The 2 Most-wanted Features of iPhone OS 3.0

The much long-awaited official iPhone OS 3.0 software update has released. I started my download at 18 Jun 2009, 1:10AM local date and time (http://twitter.com/cedric_chee/status/2209247111)



The following are the 2 most-wanted features of iPhone OS 3.0 that really works for Singapore iPhone 3G owners who have upgraded the OS to version 3.0 based on my own personal testings:

1. MMS
The iPhone 3G can finally send picture messages like any phone. It is confirmed Singtel carrier supporting MMS for iPhone 3G (http://twitter.com/cedric_chee/status/2210382720)



2. Internet Tethering
Tethering is sharing your 3G Internet connection with your computer via your iPhone 3G Bluetooth or USB connection. Tethering works like a charm with Singtel carrier! To enable 3G tethering on your iPhone 3G, go to Settings > General > Network. Look for the option "Internet Tethering". Set this option to "On". Next, choose tethering over USB or Bluetooth. Done. Now connect your iPhone to the computer. The computer will automatically detect a network connection on the USB port. It just works :)

Turn off your Wi-Fi or unplug your Ethernet to check how it works.

SingTel has confirmed to launch iPhone 3G on 22 Aug

Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel), Southeast Asia's largest telecoms firm has confirmed will launch Apple third-generation (3G) iPhone in Singapore on 22 Aug 2008 (next Friday). I just received an email from SingTel with the subject "It's coming on 22 August 2008!". Here is an excerpt of the email:

Get ready, the Apple iPhone 3G hits our shores on 22 August!

Thanks for your patience; we will be bringing in both the 8 and 16GB versions with your choice of black or white.

At this stage we have not announced pricing, I will share it with you very shortly...

From blog: I.Z. Reloaded: Online Refreshments

This is an update to a post I did two days ago. According to 3 sources that I talked to yesterday, the iPhone 3G will be available in Singapore on August 22. There's more! Singtel customers can get the 8GB or the 16GB iPhone 3G for $0 upfront on one of the more expensive data plans (only on a 2 yr contract) while customers choosing the cheaper plans will have to pay a monthly fee for their data plans in addition to a monthly fee for the handset. Singtel may also be planning to give away free browsing (unlimited data) on all its iPhone 3G plans for the first month.

Singtel will reveal its iPhone 3G data plans and will make its August 22 launch date announcement next week and those of you who had made your iPhone reservations on the Singtel website will also receive more details via email sometime next week.

Just for your info, out of the three sources mentioned above, two of them revealed the date as August 22. The other simply say that Singtel customers will be among the first in Asia to get the iPhone 3G while interestingly pointing out that Bharti Airtel in India and Globe Telecom in Philippines, both invested by Singtel, have announced that they will sell the iPhone on August 22.

Update: It's confirmed and that means I was spot on! Singtel says it will launch iPhone on August 22!

According to The Straits Times:

SingTel will continue taking online reservations till 17 Aug 2008 (this Sunday). Those who have already made online reservations at SingTel's website will get first dibs on the iPhone. SingTel CEO, declined to say how much the device will cost or associated price plans customers will have to sign up for in order to get the iPhone, but customers can expect the iPhone's price to be 'subsidised'.

MediaCorp RAWclipx Beta Launch

Finally, MediaCorp RAWclipx moved into public Beta testing on podcast.sg. RAWclipx is a new online service to showcase never-before-seen videos of Singapore celebrities like Fiona Xie and Joanne Peh. RAWclipx is powered by ASP.NET 2.0, SQL Server 2005 database and Silverlight 1.1 for rich media streaming experience. RAWclipx is utilizing the User Generated Content (UGC) platform which is the same as the one being used in several other MediaCorp TV microsites such as SuperMummy, BeatBox 2007, Campus Yummy Hunt, SuperBand, The Showdown and so on. RAWclipx is developed by the web team in MediaCorp Pte Ltd (formerly known as MediaCorp Technologies). With just only 2 front-end developers, 2 back-end CMS developers and a web designer, it took them just less than 2 months to turn the idea to a real service. Congrats and good job to my fellow co-workers there. I am really proud of the team there.

This site unique feature is those videos can be downloaded to mobile devices. This site provide three different video download formats. Furthermore, this service allow members of the public to upload their videos. For your information, MediaCorp will upload up to 15 new videos on this site every week.

Here is an excerpt from the official media release issued by MediaCorp Corporate Communications:

Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes at Caldecott Broadcast Centre? Where do you go for downloads of cool clips, or to upload your own to share with other Singaporeans?

Well, look no further than RAWclipx on podcast.sg which will be launched on July 28th to feature a smorgasbord of video offerings.

RAWclipx on podcast.sg will feature juicy off-air content, backed by MediaCorp’s immense star and media power.

Here’s a sampling of offerings:
i. Photo shoot images from MediaCorp’s wide variety of magazines
ii. Your favourite radio DJs in their studios and celebrity interviews
iii. Out-takes from your favourite TV shows
iv. Newscasters and reporters off camera
v. Unreleased footage of exclusive events such as the FHM Girl Next Door party

“We will have our own paparazzi; a spycam roving reporter sussing out what happens in between takes; what the stars wear and don’t wear; what they do; all the saucy details never before seen or heard,” said Timothy Goh, Vice President New Media Business and Customer Relationship Management.

The content will be refreshed every week and it promises surprises and the unexpected. But that is not all. Everyone can be part of the action and upload their “Aha” moments onto RAWclipx on podcast.sg.

"We embrace user generated content and want as many people as possible to upload and share...your fun, wacky moments... your singing debut...your school concert; upload and be part of this new exciting community” added Timothy Goh.

RAWclipx on podcast.sg will be different from most other UGC sites in that it allows for easy downloads onto mobile devices. It also offers RSS feeds and enables the public to comment on, and forward the clips. more.

In my own opinion, this is going to change the game in Singapore media scene forever. Forget about the Odex case. Check out why by referring to an analysis done by HubPages "Downloading unedited RAW videos in Singapore".

Xcerion Internet OS/3 (XIOS/3)

This is one of the possible model of web based desktop/OS derived from cloud/utility computing and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) concepts.

Xcerion called it the world's next free operating system! The video is a demo of new revolutionary collaborative Internet operating system that is delivered as a free service over Internet, capable of synchronizing data between different clients and building real applications in a web browser that works on- and offline. Using XIOS/3 applications can be built in XML in weeks instead of years compared to traditional desktop technologies. Limited beta program started on 30th September 2007. Cool marketplace for finding and publishing applications will follow as well as many applications. See http://xcerion.com for more information and signing up for a beta account. Xcerion slogan is "Software should be free".

This is really cool technology which I think it could be the next big thing in the market.

Adobe, Yahoo test running ads inside PDF documents

Adobe and Yahoo said they will offer a service to let publishers run advertisements inside Adobe's popular document reading software format. Ads for Adobe PDF Powered by Yahoo, as the new service is known, presents publishers with an alternative to conventional subscriptions, which, if widely adopted, could open up a new model based on free, ad-supported publishing.

The service allows publishers to generate revenue by including text-based ads linked to the specific content of an Adobe PDF page. The advertisements can only run in a side panel separated from the publication's actual content.

The service is set to begin public testing, the two companies said on Wednesday. An earlier private test included technology and professional publishers IDG InfoWorld, Wired, Pearson's Pearson Education unit, Meredith Corp and Reed Elsevier NV. The free service requires no special software and is open to United States publishers of English language content, initially.

Publishers who join Yahoo's online advertising network get access to the Internet company's extensive network of advertisers based on the subject matter of their content.

Advertisers gain a distribution channel that can reach highly specific audiences based on their reading interests while allowing them to track how specific ads perform. The approach is akin to how Web-based, pay-per-click ads now work.

From an advertiser point of view this looks like an extension of our existing marketplace. For consumers, the text-based ads are discreetly displayed in a panel adjacent to the published content with no moving or flashing elements so that they do not distract the reader as some Web advertising is known to do. Each time the PDF content is viewed, targeted ads are dynamically matched by Yahoo to the content of the document.

The publisher receives anonymised reports about which ads ran alongside which published content.

In terms of relevance to advertisers, such ads could rank above conventional Web-page banner ads in terms of targeting capacity, but somewhere short of highly specific keyword-based Web ads.

Publishers who register for the service simply need to upload their Adobe PDF-ready materials so that they can be ad-enabled. The content owner then distributes the PDF in any of a variety of ways, including over e-mail or via the Web.

M'soft Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5 Released

Great news! Just found out that M'soft Visual Studio 2008 is released on MSDN. Woohoo! Congrats M'soft for yet another milestone.

The wait is finally over! No wonder over the past 2 months, the folks at Redmond are so quite. Now I understand. On Monday, Nov. 19 2007, M'soft announced that Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 were released to manufacturing (RTM). With more than 250 new features, Visual Studio 2008 includes significant enhancements in every edition, including Visual Studio Express and Visual Studio Team System. Developers of all levels – from hobbyists to enterprise development teams – now have a consistent, secure and reliable solution for developing applications for the latest platforms: the Web, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, the 2007 Office system, and beyond. (source: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/default.aspx)

For the final release download links, check it out in ScottGu's blog (http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/11/19/visual-studio-2008-and-net-3-5-released.aspx). In conjunction with the release, here is a summary of the new features:

• Multi-targeting support for multiple versions of the .NET Framework
  
• ASP.NET AJAX and JavaScript support
  
• Web Designer and CSS Support
  
• New ListView/DataPager controls
  
• Language Improvements and LINQ
  
• Data Access Improvements with LINQ to SQL
  
• Browsing the .NET Framework Library Source using Visual Studio (just get to know this additional feature)
  
• WPF designer and project support
  
• ClickOnce and WPF XBAPs for FireFox
  
• WinForms and WPF projects can use the ASP.NET Application Services
  
• Richer Office development and Visual Studio Tools for Office support is built-into Visual Studio
  
• WCF and Workflow projects and designers
  
• Faster unit testing support
  
• AJAX web testing (unit and load)
  
• Much more...
  

Unfortunately, there are two popular add-ins to VS not yet available to download for the final VS 2008 release. These are the Silverlight 1.1 Tools Alpha and the Web Deployment Project add-in. If you are doing Silverlight 1.1 development using VS 2008 Beta2 you'll want to stick with with VS 2008 Beta2 until this updated Silverlight Tools Add-In is available. More info at Scott Gu's blog (as usual). Also, the ASP.NET MVC Framework will come later. According to Scott, this framework will work with VS 2008 as well as VS Web Developer 2008 Express. In addition, ADO.NET Entity Framework is not ready for RTM.

There are few breaking changes between the RTM version and the beta 2 including .dbml files created with the LINQ to SQL designer, LINQ to SQL OnValidate partial method now takes an enum as an argument, instead of DataContext.Add you'll now use DataContext.InsertOnSubmit() with LINQ to SQL, and the ListView control's item placeholder is now called "ItemContainer". Upgrading projects built with Beta2 should be pretty straightforward and only take a few minutes.

There is also a new release of AJAX Control Toolkit version 3.5.11119.0 (2007-11-19) that targets the above official release of .NET Framework 3.5 and VS 2008 at http://www.codeplex.com/AtlasControlToolkit/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=8513.

M'soft will publish in future the feature list per SKU.

Just finished downloading a 90-day free trial edition of VS 2008 Team Suite. Proceed with the installation now. I keep my finger cross the installation will goes smooth.

MediaCorp StarAwards MS Silverlight Video Gallery Launched

Finally the waiting is over. We here at MediaCorp Technologies Web Team are pretty excited to launch StarAwards Video Gallery (http://starawards.mediacorptv.sg/videogallery.htm) developed using Microsoft Silverlight 1.0. To add to the excitements, this application has been showcased in Microsoft Silverlight Showcase site at www.silverlight.net/showcase. Look under Singapore category. Indeed, it is one of the first two Silverlight examples from Singapore. Congrats folks! Keep up the good job.

Backtrack a little, most of us here have been playing with Silverlight since the release candidate versions. Well, I have to say it's a good learning experience to me and to most of us who are part of it. Nevertheless, many bumps along the journey to bring us this far.

Also, not to forget under our belt, we have another web application, Campus Yummy Hunt develop using Silverlight 1.0 which is a online user-generated video gallery for a TV programme audition at http://yummyhunt.mediacorptv.sg/yummy/audition.htm. Moving forward, we are expecting more Silverlight Rich Internet Applications (RIA) will be released from our pipeline.

Therefore, keep following the light! ;-)

Facebook Gaining Popularity in Asia

I get to know about Facebook while poking around the web for health care 2.0 ideas. That was early this year. That time, Facebook & mySpace is damn popular to the westerners especially Americans & Europeans. Then, finally around Aug this year, I find some time to actually test out Facebook platform capabilities from the developer & business stand point of view. And today, I notice the Facebook disease spreaded to Asia as I received more & more invitations from my existing contacts. From this, I could say that the Asians are not far left behind in the web 2 oh wave or in a simpler term, the next generation of websites centered around consumers.

Impressive Facebook Platform

I've been playing with Facebook for a few days and am impressed. What I am more impressed with is Facebook has transformed itself into a platform after a couple of months opened to application developers. There is a mind-boggling momentum at play, not only in terms of user signups, but in the excitement around developing for the platform. A lot of web startups are adding a Facebook experience, and at the same time, a number of new applications are popping up (every day... literally!) that are leveraging the power of the social network in creative ways. It will be interesting to see how Facebook holds up over time compared to other networks such as MySpace.

Jumping to the Facebook Wagon

I get to know Facebook (www.facebook.com) for sometime back due to its popularity while I was learning about web two-oh. Early this morning, I decided to try it out. First impression, it has a professional and simple design with plenty of AJAX techniques applied appropriately to the area which IMO right usage. Frankly, it's an excellent platform for social networking. Beter keep an eye on it.

Day 0: Silverlight Knowledge Sharing

This will be my first post of a series of the same post focusing on sharing my real work experience using Silverlight to prototype rich web application in my current company. As of now, I have prototyped for a video player with playlist for a video gallery for use in several microwebsites. Besides this, I have also did a prototype for a draggable multi-video streaming views for Singapore National Day Parade live web cast website. I will post the details in the next post.

First Taste of Visual Studio 2008

Getting my first taste of Visual Studio 2008. This will play a part in my decision whether to use it for my next project or stick with Visual Studio 2005 until the actual final release. I am focusing on the features that will improve productivity such as new language features, new intellisense for javascript and so on.

Looking Into User-Generated Content Model

Today marks the beginning for me to look seriously into the User-Generated Content Model for the upcoming business model I am putting in to work for a website. IMO, this is one of the area in Web 2.0 (or may be Web 3.0) we can't left without. There are several key questions I am still finding the answer for it. I will post an update to this post with the questions and answers once I found the answers to all of the questions.