The Holstee Manifesto Lifecycle Video from Holstee on Vimeo.

Let this video encourages you to make a difference in your life ahead, let this also encourages you to make a difference to other peoples life too, leaving them a positive and long term impact, to make them change and inspired for the better! Even though this video is based through cycling, it can also be applied to your life too, the journey and traveling, the people, friends and strangers you meet along the way.

It’s a celebration, of many different wonderful things in life, diversity and uniqueness of life, experiences that are both personal and shared among us, celebrating gatherings, friendships of old and new, experiencing the new life ahead that you choose to start! Let this video be the ignition that you need to kickstart 2012 !

Happy New Year 2012 !!

Photo taken from Singapore Flyer
Thanks you Singapore Flyer and Marina Bay Division of URA for this special arrangement.

Wishing you all the best for the Year 2012 !! Good luck and all the best, wishing you great health and blessings with your family, loved ones, career, friendship and the goals that you would be setting for yourself in the year 2012!

I would also like to thank you for all the support and following you have given me over the years, through my business, photography, blogs, social media networking, alumni networking etc etc etc … Your heartfelt and dedicated support is the elixir that keeps me going when the chips are down and the going gets really tough especially when there are people who began to look down on me, questioning me and encouraging and wanting me to fail.

May the Force be with You for Year 2012 !

Quote: “Whoever renders service to many puts himself in line for greatness — great wealth, great return, great satisfaction, great reputation, and great joy.”–Jim Rohn

Quote: “Don’t be reluctant to give of yourself generously, it’s the mark of caring and compassion and personal greatness.”–Brian Tracy (The Treasury of Quotes)

There was a quote that was imparted to me, it was something along this line “whatever you set and plan to achieve in the things that you do a.k.a running a business, you would take around 5 years to be start seeing/tasting the fruits of your success”, I can’t really get the exact quote, nevertheless, I promise to update here if I ever find it! With the exception of 2010, a year of freak incident, operation, post-op rehabilitation and post-op recovery (whereby I lost about 9 months of working time), the businesses and areas that started more than 5 years ago, started to grow more fruits and bigger fruits too. Showing more baby steps towards success, it’s more steps climbed up towards my ladder of achievement. Over the years of learning to give without expecting returns, there are times when I give and give, a lot, there were times when there were nothing in return and feeling abused. Through encouragement and determination, I continued giving and rendering services.

Quote: “No one has ever become poor by giving.”– Anne Frank

Quote: “Whatever good things we build end up building us.”– Jim Rohn

In 2011, good things begets another, more starting to appear, blessed with more privileges and kindness, access that were once reserved for media, blessed with gifts from lucky draws, connecting with brands and alumni bodies, building wider networks and friendship. However, I felt that this continuation and giving can be done better and bigger, since I felt the greatness and satisfaction in the returns, and I plan to make it better in 2012 for 1 area of my businesses.

Quote: “Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.”–Gandhi

Social Media Networking – here lies another huge area of networking that goes online and offline (in real life), it just gets bigger and wider, locally and internationally, more friends made online and met offline in real life to know them in person. Through social media networking, it can help to grow my businesses, time will tell.

Quote: “You have to put in many, many, many tiny efforts that nobody sees or appreciates before you achieve anything worthwhile.”–Brian Tracy

Health is slowly getting back to me, with a history of horrific injuries, I always remind myself constantly that no amount of money can buy my health back to normal, the injuries are for life and will be with me till the end of my time on Mother Earth. While still cautious on my rehabilitation and not too over zealous in exercising, it got me lazy and slowly gaining unnecessary weight and fats at the waist level, even without much alcohol drinking.

Traveling in 2011 was a breakthrough because for the past few years, I haven’t really traveled out at all for a holiday! Amazingly, 3 short trips to nearby countries, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, makes it a fun travel year in 2011, however, I am always tempted by medium to long haul trips and looking forward to do at least 1 or 2 of them in 2012.

Quote: “Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.”–Brian Tracy

Sports photography is another achievement that I am happy with the growth, being a sports enthusiast, I was able to cover cycling, football cricket, beach volleyball, handball, rugby 7s with media privileges while F1 was on a personal basis.

On the social causes, my personal projects on the Old Places and the Green Corridor are two areas that will keep me writing, sharing, photographing and documenting. Up next will be Bukit Brown, an area whereby I have roots relating to the area. Looking forward to 2012, I hope to be able to contribute more to these personal interests of mine, probably from a personal level to national level with iRememberSG , let’s see how things turns out for 2012.

Quote: “The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.”– Zig Ziglar

While we all busy earning money, there are things whereby money can’t buy when it’s lost or destroyed. Health, History, Heritage, Culture, Preservation and Conservation.

The year 2011 has been another year of learning, I subscribed to the mantra of lifelong learning, never ending and never stopping, that’s always something new to learn, everyday from different people, experiences, situations, sharing, mistakes, crisis and life changing. Moving forward to 2012, I always tell & remind myself that I always have something new to learn, a new skill, new experiences and many more.

Quote: “Commit yourself to lifelong learning. The most valuable asset you’ll ever have is your mind and what you put into it.” –Brian Tracy

 Quote: “Learn something new. Try something different. Convince yourself that you have no limits.”–Brian Tracy

What lies ahead for 2012 ? Well, coming to my writing near you, stay tuned!

The Green Corridor 

When it was announced that the KTM Railway will be returned back to Singapore, it didn’t kick start a major reaction until closer to the last days of the end of the KTM Railway. The 2 train stations were preserved and conserved, the railway tracks were removed and returned back to Malaysia, leaving the current entire stretch very different, just a path with grass, while waiting for the masterplan to be out on the plans for the Green Corridor. The future of the Green Corridor, with an exhibition at the URA centre, known as Re-Imaging The Green Corridor, showed that between public and private sectors, we can come together to work, discuss, plan and decide together for the future of the Green Corridor. Do follow this facebook group “We Support The Green Corridor” for updates!

My coverage of The Green Corridor can be found here on my photoblog and the special folder The Green Corridor on Flickr !

Old Places

Singapore is developing at such a fast pace, especially for me in the past 5 years, the transformation is remarkable and it gives us a modern cosmopolitan city landscape. However, in the quest for modernisation and change, Singapore had already lost and are losing things, from history, heritage, landmarks and many old places. After watching Royston’s Tan Old Places, I was very motivated to do my own photojournalistic coverage and write up of the Old Places in Singapore before it’s gone forever and they can only be seen on DVDs, libraries, micro-films, internet, photographs etc. For those who are into Old Places in Singapore, do check out the Facebook Group – Old Places for more updates !

My coverage of the Old Places in Singapore can be found here on my photoblog and a special folder Old Places on Flickr!

Interest Groups - Preserving, documenting and sharing early days of Singapore – On a little street in Singapore

This Facebook group is started by Jerome Lim, a blogger/photographer, someone who has very great passion in sharing and preserving the history and heritage of Singapore. His Facebook Group is sharing and connecting like-minded people of different age groups, who are keen on Singapore in the early days from the colonial days to independence days and early nationhood days. This is a very informative and interesting site, especially for the younger generation to learn beyond the history books on our culture and heritage and those landmarks and lifestyle gone by. Here’s the link on Facebook !

Recently, a few other areas surfaced into the picture

Bukit Brown Cemetery 

With a rising population in a limited and small land space Singapore, a thirst for more cars and expected heavier traffic, Bukit Brown Cemetery was slated for re-development, not just for roads, it’s also being planned for housing development too. This caused quite a stir too, with people stepping up to write, share and document down. This cemetery is iconic because of Singapore’s early pioneers, who helped to build up Singapore’s economy and society, some of them were buried there. Removing them is like tearing what builds up Singapore in the first place, way before independence during the British Colonial days. However, with the inevitable quest and thirst for more land, space and housing, where does the balance lies ? This is a question that is not a million dollar question as some people would put it, there might be no answer that fits everybody.

For more information and following on the updates, follow them on Facebook – Heritage Singapore – Bukit Brown Cemetery 

Save Old School

The Old School, perched on the top of the hill known as Mount Sophia, another rich history and heritage of early Singapore. A few historic buildings on the hill, which housed Methodist Girls’ School, is slated for re-development purposes and plans. It’s disappointing that more plans are being made/planned to change/remove these historic landscapes forever from our sight, for the sake of modernisation, growth and expansion. Let’s hope we can do more to Save Our School and preserve, conserve and protect more old historic iconic buildings!

For more information and following on the updates, follow Save Old School on Facebook !

Rochor Centre

This is stamped and sealed, in local terms “already decided, stamped chopped”, an area of very colourful of (Yellow, Blue, Red and Green coloured) Housing Development Board (HDB) flats in the area of Bugis, not too far from the Central Business District and Marina Bay area. They will be torn down, the residents and local businesses there relocated somewhere nearby, for the sake of building a new expressway, known as the N-S, North-South Expressway. The reactions, thoughts and feelings of the residents and Singaporeans are spreading in a viral manner on the social media channels and networks, on the traditional media and on the street level – the Heartlanders hearts, mind and soul.

My humble and simple coverage is just the tip of the ice berg, however, I hope that it helps to spread the word, cause and concern for us to Save Our Spaces, history, heritage, culture, preserve and carry it on for the future. This is also something to remind me again and again to continue on with my Old Places and Green Corridor coverage, something personal that had stagnated for quite a number of months.

As much as there is a need to replace and remove some of the older places and buildings for the inevitable growth and expansion of a country, surely and definitely we go around tearing historic landmarks and monuments that are part of our growth and expansion from her British Colonial days to early nationhood days to the cosmopolitan city that we are living in today ?

I believe we can find that balance, if everybody does their part.

Since my previous sharing on the Dell XPS 14z and Dell Vostro V131, I would like to share Dell’s promotion on the 2 laptops at SITEX 2011. There are freebies to be given away too if you going to buy the Dell XPS 14z and Dell Vostro V131!

Source : BootStrike

Source : BootStrike

Happy Shopping at SITEX 2011 !! Buy Buy Buy !! Check out Dell Singapore for more information !!

Being an avid Canon DSLR user, with lots of photography action on my photoblog, let me share with you Canon’s Promotions on the Canon DSLRs and Digital Cameras from SITEX 2011 !

Source : BootStrike

Source : BootStrike 

Happy Shopping at SITEX 2011 !! Look forward to you folks with Canon DSLRs and/or Canon Digital Cameras!!

While I am still testing and using the Dell Vostro V131, I would like to introduce Dell Vostro V131, sharing some key details and technical information here before going into my review post at a later time. Some key technical specifications of the Dell Vostro V131 below -

• 2nd generation Intel® Core™ i3-2330M processor 2.20 GHz
• Up to 4GB⁴ DDR3 SDRAM at 1333Mhz
• Mobile Intel® HM 67 Express Chipset
• 13.3″ HD WLED Anti-Glare (1366×768)
• Up to 500GB⁵ hard drive (7200RPM)
• Optional External 8X DVD+/-RW
• 6-cell Smart Lithium Ion battery (65WHr)
• Width: 329.3mm/12.96” Height: (front/back) 16.05-21.0mm/0.63-0.83 inches
  Depth: 237.65mm/9.36” Starting weight: 1.82kg/4.03lbs (with 6-cell battery and standard HDD)

 Announcing the arrival on 15th November 2011, I was invited by Dell and XPR to the Dell XPS 14z launch event and had a first hands on experience with the Dell XPS 14z. Beautifully crafted with anodized aluminium and magnesium alloy, it’s strong yet not heavy! It’s thin, it’s powerful and it would suit the working professional, who needs a portable and powerful laptop! With a high performance media packaged inside along with leading edge technology with the NVIDIA graphics card and 2nd Gen i5 or i7 Intel Core Processor Chips, it promises more than just work only, it’s your entertainment system! Suitable for an all in one system!

Here’s some key and important information on the Dell XPS 14z

Detailed Information:

• ·         Thin laptop PC (0.9”/23mm) with Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium; anodized aluminum and magnesium alloy palmrest in dark gray
• ·         2nd-generation Intel Core i5 and Core i7 Dual Core processor choices
• ·         Standard HD (720p) WLED with TrueLife and edge-to-edge glass (1366×768)
• ·         Fast NVIDIA graphics option including NVIDIA Optimus technology:

o    NVIDIA GeForce GT 520M with 1GB graphics memory

• ·         4GB dual channel DDR3 up to 8GB DDR3 1333Mhz memory options
• ·         Fast 7200RPM hard disk storage, from 500GB up to 750GB; 256GB SSD drive option
• ·         Built-in Slot load DVD +/- RW (reads & writes to CD/DVD)
• ·         Backlit, spill-resistant Chiclet keyboard
• ·         Built-in Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230 802.11 A/G/N  and Bluetooth 3.0 wireless connectivity
• ·         Intel Wireless Display-ready
• ·         Up to six hours, 42 minutes of battery life with 8-cell battery
• ·         USB 3.0 (1), USB 2.0 (1), HDMI 1.4 (1), RJ-45 (1), Mini Display-Port and microphone/audio connectors
• ·         Built-in 1.3MP HD Webcam with dual array digital microphones and stereo speakers
• ·         Next generation Dell Stage software for fast, easy access to content like music, videos and photos
• ·         Dimensions: Height: 0.9” (23mm) / Width: 13.19” (335mm)  / Depth 9.21” (234mm); Weight: starting at 4.36lbs (1.98 kg)

Here’s a video clip introducing the Dell XPS 14z !

The Dell XPS 14z is now available ! If you like to own this beautiful and powerful laptop, The XPS 14z laptop is available today through www.Dell.com.sg, and in select retail stores nationwide at starting prices of S$1,449 for the Core i5 version, and S$1,749 for the Core i7 version.

How was my experiences, thoughts and analysis on this printer ?

Pros

- Easy to use & connect with my MacBook via the USB cable to print directly

- The SD and CF card slots are very useful and gives it more options to print out directly

- The LCD screen is very useful for me to look at the photographs that I wanted to print and choose it for printing

- Changing the ink cartridges wasn’t too difficult after all (I had to replace some of the ink cartridges during my review)

- LCD panel user interface is good, easy to use and move around the different applications and functions

- 2 separate loading trays for normal paper printing (bottom cassete) and photo printing (top slide down) , it works well for me and I don’t have to worry about changing the paper inside all one compartment and even mixing the papers up.

- Scanner is useful and the scan quality is pretty good

Cons

- The printing is not really that fast (well, it’s not that slow though)

- Prefer the LCD screen to be bigger in size

- If there were a lot of photographs inside your SD or CF card, it can be quite a challenge to find the photograph that you wanted to print (e.g. photo is number 400th out of 800 photos inside your card), the interface doesn’t allow the ease of search and selection of the particular photo as compared to searching and finding it on your laptop or desktop.

Other Points to Take Note

- Some points to take note that my MacBook screen is not calibrated before, therefore some photographs came out looking different from I have on my MacBook. If you would be doing home printing quite a lot, you may like to consider getting a device to calibrate your screen, that would help you with your post processing and printing and it helps too if you are sending it out for photobook printing or printing shops.

- 2 black ink cartridges inside the Canon PIXMA MG617o printer, this might help to save cost with the black ink not being used up too fast.

Overall, the Canon PIMXA MG6170 is a good printer, suitable for home printing and my short stint using it along with my prints, Final prints from the Canon PIXMA MG6170 printer are good and my friends who received my photography works like it, printed out 4R and A4 size photos for them to bring home & keep for memories sake! I shared my photography works with my friends, vendors, business/social media partners and supporters, spreading the joy of my photographs brightening their day!

Source : Canon Singapore

For a start, let me introduce the Canon PIXMA MG6170 and some of the key technical specifications of the printer. I have already tested and printed out the photographs and I would post my thoughts and reviews in the next post! It’s always a proud moment to see my own photography works that I liked printed out for myself and also for my friends and supporters.

Some Key Technical Specifications of the Canon PIXMA MG6170 Printer

Source : Canon Singapore

My first hand experiences using and printing the Canon PIXMA MG6170 printer was good and I had a great time printing the photos. While I am writing down my thoughts and reviews of the this printer for a later post, do check out other Canon’s products range!