I just got my iPad two days ago. I bought iPad primarily because I wanted to read eBooks and save the environment (actually my bookshelves kind of full). The Cloud-9 feeling of owning an iPad does not live long when I could not find Amazon Kindle app in iTunes App Store.

After some Sherlock-Holmes investigation, I found out that Amazon Kindle app is only available in iTunes US store and some other countries – definitely not in Singapore. Well, your dad probably ever told you that you should not give up on your first attempt, thus we all are looking for another way.

And I found a way to get it installed, but only to find another major problem. I couldn’t buy any Kindle books from Asia Pacific region. If you are like me, that’s probably another moment you utter the word, “Sh*t!”

With a little bit of common sense and luck, I worked my way out; a happy man I am, I bought The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Delivering Happiness. Let me share with you the steps, and hopefully it will work for you, so the excitement of working your fingers like in Minority Report - on the iPad, lives on.

How to Install Amazon Kindle on Your iPad

Ignore this step if your iTunes account is already a US account.

• Create iTunes App Store US Account, follow Apple’s instructions on how to create an App Store account without a credit card (Remember to select United States for the country, and google for a US address).
• Then go to your iTunes application, sign out from your current account, click on Store>Sign Out menu, then click on Store> Sign In again, once signed in with your US account, it should prompt a message to redirect you to iTunes US App Store, click OK to continue (Don’t worry the apps you have purchased using your Singapore account, they can still be sync-ed with your iPad)
• Go back to iTunes Store, search for Amazon Kindle, and you should see it now, and install it right away (Tip: You may be interested with other US only apps, like Google Mobile App, Last.fm, and Yahoo! Entertainment).

How to Purchase Kindle Books

• Create an Amazon account if you do not have one, enter your Singapore address and your Singapore Credit Card information as well.
• Next, go to this page, change the country to be associated with your Kindle account, scroll down a little bit under Your Country heading. It should be empty. Add a US address (Google for one if you have no idea).
• And now you are ready to purchase, search for a Kindle book and click the Buy button. If it prompts for payment, choose your Singapore credit card, and it works like charm. The book will be automatically downloaded when you start your Amazon Kindle on your iPad, pretty neat.

And just in case if you are wondering if you can use the same trick for iBook purchase, I’m really sorry, you can’t, cause it checks for a US credit card. If you know of a way, please let me know.

I’m happy with Kindle Store for now. By the way, what are you reading? I may be able to get some inspirations from intelligent people like you. And well, you can check out mine as well at BookJetty.

Happy reading, and I freaking love my iPad.

UPDATE:

• A friend suggested that you can use US Unlocked service to get a US credit card. That could be an answer to your iBooks purchase, but it charges an nominal rate if you do not mind.
• After purchasing the book, you may be getting an email from Amazon asking you to verify that you are a US resident. If you are, that will be easy, if you are not, I am not very sure of the implications as well, a quick google search bring me to one of Kindle threads in Hardware Zone, it doesn’t specifically mention what will happen, and I just did not have the time, to go through all of the links in Google.
  
  My advice would be, please do not go with a purchase spree, as the worse-case scenario your account may be suspended (that will be very cruel for Amazon to do that), or future Kindle books purchase will no longer be allowed, or nothing may happen all. I take my chances, one or two books at a time, and get the best of what I can get at the moment.

My grandparents migrated from China on a boat in the late 1930s. Grandma said they were still a kid, and they were running away from war.

They landed on a small village, southern east-coast of Sumatra. They got married in their teen, she has 11 children, 9 daughters and 2 sons. I always find it amusing whenever I told anyone about how many children they have, well, enough to form a soccer team.

They lived in the village for many years, even after all their children had settled down in other towns, they insisted to stay. Until one day a thief broke into their house and grandpa was stabbed on his upper arm, they decided to move to my hometown.

Grandma is the more friendly and chatty type as compared to Granpa, her smile was wide and warm whenever I visited her. At 5-feet tall, probably shorter, she looks really small when she stands beside grandpa, who is towering at 6 feet.

I love talking to grandma, I like to ask her about the past, how was life like during the war and how they used to live their every day life.

One thing that she always said, we all are vey fortunate today. She said basic need like rice, which now we can get easily get from any neighbourhood market, triple AAA grade, imported from Thailand, some even pre-washed. For them, they had to plant themselves.

I remember how she smiled, recalling how tiring it was to plant paddy fields. She said, even after the harvest, they still had to winnow the rice grains, they had to wait for wind to blow the chaff way. How afraid they were many times, when they had to hide under the bed after a gun shot from a distance. How meals could be so simple by just eating tapioca.

Though life is much better today, it may not be always rosy. Not long after they moved to my hometown, grandpa got a stroke, and that left him with half of his body paralyzed, and he had to be wheel-chair bound. Being wheel-chair bound in a small town in Indonesia, where the roads and streets are not disabled friendly, that leaves you with no choice but being confined at home most of the times.

Granpa became really quiet, he hardly spoke more than two words when I visited them, one to acknowledge me when I arrived, and the other when I said good bye. He preferred to spend his days resting on his bed, or on his wheel chair behind an open gate, by the road side, watching people, vechicles and the crowd passed through the time. He always looked sad and weak, and that goes on for a few years.

Last week, when I went back, he seems to be a changed person, more energetic and lively than before, finally I was able to see him smile again when I greeted him.

When he wanted to go out to the yard, Grandma pushed him on his wheelchair, my wife, and I tagged along. We had small conversations, he replied with his soft husky voice, hardly audible, grandma had to bend down, put her left ear close to his lips, she would interpret for us when explaining what granpa had just said, often with small laughters.

I asked her who shaved grandpa’s beard, she proudly said I did, I asked her who cut granpa’s hair, she moved her fingers tidying grandpa’s short hair, she smiled and said I did.

Her small gestures showed how much she loves grandpa, I was proud with her, I saw before my eyes, what wedding vow means when we say through sickness and health.

It is sad that life has to ever grow old, and how I wish granpa is able to walk at his old age. Yet life is always unpredictable, bad things do happen at the unexpected times.

Maybe simple things in life, now I shall learn to cherish each day, to be able to stand up, to walk, to move my fingers, I shall learn to be grateful.

(continued from previous post)

I reached School of Information System at about 10:35am, I was early, registration starts at 10:30am, competition starts at 12:00pm. Many people were already there, eager and ready to get started.

I found a corner, sat on the floor, shortly after three familiar faces walked into the briefing area, I stood up, and it was strange that we greeted each other from far, we knew each other’s name, though we had never met before. Well, the power of blog and mailing list, they are the Malaysia Ruby Brigade guys, Kamal, Azizat, and Ke Gan, the RSB Team. Glad to have finally met them in person.

Soon, the briefing started, and minutes before the competition kicked-off, I found out that the package given to us after signing in had a slip of paper with the competition theme. And I was stupidly oblivious to it, no wonder, I saw people were busy brainstorming, drawing diagrams with their group members. “Shit”, I said silently. The theme was Hospitality and/or tourism services in a participative society.

In no time, the competition started, 73 teams in total spread across different seminar rooms, I was in room 2-1, glad to have a front row’s two-seater desk, not much distraction.

Plugged in my iPod, and blasted my favourite songs, I started to brain-storm, 45 minutes passed, I wasn’t still very sure what to do, panic started to kick-in, I quickly decided on one, working on the idea for the next two or three hours, it was getting worse, I knew something was wrong, the functionalities were not clear, there were just too many things to do and too little time.

I thought, I’m dead, this is not going to make it. I seriously thought of just packing my stuff and go back, I have lost too many hours.

Then I got an SMS from my wife saying that some of my friends said ‘Cia Yo‘ (meaning don’t lose your spirit). I was glad that it came at the right time, then I told myself to relax, Herry, you don’t come here to win, you come here to try your best and have fun.

I walked out from the room, took a break, took a deep breath, gazed at the sky, when the pressure is out, my brain started to work again, I remembered what Paul Arden said in his book Whatever you think always think the opposite, so I thought of something else related to the hospitality and tourism industry, someting different, yet it is clearer and it is easier to execute, somthing simple and makes sense. Bingo, I said.

I came into the room as a different person, my old self, I broke the idea into smaller tasks, prioritising improtant tasks, took out all the fancy stuff, will do the fancy stuff only when I got the time. Set a targetted completion time for each task, and I worked like a machine, drank lots of water, went out of the room only to fill up my water bottle, to wee wee, to eat and answer phone calls Yeah I still answer my phones. :)

I could not believe that two days ago I was on this beautiful beach, dozed off in a hammock, and now I’m cracking my brain, and typing like it was gonna be the end of the world tomorrow.

Hours passed, it was morning already, I was still fully awake, iPod still blasting, I felt good, for completing a task each time, I felt better when I completed a few more.

Two hours before the dateline, my fingers started to ache, though I was fully awake, but I felt a bit numb and slow, I told myself, It’s enough Herry, just deploy, test, fix and do whatever necessary in the last two hours.

At 12:00 pm, it was finally over. This is crazy, I thought, this is extreme indeed, exhausted, I was glad that I did not call it a quit, I was glad that I have done my very best.

At this stage, whether you win or not, it does not matter anymore, for those who have gone through that very night, give yourself a pat on your back, we all are winners.

The next day I was shorlisted with 10 other great teams, I gave another short presentation, and this morning I received an email saying that I have won the second prize, not believing my eyes, all I could say, thank you Jesus for the second prize.

And not forgetting Ang, who was kind enough to lend me his notebook, to Peter Bohm who had helped many of us with deployment issues, to Chardy for his last minute’s tip, to the organizer, ITSC, and the supporting organisations. Kudos for the job well done, I was impressed with how smooth and well the event was executed. Hopefully this will be the start for many similar exiciting events to come.

If you are wondering what happens to the two cans of Red-Bull? Good question, I totally forgot about them.

It has been a while since the last time I took a break from work, trekking in Cameron Highland.

Last week, after attending a friend’s wedding in KL, I took another break, I thought it is about time, living in old estate in Ang Mo Kio, every now and then I was reminded that life is short.

So my wife and I headed to Redang island, north-east of peninsula Malaysia, a small island with its white sandy beach, and swimming-pool-clarity sea water.

We were there for three days and two nights, went snorkling each day, seeing lots and lots of fishes and corals, and eat and relaxing for the rest of the day.

It was really weird on the first day; weird and strange that life could be so slow and quiet, no checking of emails, no coding, no phone calls. It was just me, the sun, the sea, the sand and my wife. One extreme of life I thought.

One lazy afternoon, I layed on a hammock, hanged under a big tree facing the beach, it was slightly windy, the breeze was caressing my face and my hair, this must be heaven, I thought, so I took out my wife’s point-and-shoot camera, took a snap, before dozing off.

Three days had just passed, I was back to Singapore, after a good night sleep, the next morning I packed another bag, loaded with a borrowed notebook from an angel (mine collapsed), an iPod, and two cans of Red-Bull.

I headed to Singapore Management University (SMU) for code::XtremeApps, a 24-hour programming contest, organized by Information Technology Standards Committee, first of its kind in Singapore and first time ever I joined such a competition, not realizing what trouble I have brought myself into, another extreme of life, I thought. (to be continued…)

Two days ago, I was tagged by Design Sojourn with a meme, because he would like to dig out some the dark secrets I have in my life.

And these are the eight things you probably don’t know about me:

1. When I was in high school, I lost so much weight out of a sudden, not knowing why, I thought something serious was happening with me, and for the first time in my life, I thought about death. Later, I found out I was at the early the stage of Tuberculosis infection. I’m forever grateful now, and considering myself living on my second-life.
2. If blog has been around in 1991, I should have started blogging when I was 14, I penned my life summaries on a small diary. Now that I read back, I had a good laugh, we sounded so silly when we were young.
3. For the first 17 years of life, I was never worried about what I want to be, for the next 11 years I was still searching; and only for the last two years, I found my true-self. The world is a vast forest, it’s easy to lost our way.
4. I am still afraid of big worm; when I was a kid, while digging worms for fishing, my friend threw a pretty big fat worm that sticked on my bare back; that made me jumping up and down for a while. He’s going to pay for that one day, I plan to throw jelly fish on his bare back.
5. My favourite cartoon character is Doraemon.
6. I ocassionally sleep with my mouth open, I guess it’s the gene that I inherited from my dad. Bad, bad gene!
7. When I was much younger, I was so confused about religion, with a few friends, I went for a church service, after praying and chanting in a temple. We did that for about a year or two. Poor lost kids, after all, there is only one God right? Shouldn’t all ways lead to the same God? I told you it’s confusing.
8. I once applied for Master of Technology in National University of Singapore (NUS), but was rejected, and was a tad sad back then. Now that I look back, I’m glad I was rejected, because I applied out of peer pressure. And up till now, I still believe that out of every bad things that happen to us, there are always good things to look upon.

To keep this meme alive, I am tagging Cobalt Paladin, because he is an interesting character with his secret identity.

I was there to visit the stadium’s gym, I heard it was cheap and good, $2.50 per entry. I had given up signing for gym membership, as I always ended up donating my membership fees after the third month.

I had heard a lot about the stadium, read it on paper, seen it on TV, and I never missed Singapore National Parade each year, live on TV. Yet, it felt different when you are actually standing there, in the stadium.

I was at the main gate, instead going into the gym, I decided to walk towards the running tracks, attracted mainly by the lush green fields, whose grass never seem to ever grow an inch longer. I felt like running to the middle of the field and start rolling like a lazy cat after a good meal, but I thought it might not be a good idea.

I looked at the running tracks, warmed by a late afternoon sun, the stadium was pretty much empty, a few joggers were running slowly on the track, they probably were running fast, but the tracks were so long, they appeared to be slow.

I looked up at the empty seats, gazing slowly from one end towards the other end, I felt so insignificant, I was so small, the stadium was so spacious, I felt like an ant in a big bowl.

I looked at the walls, the beams, the seats – the stadium must have been quite old, I guessed – they appeared to be washed out and parched by years of rains and direct sunlight.

I found out today, it was built in 1973. At 34 years of age, its structures still appeared strong as if saying give me another one-hundred years, and I can still host another hundred national parades.

Sadly yesterday, he bid goodbye to all of us, giving way to the new stadium.

Photo: About two months ago, photographer.sg organised a photo trip to Singapore National Stadium, out of so many shots I took, I think I finally managed to capture the soul of the stadium through this shot, strangely, he looks like the image I have of him when I first met him four years ago.

In memory of Singapore National Stadium.

I bumped into this site this morning, faceyourpockets.com, basically it asks you to empty your pockets; arrange your stuff on a scanner, and lastly place your face and scan it.

I thought it’s silly, but when I look at the scans from the others, I was really impressed by the creativity shown, now I think it’s fun and artistic too.

So the child in be rebelled, and this is what I got before I even realized it. I know it’s silly, but it’s fun. Check out the others too.

List of objects scanned:

• IKEA paper ruler, used it when I moved house, but forgot to clear it.
• Some coins.
• iPod Shuffle
• My namecard
• A $2 note from my wallet, with the coins, probably for lunch later.
• Keys
• BookJetty namecard
• EZLink smartcard
• Restaurant receipt, last weekend bill, dinner treat for my aunt, auncle and cousin.
• Handphone
• Pen
• Part of my face

So what’s in your pockets? :D

Things that are living in the pockets of your bag, jeans or jacket: travel and pay checks, old cigarette pack that just looks interesting, sugar lumps and all the stuff that has found home in your pockets. They are all the treasures our project is looking for! Our goal is not only bring all this objects into light but show the owner of them.

— Faceyourpockets.com

Pricing is always a very sensitive issue, pricing it too much you lose a deal, pricing it too low you make a lost. But what is the right price? And how should you charge, per project, hourly or per retainer basis? These are the hard questions that we all have to deal each day, be you the vendor or the customer.

Brian Fling from Blue Flavor, has written a great article about pricing your project; there are a couple of tips we all can learn from, and at the end he concludes that:

Honesty and transparency should always be the heart of all projects.

And I can’t agree more.

Some photos taken about a month ago at lower seletar reservoir. I was there with Roy, it was our virgin visit to the reservoir. Roy said, “Don’t feel bad, you usually won’t come here unless your school teacher organise the trip”. So, I assumed it was not my fault then.

It was a quiet and serene place when we were there, the dragon boat competition had just ended, and a few people were seen throwing their anglers. Although not as big as east coast park, it is a pretty lovely place to relax and read a book.

If you going there, remember to bring a black bag to experiement with these hundreds of tiny white flies hovering our camera bags and suddenly disappeared when it was getting dark.

An african safari shot

SMRT moving fast

And who said we are not trying to make contacts with the outer space.

I was at 43Things.com, it is a weird social-networking site that allows you to list down your goals and meet other people who have the same goals. The site asks this simple question, “What you want to do with your life?”

As I am writing this, 943,117 people in 12,075 cities answered that question with 918,625 goals. What is interesting, people associate or tag their goals with some relevant keywords. Don’t you curious what the popular tags would be, well, I was.

So I took a peek at the tag cloud, and I was surprised, but comforted seeing the wisdom of the crowds speaks exactly the top ten goals I have in mind.

Did you notice that money is not the first priority, fun is. And when was the last time you did something fun?