If you’re a Singaporean, and you’re going overseas for work or travel, it’s probably best if you register your details with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).
I don’t know how much information is used for ’surveillance’, but I think it’s always good to be prepared in the event of any emergencies.
BTW I found out about this thingy after submitting an Overseas Travel Notification to the Ministry of Defence – not because I want to, but because it must be done.
Anyways, there was a nifty little link provided at the end of the confirmation page which brought me to the MFA eRegister system, and I thought I’d share it with everyone because I think all of you should know about this.
Also, since the Civil Service often gets more brickbats than it does bouquets, I thought I’d take some time to express my pleasure at a good idea (IMHO) and a good example of synergy at work.
Okbye.
I’ve been trying to arrange meetings/consultations sessions with students and it’s not always possible because of our different timetables. I’m now trying to find a free online appointment booking system that integrates with Google Calendars to serve two purposes:
- Allow students to ‘book’ a meeting slot with me based on mine and their available meeting times without much hassle.
- Automatically ‘pull’ info from my Google Calendar to determine when I’m free/when I’m not free + ‘push’ info to my Google Calendar to automatically update my schedule for me.
I don’t think anyone has come up with something like this yet so if any computing whiz wants to work on this, I’d say go for it (and let me know when you do come up with this so that I can use it! It’s my brainchild after all!). You can most likely sell it to companies/organisations that need this service when you’re done creating the program for it.
One of my fellow trainee teachers over here at Saint Gabriel’s also rides a motorcycle, so we are usually partners-in-crime in terms of rushing off just before the rain pours.
Our pet peeve is not being to get an early enough headstart because of the lack of a proper notification system. The current technology we use is Windows i.e. we look out of the window in the I & E room where we’re seated and guesstimate when it is we should leave.
Bad jokes aside, we also make use of the NEA’s Local Weather portion of the website quite a bit. But being the humans that we are, pulling the information from the website can be quite a hassle sometimes.
So what does one do? In an age where humanity’s kinship with that of electric currents has long been recognised (i.e. we follow the path of least resistance, LOL), ‘push’ technology comes into the picture.
Presenting to you, ladies and gentlemen, the Weather Widgets for the Mac OS X Dashboard!
The best part is: it didn’t require much technological know-how, just an awareness of Safari’s Web Clip feature in Leopard. For the real Windows users: no worries, there’s something in this for you too, cos I’m a very inclusive person 
You might wanna try this Singapore Rain Map Yahoo! Widget, or keep your eyes peeled for NEA to develop its RSS notifications, which you probably might be able to convert into an SMS notification… Somehow. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
Not too shure where it’s been coming from, but thanks everyone who’s been visiting the site. One person whom I do know has been reading my blog regularly is Mr Tan Kar Wee (Google him, you know you want to, current and future employers), who recently revealed to me his voyeuristic inclinations by way of an SMS-ed belated birthday greeting. I suspect he didn’t want to be just another statistic. LOL!
Anyway, he says he’s been using Google Reader to read my links. At last count, there were three subscribers to my feed – so I’m guessing the other two subscribers are Dr Ashley Tan and Mr Andrew Chong. Right? 
Kar Wee was also asking where I get my links from and how I post them up. It’s also related to Google Reader – this post should explain everything. Google Reader rocks, but my readers rock more!
Hostel residents: Others have run naked before.
(via)
By the way, I may have been the one (or at the very least, one of the people) who provided the tip-off about the story… And believe it or not, it was through Twitter. Here’s the chronology of tweets with some background information:
I posted these, and other ‘web’ tweets using tweet.sg when I returned to NUS for the India Trip exhibition thingy.
I learnt about the expulsion from Zee, who was “one of the KR guys” I met. I’m not going to comment too much on the punishment, but let’s just say that I believe it’s a fallacy for every action to deserve a punitive reaction, especially one of this measure.
It took a sharp-eyed journo who’s very in tune with the workings of social media to spot my Tweet, and before long, the reporters were on their way.
So ladies and gentlemen, if you ever need an example about how collaborative Web 2.0 technologies are, and the potential for these technologies, here’s a classic one for you. Cheers, and have a great weekend.
P.S. My reply:
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