Daily Life: What's ur favourite subway sandwich

As I normally work on Saturdays, I try to give myself a treat on that day. All weekdays I will be taking normal hawker food like laska, chicken rice, mixed vegetable rice, fishball noodles and others. Sometimes if my colleague is having lunch with his wife, I will ask him to help me buy Mac cheeseburger. Not that it is healthy, but it is the cheapest burger I can afford @ $2 a piece.

So with the money saved (S$10 per day for meals is not a big deal in Singapore context but to me it is...), I will balance it with a subway sandwich on Saturdays. Why subway? well, it has good bread like my favorite, hearty Italian and lots of vegs. I love vegs but cannot live without meat yet.

My top three choices are subway melt, cold cut trio and italian B.M.T. Except for onions, I will take all vegs and have honey mustard as the sauce. When I am very on the ball, I will take only olive oil if they do have.

Whats urs?

IT: Windows 7 hype or the real deal?

Windows 7 was launched worldwide on Oct 22. Its the replacement for vista which unfortunately is a failed product since XP. Vista's heavy memory usage plus security orientated settings though good, failed to win the hearts of many XP users including business like my company.

Despite deployed successfully Vista business on some workstations and desktop in production environment, our testing conclude that Vista business even when locked down, does not provide the stability nor performance of XP Pro. so when Windows 7 Professional (not the RTM version) is available for us 2 months before the Oct 22 launch to test, we decided to test it out.

To my surprise, it's 1) fast to install when compare to Vista business and provided most of the device drivers, more than XP Pro. We tried both a upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 & a fresh installation of Windows 7. both result are the same: good! 2) its memory demands is low, we test on a Core duo machine running on 512MB ram and it performs like XP Pro, stable and fast.

Its interface needs to get use to; users of vista OS should not have any problem with Windows 7. We also tested our existing applications like Sophos AV, SAP, engineering software like UG NX4 etc on windows 7 and do not encounter any issues despite that these applications are designed more for XP Pro.

I like the User Access control (UAC) which was a nightmare in Vista OS. Windows 7's UAC is less noisy and provides the necessary protection we are looking for.

On the whole, I think Microsoft do address the shortcoming of the vista OS with the windows 7 OS. Looks like I have to work out the migration plan to change some if not machines to Windows 7.

IT: Review on MSI X340

Today we will look at the MSI X340 notebook. Its design is a copy from the Apple Macbook Air n Dell Adamo. Like the apple and dell models, it does not have a built-in dvd writer and uses a standard USB external drive.

Its strongest point is its price, retailed at S$1300 for a standard base unit, it is at least 35% cheaper than its peers-in-class while keeping the same weight and thickness.

Below are its specs
Intel Core 2 Solo U1400 1.4Ghz
2GB Ram
320GB Hard disk
Full sized keyboard
1.3M Webcam
2 USB ports
1 VGA port
SD, MMC media reader
Intel Wireless 5100N adapter
Boardcomm Giga-E Lan adapter
56K Modem (Do people still use it???)
13.4" LCD
Windows Vista Home Premium
1.3kg for weight/w battery, Dimensions: 330 x 224 x 19.8 mm
Warranty: 1 year international, 2nd year local

Daily Life: Guess who's birthday is it?

So whose birthday was it? Its so easy unless the reader is only into the enterinment news for the past 10 years.

Its Jim Roger's birthday. No his birthday was not on Oct 10, just that since he was at the Wealth Asia Summit 09 and his birthday is just 9 days away, I think the organizer decide to give him a surprise. He has aged much since I last saw him on newspaper 3 years ago. He and his family are now living in Singapore and his insight into the world economy still remains valid.

Though what he shared with us was not something new to me, it just confirm something that I shared with many, US is on the decline and USD will suffer as a result. Oil has peaked for the past 10 years and the only way for prices is to go up since supply has more or less dwindling while demand is growing. The rise of china will in not doubt happen even though short term there will be falls and challenges ahead. (just look at US grow into a superpower for clues)

Daily Life: In the darkness hour, comes hope

For many people, investing and/or trading whether in stock, forex, futures and ETFs are a mystery and something not to be taken lightly. Some has taken the path to greatness while most have fallen short of their target and stop in their tracks.

Before 30, I knew that any failure is acceptable and given time can recover the loss made. This year, I think this mindset is being changed to 'failure is no longer a option I will even think about'. The sudden change in mindset was set in motion since my birthday where I plan on what I want to achieve within the next 4 years.

My passion still remains in IT, that is why I do not have any problem working in my company for so long as I am continuously learning and shaping the way IT is run and operate in the company (its not mine anyway but I feel responsible towards it)

My trading so far was being flat at best. I am still learning and fine-tuning the system I was taught and modifying them to suit my needs. Its not prefect but as long as it works, who care. Yesterday I was at the Wealth Asia summit (WAS) 09 and another channel was created, internet marketing. It's a area I am not too familiar with since my last encounter with the World internet summit 1 year ago.

At the WAS 09, I see failure and success at the same time. I believe in no-get-rich-scheme so hard work is in stock for my new venture into internet marketing. Given my financial background, I know that trading and internet marketing will become 2 of my important income source other than my job. From then will I look at real estate investment and other channels; Now is to be focus on one thing than be side-track by other investment vehicle. After all I know i am not very good at multi-tasking investing in various investment tools.

Daily Life: Nice sunset

On Sat, I was working late and went home around 6.45pm. While on the way from office to the bus stop to take my bus home, I saw a nice sunset and decided to take a shot at it using my iphone.

Not too bad... The car rushing past remains me to keep focus on my goals in life and stop to take a look around, to enjoy the sunset over the horizon. It may not be gloom but its the small things that make one's life enjoyable.

:) 2 days before end of Sept.... Oct here I come.

Daily Life: A song to sing my in most..... emotions

I was watching MTV on Monday night after a days work when I came across a new song by 陶喆. The song is called '暗戀'. Its meaning is to secretly in love with someone but the person do not know.

It sings out certain part of my life when such things do happen. When listing to the song, it still does.... lets leave it at that and enjoy this music video (MV)

陶喆 - 暗恋

Still lonely still lonely
昨晚又再见到你 你还是那么美丽
我紧张到话都不会说 就傻傻看着你
渴望永远这距离 就是和你在一起
醒来发现这一切都只是我的梦境
告诉自己要冷静 却又无法不想你
我的懦弱已经开始让我讨厌我自己
是你对我有戒心 还是我没有自信
可是谁也不能阻止我 我要暗恋你
So lonely
So here I am standing all alone
在某个街头 有个我在这里只为你等候
Here I am waiting just for you
开放我所有 希望你能了解你能够接受
So lonely
今晚渴望再见你 虽然只是在梦想
短暂的甜蜜也胜过了一辈子没有你
就算没快乐结局 就算从此死了心
我要付出我所有诚意 只要能感动你
我愿意
so here I am standing all alone
在某个街头 有个我在这里只为你等候
Here I am waiting just for you
开放我所有 我要为你怎么做你才接受我 (才接受我)
我喜欢你 (我喜欢你) 我要你 (我要你) 我爱你
So here I am standing all alone(standing all alone)
在某个街头 有个我在这里只为你等候
So here I am waiting just for you
开放我所有 希望你能了解你能够接受
I'm lonely
故事就说到这里 就算你们再好奇
我想说的都已说完了 其余是秘密
在那某一个街头 会流传某个旋律
那是我在轻轻唱着歌 我多爱你Janine