thewongdirection

Online radio channels

2009-12-27T21:41:00.003+08:00

Its been a while now but good that the radio channels are back to online broadcasting. Fucking music industry in Singapore/Asia just doesn't get it. The era of lawsuits and bullying consumers is past. In this age, if you want to retain or get a big market share, make sure you give consumers what they want.

Offering good choices at reasonable prices is the correct way to go. For example, I'm perfectly happy to pay the prices commanded by iTunes store. So why isn't iTunes in Asia yet? The answer is simple, GREED. The music industry in Asia just hasn't evolved. They still think in terms of selling CDs. Its 2009. I don't buy plastic discs anymore. Give me my iTunes online account and DRM free (Yes, iTunes music is DRM free now) music anytime. Give it to me at a good price and I will pay.

Anyway, now that I've let off some steam, here are a few goodies. Online Singapore radio is back after a 9 month exodus because of fucking the music industry's obsession for taxing poor consumers (what else?). These links are good for those using smartphones without hardware FM receivers, and have a suitable data plan to go with it. Most streaming players should be able to play these streams without any problem, especially WM based phones (Just open URL in Windows Media Player).

http://www.mediacorpradio.sg/mediaplayer/asx/938live/fm938TO.asx
http://www.mediacorpradio.sg/mediaplayer/asx/987fm/fm987.asx
http://www.mediacorpradio.sg/mediaplayer/asx/yes933/fm933.asx

As you can see, the streams have fairly predictable URLs, which can be confirmed by inspecting the source codes of the pages. :-) hee hee.

Nostalgia sobs!!!!

2009-05-11T21:47:00.003+08:00

Can't believe how fast time has flown by. Seems like only yesterday when I was still a teenager starting to get fascinated by Xin yao and Liang Wen Fu. Caught this super play "If there are seasons" http://www.iftherereseasons.com/blog/ over the weekend and it brought back tons of memories. Well, you 4 dragons, this is for you.

I remember catching Yan Li Ming live in VJC when I was Secondary 3 or 4. She was pretty hot at that time and too bad she had to migrate. Its such a great pity that Xin Yao has largely died down but thank God for Liang Wen Fu. He's the man. The play was superb and the music very touching. Shi Xin Hui impressed though her hysky voice still needs some polishing. Joanna Dong was really impressive though. Like a mini Kit Chan.

Go Apple Go!

2009-03-21T22:08:00.004+08:00

Wow its been rather long since I've last had time to blog. All is well and good and its going to be interesting to see how the iPhone holds up against the Android and WinMo7

Lots of other people have already commented about the new iPhone 3.0 SDK and everyone is so excited about MMS and Copy/Paste, but seriously, I think many people are missing the even more exciting features.

Turn-by-turn

With the new SDK, it is going to be possible to have TomTom and Mapking ports to iPhone. Now that is going to be icing on the cake. Google Maps is already very useful and cool but this is going to complete the feature set.

App store improvements

Subscription models are now possible and that should open a whole new set of possibilities for app store developers. What made WinMo successful and helped kill the Palm OS was the immense flux of third party apps. Apple knows it too well and has taken a wise path of gradually maturing their SDK and the supporting app store. In-app purchases are possibly going to give the app store an iTunes store capability. Android's app store is, a laugh at best.

MMS, SMS Forwarding, Copy Paste

Ok these are the highest demands from iPhone users currently. I don't think much of them actually, since I don't use MMS and SMS forwarding in a big way. The copy and paste functionality is highly welcome.

There are many more interesting developments in the new SDK that I won't even try to list.

Winmo

For crying out loud, its about time to support multitouch, otherwise, Winmo devices won't ever be my first choice gadget. FULSTOP.

Symbian

Connecting people? What do I care? Again, no multitouch, thats bad.

Android

Haha...

Now that sets the stage for the most interesting 4 way battle for dominance. iPhone vs Symbian vs Winmo vs Android. Onguard.... FIGHT!

Showbiz!

2008-10-11T11:52:00.001+08:00

Wah, my fambly member is now into showbiz liao.

Very soon we'll go Hollywood

Recruitment

2008-09-13T09:44:00.004+08:00

HA HA

HA HA

BIG FUCKING JOKE

Brain Dump?

2008-09-07T16:50:00.004+08:00

This article on brain dumps really made me think about our own education system.

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1665653782;fp;16;fpid;1

In Singapore, we've got our so called 10 Yr series for every single subject in schools. The TYS as it is fondly referred to, its more like a 20-30 year series consisting of every single question that came out in past national exams. Some collections even come with standard answers.

Our students are pretty good at scoring with the help of these. I just really wonder, how different the TYS really is from a brain dump and seriously, the article is very accurate in its portrayal.

TYS is bad for our nation. Full Stop.

Warning: Season 3 is coming!

2008-09-05T18:47:00.002+08:00

The countdown starts now

September 22 2008.

The show is great, too bad NBC is dumb. If they stayed on with iTunes, I would have gladly paid 1.99 or 2.99 per episode. But since they are such a bunch of greedy bastards, guess where I'll be getting my Heroes 3 episodes....

Taiwan yummy

2008-08-26T23:24:00.003+08:00

Must be many years since I last came to Taiwan. Even then, it was with the Starlight troops. Must say its really a pretty good place for food.

I'm not much of a mango person but I just had the most amazing mango ice-kachang dish. Wow! Its sweet and tasty and probably the ideal dish on a hot summer night. Very nice indeed. Thats found at the Longshan Temple night market. Also went and tried snake. Yes, so I'm really out here to eat snake. There was a snake killing demonstration but it was rather distasteful.

Ok, so now I've been to Taipei 101. On the whole, its a bit like Japan, but a lot cheaper and in Chinese. Not too bad.

USA gallery

2008-08-22T00:38:00.004+08:00

The world's Entertainment capital. Had a really enjoyable stay in the Strip. Grand Canyon was awesome to say the least, but the food was horrific. Somehow, western food just doesn't fit my taste buds.

Gallery here

Brand new blog and hello from Vegas

2008-08-17T09:50:00.004+08:00

I've finally decided to move my blog to blogspot. Mainly for logistical convenience since its supported well from many applications and less intensive to maintain than from my own domain. I'll still be keeping the wongdirection.net domain but will be moving the media intensive stuff and blog here.

Its been a really heavy going few months of late and I'm just back from Las Vegas USA. It was really fun and I got to see this famous scene from many Ang mor movies, including Oceans Eleven.