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The notorious “poster boy” Mas Selamat of Singapore is in the news again. Many months after his escape, 2 businessmen are offering $1 million reward for information leading to the capture of Mas Selamat, whether he is inside or outside of Singapore.

Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng revealed this in Singapore Parliament on Monday 21 July 2008 in response to a question on fugitive JI leader Mas Selamat.

The million dollar reward has been put up by two private individuals who approached the Home Affairs Ministry.

You can check out Channel News Asia here for more details about this piece of news. There are also news coverage on the local Singapore TV.

So, anyone of you into the quest to re-capture Mas Selamat?

Nike is holding its global Nike+ Human Race 10K on 31 Aug 2008. Singapore is one of the Asian cities selected for this international event.

Join a million runners for a worldwide 10K run on this day.

This looks like an interesting event where you can participate physically or virtually for the race.

The starting point is at Esplanade, and the race will end at Pahang where you will be treated to music concerts etc.

Registration costs $25 or $45 (need to add 7% GST to the amount) depending on which category you are participating.

See http://nikeplus.nike.com/nikeplus/humanrace/index.jsp for more details.

Update: Registration for Nike+ Human Race 10K (physical run) has officially closed.

These days if you open your eyes “Big-Big” and look around, you may get some free stuff from marketing companies or startup companies who are trying to create a brand awareness for themselves.

Lately, I have been selected by ripplevox.com to join the AGVA Style Council. For more details on this, please check here.

To cut a long story short, as part of this program, I was given a free messenger laptop bag, and I was supposed to ‘road-test’ it and getting feedback from my family and friends about it.

You can view some images of the laptop bag here.

On first look after collecting the free laptop bag, I thought it look kinda big for me. Anyway I took it home to examine it and test it out.

First of all, on the looks of the bag, it looks too bright and youngish for me (read on because I think this can be changed without changing a new laptop bag). Maybe I am too old for the youngish look.
In any case, I took the bag apart to see how it was designed and how was the inner layout like.

Some good points about the bag:

1. It was quite spacious inside, and good enough to fit some larger-size laptop.

2. They have quite a good number of compartments inside for you to store whatever you want to store. Surprisingly, the inner compartments are detachable if you prefer to use the bag to ‘dump’ your things inside, without wanting the inner compartments to stand in the way in the interior of the bag.

3. The AGVA logo looks quite stylish. I kinda like it.

4. The outer flap of the laptop bag is detachable too and you can swap it with another flap with a different design that you prefer. I guess this is the key reason why this was the outer flap was designed this way. What this means is that you can essentially change the face and design of how your messenger/laptop bag looks by changing the outer flap for the bag!

5. The bag has a detachable “shirt-wrap” that I think can help to separate your shirts from the other things inside the bag, so that your shirt will not be “creased” all over while in the bag.

6. The inner cushioning of the bag feels quite comfortable though. Not too bad for me.

Some points about the bag that I do not like:

1. The outer flap that I was talking earlier on in this blog post has some printed design on it. If you accidentally ‘dog-earred’ one end of the flap where the design is, it will create a “crease” on the printed design, which looks so much less appealing to me. (Think of a very nice shirt that you are wearing but with a crease right where it was very prominent).

2. The shoulder strap was sewed directly onto the laptop bag on its side. I will prefer them to be detachable ones, somehow. At least it gives me an option to choose if I want to use the bag.

Suggestion for improvements:

1. The zippers on the bag and the zipper clips felt ‘cheap’ to me although functional-wise, I think they are fine (but I am not sure how long they can last). To increase the perceived value of the bag for consumers and for AGVA to sell the bag at a higher price, I think they can improvise on the zipper clips.

2. Somehow I do not quite like the shoulder strap, because it kinda feel thin (and maybe cheap?) on my hands. I think this can be improved too.

Overall rating: 6.5/10 (if they can improve on the above pointers, especially for the design of the outer flap or the colour of the entire bag, I will not hesitate too much to give it a 7.5 to 8 score)

About Donald Lim, the reviewer: I have been using quite a number of messenger and laptop bags brand such as Samsonite, Calvin Klein, Eastpak, MobileEdge etc. Along with each experience with all these bags over the years, I kinda know what I am looking for in a messenger/laptop bag.

We have launched this web site AffiliateMarketingSingapore.com to train more Singaporeans to become affiliate marketers. In our opinion, the easiest and fastest way to make money online is Affiliate Marketing.

While blogging is one good way to make some cash online, we realised that it is kind of slow and time consuming. Based on our own experiences, Affiliate Marketing is still the best way to start developing your Internet income streams.

Check out AffiliateMarketingSingapore.com for more Affiliate Marketing tips and training, especially if you are a newbie.

One of the favourite pastime of Singaporeans is to go to the cinemas to watch movies. So here it is! A copy of the new movies coming to Singapore in 2008! A must-have for movies-goers!

Enjoy!

http://www.singaporelifestyle.com/download/movies-guide-2008.pdf

The 3 ANG MOs in the YouTube video below probably weighed more than 200+ kgs combined and they wanted an old man (trishaw rider) in his 70s or 80s to ferry them on his human-powered trishaw. When they decided they have made enough fun of the poor man, they pretended to have no money to pay and passed the man around like a beggar.

They actually think this is funny and uploaded it at www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH6RIzb_UKU (the original post has been removed though) as “The slowest taxi in South East Asia” by http://youtube.com/user/B0Davis (many net users threw negativities at the originator on this YouTube profile page).

Please refrain from racist comments if you wish to express your views. The bastardly acts of these 3 hooligans are theirs and theirs alone. Looking at this video, maybe being KiaSu as a Singaporean is not so bad after all!

Why are our elderly working such a tough job at such an old age? Is it because their public assistance grant of S$290/mth is not enough? I leave it to your own judgement.

These are the same people who built Singapore to what it is today but they can’t enjoy the fruits of their labour and even have to be humiliated by tourists. Our comfortable lives in Singapore today are fruits of their labour. Hope this makes you think a bit and not take things for granted in Singapore, especially for the younger generations in Singapore now!

This will cause a sensation in Singapore real soon!

See also: http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/viewPost6376.aspx

Singapore celebrates her 42th birthday at Marina Bay today!

The National Day Parade 2007 is very different this year because it is being held on the world’s largest water floating platform, about the size of a football field!

Be prepared to be ‘wow ‘by the nation’s largest birthday party with military aircrafts and vehicles display, paracuting display, commandos display,dazzling fireworks performance, music and dance and more!

For more information, please visit http://www.ndp.org.sg

I wishes Singapore a Happy 42th Birthday and may prosperity and peace be with Singapore year after year!

SINGAPORE : Singapore is home to the world’s fastest-growing population of millionaires, according to the annual world wealth report compiled by Merrill Lynch and the Capgemini Group.

The number of high net worth individuals in Singapore grew by 21.2% last year to reach almost 67,000 millionaires.

Singapore’s millionaire boom is part of a global trend that saw the number of high net worth individuals rise 8.3% to reach 9.5 million last year.

Among the super-rich are a group called the ultra-rich, with assets over US$30 million.

The growth of these ultra high net worth individuals grew 11.3%, outpacing that of high net worth individuals and suggesting a growing concentration of wealth.

“The main reasons for the growth in the number of high net worth individuals was GDP growth, which was about 8.2% in Singapore last year, and the strong market capitalisation growth reflected in the stock market. Also, Singapore’s strong savings rate has helped in the creation of wealth,” said Kong Eng Huat, MD of Merrill Lynch, International Bank.

India and Indonesia follow closely behind Singapore in the list of countries with the fastest-growing number of millionaires.

The survey also pointed out a growing preference among wealthy investors to put money into the real estate market.

While the high-end luxury sector in Singapore has been seeing strong demand, Merrill Lynch sees the bull run spilling over to the mass market segment over the next three years.

Mark Matthews, senior director and chief Asia Strategist at Merrill Lynch said: “More and more people are coming to work in Singapore, and as a result of that, people will move out of Districts, 9, 10, 11, into areas like Bukit Timah or East Coast, and prices are increasing in these neighbourhoods as well.

“There’s not enough in the private residential sector to meet demand. I believe there are only less than 40,000 vacant condominiums left in Singapore now, and we’re expecting over 100,000 people to move here this year.”

Global assets held by wealthy investors rose 11.4 percent to $37.2 trillion in 2006, but the growth rate is forecast to slow to 6.8% annually over the next four years.

Going forward, Merrill Lynch expects more central banks to tighten monetary policy, bringing a possible end to the period of high liquidity that has stimulated recent growth.

Growth rates in Asia are expected to ease back as global demand slows. - CNA

New source:

Channel News Asia, 28 June 2007

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