UOB Singapore Dumps on Internet Customers

I was making a routine login in to my Internet banking account this evening when I was presented with a new screen demanding that I accept new terms and conditions. The choice was clear - accept or logoff. Since I needed to pay some bills, I clicked on the "accept" box, but not willingly or happily.

This habit of coercing customers into accepting new terms is one of the uglier behaviours to emerge from the move to the online world. Instead of being presented with legible contracts, we are now ambushed with demands for agreement or service is withdrawn. Software companies are fond of this sort of thing as well.

Being the trusting sort of person I am, I tried to copy the terms for later perusal. Cleverly, UOB has prevented copying the text. However, there is a link in micro-font at the bottom of the screen that leads to the terms in the form of a PDF file.

It is a 26 page document! However, the document is locked, not permitting the copying of text.

And predictably, it contains a number of completely one-sided denials of responsibility, and impossible demands.

UOB may send your Username and Password to the customer by any means available. However, UOB has no liability if it is not received or intercepted. Good start.

The customer is responsible for, and MAY NOT DISPUTE, any transaction carried out on Internet Banking.

The Customer may not record ANYWHERE his Username and Password. Hope you have a good memory...

UOB may refuse to carry out any or all instructions for any reason whatsoever.

And my favourite so far (we are only on page 8 of 26)

The Customer must compensate UOB for any direct, indirect or consequential loss and/or damage, without limitiation including loss of profit or interest (whether forseeable by you or not) suffered by UOB.

When is the Monetary Authority of Singapore going to stand up to the local banks and end this manifestly one-sided abuse of customers?

DBS Bank Singapore - We Can Take What We Want

I've been working flat out, and just realized that it has been over a month since my last post. Tonight is the start of my summer leave, so I was kicking back, thinking about travel to come, and dealing with the incoming snail mail.

A good mood is always at risk when dealing with correspondence from banks, and sure enough, DBS managed to provoke both my ire and a blog post.

Try this for a new low in contractual onesidedness:

Payments Charges Fees Costs and Taxes

5. You will pay such charges and fees for the provision of Electronic Services as we may prescribe from time to time, whether or not you in fact make use of such Electronic Services. We are authorized to debit your Account(s) for all charges, fees, withdrawals and payments for the provision and/or use (authorised or unauthorised) of Electronic Services and any other liabilities to, and loss suffered by, us as a result of the provision and/or use of Electronic Services.

So let's parse this gem. "You will pay". Yeah, got that. The customer always pays. But wait, here is a new concept - "whether or not you in fact make use of such Electronic Services".

Wow.

What a business model. The customer pays even when he doesn't use the service. And there's more - even if the usage is unauthorized or if the Bank suffers a loss, the customer pays.

All I can say to customers of DBS bank is run. Run now.

Banks
Singapore

Other People's Children

Unlike OPM, (Other People's Money), which is a good thing, OPC, (Other People's Children) can be a pain, particularly when dining at a restaurant.

I can't count all the times when we have had a meal disrupted by unsupervised kids let loose by their parents. Inevitably, the parents continue their meal in serene ignorance of the ensuing chaos. Or at least they pretend not to notice.

I dedicate this picture, taken at a North Vancouver restaurant, to all those who understand why it is funny.

Starhub - It Just Gets Worse

My least favourite service provider has managed to hit a new low.

It is 18:50 on a Saturday night, and I just tried to call Starhub's customer dis-service number at 1633 to try and resolve a billing problem (another long and painful story). I was greeted with a recorded message saying that they were too busy to take calls, and then the line was disconnected.

Wow.

This is a company that carefully hides all contact information from the public, refuses to publish the names of their corporate managers, has a website that forces customers to use their call centre, and now refuses calls completely.

Having done away with 800 numbers so that the customer foots the bill for attempting to contact the company, we have now reached the stage that contact is simply refused.

Congratulations Starhub, you have retained your title as the company I most hate to interact with. Actually to be more precise, the company I most hate trying to interact with...

StarHub

Bug in Airline Reservation System Resolved by KLM

I wrote before about finding an annoying bug in airline reservation systems that prevented booking multi-city itineraries. I reported the bug to Singapore Airlines and KLM through their web site feedback links.

The result was interesting. SQ wrote back saying "We regret the problem, will look into it", while the KLM bot answered "We are very busy and unlikely to reply in less than 4 weeks". 4 weeks!! Guess their SLA was written by retired union negotiator...

The results have been even more interesting.

SQ has done nothing to fix the problem.

After I got frustrated and just phoned KLM Singapore directly, they, in the person of Nura Akbar, engaged me in a series of emails to understand and fix the problem.

Well done Nura, and well done KLM.

The actual problem turns out to be in a configuration setting. The default value for Minimum Connection Time (MCT) is 12 hours. It seems none of the airlines bothered to set this properly, so it was impossible to book a flight that departed less than 12 hours after the arrival of the previous flight.

Now if KLM would just allow seat assignments during online bookings...

Airlines

Major Bug in Airline Booking Sites

I have been travelling a great deal recently, and have had to use the online booking sites of various airlines to pick up tickets. I kept running into a strange problem with errors when trying to book multi-sector tickets, the sort of trip where you go from one city to another, then another, rather than just point to point.

On both KLM and Sinagpore Airlines, there is a button on the booking form labeled "Multi-city". This takes you to a dialogue that lets you add flights one by one. All pretty straight forward until you try adding the third flight. The error that comes up indicates that the flight you have chosen is not available because of the departure time.

The actual bug is quite simple. A programmer has added a check to ensure that the departure time is after the arrival time of the preceding flight. EXCEPT there is an error in the calculation of the time. Where flights start on one day, and arrive the next morning (most flights from Asia to Europe), the booking system is incorrectly calculating AM flights as PM flights (12 hours are being added to the time).

Although simple to recognize, this bug has been there for months. I have sent email to the airlines involved, but without any fix to the problem. Clearly, the booking engine is shared by a number of airlines, and so they are all suffering from the same bug.

It is amazing to me that an industry that lurches from financial crisis to financial crisis can manage to have a major bug in a revenue generating system. It is simply not possible to book a multi-sector ticket online because of the problem.

Airlines

Car Sharing Done Right

I have been hesitant to talk about the Honda Diracc car sharing service for the simple reason that it is so good. Like a favourite beach or restaurant, letting everybody else know reduces your own chances of getting in.

About a year ago, I was wandering along Orchard Road when I came across one of those ubiquitous booths selling something. Normally I give these a wide berth, but in this case, it was an exhibition on green technologies, and Honda had a booth displaying their Civic Hybrid. The car caught my attention, and while looking at the specifications, I realized it was part of a fleet of cars offered on a sharing basis.

The sales guy was friendly and knowledgeable, and the next thing I knew, I had signed up for a year long membership. A couple of weeks later, I received a letter inviting me to attend a familiarization session. This took place in the car park of Raffles City and took about 5 minutes to run through the activation system and use of the in-car terminal. With that, a smart card was handed over and I was ready to go.

Honda Diracc works by positioning a fleet of Honda Civic cars at 13 different car parks scattered around the central business district. These locations are called ports. I am lucky to have one port near my apartment, and another near where I work, so it is pretty convenient. A member is able to pick up a car at any port, and drop it at any other port they choose.

I should say that owning a car in Singapore is not something one undertakes lightly. There is a complex and shifting set of rules that result in high costs of ownership and usage. With the amount of travel I do, and a non-driving spouse, there is not much rational excuse to own a vehicle. Taxis are relatively cheap and plentiful, and no amount of limo rides can equal the cost of owning and operating a vehicle.

Unfortunately, while taxis in Singapore are cheap, they are operated by rather perverse individuals who do not see themselves as being in the service industry. Rather, passengers are treated as a necessary irritation to be tolerated in order to earn money.

This results in taxis being almost impossible to obtain when required. The downtown area is barren of available taxis at quitting time. The only vehicles to be seen are cruising around with "On Call" or "Shift Change" signs. To get a taxi, one has to call a booking number, wait on hold for an operator, then wait on hold again while she dispatches the job and waits for a driver to respond. The fee for booking, CDB surcharge, and peak hour surcharge turn my trip home into a lengthy and expensive affair.

Enter Honda Diracc. By clicking on the web site, I can instantly check to see if a car is available at the port beside my office. 90% of the time (holiday eve an exception) a car is available. I stroll over to the car park, wave my smart card at the window, and the doors unlock. Once inside, I enter my PIN on the LCD screen mounted on the dashboard, select the port where I will drop the car, hit enter, and the ignition key pops out of the ignition lock.

And that's it. No paper work, no need to re-fuel before dropping off, no hassle. I have to say this is one of the best engineered, best functioning systems I have had the pleasure to use. After a year of event-free usage, I remain a happy customer. I even managed to recover a cash card that I had inadvertently left in the ERP (Electronic Road Pricing) terminal by calling the office which arranged to fetch it for me.

Economically, a car from my office to home is actually cheaper than a taxi, even without all the booking charges. The Diracc charges are calculated on time and distance (the chart of charges is here), with gas, insurance, and parking at ports all included.

The other car sharing schemes in Singapore all require either advance booking and/or paper work and re-fuelling. They also tend to be positioned to serve those in the HDB heartland rather than those living in the downtown areas. BusinessWeek recently carried an article about a similar service in North America, called ZipCar, which has locations in 8 cities including Toronto in Canada.

Singapore
Car sharing

Singapore Election - Post Mortem

I was surprised to see a letter to the editor in the May 11, 2006 Straits Times which does an excellent job of summarizing the behaviour of the PAP that led to 33% of voters choosing the opposition.

Entitled "why 'people's hero' lost the hearts of 33% of voters", Jacob Tan Teck Lee zeroes in on the more questionable tactics of the PAP.

Here is the letter in its entirety:

Why 'people's hero' lost the hearts of 33% of voters

SINGAPORE'S history of nation-building is nothing short of spectacular. The PAP should be the people's hero, yet it lost the hearts of 33 per cent of voters, even in the Prime Minister's own GRC. Why?

The PM inadvertently revealed the dark side of the PAP when he said his focus would be to 'fix' the opposition and figure out how to 'buy' his support if the opposition won 10 or more seats, though he did subsequently say that his choice of the word 'fix' might have been too strong, and offered his apology if it had offended anyone.

However, it affirmed for many their uneasiness over the political tactics of the PAP over the years:

The morphing of the original GRCs from three MPs intended to guarantee minority representation to super-GRCs of up to six MPs (perceived as creating a barrier to entry for the opposition with their cartographical contortions and as a means of bringing in new, untested PAP candidates under the air cover of ministerial heavyweights).

The lawsuit (intended to safeguard the integrity of debate) seemed to have become extended into an ever-ready weapon of political dare-and-do. The PAP-Workers' Party dare-you-to exchange was especially grating to voters hungry for higher political discourse.

The conversion of HDB upgrading (one of our secrets for social stability) into the spectacle of which PAP MP can offer more money to their voters ($80 million here, $300 million there but to the almost-total exclusion of the candidate's own positions on national issues).

It is not that the voters take the good work of the PAP for granted. Travel the world and you will know how much the PAP has done and is still doing for Singapore. The PAP deserves better. But only if it tears itself away from its dark electoral insecurities and rises to its historical role of nation-building.

The PAP, as a political party, is not obliged to hand over its seats to the opposition. However, the PAP, as the Government, is a steward of our political process and it owes itself and Singapore, as the founding party and only governing party, to shepherd the political development to greater and more open political participation and not to political atrophy.

Some suggestions for the PAP Government:

Eliminate super-GRCs and return to the original three-MP GRCs, not all of which need to be minority-represented if the 'minimal quota' is already reached. Smaller GRCs reduce the charge that GRCs are a means of letting in 'backdoor' MPs.

Maintain greater stability in electoral boundaries. While population shifts may necessitate changes, the PAP should stop the practice of moving wards around as jigsaw pieces to reconfigure weak GRCs/ SMCs and carve out new SMCs. With greater electoral stability, the opposition has a better chance to nurture their chosen constituencies with their more limited resources.

Stop focusing on individual-constituency HDB upgrading as the primary election platform of MPs. Today it seems we conduct town-council elections and get a national parliament as a by-product.

It is the national policies of the PAP that have raised resource-scarce Singapore to First World standards. Let them be the PAP electoral showcase instead.

Lawsuits should be served when slander or libel is committed. They should not be part of the political lexicon of campaigning thrust-and-parry.

The PAP has done so much for Singapore. It should be more confident of itself that it will continue to win the support of voters on its track record even when it loosens its grip on the political process. Indeed it will be more heartily supported.

Jacob Tan Teck Lee

Singapore
Elections

Apple's Device Model vs. Component Freedom

Walt Mossberg, the personal technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal has an article up today suggesting that Apple's "device model" is superior to the "component" model championed by Microsoft.

Ignoring the giggles that ensue from suggesting that Microsoft is a big supporter of standards-based open computing, Mossberg is essentially arguing that life is easier when one company makes end-to-end systems.

"Apple's Device Model" is the same as saying appliance. One could argue that there is no need to hack the OS on a microwave oven in order to have choice in the market, but in fact the choice is limited to microwave ovens that basically do the same thing. There hasn't been much change since the original appliances were created 30 years ago, discounting annoying voice chips.

The danger with mono-culture in nature or technology is that innovation stops and one becomes vulnerable to change, whether a real world virus or shifts in the business landscape. Microsoft has effectively killed off innovation in a number of software markets with the Windows mono-culture.

Personal Information Mangers used to be a thriving category with companies supplying multiple ways to support the organizational needs of people with many different ways of thinking. Now we just have the rather ponderous and opaque Outlook. Ditto personal databases, spreadsheets, and presentation programs.

Apple is using the components created by the PC revolution (video cards, power supplies, hard disks, interfaces, displays, memory). If they had been successful with their closed strategy from the beginning, we would all be staring at very expensive 10 inch monochrome monitors.

I vote for the component model every time.

Singapore Election - No Opposition Needed

Politics in Singapore can be breathtaking. But it is usually the short, sharp, intake of disbelief.

On Thursday, May 4, 2006, The Straits Times reported the Prime Minister as saying that "Singapore had succeeded because it had a dominant People's Action Party government which could think long term and run the country without being distracted by the opposition."

Interesting statement that, because it is offered without any proof. One could just as easily state that Singapore has succeeded in spite of the dominant People's Action Party. Without there having been any other party in power, it is all just speculation.

He went on to say "the real job of the opposition was not to improve the government, but to trip it up."

Another short, sharp, intake of breath required here.

This is a complete perversion of the principle of parliamentary democracy, in which the opposition is the loyal opposition..

Lee is recasting electoral politics as a "winner take all, loser gets nothing" event. It is that kind of thinking that has destroyed African democracies, where the tribe that gets power does everything in its power to benefit its supporters and to hold on at any cost lest they become the minority.

I have a great deal of respect for what Singapore has accomplished, but there are definite signs of an insular mentality within the PAP - one that leads them to believe that they hold a monopoly on the ability to govern.

When you start to believe that no other opinion than your own is worth listening to, it is time for a hard look in the mirror.

Singapore
Elections

Singapore Elections - We Really Know Who You Are

A report on Channelnewsasia.com describes residents unease when they received election pamphlets by mail that displayed their NRIC (National Registration Identity Code) on the mailing label.

The article quotes the Elections Department:

"In response to Channel NewsAsia, the Elections Department says the NRIC numbers are given out to political parties as an assurance that the electors are genuine persons.

The Registers of Electors may be purchased by political parties and aspiring candidates to facilitate their communication with registered electors."

Which is nonsense of course. The Elections Department has to know that a voter is genuine, but having done so, there is no reason to further distribute sensitive information such as the NRIC to third parties. This lack of awareness of basic security is breath-taking, particularly given the very public and ongoing problem of identity theft.

Anyone who believes that national ID cards are a benign move permitting good government needs to realize that once a number is established, the genie is out of the bottle.

It is routine for security guards at buildings in Singapore to demand physical possession of your NRIC card before permitting entry to a building. Which makes it somewhat difficult to prove one's identity while inside the building, and leaves a nagging sense of peril that the guard is using your NRIC card for some other nefarious purpose, but hey, that's security.

Identity Theft
Singapore
Elections

Singapore Elections - We Know Who You Are

The Today newspaper carried an article on April 22, 2006 entitled "Be ready for checks at rallies" which describes new rules apparently permitting the police to conduct physical checks on people attending political rallies.

I attempted to find the rules, or the press statement that Today is quoting from, on the Singapore Police web site, under Media Releases, but it does not appear to be there. Further digging turned up something called the Police Elections Liaison Office, with a web site here. The actual document is in .pdf format here.

One wonders how the average citizen is supposed to know about all these rules, or who is making them.

The rationale for allowing police to completely control political rallies and those who attend them was given by Mr. Seng Han Thong of the People's Action Party.

"Election rallies are opportunities for terrorists who want to "sabotage". "These places are more vulnerable and the measures are to ensure that no one can take advantage of such a situation."

Singapore
Elections

Counting Skype Users

Jeremy Wagstaff has a blog entry entitled "Skype's 100 Million: Where The Hell Are They?" in which he questions Skype's claim of 100 million users. As users of Skype will note, the number of online users at any given moment is somewhere around 6 million.

Not sure what all the angst is about Skype subscriber numbers. Any telecom service is going to have more registered users than online users at any given moment. If not, the networks would collapse, since they are all engineered with a level of over subscription implicit in the design.

Skype is different from a conventional switched network because it is using peer to peer technology, so theoretically, it should be able to scale better.

I am just happy it exists. Having access to cheap, easy to use voice and video communications with chat and presence has completely changed the way I do business and interact with family.

Skype

StarHub - Smart TV Firmware 1.10 update

I was in the middle of trying to send my StarHub DVR back because of the poor performance, when they finally released a new firmware update, 1.10.

Because of family protests about the poor quality, I had already removed the new DVR from our main setup and reverted to the digital cable STB. The DVR now sits with the second TV, and is only occasionally used.

I cannot say at this point whether the new firmware makes any difference. When I went back to using my Pioneer DVR-520H, it was just so clean and simple that any desire to continue fooling around with the StarHub box just evaporated.

Apart from the fact that the Smart TV supposedly allows programmed recording from the on-screen directory, nothing else about it matches up to the quality of the Pioneer. I say supposedly because the previous firmware routinely failed to record selected programs.

I will eventually get around to testing the unit, but for now, it has achieved the status of an enthusiasm that didn't pan out.

StarHub

Singapore Election - No Comments Please

There is an old saying that people get the government they deserve.

It has been a frustrating week watching the PAP machine grind toward the official calling of the Singapore General Election. Frustrating because of the peril one faces if observations or opinions are objected to. I can't truthfully say that the risk is worth it, and so have decided to write privately, rather than post any comments to my blog.

Suffice to say that events here stretch the definition of democracy to an extent that would be unrecognizable to a citizen of ancient Athens, the birth place of rule by the people.

Singapore
Elections

Singapore Elections - Let the lawsuits begin

The Straits Times is reporting this morning that the Lees, father and son, have issued letters of demand against the Singapore Democratic Party's entire 12 man executive, and the printer of their newsletter.

This is a legal move to accuse the SDP of libel. The leaders of Singapore have used libel law frequently, resulting in the bankruptcy of opposition candidates. Once declared bankrupt, a person cannot run for Parliament.

The specifics of the libel suit relate to statements made in the SDP newsletter which claim the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) leaders have known about, and tolerated, corruption in the NKF charity and other government agencies.

There is a certain repetitious quality to the whole "election, libel suit, huge judgment for the plaintiff, bankruptcy of the candidate" cycle. One wonders why opposition candidates bother to run and/or why they are so careless about opening themselves to libel charges.

Granted, anywhere else commonly thought of as a democracy, most of the statements would be protected free speech.

Elections
Singapore

Stealth E-commerce

I have recently had an unpleasant awakening to just how far the concepts of "fair use" and "intellectual property" can be pushed in the wrong direction.

I am an avid reader and collector of books. As the number of volumes has grown, it made sense to use computers and software to organize my collection. I have written before here, and here, about two great ways to accomplish the task.

What bothers me greatly however is that the organizations responsible for the software and service have both chosen to surreptitiously insert their own Amazon affiliate tag into listings and displays.

Let me explain the implications of this. Amazon has a program in which you can sign up to be an affiliate. They provide tools that let you embed links to books on Amazon within your web site, or as the case may be, listings of books on LibraryThing. If a person clicks through the link and buys the book, you are paid a small percentage as an affiliate.

That is all pretty straight forward. The whole web is driven by advertising, and whether it is Google ads or Amazon affiliate tags, it is a logical and above board way of driving sales and paying for the traffic. You would have to have a pretty popular site to generate earnings of a significant amount in any case, so it is not just the money that bothers me.

Where this all breaks down is when software companies and service providers start inserting their affiliate code into my listings and without prior notice. What is even worse is when those organizations refuse to modify their behaviour having been caught.

My current hall of shame includes:

Book Collector, which inserts their affiliate code in HTML extract reports,
LibraryThing, which inserts their affiliate code in displays of user book collections on the web

The morality is pretty hard to defend. Both Book Collector and LibraryThing rely on open API's to get the information and images they need for their services for free from Amazon and libraries.

This is all reminiscent of the ugly happenings at CDDB, in which tens of thousands of people uploaded CD listings to what they thought was a public domain database, only to have it become a commercial enterprise.

e-commerce

Redemption

In the spirit of Easter, a few thoughts about rebirth.

The Wife watches Oprah, something I only admit to because apparently she has millions of fellow viewers. Inevitably, I end up sitting through the occasional show as circumstances dictate.

The formula seems pretty well developed. Somebody who has totally screwed up their life comes on, then everybody tut tuts about how well they have screwed up their life. This is followed by an uplifting denouement in which all is forgiven, acne is cleared up, and everybody emerges as happy and productive members of society. All accompanied by much demented cheering from white chicks in the audience who are secretly hoping for some freebie to be handed out.

But enough about Oprah. What really intrigues me is the easy way in which the traditional confessional and penance of mainstream religion has been transformed into the stuff of TV shows and pop literature.

Every society needs rules in order to ensure that things keep running and that the weak have a fighting chance against the strong. Morality, unless you really believe in the stone tablets, is the embodiment of the evolution of those rules.

The problem with systems that hold out damnation for sinners is that they fall apart unless the sinner is offered redemption. After all, if I commit a sin and then am eternally damned, I might as well forget about the rules for the rest of my life and just enjoy myself. Confession and penance are a neat way to keep the flock in line by offering the chance to wipe the slate clean. Now, this used to be something that happened privately, and supposedly confidentially, between you and your religious representative/priest/minister/shaman whatever.

Today in America things have become a lot more open and streamlined. Now you can completely screw up, get caught, do time (or not, depending on how much money you have), then go around telling everybody how much you screwed up and bask in their forgiveness and the 15 minutes of fame that go along with it. All pretty painless.

Since lots of money is spent screwing up, and more on the cure, and then even more on the publicity created by the recovery, one has to believe that this has a significant impact on the economy. Instead of worrying about all the American consumers in debt over their heads, just think of all the pending redemption stories out there. The books. The TV shows. The movies. The new charitable foundations.

I wonder if Greenspan took all this into account.

Oprah
Easter

Book Recommendation - Syrup

It has been a rare treat to have had time to do some reading recently. Even more enjoyable has been the serendipitous introduction to two new authors. I reviewed Barry Eisler's work earlier, and now I have had the chance to finish my first read of a book by Max Barry.

He is simply a great writer. I don't know why I had never heard of his work before, but I couldn't put down Syrup from the moment I started reading. I don't want to go through all the plot and ruin the experience of reading it yourself. Rather, I just want to comment on the authentic voice that Max brings to his observations and dialogue. I constantly found myself nodding and agreeing with behaviour, remembering similar experiences and people.

If I was going to use reviewing cliches, then Syrup is a satirical romp through the world of advertising and corporate politics. Actually, it is funny. Very funny. My immediate reaction on finishing was to go and buy everything else he has written.

Get this book.



There have been a couple of other books that have delivered similar feelings of familiarity and mirth. I can recommend Thomas Scoville's Silicon Follies, and Douglas Coupland's Microserfs for excellent takes on life in Silicon Valley.

StarHub - Smart TV Digital Set Top Box Update

It has been a month since I took delivery of StarHub's new Smart TV digital set top box (STB). My original review is here. The experience over that time has not been satisfactory.

Where to start? Perceptible synchronization problems between audio and video. Heavy pixelization and digital artifacts, random picture breakups, complete crashes of the STB on an almost daily basis, failed recordings, inability to fast forward without losing synchronization, perceptible lag when changing channels.

I was astonished to read the positive review that appeared in the Straits Times Digital Life supplement. OK, not astonished, StarHub is a major advertiser of theirs, and the chances of a negative review were exactly zero. But come on.

Seeing other reviews that don't mention problems, I decided to call StarHub and ask to have my box replaced. The tech immediately agreed and scheduled an appointment. When the installer showed up at my flat, he was reluctant to do the swap. His point was that it would make no difference because the problems were not in the hardware. I insisted that the swap take place anyway, and fired up the new box.

Same problems.

Looking at the firmware revision number, 1.6, it is clear that no new release of software has been made in the last 30 days. I don't mind being a beta tester, but there is something wrong with this picture.

I am paying for hardware that doesn't deliver the service for which it is designed. There is no feedback mechanism to communicate with the beta program engineers other than going through normal 1633 customer disservice. Anyone using the box for more than an hour and exercising its functions would see that it was not ready for release.

My question to StarHub is "Why was this product released to customers?"

Singapore
StarHub

Book Recommendation - John Rain Thrillers by Barry Eisler

One of the pleasures of reading a newspaper such as The Economist (never to be called a magazine we are informed) is the breadth of its coverage. Rather than a narrow focus on things financial, readers are treated to reviews of cultural matters as well. And it is from one of The Economist's recent book reviews that I discovered the work of Barry Eisler.

Mr. Eisler writes good old fashioned thrillers. He has created a character named John Rain, a half-Japanese, half-American killer for hire. With a combination of detailed tradecraft, martial arts, and exhaustive description of locale, one feels completely immersed in the action.

John Rain is not a simple minded psychopathic killer mind you, but the complex result of much that has gone before, as Eisler reveals throughout the books. The psychological debate Rain has with himself lifts the character out of the cartoon category and allows him to stand with his predecessors, most famously James Bond.

Quibbles? Although there is great detail about surveillance and counter-measures, there is far less detail about how all this is funded. Rain just always seems to have cash on hand, regardless of location or time. I would prefer to see the same level of detail Eisler supplies to surveillance applied to exploring the mechanics of moving and accessing funds.

The first two books have Rain involved against foes in Japan and America, and there is considerable ambiguity as to who the bad guys actually are. It is all quite believable. In the third book, Rain Storm, the foe becomes rather cartoonish Arabs, who are of course stupid, evil, and incompetent. The addition of a blue-eyed, blonde(?) Israeli femme-fatale to the mix makes the whole thing very black and white, losing the more interesting exploration of the shades of grey Eisler achieved in his first two outings. One can see this as astute marketing to an American public looking for Arab bashing books after 9/11, but it doesn't do the character any good.

I am looking forward to see if Eisler gets back on track with his fourth book, Killing Rain. It is not available off the shelf in Singapore, so I have put in an order with Acma to get a copy.

Resurrection

I have trouble throwing away gizmos and gadgets that have ceased to function. On one level, there is a sense of waste, a feeling that if I could just figure out what was wrong, or obtain a missing part, all would be well again. On another level, there is the rememberance of the joy that I felt researching, buying, and learning to use the latest "miust have", and the feeling that somehow that could be recaptured if I had the time or knowledge to fix the thing.

My long time favourite PDA, the Psion 5MX, was notoriously fragile. I put up with the expense and the periodic need to service or replace the thring because it was just so brilliant, and I had built my working habits around its capabilities.

It was the final death of my last Psion, and the fact that the company no longer manufactured the model or provided service in Asia that finally persuaded me to transition to the Nokia 9500. Now I really like the 9500, but it doesn't have all the bells and whistles the 5MX did, and I am still reminded of that fact occasionally when I try and do something that is no longer possible on the Nokia.

Which brings me to an odd occurrence yesterday.

It is Spring, and I was doing some cleaning in the Haunt when I came across my drawer of Psion carcasses. Everything from the original Series 3 to a couple of dead LCD screens from various 5MX's. Sitting with pride of place was the last 5MX, which had died suddenly, without warning, and resisted all attempts at revival. I had backups, and managed to retrieve most of what had been on it, all except my agenda which had been a complete diary of appointments going back more than 10 years.

For old time's sake, I popped in a couple of double A batteries and pushed the reset button. Nothing happened, and a phone call came in, so I just left it sitting on my desk. About five minutes later, I picked up the 5MX and prepared to take out the batteries. I popped the screen one last time to check and there was the setup screen in all its glory.

I went through the familiar motions of completing the script, and was dropped to the main screen of a fully functional Psion Series 5MX. No data files because of the hard reset, but otherwise a ready to go PDA.

I won't go back to using it of course, the same problems with fragility and service would remain. But as a reminder of the basic value of optimisim, it sure felt good.

Psion
Nokia 9500

Getting Linked To

Was checking my Technorati listing last night and saw that my blog entry on Social Networking had been referenced over on InfoTangle. I guess this stuff actually works, but is it self-referential or self-reverential?

StarHub gets dissed in Straits Times

An article appeared in the Friday, April 7, 2006 Straits Times headlined "Gamers upset about StarHub's sluggish broadband speeds".

As a long time subscriber, I can attest to the problem. I can also attest to the lack of any meaningful discussion of the problem. Networks are not mysterious beasts that defy management or description. They are collections of equipment, wires, and configuration instructions. When managed properly, they deliver excellent service in a reliable way.

There seems to be a confusion about the terms speed (capacity), reliability (packet loss), and latency (lag). The discussion with Starhub has degenerated to the "It's slow, no it isn't" level instead of focusing on the very real and measurable problem.

Let's look at the facts. Starhub offers various plans, supposedly with higher speeds for higher prices. However, they do not guarantee any additional bandwidth for traffic after it leaves the local loop connection at a subscriber's home. You may have a high speed circuit, but it is only high speed to the first router within Starhub's network. What happens after that is very much a matter of how badly they oversubscribe their equipment. There is no way that the aggregate bandwidth sold to subscribers is matched one for one in the backbone network of Starhub.

The situation gets even worse when considering overseas sites. Starhub purchases a certain amount of international bandwidth to connect subscribers in Singapore to overseas networks. Again, this bandwidth is oversubscribed at a certain rate, which results in the performance seen by subscribers. There are simple and free tools available on the net such as PingPlotter to graphically show how all these factors come into play to deliver the Internet experience.

What is particularly frustrating is that Starhub refuses to acknowledge subscriber complaints, even when backed up with evidence, and continues to insist that the problem must be at the subscriber end. When that excuse is proven false, they fall back on the minimum service standards published by the IDA.

The bad news for gamers is that the standard is so low for local connections, real time gaming will be barely be acceptable even if StarHub is meeting the standard. The international latency standard of 300msec makes gaming pointless.

One can assess StarHub's approach to the market by looking at how they sell their service. It is not by focusing on the quality, or latency, or reliability. It is by packaging "freebies" with 2 year contracts to lock subscribers in, regardless of the level of service provided. Once you sign the contract or accept the "freebies", you can complain all you want, but you no longer have a choice.

To tell a customer like Mr. Tan, who is already a MaxOnline 6500 subscriber, that he needs a faster service is just ignorant. What he needs is a better network service provider. As do we all.


StarHub
Singapore

CIO Asia Conference and Awards 2006

Attended the CIO Asia Conference and Awards 2006 today. The folks at CIO magazine always put on a good show and this year was no exception. The event was well attended, and the speakers were, for the most part, interesting.

I say for the most part, because there is something that overtakes marketing managers for IT vendors and turns them into blatant shills for their companies. They just don't seem to get the difference between reading Powerpoint presentations to an audience and actually giving some thoughtful insight into the industry or their product sector. Suffice to say, new lows were established.

On a more positive note, any time an end user is prepared to be candid about their operation, I will be in the audience. There was a terrific presentation by Noble Coker, the CIO of Hong Kong Disneyland, and his enthusiasm and insight into his job were a joy to behold.

I was a bit taken aback by a comment from an IT manager at a local health group who explained that it was important for hospital systems to be available 24x7 because otherwise it would get into the papers and the Minister of Health would scold them. I always thought it was because patients would die...

Singapore

China Agrees to Microsoft Tax

It is being widely reported today that China's main PC manufacturers have agreed to stop shipping machines without a pre-loaded Microsoft operating system.

Supposedly this is to reduce piracy, but in fact it is the U.S. government putting pressure on behalf of Microsoft, which has long licensed its operating system to PC manufacturers based on the number of machines they manufacture. Some of the largest PC manufacturers in China were shipping PC's without any bundled OS.

Under the agreement, regardless of whether a customer wants a PC without an OS, or with an alternative OS such as Linux, the manufacturers end up paying a "tax" to Microsoft for the OS.

This is particularly invidious for large corporate customers who are also forced into bulk contracts with Microsoft. Under programs like Select, a corporate ends up paying twice - once under the Select agreement, and again when it purchases PC's.

Given China's rather visible attempts to avoid paying royalties for foreign IPR (intellectual property rights) for things like DVD's and cell phones, it is surprising that they capitulated on this issue.

Another article indicates that Microsoft is making the same demands on PC manufacturers in the UK.

China
Microsoft

Singapore Elections - No Talking

To understand Singapore, it is necessary to understand the statement

"That which is not permitted is forbidden".

Once you take that on board, it is a lot easier to anticipate what might seem like unusual statements by government spokesmen.

One might have thought that a lively debate among an informed electorate was one of the key elements of a healthy democracy, but it turns out that this doesn't apply in Singapore.

The local tabloid Today is carrying an article outlining the government's clarification that podcasting is not allowed during elections, nor is the streaming of video, nor "persistently promoting political views".

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PODCASTING will not be allowed during elections as it does not fall under the "positive list" which states what is allowed under election advertising.

Dr Balaji Sadasivan, the Senior Minister of State for Information, Communications and the Arts, added that streaming of videos during campaigning would also be prohibited. He was addressing a question in Parliament by Opposition leader Low Thia Khiang yesterday about the use of new technologies on the Internet during hustings.

Pictures of candidates, party histories and manifestos are on the "positive list" and they are allowed to be used as election advertising on the Internet. Newer Internet tools such as podcasting do not fall within this "positive list".

Dr Balaji said: "There are also some well-known local blogs run by private individuals who have ventured into podcasting. "The content of some of these podcasts can be quite entertaining. However, the streaming of explicit political content by individuals during the election period is prohibited under the Election Advertising Regulations. A similar prohibition would apply to the videocasting or video streaming of explicitly political content."

The Parliamentary Election Act was amended in 2001 to allow political parties to advertise on the Internet. This was to ensure responsible use of the Internet during campaigning as the free-for-all environment of the Internet is open to abuse.

Dr Balaji added that individual bloggers can discuss politics, but have to register with the Media Development Authority if they persistently promote political views. Once registered, they are not allowed to advertise during elections, something only political parties, candidates and election agents are allowed to do.

Despite the new Internet technology, there are no plans to change the law on online campaigning during an election, said Dr Balaji.

"We recognise that in our society, people will have their diverse opinion and some will want to share their opinion. But people should not take refuge behind the anonymity of the Internet to manipulate public opinion. "It is better and more responsible to engage in political debates in a factual and objective manner," he said.

Channel NewsAsia
----------------------------------------------
I sort of get the point about anonymous manipulation, but if a person is willing to stand behind their statements and identify themselves, what is the harm in expressing an opinion?

Of course, the chance of that happening anyway is limited given the novel and effective use that has been made of libel laws in Singapore.

Singapore
Elections

Microsoft attempts to mug English language

The growing realization that Microsoft's next version of the Window's operating system is not only going to be delayed, but also likely to be a complete bloatware resource hog, is leading to some interesting tap dancing on the part of the marketing department.

In an article in Computerworld, a JupiterResearch analyst tries to explain the difference between Microsoft's certification of PC's that are "Vista capable" and those that are actually able to run the new operating system.

My Oxford English dictionary defines capable as: having the ability or quality necessary to do something.

That is pretty straightforward, and does not anticipate a usage in which capable means "sort of able" or "we are just kidding, it won't really work".

Joe Wilcox, an analyst at JupiterResearch, stressed the importance of customers understanding the distinction between PCs "capable" of running Vista and those that are actually ready to do so.

"A system that will run Windows Vista may not be capable of using all of its features," he said. For example, Wilcox said, a machine branded Windows Vista Capable that is a high-end Media Center PC with superior graphics capabilities will be ready for even the most feature-intensive versions of Vista. But if it's a low-cost PC and it has a "Capable" sticker on it, "it will probably run the features of Home Basic but not anything else," he said.

Microsoft

Identity Theft - A real growth industry

While working as an R&D Manager at Visa in the mid-nineties, I had the chance to do a lot of thinking about payment systems, identity, trust, security - all the things that have to be present for value to be exchanged between parties.

Visa was heavily involved with the then newly emerging field of public key cryptography as a way of enabling payments on the Internet. The problem was that the systems being proposed, such as SET (Secure Electronic Transactions), were hopelessly complex to use and to implement.

Thinking about the societal implications of using certificates and computer stored identity, I was concerned about the confusion of value transfer with identity. Why do you have to know who I am in order to accept payment for goods? I also became increasingly concerned about the potential for identity theft and false accusations.

If everyone agrees that an identity method is secure, then there is a natural tendency to assume guilt if the method says a person is involved. As we have seen with fingerprints (not unique after all), DNA (not unique, but statistically significant), and biometrics (easily fooled by Jello), it is dangerous to rely on technology to ascertain identity to the exclusion of all other factors.

My major concern about storing one's identity in a computer, or chip, or cellphone is what happens when it is stolen. Indeed, the fact that identity is available to be stolen guarantees that it will be. No amount of encryption mathematics is going to prevent misuse by the average customer who fails to safeguard what has now become the key to his entire identity and by implication, wealth.

The kind of nightmare that can ensue was covered by the Hollywood flick "The Net", in which the protagonist is targeted and has her identity stolen. While the technology depicted in the film is somewhat Hollywood over-the-top, it does give the flavour of what it would be like to try and function in society when your identity has been removed and you essentially lose access to your own life.

Which all leads to the recent release of a report by the Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics in the US, entitled "Identity Theft, 2004".

It appears that the identity theft industry has grown, and continues to grow, quite nicely. The press release for the BJS report says it best -

3.6 MILLION U.S. HOUSEHOLDS LEARNED THEY WERE IDENTITY THEFT VICTIMS DURING A SIX-MONTH PERIOD IN 2004


Identity Theft

UOB Singapore does it again

The two activities any payment system has to do perfectly are clearing and settlement. The order in which they take place is as important as the outcome. That's the theory anyway.

I use Internet banking a lot because of travel and an aversion to queuing and counter staff. Having an upcoming income tax payment to make, I scheduled the payment and a corresponding funds transfer to cover the amount.

Imagine my surprise on returning from a recent business trip to find that the payment had not been made due to insufficient funds. A quick check confirmed that both the funds transfer and the payment instruction had been executed on the scheduled date.

With considerable weariness, I called the call centre to find out what was going on. No joy there, just a promise to get someone to look into it. To their credit, UOB did call back on the next business day, but the answer was not what one would call helpful.

It seems that the "IT Department" had informed the caller that there was no guarantee that transfers (clearing) would take place before payments (settlement). I expressed considerable surprise at this, and suggested that any IT department running operations for a major bank that could not figure out in which order to run scheduled jobs was probably incompetent. The caller agreed that the situation was unsatisfactory, and promised to raise it with higher ups.

He also suggested that funds should be in an account 24 hours before they were required. A sensible suggestion from one point of view, but not one shared by other parts of the bank when it comes to crediting interest or inter-bank transfers, those mysterious transactions that result in money disappearing for days.

The customer is expected to surrender funds before they are required, but the Bank is not.

Banks
Singapore

Using Firefox instead of IE

I switched over to Firefox during its beta releases, completely captivated by the "tabs instead of windows" method of browsing. As has been documented elsewhere, it is just a faster, more secure, more feature rich browser than the 7 year old IE.

One of the unintended consequences of that change however has been that I don't often look at my own web site or this blog using IE. A few days ago, I did happen to load the blog in IE and was surprised to find that the sidebar had disappeared.

Actually it turns out that it was still there, just dropped to the bottom of the last entry. Since the sidebar contains all the profile, navigation, and link information for the blog, this was pretty serious. After contacting Blogger technical support and persisting through the auto responder "go away" messages, I finally got someone to help.

It seems that if a piece of text like a URL exceeds the width of the column, IE can't handle the wrap-around gracefully, and just pushes the whole sidebar down. A very helpful person named Sarah managed to pinpoint the offending entry, and everything is now back to normal for people using IE.

My only question to someone still using IE would be, "Why haven't you switched to Firefox yet?

Blogger
Firefox

UOB Singapore - When is a line of credit a "Fund Transfer"?

One has become somewhat inured to the mangling of the language in pursuit of profit, but I was taken aback by the latest promotion by UOB bank in Singapore - " Fund Transfer - The smarter way to get cash in your hand!"

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has been trying to rein in the banks operating in Singapore which have been aggressively selling credit cards and lines of credit. There is a long standing rule that banks may not extend more than twice the monthly salary of the borrower in credit.

The banks have tried a number of semantic twists to get around the rules, including debit cards that allow overdrafts. Um, isn't that a credit card?

Now comes "Fund Transfer". Looking at the application form, it is just another way of advancing funds against a credit card. I would have thought that one would have to HAVE funds in order to do a fund transfer, but apparently this is no longer necessary.

In a perverse way, one has to admire the creativity:

• debit=credit
• derivative contract=structured deposit
• debt=fund transfer
• time deposit=perpetual deposit.

And while we are on the topic of mangling language, how come everything gets a superflous "s" (staffs, softwares, hardwares) except when it is needed as in Funds Transfer?

Singapore
Banks

StarHub - Bad website, bad service

I recently activated SMSemail on my mobile phone account with StarHub. This is a free value-added service that allows a subscriber to receive an email sent by Internet to his phone. Most mobile operators provide this, and the addressing is usually something like mobilenumber@operator.com. In the case of StarHub, I received an SMS telling me the service was activated, and to use the format mobilenumber@starhub.com.sg.

Only one problem. It doesn't work. The same SMS told me to look at a web page for further instructions. It doesn't exist.

By using search, I found a web page where there are instructions on how to use SMSemail. It says to use the format mobilenumber@starhub.net.sg.

This does not work.

I called the 1633 helpline, a fancifuly named facility which specializes in music on hold, and eventually spoke to the call agent. It took a couple of tries, but she finally got the point and said she would check. She came back on line after a few minutes and said the service was down for maintenance.

Since it had been 5 hours between my first and most recent attempts, this sounded bogus. I suggested that this was not a correct answer. She then said she would log the fault and have an engineer call me back. That was the last I heard from 1633.

Since intellectual curiousity had been stirred, I gave it another shot during the following business day, and managed to reach a live tech support guy. He immediately said the correct format for SMSemail was mobilenumber@shsms.com.sg, and explained how to send an outbound email by SMS. I told him the introductory SMS was wrong, and the web page link was wrong, but he didn't seem particularly interested. I have no idea if any action will be taken.

In a fit of civic duty, I attempted to report all this using StarHub's cleverly constructed self-defense system, also known by the confusing name of "Customer Care". This diabolical system is designed to prevent any contact with the company. It requires many fields to be filled out, has drop down menus that don't drop down, and if you get past all that and actually press the submit button, you get an SQL/OLE error and are dumped.

Nowhere on the entire StarHub web site are there any contact details for departments, management, phone numbers, fax numbers or any other evidence of human life. The sole way of contacting them is through the voice call centre at 1633, or the non-functioning "Customer Care" form.

I really wonder if this form of commercial enterprise could exist anywhere else in the world other than Singapore or some sort of communist dictatorship.

Oh, and in the hope that no one else has to go through all this nonsense, you can send an email by SMS using the phone number 7801, and the format -

S#emailaddress#subject#emailbodytext

However, and this is just great, the return address on the email is mobilenumber@starhub.net.sg
which, inevitably, does not work.

StarHub
Singapore

LibraryThing - Books meet social networking

Having purchased Book Collector to manage my book collection, I was intrigued by a relatively new web site that is combining some existing ideas into a new twist on social networking. The site is called LibraryThing.

In their own words, "LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog their books easily. Because everyone catalogs together, you can also use LibraryThing to find people with similar libraries, get suggestions from people with your tastes and so forth. "

I really like the approach. One of the nice things about browsing in a physical bookstore is that the books are normally arranged by subject, then by Author. Which means you tend to meet people with the same interests if you hang around that section. In the days of the independent small bookstore, you could also count on the owner and staff to be a source of suggestions.

Amazon uses a similar concept to suggest books by looking at the patterns thrown up by the books people buy, then making suggestions - "People who bought X also bought Y, so we think you will like it".

While mega-stores like Borders and Kinokunyia are welcome additions to the Singapore scene due to their huge and varied inventory, the staff appear to be functionally illiterate, negating one of prime value propositions for a bricks and mortar bookstore..

LibraryThing goes further by incorporating all the latest Web 2.0 technologies. Using open API's from Amazon, and the Z39.50 protocol, you can look up book information and retrieve cover images, just like Book Collector. You can also use Tags to categorize books according to how you think of them, giving you a convenient way of remembering things the way your own mind works, rather than being forced into the Library of Congress classification for instance.

All that would be worthwhile, but there is more. Becasue all data is kept centrally instead of on the user's PC, LibraryThing can do a lot of pattern recognition. This can be seen on the Zeitgeist page, where there are list of things like "most owned book", "most reviewed", and my favourite, "most contentious" which list the books with the highest deviation in ratings between reviewers. I personally find that I ofter love books that others hate, so this is a good place to start.

The business model, according to the "About" page, is straight subscription. You can maintain a library of 200 books for free, then it costs US$10/year or US$25 perpetual for an unlimited number of books.

The final seal of approval comes from the ability to import and export data. I have written before about the need to be able to move data between devices and formats, and LibraryThing says it supports import and export. No kidding. With an absolutely fuss free interface, LibraryThing basically sucks in any data source and intelligently looks for ISBN data, then goes and looks it up.

Wow.

Highly recommended.

Social Networking - Back to the future

Social networking is one of the big "next things" that is attracting VC money and user interest. Sites like MySpace, LinkedIn, and Friendster have had huge growth, and there are more than 200 social networking sites now operating according to Wikipedia's article on the subject.

What strikes me though is that these web-based sites have not drawn on lessons from the past. Early social networks were created when Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) were put up by individuals and clubs, allowing forums and file sharing. These systems were either single subject, or organized into topical forums.

In the commercial world Compuserve was very successful with its targeted forums moderated by people with knowledge and passion to keep things lively and interesting.

Now we have Web 2.0, which seems to start from the presumption that nothing existed in the past. I say that, because all the old lessons learned seem to be ignored while the same mistakes are made all over again. Put it down to the arrogance of youth, or more likely, the lack of any history to consult. Unless you lived it, you don't know about it.

Any BBS operator could tell you that moderation (editing and dispute resolution) were necessary to maintain a healthy community. The current sites tendency to disclaim responsibility for content allow unhealthy things to take place - stalking, grooming, and luring of kids by predators for instance.

It seems the site operators want the profits of content provision with the overheads of bare telecom provision. A nice game if you can pull it off, but the resulting harm is generating calls for increasingly strict regulation.

Canada's cost advantage second only to Singapore

Now here's a headline I never expected to see:

Canada's cost advantage second only to Singapore
KPMG's global competitiveness study ranks country top among G-7 industrialized nations despite rising dollar
STEVEN THEOBALD, BUSINESS REPORTER, TheStar.com

Despite reports to the contrary, a strong dollar and perceived high corporate taxes are not hurting Canada's global competitiveness, says a new study from an international consultancy firm.

Canada remains the most cost-competitive economy among the G-7 group of industrialized nations, and second overall to Singapore, according to the latest KPMG Competitive Alternatives survey of nine countries released yesterday.

It's a "misconception" that the strong loonie is marring Canada's ability to offer cost-effective opportunities to potential investors, said Mark MacDonald, who led the study."We can't say the value of the Canadian dollar is not important, but it is not as important as some people make it out to be," he said in an interview following a news conference in Toronto.

KPMG's current report is based on an 85-cent (U.S.) exchange rate. The loonie would have to approach par with the U.S. dollar, "or certainly somewhere in the high 90s," to erase Canada's cost advantage, said Glenn Mair, a director of MMK Consulting Inc., which contributed to the study.

The report shows the currency rose 13.6 per cent since the 2004 survey, yet, Canada still enjoys average operating costs 5.5 per cent below the United States. That's down from a 9 per cent advantage two years ago when the loonie averaged 74 cents.Canada held the top spot in both 2004 and 2002, when the 65-cent exchange rate gave the country a 14.9 per cent cost advantage over the U.S.

This is the first year Singapore was included in the survey. Low labour costs gave it a clear victory. As for Canadian taxes, it's simply not true that corporate tax rates are scaring businesses away, MacDonald said, adding that researchers claiming the contrary may have "vested interests" in the matter. In reality, the combined federal and provincial effective corporate tax rates in Canada are on par with U.S. federal rates, and that doesn't include state-level taxes, MacDonald said."The evidence is very clear."Canada's policy of offering tax breaks to promote investment in research and development has been especially successful, Mair said. "Personal taxes are another story, and not part of this study."

The study's conclusions:

Canada's key advantages include lower labour costs, especially for highly skilled workers.

Canada has the sixth highest average wages and salaries. But lower benefits costs, specifically public health care, vault it to second place in overall labour costs, behind Singapore. The U.S. is in sixth place, with labour costs 13 per cent higher than Canada.

Canada leads the pack in tax rates for research and development, with a negative 2.8 per cent. The United Kingdom is second at 0.2 per cent. The U.S. is fifth with 20.7 per cent effective income tax on R&D.

For larger cities, Singapore has the greatest cost advantages, followed by Montreal, Atlanta and Toronto.

Canada has the lowest average electricity costs, at 7 cents (U.S.) per kilowatt-hour, just below France and the U.K. The U.S. is fourth, at 8.9 cents.While the threat from a strong loonie and tax rates is exaggerated, rising electricity costs, particularly in Ontario and Alberta, pose "potential problems" for the future, Mair said.

Singapore
Canada

Jingoism is alive and well in America

The recent furor over the DP World buyout of P&O has taken many forms, but the underlying reality is that Americans find it acceptable for a British company to own their ports, but not one based in Dubai.

A recent column by Winn Schwartau in Network World poses the question "Would you hire Dubai to run your network?"

If I understand Winn Schwartau's thesis, he is arguing that it is unsafe to use people, equipment, networks and technology supplied by non-Americans.

OK, let's look at the same question from the point of view of every customer of American companies. As a Canadian, should I fear Cisco, Microsoft, HP, Dell, AT&T, and all the other technology vendors? Should I ensure that our RFP's state that only national vendors are permitted to bid? Am I at risk because the technology is American origin and may contain back doors or other mechanisms to prevent proper functioning if America gets pissed at my country?

Such behaviour will hurt America more than anyone else, as a global trade war ensues.

Let's get back to reality. The ports in question were owned by foreigners. The ships calling at the ports are all sailing under flags of convenience owned by shell companies that hide their true owners. The ships were built anywhere but the US. The crews are not likely to have a single US national.

So sure, go ahead and scream security. Just get ready for a really low standard of living.

And if you don't like/trust foreigners, just hide in your bunker while the rest of us get on with life.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 300Gb hard disk

This is going to be one of those entries where I wax nostalgic about the good old days. Except for the fact that these are the best of days when it comes to storage.

Putting aside the Osborne 1 for a moment, the first PC that I ever tried to add hard disk storage to was a home-built Hanafi 86 - an IBM PC clone with a dubious BIOS running an Intel 8086 chip at the princely speed of 8mhz.

The native storage on this beast consisted of half-height 5.25" floppy disk drives with a capacity of 360K. I was able to load DOS, dBase II, and WordStar all on one floppy, and keep data on the second. Now that was computing.

As software got more complicated and larger, the floppy became a major bottleneck. They were slow, noisy (you could hear the head move from track to track), and low capacity. The dream was to get a hard disk, but the problem was cost. A 10Mb (yes, megabyte, not gigabyte) hard disk was US$1,000, roughly half the price of the entire computer.

Fast forward to today, and I just picked up a new Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 SATA II 300Gb hard disk for the astonishing sum of S$195 from the folks at Fuwell. (and no, don't try to say the name really fast, you might hurt yourself)

This unit has a 16mb cache, and is rated as one of the quietest drives available. Performance is rated highly due to the cache, interface, and Native Command queuing (NCQ). The spec sheet is here.

Suffice to say that things have come a long way. The cache memory is larger than the entire drive of days past. The drive cable is now a stylish thin red part that looks more like a phone cable than anything else. Gone are the interface cards and ribbon cables of yore. More importantly, the cost per megabyte of storage has gone from $161/Mb to .065/Mb.

The disk drive industry has remained cut throat, with thin margins, rapid innovation, and frequent mergers and acquisitions.

Contrast that amazing price/performance trend with what has been going on with the operating system. Convicted monopolist Microsoft sold DOS for $50, Windows 1.0 for $65, and XP Pro will set you back US$250 minimum.

Seems like there may be something to this anti-trust stuff after all...

V-Gear Landisk Firmware Upgrade - 024

The folks at V-Gear have released another firmware update for the LanDisk. It is now up to version 024 and is supposed to fix some more bugs. I installed it without problem and everything seems to work well.

Firmware Update 024

V-gear
LanDisk

The People, Yes

Cnet has an article here, summarizing the recent South by Southwest interactive conference in Austin, Texas.

In particular, one of my favourite writers, Bruce Sterling, is quoted giving the closing speech. Sterling in turn quoted a passage from a poem by Carl Sandberg that I had not read before, called "The People, Yes"

The people so often sleepy, weary, enigmatic,
Is a vast huddle with so many units saying:
“I earn my living.
I make enough to get by
And it takes all my time.
If I had more time
I could do more for myself and maybe for others.

I could read and study
And talk things over
And find out more things.
It takes time.
I wish I had the time.”

Carl Sandberg

The full poem can be found here.

Dedicated to all those who think it is easier to stay quiet than it is to take a stand.

StarHub - Smart TV Digital Set Top Box

StarHub is rolling out a trial of its new set top box and directory service which they are calling Smart TV. I managed to get one of the first sets which was installed today.

First impressions. The blurb says that it is a DVR, (recording to a hard disk) and somehow I just assumed that it would also have a DVD burner. It doesn't. The unit is advertised as being able to record 60 hours of TV, so I am guessing that means a 160gb hard disk. The manufacturer is Thompson, which means, like most everything else, made in China.

On power up, there was a perceptible whine from the hard disk getting up to speed, but then it was quiet. There was about 30 seconds of firmware loading, then a normal picture appeared. The overall look and feel is pretty cheap, with somewhat dated styling and cheesy buttons.

The remote is much larger than the one with the old digital box, and uses a clamshell design. The keys are similar to the old remote, with the addition of the record and play functions.

The size increase comes from the addition of a QWERTY keyboard which is inside the clamshell. The installer said this was not operational now, but would allow the use of iMail in the future. I thought the idea of doing email on a chicklet keyboard in front of a TV, was one of those "I could, but why would I" ideas that had been buried. Apparently StarHub wants to spend money learning the lesson again. In the meantime, what had been a really nice and comfortable to use remote is now an ungainly monster.

One of the really irritating failings of the current digital box is the lack of decent outputs. The new set fixes this with composite video and optical audio outputs. This should be a cause for celebration, except for the fact that the signal broadcast by StarHub is so highly compressed that is close to unwatchable on normal TV's. When displayed on a 43" plasma, it is a PhD in the art of recognizing digital artifacts.

The installer went through his spiel somewhat nervously, and I discovered I was only his second installation. He gave a reasonable intro to the features, but got lost trying to delete a recording. That was just a reminder that the user interface is the most important aspect of devices like this. Pioneer has done a wonderful job of creating an intuitive and easy to use UI for their range of DVR's.

Pretty much all the features have to be accessed through the menu key, which means everything is 4 or more keystrokes away. Since the whole point of an intelligent set top box is to have directory functions and recording, it seems odd that some of the vast real estate on the remote was not dedicated to keys allowing direct access to those functions.

Recording can be done by time or program. The same on screen program guide that is currently offered for digital subscribers is used to select the material to be recorded, which means lots of scrolling and clicking. Although the box displays a clock in 24 hour time, the schedules and recording are all in AM/PM. This seems to be a carry over from the old digital box, and is an unnecessary annoyance. I don't know of any other consumer electronic device that does not allow the user to set his preference.

The ability to have chase play is included, which is a really nice to have feature. You can have a program start recording, but then start watching from the beginning while it is still recording. A great feature for time shifting one's life.

As I completed the paper work, the installer was calling back to base to ask about the clock setting. I pressed the mute key but nothing happened. After some discussion, it was agreed that this was a fault, and they would get back to me.

UPDATE: The installer called back to say that he had incorrectly attached the AV cables to the VCR out instead of the TV OUT, which is why the mute wasn't working. The VCR output is not muted so that recordings are not affected.

The box costs S$399 during the early release program, plus an ongoing monthly fee of S$5 presumably for the directory service. I will hold off deciding if it is worth it until I have had more time to use it.

Singapore
StarHub