Random Pictures

(Left) The Angkor beer that I brought back from my Cambodia journey late last year suddenly reappears in the fridge today; (Right) An "enhanced" iPhone being displayed in a mobile phone shop in Shatin. This iPhone replica may not be 100% full features as the original iPhone but it allows users to plug in 2 SIM cards! Much more advanced that then original iPhone in this sense!

Life in a Classroom ...

Couldn't recall if I've posted anything here about a management course I'm taking these few months. My company is sponsoring me to take a programme called Accelerated Management Talent (AMT) in the Richard Ivey School of Business's Hong Kong campus - which resides in the HKCEC!

There are four modules with 3 full-day classes in each module. The first module on "Leadership & Change Management" was done in Oct last year. I skipped the 2nd one on "Strategic Analysis & Action" last Nov 'cos of heavy workload in office. And I'm attending the 3rd module "Managing Financial Performance & Resources" this week (the last module on "Strategic Marketing Planning" will be conducted next month).

The leadership module was a relatively easy and manageable one. But I'm kind of lost yesterday when I was sitting in the lecture room this time on numbers. But I see improvements today probably because of the Cappuccino I brought with me to the class! I hope I've time tonight to do some pre-reading before I sleep ...

Photo caption: (left) a snapshot taken with my mobile with wrong focus when I was lost in the lecture room; (right) the dinner I just had in my office

G-Phone & the Android Mobile Platform

You may have heard about the G-Phone which people said Google will announce in the past months. But later on, instead of a mobile phone unit, Google announced that their G-Phone initiative is actually not only hardware but they make available a brand new application platform - Android - that mobile phone manufacturers can make use of (instead of Windows Mobile, Palm or Symbian that are being used commonly). The Android platform looks quite powerful that its interactivity with the Internet is almost seamless. You may like to watch the following video to learn more.



The first G-Phone is yet to be seen in the market, but we can already test drive some of its interesting features. I installed the Google Maps for mobile phone into my little Dopod PDA phone. Right away I can see Hong Kong maps either in drawings or satellite images and best of all is that I can even locate myself (like the way GPS does) instantly. Google Maps makes use of cellular networks for location identification - which is a little bit less accurate than GPS. But I think it's already a pretty good application.

Another New Toy

I've got a new toy recently as a Christmas present - an eeePC mini laptop. This is my first ever laptop.

Though I've a desktop with a huge monitor at home, I've been looking around for a mini one that I can carry with me on the go - perhaps sometimes to be used in office for jotting notes and more importantly for use when I'm on trip. During the recently trips to Vietnam and Cambodia, I felt that having a laptop will be really good for writing blog entries and organize my pictures when I'm back to hotel.

To my surprise, I've got an ideal one effortless over Christmas! :)

I spent quite some time during my holiday time to equip the new toy with a slipstreamed WindowsXP + some minimal software applications that I think I'll really need when I'm on the go. And I've bought an additional SD card (it's called SDHC card, to be exact, a new version of SD card with are of higher capacity) as the secondary storage since the new toy only comes with 4GB hard drive - which is definitely not enough. But considering this mini thing is meant for real mobility, I'm very happy with its configuration already.

Just like iPhone in the mobile phone area, this eeePC has become a hot topic in the laptop industry with a lot of newsgroup, websites, forums and people talking about it (i.e. tips and tweaks, ways to upgrade and optimize it ...etc.). I can even see a number of groups already in Facebook!