt anyone would be able to guess what I'm coming as. Anyone? Clue: I've scrapped the Anakin Skywalker idea. And see below:

It's been great!

I've come to realise I'm not as young as I used to be. Sure, yesterday was the symbolic advancement of age, but the past four days have shown me this body isn't made to withstand this much bashing.

My mum said as much as the clock struck passed twelve and I became a year older.

Still, if there's one thing I've come to appreciate even more as I grow older is this concept called friends.

I had a great bash and just want to say a little something back.

Thanks to my family - I actually passed the birthday mark in my parent's room talking to my mother, something I have not done in years. It was great.

Thanks to Richard and Ka Fei for that wonderful Manchester United DVD. I've never got one of those for my birthday before.

Thanks to the amazing people who surprised me yesterday, you know who you are especially Suanie who nearly made me emo. Also special mention to my "cupcake gang" colleagues. It was really a passing mention people!

Thanks to my very nice clients who got me a Birthday card!

Thanks to everyone who sent me an SMS, Facebook message, email or MSN message. Too many to name, but each one equally dear.

Last, but not least, thanks to my wife who bought me the most awesome birthday present ever - an ASUS Eee PC which was brought down from Singapore by David Chieng (thanks Dave):


It's really small, the miniature sitting on the Eee PC shows you the scale.

Who knew growing up would be so much fun?

Off to WCIT tomorrow!

Eee PC - checked. N95 - checked. Delegate tag - checked. I'm all ready to wake up tomorrow at an unearthly hour (for me, at least - 6:30 a.m.) to head down to KL Convention Centre for the start of the World Congress on Information Technology 2008 (WCIT 2008).

Things I'm particularly looking forward to:

• Watch Holo-Bill Gates speak during the Microsoft Marquee session
• Listening to Craig Barrett talk about a world powered by Technology (which it already is)
• Listening to Vinton Cerf - the "Father of the Internet", ICANN Chairman and also Google's Chief Internet Evangelist, talk about the Internet in the 21st Century.
• Listening to a panel of ministers speak about the future of the internet (I'd like to hear what they are thinking)

With my trusty new Eee PC and N95, I'll try to do some live blogging, twittering or even Qikking of the sessions over at WCIT 2008. So if you're interested in technology at all, hop along for the ride!

Random updates , technology speeds up my life

Update 1: I'm going to Brisbane



This happened in a whirl yesterday when wife SMSed me at about 9:30 a.m. in the morning and said, "AirAsia is having a free ticket giveaway and tickets to Brisbane are still available! QUICK!!! Tell me if you want to go?"

"Okay honey, I'll go call some friends and see if anyone wants to go."

Picking up the phone, I called a couple of buddies.... "You have three hours to make a decision before the tickets are all gone. Quick. Make the decision."

There was much flip-flopping in the decision-making, but in the end, two other friends joined in to make it a motley crew of 4 flyers to Brisbane. Calming down at 12:30 p.m. yesterday, I thought to myself, "Wow, that's the quickest trip I've planned." This morning, I still can't believe I'm going to Brisbane.

Technology's really accelerated our lives and sometimes, I'm not sure if our brains can make good decisions fast enough. Thanks to the magic of SMS, the Internet and Telegraphic Credit Card transactions, I've committed to go for a trip that didn't cross my mind even just 28 hours ago.

Things really happen fast, don't they?

Update 2: I snap a nice pic of Bukit Bintang at night

One more contribution to Soul of the Night. Guess where I had to stand to snap the pic below?

Best Swag Ever - world's lightest Thinkpad?

In my four years as a PR consultant, I've seen a lot of different kinds of swag (stuff we give journalists when they attend media events). Thumb drives. T-Shirts. Jackets. Genuine Formula 1 Team shirts. Key Chains. CDs. Mugs. Paper weights. You name it, it's probably been given out.

Today we had a delivery to our office. A huge, huge box of Lenovo swag. But you can't imagine the delight when we started pulling out Thinkpads out of the box.



The photo above shows how much smaller it is in dimensions versus my current T60 Thinkpad. :) Sleek and small, I love it.



Eevon just loves working on it.



Me too.

So what's this mystery Thinkpad? It's a notebook.



Yes, I meant it literally. But isn't it just so cool?

'Alternative media' shakes up elections

This year's elections have proved to be a real eye-opener. Not just from a political viewpoint (of which I am less than qualified to comment) but from a pure technology-communication point-of-view.

As I type, I'm watching TV3 and watching the two hosts (whose names I can't get) discuss how 'teknologi moden' (modern technology) has played such an important role in this year's electoral race. The MalaysianInsider named 'Alternative Media' one of the big winners in this year's elections. Right now, I'm refreshing at least four newssites and blogs, monitoring RSS feeds for another dozen or so, and chatting with friends as real-time results are coming in.

Redundant to say, I know, but news travels so much faster these days.

The guy on TV is now commenting that it's been the government's goal and desire to push the proliferation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), with a tongue-in-cheek remark that parties should plan their communications strategies taking into consideration blogs, SMSes and the Internet in the next elections. Well, some have already and reaped the results with glee.

Yes, people, this election isn't just about an alternative front. It's also about alternative media. If there's one event in any given country that highlights the coming of age of the internet (and not just the internet, but also other forms of techno-communication) it's got to be the elections.

I've written in admiration of the clever Obama campaign. Also, about the giant strides forward some traditional media institutions have taken to putting the elections online. The blogosphere is abuzz with sites and every other personal blog shares a personal opinion about the elections.

The oft-overlooked attribute about this 'new media' or 'alternative media' is the feedback mechanisms that are so richly embedded into the system. Yes, these are great ways of disseminating information and pushing your political agenda. But it's also probably one of the best ways to just listen.

MalaysianInsider applauded DAP for having its pulse on what the Malaysian Voter was concerned with and it's probably no surprise that this same party that has achieved (as of now) a record performance of its own also boasts perhaps the strongest links with the blogosphere and 'Alternative Media'. Jeff Ooi's blog is probably one of the most well-known political blogs, but you also have Lim Kit Siang, Teresa Kok and even my favourite, Jenice Lee, blogging.

And probably not just blogging, but reading other people's blogs. Because if you stopped to read, you'd see that just by reading a couple of personal blogs, you could get a sense of what the public sentiment is and what the key issues are. When your candidate responds to a comment you posted on his / her blog, I'd bet you'd feel that at the very least, you've been listened to.

So, in the next five years will we perhaps see every politician with their own blog? Well, if the answer is yes, then I'd be estatic. Because blogs are as close as you can get to hearing the truth of what a politician says short of attending a ceramah and hearing it yourself. Better still, blogs don't just disappear (unless you want to immediately discredit yourself).

If you want to know what Kit Siang is about, take some time, read through his blog. The moment he doesn't live up to what he talks about, vote him out. Either way, the blog makes him more and more accountable. Accountable because he himself has put what he wants to say in print (digitally, at least) for all to see. So he'd better make sure he does all he can to deliver on those promises.

Right now, my feeds are slowing down to a trickle and I can no longer get onto MalaysiaKini or MalaysianInsider. So maybe, for next elections, not just more blogs but more bandwidth?

davidlian wants: an Eee PC

A while ago, I was tagged by SlowCatchupKuan to post my "dream" gadget on my blog. So, I went home and took a nap, but quite unsuccessfully, I found that when I woke up, I couldn't remember what gadgets I had dreamt about.

After reading Kuan's post more carefully, I think she may have actually meant what gadget I would want. So here goes:

Pic from Slashgear.com

I had just gotten rid of my Acer notebook last year in favour of a home-brewed desktop setup (for the games) and have my Nokia N95 for my mobile computing needs. Then, I met this guy at an event with a cool looking, darn compact sub-notebook with a cool Linux interface. It looked like those RM 8,000 Viaos Sony had and i thought "Surely must be super-ex one lah."

We started to chat about general computing stuff when I popped the question: "How much?"

"RM 1,400."

"What?"

"Yeap. There are cheaper models."

That pretty much sold it for me. I love the concept of the EeePC - 4 - 8 GB of storage space (put everything else on your thumbdrive), 1 GB of RAM, Built-in Graphics Card, 7" Screen (with a 9" version on the way), nicely sized (though not full) keyboard, WiFi, BlueTooth. It's the perfect carry around sub-notebook for when you want to use a PC to do something.

It's light. It's tough enough (especially since everything is solid state) . And it looks cool.

I could see myself using this at Starbucks to browse the internet, or sitting in front of a TV typing up a blog post. Or paired with the N95 (you can install Windows on the Eee PC) to do some heavyweight browsing.

So why haven't I gotten one? Coz I'm waiting for this 9", 12GB version to come out sometime mid-2008.

The Obligatory Valentines Post

I love Lydia a lot and in this, our 7th year together, we get to celebrate our Valentines Day in a simple way for the first time as a married couple.

Just to share a picture of us eating at Carl's Jr:



And... not to forget, the best Valentine's gift ever (for now):



Just a quick short post to say "Thanks dear, love you forever!" Always will.

Guess who got a domain name?

So I've been thinking about this for a few weeks already. "Want to get a domain or not?"

The plus point about having your own name as the domain is... well..."glamour-lah" (It's glamourous). The minus point about having your own domain name is it costs money.

But I'm the type of person who will ponder, meandre and brood over decisions like this, but inevitably inch towards biting the bullet. Today, I bit it.

Started the day asking people about which domain service to use. Suan said Paul's service very reliable. Then Kel told me to go check out www.exabytes.com.my. Ran a Google search and in Malaysia apparently there's like tonnes of registrars (like www.webserver.com.my).

Finally, I settled on GoDaddy because its a name I know (heard it over Coolness Roundup) and because I had a coupon that made my 3 year registration cost only US$ 21.45 (can you beat that?).

The next step was to get Blogger to publish to my domain. Thankfully, this was a really simple step with the full instructions here. All you gotta be is a bit patient. I wasn't, so I was bugging people over MSN and moaning because all I could see for 2 hours after registering was this "parking" page (the page that tells you davidlian.com is coming soon).

Well, as you can see, it works now. And I feel so legitimate. It's like... I've moved off free-service-land into owning my own lease-hold apartment. I've actually got my own web-address.

Okay, so people, to celebrate my new domain. Can I say, this makes me super happy and that if I could, I would have entered the Happy Moments contestwith this post. Because it's hard to express how you feel when you own your own domain name (instead of letting some squatter squat on it). It's just happy.

:)

Almost done - Grey Knights

Gone done myself some painting for me latest army. And I'm so excited, I have to share them here.

These Grey Knights are the best of the Imperium and the Emperor's finest. Got a bit of static grass on them. I'll have to pull that off tonight... o_O

Bruised bum weekend

This weekend was filled with aching legs, leech bites and bruises.

For the first time in about 3 months we went mountain biking again. We were all pretty happy before setting off on the trails as seen in the picture below. We were going to have a go at "Dream" (the name of the trail) at FRIM.



After pedalling in past the gates and towards the trail proper, we stopped for another pic. Still looking very gung-ho and ready forthe challenge.



15 minutes into the trail, Jason turns back and looks at me and says: "You hyper-ventilating?"

"Uh...*breathe* breathe* ... no, not really... *breathe* *breathe*"

"Okay, if you're hyper-ventilating, better stop, take off your helmet and catch your breath for a bit okay?"

"Uh... *breathe* *breathe* okay."

About 5 minutes after that I fell of my bike. Heh... guess I'm just not as fit as I thought I am.



Got back up and continued down the trail again. This is me, still looking cheerful. I *attempted* some basic Mountain Biking maneuvres - Jason and Yuke Bin - were teaching me since they were basically the gurus of the group, but fell down a couple of times. Can't take a bend yet or do a switch-back. Can't even pedal off a ramp and land properly (resulting in me getting stuck half-way up the ramp and falling off my bike again).

But we persevered through the entire course (about 2 hours of biking) and the reward was a high-speed chase down tar roads to get back out ot the main entrance. There's nothing like having the wind in your hair, going at top speed and knowing that you're not likely to get knocked down by a car. It's just simply joy.

The rest of the day actually deserves a part two in itself so I'll setup a second post later when I get around to it.

So I got back at 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday...

It was already pretty late and I was all tired out - was sick, you see.

But then, I got a little bit of cheer in my mail:

Yup! The box of glade guard I won from listening to podhammer! I guess listening to podcasts does pay off. :)

thanks Jeff!