the cost/efficiency of paper processes in a e-world
Today, I had an interesting experience. I had to mail a banking form in paper due to local banking regulations. As there is no post office on my way to my work place and none nearby I had to wait until the weekend to do so.
I started around 11:05 AM to the nearest post office. I had to travel using LRT to the post office. I reached the post office at 11:20 AM. I was in the queue until 12:00 PM and was serviced in 3 minutes. The cost of the mailing was S$0.50 while the cost of the journey was (S$0.69 + S$0.69) to and fro. The efficiency of the transaction – wait until the end of the week, wait in queue for over 40 minutes, transport cast ~3 times the cost of actual transaction 
Just to tickle our thoughts. Isn’t it time to go fully ‘e-*’ ?
Roaming and operator-updated time
I am writing this from India (GMT + 5.5) and roaming with my Singapore (GMT + 8.0) mobile phone. I noticed something very strange. In all my mobile phones, under “time and date” settings, I usually setup time zone as local time instead of GMT +/- X and Network operator time as auto-update. By this way, I hope to always have the current local time updated automatically. Everything seem to have worked fine until now…
Virtualisation and missing RAM
This is part 2 to my earlier post “A Linux crash, burn and recover experience“. I had mentioned in there that I plan to use a Virtual Machine (VM) strategy for easy backup and porting in future. However, the reality forced me to abandon the approach. It could also be that I don’t know the trade secrets read on…
Pleasantly surprised by Windows 7
I had a chance to beta test the upcoming release of Windows OS, version 7. I didn’t have any expectations for the Windows Vista successor; I have downgraded all my factory-installed Vista systems to Windows XP within 15 minutes … I was pleasantly surprised with what Microsoft had done this time though :O
A Linux crash, burn and recover experience…
One of my trustworthy RHEL servers which was up (virtually) for 4+ years and served thousands of users over-the-web recently crashed. As data in the server was critical, we had to undertake a salvage operation before re-install. This post is my experience of recovering the server’s data and also some of the lessons learned and new strategies evolved for configuring future resilient server…
Did my 20th blood donation on Saturday :)
the heading says it all…
I started donating blood in April 2002 and until March 2009 I have donated 20 times. I am not sure if I should feel proud about it because in theory I could have donated up to 28 times (4 years a year is allowed in Singapore for whole blood donation). However, My target was 21 (or 3 times a year). So, I guess I am short of 1 time now and that amounts to 95% of goal.
I am hoping that I will be able to donate 5 more times this and next year to reach 25 in 2010 and get a silver medal 
Hackers Vs Crackers
Exactly, 8 months ago to this date I had a chance to visit the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, United States. The exhibition was one of the largest I have ever been to. It featured exhibits from multiple disciplines of Science and was lively, interactive and very well maintained. Even with a few stop-by’s it took us ~6 hours to cover it. I recommend a visit to the museum if you are in Chicago.
One of the exhibits that captured my interest was on computer criminals…
