fast forward, two weeks later, i.e. now, suddenly my mouse touch/track pad is working, on its own, without me interventing (in fact, I tried to re-install drivers earlier on but no avail).

The cpus are also working less hot now, so much cooler that I can hold the laptop with my hand without being scalded

Miracles do happen, and I hope more will come over the next few weeks

But this has nothing to do with  that. In fact, the title may be irrelevant to what I am trying to share in this blog post. It just happened that recently, my nephew had commented that my blog is getting boring, it’s all about mobile phones, and nothing interesting.

Generation gap?

The truth is, few things I like to share next has to do with gadgets, again! Firstly, I had just sold my Samsung i780, in anticipation for the cool HTC Touch pro. Never in my life would I have imagined getting HTC product, as I sweared after seeing how horrible their after sales service were. In all honesty, those ‘ugly’ incidents were in the past, and HTC seems to have improved on their after sales service recently. But the deciding point has to be the coolness factor found in its latest flagship models. I’m still waiting, rather impatiently I must add, for Starhub to have it available on their shop, while its competitors like Singtel are already selling the model like hotcakes over the weekend  Where art thou, Starhub?

Next, I have earlier created a utility to set the “ShowSim” registry so that the SIM card contacts will not appear in WM6 phones. Upon initial feedbacks, I have enhanced it so that it will always run in the background, as it was noted that some users had experienced that the setting got reset back after a period of usage. To stop it from running, just re-run the program again, and it will stop

You may download this beta version through this link

Disclaimer: I have no physical WM phone with me to test out this version, but had been relying on emulator. 

I had wanted to convert all the hard copies of my old film photos into digital form, for a long time.  All this while I had been dragging my feet on this, because I know it will be a tedious scanning process given hundreds of photos I had on hand. Yesterday, I decided to start the conversion process, as I know it is just a matter of time, and sometimes you just need that cranked start …

Then I come across some of the photos taken in 1999. Taken just slightly less than a decade, I realize we appeared to be much more happier then. And looking at some of the photos, I rediscover a lot of things, why Kang has always been my favorite nephew, why I was attracted to yeez, etc.

Those were the days.

 Photos scanned into the album 1999 Family and Friends Gathering Album

其实如果只看了那一小小段的“导火线”（不到两分钟，整个节目应该有45分钟长吧），确实会给人一个很不同的观点，而引起不必要的误会。因为整个节目，就是在取笑艺人的破英文。但因为在取笑当中，牵涉了新加坡人的英语发音，感觉上好像是在嘲笑和讽刺新加坡人的英语水准。

老实说，起初还有一点不爽。国人的英语水平被批评，而“批评者”还是这些“破英文一族”。当然，新加坡人不是每一个人都能说一口流利的英语，但总觉得是在一竹竿打翻一条船的人。这一折风波一发出，引起了国人的不满，在网路上各个角落留言抗议。

但是，深思了一下，觉得事情闹得太夸张了。国人也没有需要把事件扯大，紧逼艺人和制作单位给我们一个交代。毕竟艺人们对整个事件道不道歉，甚至做任何回应，顶多反映了他们的羞耻之心。其实在还没有看完整个节目之前，我已经逐渐地领悟整个风波的重点，不在于国人被讽刺，就觉得整个事件还蛮啼笑皆非的。不仅是艺人们对话题的敏感度（他们不是把摄影棚当成是邻里咖啡店吧？！），就对于他们在谈论高潮时的你一句我一句，毫无保留地显露出他们的浅陋无知。风波后的处理方式，不是越描越黑，就是答非所问。再来，国人的一致反应，虽然感受到浓浓的“爱国精神”，一些幼稚的反击，却令人有点纳闷。看了整个节目之后，更体会到其实最终的“受害者”，即嘲笑对象，到底还是艺人们。国人被嘲笑两分钟，他们呢，却是在其余的四十三分钟里被取笑的对象。

当然，无风不起浪，有些“东东”如果可以适可而止，可能也不会有这样的后果。 或许这些就是说为的娱乐效果，是台湾娱乐的一种独特风格。但随着国际化的趋势（包括了这些节目）适当的敏感度还是需要的，要不然，引起公愤是其次，揭发当事人孤陋寡闻的一面才是最大的笑话！

注：

整个节目片段可以在以下网址光缆：

第一段：http://www.56.com/w22/play_album-aid-4052092_vid-MjgyMjE2MTA.html
第二段：http://www.56.com/w22/play_album-aid-4052092_vid-MjgyMjA4MTQ.html
第三段：http://www.56.com/w22/play_album-aid-4052092_vid-MjgyMjAwNDU.html

风波的导火线

　　　莫斯科的夫司基　爱上牛肉面疙瘩

　　　各种颜色的皮肤　各种颜色的头发

　　　嘴里念的说的开始流行中国话

　　　多少年我们苦练英文发音和文法

　　　这几年换他们卷著舌头学平上去入的变化

　　　平平仄仄平平仄

　　　好聪明的中国人　好优美的中国话” 

以上是S。H。E新专辑主打歌“中国话”歌词的小插曲. 话说“中国话”其实是要讨好中国市场，也因此成为了台湾社会议论的热门话题。既然能把歌艺和政治混合在一起，真的是佩服得五体投地。撇开政治一边，其实“中国话”里的歌词，其实满有意识的，也反映了国际的局势。一直以来，亚洲人都一直有崇洋的趋向，尤其是在我国，年轻人总把中文当成是犹如被遗忘的历史，是个毫无价值的东东，都把它当成是一种语言累赘。即使是历史古迹，也有它市场的价值，可惜国人都把中文置于比第三语言还不如重视的语言，可想象中文在国人心里的地位。当然，比起前几年（甚至是十几年前），国人对中文的热忱已经大有改善，而“中国话”这首歌其实也只不过表达了我的心声吧！

中国话 by S.H.E 

[video width="480" height="320"]http://www.tudou.com/v/VjKmdUG7qu4[/video]

再来，最近电台不断地播放苏打绿的一首歌曲“小情歌”，听起来蛮特别的，不只是在旋律或者是歌词，都有他们的风格。在网上乍看一下，才知道原来这首歌其实也不算是新歌，从发行到今天也有半年了，就不解为何现在才在新加坡推销。后来听了他们的早期的专辑，才明白为何苏打绿的知名度只是一般（对我而言，若有冒犯之处，请多多包涵我这个土包子）而也领悟到为何苏打绿之前的制作人都要设法改变他们的风格。因为太没有市场价值了吧！但是，我其实满佩服他们的坚持和毅力（即坚持他们的风格）要不然也就不会听到现在的苏打绿了呀！

小情歌 by  苏打绿

[video width="480" height="320"]http://www.tudou.com/v/XIHheUhM6WE[/video]

It was a long story, and I don’t think it’s appropiate for me to say who’s wrong, and who’s not here. Beside, that’s history and there’s no point raking it up again. Regardless, the misunderstanding has definitely strained the otherwise cheerful relationship which was built during the time when we were fighting together against our house developer. I guess the philosophy – “Effective communication starts with finding overlapping objectives among the communicators” has found a good case study here.

Nevertheless, I ‘m happy that we had our first handshake that day, after so many months (and years), and we greeted and parted with smiling faces. That make my day … anytime.