Another Day in the Antz Farm

I’m catching a flight this evening to be with my family for the next 2 weeks. My Zune is all loaded with some materials I always wanted to catch up on including:

• The Chaser’s War on Everything Episode 1-9 (a satirical television comedy series broadcast on ABC, all legal download)
• Knowledge@Wharton Audio Podcasts
• A new cool Microsoft Surface wallpaper *created by Long*

The Chaser Rocks Big Time and here is why you should watch it

The Chaser’s War on Everything - Terrorist Security Response 

I listen to heaps of online radio stations and here are my favourites:

News and Current Affairs

• BBC World Service (UK)
• ABC Newsradio (Australia)

House and Lounge

• Lush 99.5 FM (Singapore)
• George FM (New Zealand)

Classical

• ABC Classic (Australia)
• King FM (Seattle)

Over the weekend, I took the opportunity to visit different parts of Sydney where I have not been. Below are a small selection of photos. I encourage you to visit my flick sets for more pictures.

Here is my flickr link to all my photos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardoh/ or add me as your flickr contact - bernardoh

Double Bay (flickr)
- is an affluent suburb with very posh stores and cafes. Doesn’t do anything for me. Still it a lot nicer than Sydney CBD.
  

 Bondi Beach(flickr)
- Sunday is a good day visit Bondi because there are is the Bondi market. Buses run regularly between the city and Bondi. If only the rest of Sydney public transport is that good. Sigh, the state of Sydney public transport is in shambles, that’s for another blog post.

The Bondi Iceberg restaurant recently hosted Cameron Diaz when she was in town for the premier of Shriek 3.
  

Parramatta River(flickr)
- the river cruise to Parramatta is really nice and peaceful. Along the way, you can see the transition from the affluence of the city, to the gentrification of the inner west suburbs and relics of the industrial age.

Norbert, Deeps, Ben (my manager), Monique, Scott, Finula and Nick.

My parting shot from my team in Microsoft Australia DPE taken on last day at work (Fri, 25/5). What a great bunch of people to work and learn with. Instead of going into extended farewell rhetoric, I just want to say I love my group.

Thank you for the support, mentoring, and good times. Thank you for the watch, farewell message book (and even blog post), dinner and drinks. Nick, you’re a champ for organising all these esp the above photo. I totally dig the watch too.

Padwan and his Jedi Master. May the force be always with you, Frank.

There are unconfirmed reports that Google is acquiring Feedburner. This move looks like a logical move as Google is slowly but surely amassing a stable of Internet tools and services such as DoubleClick, Tonic and YouTube. These properties have upfront monetising propositions which are compatible with Google’s overall business strategy.

Related link: Google, Salesforce Point to a Hosted Future (eWeek)

Berno - Anna Liu - Michael Kordahi - Deeps de Silva -Ben English - Finula Crowe (behind Ben) - Sarah Bond - James Leitch
Looks like I wasn’t the only mucking around with a camera before Steveb’s company address

Nick also posted photos of Frank-Norbert and his wifi-blocking towel.

Since the iPod became a culture-changing phenomenon, Apple’s rivals have been desperate to discover the recipe for an iPod beater.
SanDisk has just released its latest answer: the Sansa Connect

The ingredients are:

1 black, shiny, softly rounded plastic case, the size of a closed cellphone;

1 click wheel, like the iPod’s but made of black rubber;

7 small jacks and buttons on the edges: volume keys, earbud jack, proprietary charger and USB connector, On/Off and Hold buttons, memory-card slot;

1 antenna;

The stubby little antenna, of course, is the secret sauce. It makes the Connect the most exciting advance in music players, at least in concept, since the iPod Nano.

Now, this Sansa is not the first wireless music player. Microsoft’s Zune, for one, preceded it.

But the Zune’s Wi-Fi is wasted. It can’t sync with a computer wirelessly or download music wirelessly. All it can do is beam a song to another Zune owner, if there is such a thing. The song self-destructs after three days or three plays….

Continue reading The latest challenger to iPod (IHT)

Related link: Hands-on with the Sandisk Sansa Connect (Engadget)

As much of the high-tech industry is enjoying a renewed boom, the competition for top recruits in engineering and other fields is as intense as ever. Companies like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo frequently find themselves going after the same candidates or recruiting in one another’s backyards. …

To lure talent, these companies have expanded their recruiting arsenal far beyond the traditional job fair to include a growing number of events like technology lectures, cocktail parties, pizza parties, treasure hunts and programming contests, dubbed “code jams” or “hack days.” Much like the Google Games, these are no-pressure recruiting occasions meant to create excitement around their companies and impress potential recruits as young as college freshmen.

Google finds novel ways to feed hiring machine (IHT)

Berno: “.. recruiting in one another’s backyard”, that is so true here in Australia. There are only 8 international Google enginnering centres in the world and there is one right here in Sydney.

Before the arrival of Starbucks, before venti, grande, macchiato enter our average HDB heart-lander vernacular, we Singaporeans have our own coffee tongue twisters too.

Traveller to Singapore, check out this handy guide “Coffee Shop Talk” to your own custom made freshly brewed coffee in a local Singapore coffee-shop (for only SGD 80 cents, USD 52 cents).

Ireland has seen a transformation over the past 10 years on a scale previous generations could never have predicted.

An unprecedented and sustained economic boom has significantly, and perhaps permanently, altered the Irish people’s lifestyles and attitudes.
“We’re rebelling against previous generations,” says Cora Venus Lunny, 25, who is part of a new wave of young experimental Irish musicians.

“Opportunities in this country have changed and as a result priorities have changed.

Continue reading - Boom turns Irish life upside down (BBC News)