Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Manuka Honey on the Go!

Date:  June 26, 2012

When you getting older, and when you catch a flu bug, you tends to take much longer to heal.  So, Manuka Honey can be a very good supplement to strengten your imune system.

IMG_8727.jpg

Now, if you travel very often, I don't think you want to bring the manuka honey bottle with you.  And it will be troublesome as some custom may want you to discard it from your hand carry.  If that happens, you will lost your daily dosage of Manuka Honey.

Not to worry, I think Eu Yan Sang has come up with a solution.  Introducing the snap pack Manuka Honey.  It is a 15+ Manuka Honey in a snap pack.

IMG_8729.jpg

It is easy to bring, and every snap pack comes with 9g of 15+ Manuka Honey.

IMG_8730.jpg

This is an innovative way to bring Manuka Honey with you when you are traveling.  Btw, what is a snap pack?

IMG_8731.jpg

Snap pack means, you snap the pack....

IMG_8732.jpg

And eat it this way, by pressing the pack.  I like the design of this snap pack.

IMG_8733.jpg

So, now you have a solution to bring lots of Manuka Honey on your traveling and stay healthy.

Stay Healthy Always!

 

Update: CardMunch by LinkedIn

Date:  June 26, 2012

Some times ago, I recommend to use Cardmunch by LinkedIn as a business card management app.

Previous Post:  http://miniliew.blogspot.sg/2011/12/great-business-card-app-cardmunch.html

 

NewImage.jpg

 

Today, after many months later, let's look at it again, and see if I am happy.

It now has a user login website.  i.e. http://cardmunch.com/user/login

 

Screen Shot 2012-06-26 at 7.24.52 AM.png

 

Again, on the website, it explains how it works.  It is not OCR, it is not machine read.  All these name cards are transcribed by real people.  Real people read the cards and fills in the contact for you, and push it to your LinkedIn account.

 

Screen Shot 2012-06-26 at 7.25.30 AM.png

 

There aren't a lot of things you can do on the website.  It showed how many jobs has been submitted, and how many has been transcribed.  I found that it is getting slower, I think it is becaue of the gaining of popularity of this App.

 

Screen Shot 2012-06-26 at 7.26.11 AM.png

 

A click on the contact, it shows you the contact details, as well as the scanned card.

 

Screen Shot 2012-06-26 at 7.37.50 AM.png

Ok, I think the user web site is still very primitive.  But there is a "Export Contacts Beta" link where you can download this as a CSV file and see it in your Excel.

Screen Shot 2012-06-26 at 7.26.38 AM.png

 

And the other option is to save it to a Mac OS X .VSF Address Book File.

 

Screen Shot 2012-06-26 at 7.26.49 AM.png

 

This is the fastest way to bring your contact around with you as a Excel spreadsheet.

 

Screen Shot 2012-06-26 at 7.27.04 AM.png

 

Once i it is downloaded, you can simply open the CSV file.

 

Screen Shot 2012-06-26 at 7.27.17 AM.png

 

All the contact info, title, company, phone, mobile phone, address info are there.

 

Screen Shot 2012-06-26 at 7.27.53 AM.png

 

As a result, after many months of using it.  I still recommend it.  Some people are very afraid about privacy.  Well, you do have a LinkedIn account, right, so, in any way, the Cloud will still get your info either way.  I think CardMunch has bring the business card application to another step.  I owned about 2-3 different business card readers.  Non of them works well.  Most of the OCR are crappy.  Thanks to many innovative designer who design the card so ugly.  CardMunch isn't perfect, but it is sufficient for me.  I need to make sure that my cards are stored in the cloud.  I need to make sure that when I need the contacts, I am able to access it with or without Internet.  And when I change iPhone, I should be able to retrieve my cards and contacts.  That's it.

 

 

 

 

Monday, June 18, 2012

Happy Father's Day

Date:  Jun 18, 2012

Kay Liew made this small trophy for me.  It's my father's day present.

IMG_8476.JPG

Right after we went for Justin's birthday party, we celebrate Father's Day at near by restaurant.

IMG_8485.JPG

This two guys were sick for almost 2 weeks.  This is the first day that I think we recovered, and free from that tiring virus.  Because we suddenly have all the appetites to eat.  A dozen of French Oysters, both lean and creamy does not seems to be enough.  So, we end up ordered another half dozen.  It was tasty.

IMG_8576.JPG

Before the big feast.  Jay was trying to solve the maze puzzle.

IMG_8573.JPG

Jay focus in eating his Oysters.  :)

IMG_8579.JPG

Kay Kay trying to eat his one too.  But I don't think he likes it.  At this point, Kay Kay still does not know how to appreciate good food.  :)

IMG_8581.JPG

At Culina, you gets to pick your steak, and ask them to cook it for $15 (cooking fee).  So, I picked a Wagyu MBS8 for myself.  Jay loves it.

IMG_8587.JPG

I chosen a Sirlion for mommy.  It is yummy too.  But she said "my steak is still better than the one served here...", is she hinting me too cook steak tonight?

IMG_8590.JPG

Every one enjoys the Father's day lunch.  Kay Kay only likes to eat the bread.

IMG_8589.JPG

Especially, when daddy no need to pay for all these food!

IMG_8574.jpg

Happy Father's Day!!!

 

Roller Coaster Road

Date:  Jun 18, 2012

There is this road that you have to take when you come out from Lorna Whiston Pre-School and need to make a U-turn at the Alexandra Rd.

It is a place where a lot of wedding couples took their wedding photos.

It is called "Roller Coaster Road", named by my kids.

IMG_1505.JPG

Why it is called a Roller Coaster Road?  We don't know.  But the fact that it has a very steep slope may contribute to its name.

IMG_1509.JPG

Every time, before you pass by this small road, we will do the guessing whether there are any wedding couple taking photos here.

IMG_1511.JPG

Sometimes, there is none.  So, the kids will be dissapointed.

IMG_1519.JPG

Anyway, sometimes, when mom pick up the kids, they will stop here for a while and take photos.

IMG_1522.JPG

The kids will play there.  You can see some of the gardeners place below.  This is just beside the HP building.

IMG_1532.JPG

It is a good place to take photos too.

IMG_1534.JPG

Jay & Kay.

IMG_1538.JPG

Usually, when the kids are happy, they take good photos.

IMG_1542.JPG

This is what I called Dancing on the Drain.

IMG_1544.jpg

Act II.

IMG_1546.jpg

ACT III.

IMG_1547.jpg

Act IV.

IMG_1548.jpg

Oh cool!  A black and white house.

IMG_1555.JPG

 

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Magic DNS

Date: June 6, 2012

*UPDATE*Nov 28, 2013*

A new set of DNS is been tested and works on Singtel’s 4G.  Some routers have DNS rerouting capability and refuse the users to make use of the customised DNS on their IOS devices.  Netflix is doing a lot of changes and may break all these wonderful VPN services.  

  109.74.12.20,109.123.111.24

*End of UPDATE*

A good friend of mine from Malaysia taught me the following.

Disclaimer: This blog entry is for educational purpose only. Netflix only available for US region. Same as others IPTV. I merely wanted to investigate how things work on Internet. How they detect your Asian IP, and is tgere a way to by pass. As for you, you use it on your decision, and you use it at your risk.

Netflix
===
Netflix is a popular IPTV streaming service that offers lots of content. Unfortunately, it's only available in US. The cost is US$7.95/month




Apple TV
===
Apple TV is a small set top box from Apple. It stream TV and movies from the Cloud. Unfortunately, they charged by every show and TV episode.

Now, Apple TV support Netflix too. It's a great combination.




VPN
===
You can buy VPN service, so that you will get a US IP Address, and it will allow you to access to Netflix content.

There are various provider. Such as VPN Express. So all the while I always thought that you need a US IP Address in order to access these web sites. It becomes not cheap once you add on a VPN acct. it also cause quite a number of problem. I.e. VPN server sometimes is slow, VPN server got cap on bandwidth usage, you need to run VPN service every time before you use Netflix. All these steps becomes not so elegant to access Netflix.




Magic DNS
===
(If you already have a Netflix acct, you can simply setup the DNS as below, and you no longer need the VPN service)

I was wrong. If you have a DNS that you can use that has an Server IP address from US, you can actually configure your iPhone, iPad and Apple TV to the following DNS Address.

190.14.36.90 & 109.123.111.24

For Apple TV, you need only 1 address.




For IOS devices, you can but both address separated by a comma.




After you have done so, all your IOS devices can access Netflix content on your huge powerful broadband. (For my case, I use ViewQwest 100Mbps).

This DNS is owned by Playmo.TV. Their aim is to provide this DNS service for I think US$4.95 per
Month.




So, my answer is clear now. You do not need a US IP to access Netflix. What you need is a US DNS that has a DNS IP address.

So, for me, I have a dedicated Air Port extreme Wifi specially to run my Apple TV and I make sure it always use the Magic DNS. Then I am able to watch Netflix content.

The downside is, when you surf to Netflix website, the magic DNS will overwrite the address to point to Playmo.TV. Some people may not like that.

That means if you do not have a mean to sign up for a Netflix acct, you still need a VPN to do so. But once you have the Netflix acct, you can use your own Internet bandwidth to access the streaming content. And it is much faster.

So far it is my 7th day of experiment with it. My kids enjoyed all the cartoons. And I am watching Movies too.

Good luck!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Hokkien Song

Date: June 3, 2012

Ok! This is a funny one.

At Lorna Whiston Pre-School, the kids can have all kind of friends. This is the first place they found their good friends and play with them almost everyday for 4 years...

And the best thing is, the kids can communicate in a totally different language very fast and as a parent we have no idea what are they are saying...

I give you one such example.

For a long time, Jay Jay has been humming this lyrics. Apparently, he learned it from his friends, Wadden and Justin.




We know it is a Hokkien song, but we have no clue what it is. We do not speak Hokkien at home.

The Lyrics goes like this...

"Wo men di, wo men di, Gam bei la, Mai Zhong Qi, dong Zai Na Li, Jin Guo Ji Toilet Pee"

Surprisingly, few weeks ago, even Kay Kay also learned and know how to sing it.

This is how both of them sing the song... (click on the YouTube link below)...

YouTube Video


For the longest time, the kids were singing this song almost every day. But the parents has no clue at all what song is this???

Until today...




We went to eat at Tai Thai Restaurant at Jalan Lempeng, near by our place, and they actually playing this song, and the kids listen and start humming along.

I asked the waiter what song is this? The waiter said "我问天 from 翁立友"




And the actual lyrics is..




Amazing kids... How do they remember so much things in their brain... Haha




Hahaha... Well done boys!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone