For a long while now, I've been admiring the Sony Ericsson W880i (see pic on left). Yes, that beautiful thing.
I remember its picture screaming out at me in magazine ads and swooned over its gorgeous sleek black design and sweet orange buttons. Hubby had to wipe my drool off our copy of Stuff. As much as I love functionality, I adore heart-stopping gadget designs. But before I spend pages waxing lyrical about its beauty, I must mention its amazing specs.
It is tri-band (yay when I travel), has 3G and Bluetooth, a must-have for all mobile surfing gadget freaks like me, a digital cam for taking quick snaps, a cool music player integrated with WalkmanTM technology, a free 1GB memory card, long battery life, and it is astonishingly light to boot (9.5mm thick and 72 grams in weight).
Basically it can do everything my phone can (and more - mine doesn't have tri-band). Plus it is sleeker, way better looking, and fits perfectly in my jeans pocket and does not make that unsightly bulge.
My mobile contract is due for a renewal soon. Perhaps it is time to get a brand new phone. :)
The sponsor of this post has just enticed the author to upgrade her old phone.
I've always been a huge proponent of being responsible for securing your own computer. Granted, not everyone is savvy about Internet and computer security but it should be drilled into everyone buying a computer that installing an antivirus, firewall, and spyware protection is like putting a lock on your home. It is that basic.
While this post is sponsored, the author had already previously downloaded and highly lauded the freebies Google made available. She strongly urges all computer users to put a lock on that gate already.
I've lived in two of the coldest cities in the world: Toronto and Melbourne. Okay okay, so I don't take to the cold very well. I like a comfortable temperature of 24-28 degrees Celsius all year round. Can't help it. I was born and bred in the tropics.
In Toronto, where the outside temperature had been cold for me 9 months of a year while I lived there, I kept my portable heater on to full (30 degrees C) so I could sit around in t-shirt and shorts while it was -40 degrees C out. Very unenvironmental, I know. These days I'm more enlightened.
While in Melbourne, my hubby's home had a Vent-Free Natural Gas Ultra Slim Wall Heater. It was way more efficient than the portable one which tended to burn my feet. Having researched a bit, wall heaters seem to be a better choice than the portables. They look prettier too. :)
Now that the family and I are thinking holiday, I've been pondering about the places I'd like to visit sometime in my life.
Japan is one of them, for sure. I cut out a picture from the newspaper last week of one of Japan's aquariums where a pair of whales swam before an awestruck crowd. I have my reservations about animals in captivity but once in my life, I'd like to see a whale up close.
Of course, the US of A. With so many friends there, many of which I'd love to see again one day, some time in my life I would like to visit New York, LA, North Carolina, Washington, and Las Vegas, for starters.
Europe is always a draw for me. Sure, I have visited Paris, Florence, and Rome before but it is so huge, one could never hope to explore the whole of it in several lifetimes. I love the small towns and hope to visit at least Tuscany before I grow too old to wander up the cobblestone path.
Most recently I have been rather fascinated by the artificial islands under the name of Dubai Marina, where construction is ongoing to cater to the rich and famous. Of course, I could never afford to buy a dubai property on that island, but I hear that there is no income tax and the weather is beautiful. Plus the shopping is great. :)
This post was sponsored by Dubai Venture and it has gotten this author wanderlusting again.
Hark! If you're a parent, you're definitely more depressed than a non-parent, says a study by Florida State University professor Robin Simon and published in the American Sociological Association's Journal of Health and Social Behavior.
Part of the problem, Simon figures, is that Americans don't get as much help at parenting as they once did, or as is the case in other countries.
"We do it in relative isolation. The onus is on us," she said. "It's emotionally draining."
The depressing results seem to be across the board in a study of 13,000 people. No type of parent reported less depression than non-parents.
"Parents have more to worry about than other people do—that's the bottom line... And that worry does not diminish over time. Parents worry about their kids' emotional, social, physical and economic well-being. We worry about how they're getting along in the world."
It seems more and more people are opting to remain single. Either they feel their time has past or they've just given up meeting someone they connect with. I've met several such people over Chinese New Year, all of whom are nice, sociable, pleasant-looking, financially-stable folk.
I feel the advent of Internet technology has actually isolated more people than others. Peeps are happy to exist online more than offline. Instead of meeting your buddies for dinner, you're chatting on IM to your online friends; instead of joining friends for a movie, you stay home and play World of Warcraft (yes, I have been guilty!). It's easier and more comfortable to stay home than get dressed to go out. We've all been there.
While being friends online helps you connect with people, it doesn't give the warmth that meeting real people does. Numerous independent studies have shown that being with friends is one of the best indicators of happiness.
Now, as with any technology, it can be utilised for your benefit. You can meet people online and see if you like and trust the person enough to meet offline. Certainly, care must be exercised in such endeavours as well as a dose of skepticism, and always bring a friend along to meet up with your offline friend in a public place.
There are plenty of online dating sites, most of which you need to pay to join. But there are a few free dating services you can sign up with to see what it is all about. You'll never know when the ONE is just a click away. If not, you'll have made yet another friend.
This is a sponsored post by JustSayHi. The author notes that social networking online can be a delightful experience but laments that her single cats have had more success in this endeavour than she obviously has.
Yup, this morning I saw lots of burning bins all over the estate. I had peeked out of my window last night but saw no bins in the vicinity. But the smoke carries. Last night my eyes stung all night and my nose was runny. Poor Jack also got the sniffles when the burning began so I think he might have inherited my sensitive nose. Dang.
When she went to buy the joss paper for her ancestors, a Bo Wah clerk gave her detailed instructions. "You get a brass pot of red and gold and you take it outside,'' she said. "You get a red candle and light it and pray and then you light the joss and put it in the brass pot to burn. And you let the candle burn until it goes out.''
It's raining today so I figure there won't be any burning, which is a relief for baby, the 5 cats, and I tonight. But if it clears, I'm going to shut all windows and doors tight tonight and turn on the air purifier to high so hopefully we'll get a better sleep.
Making My Podcast has been on my list of to-dos since antiquity. Like travelling to Europe, it's been on the backburner because "real life" has always taken precedence. Why a podcast, you ask?
Here's the history of.
Some years back, I did one poetry reading on a local radio show and my BFF and very talented photographer V kindly helped me record it when it went live and commented that I have a great radio voice!
Ever since I have been enamoured of the idea of running my own radio show. There's always the option of becoming a radio DJ but it's not something I want to do as a career, but rather, for fun.
Hence the wishlist tag and the lazy. Excuses I make are the usual: well, V, there are the numerous barriers to entry... how to create one, where to host, what equipment to get... you know the usual procrastination deal.
Anyhow, with technology catching up with the cult of personalisation, here's a nifty solution. ;)
The very usable and cheery site MyPodcast.com offers you FREE bandwidth, FREE hosting, and FREE usage of their software for your podcast, plus they pay you every time someone downloads it. Here's a link to where they explain it better.
I'll be bookmarking this site for the time I am ready to go on air and I assure you, you'll be spammed with a link to download it when the time comes. :D
This post is sponsored by MyPodcast.com who really rock!
I have to say this product is perfect for me. I hate typing. Especially when I work on a Mac where the shortcuts and hotkeys are alien to me after years of working on a PC.
Similar to the nifty word expander I had for my PDA, TypeIt4Me takes it a step further.
Using abbreviations, TypeIt4Me expands it to a word, a phrase, a few pages of text, and even pages too! The abbreviations can also be used to trigger AppleScripts instead of dropping down a menu or shortcuts and hotkeys (which are alien to me).
MacFormat UK wrote: "TypeIt4Me has done more to enrich our lives than the internal combustion engine, coffee, sliced bread and Catherine Zeta-Jones combined" while MacWorld reported: "Riccardo Ettore's TypeIt4Me is a more powerful and systemwide autocomplete utility that has been around for a while on the classic Mac OS, and more recently on OS X -- and my fingers haven't been quite so happy in a long time."
So if you're using a Mac and like me, want to just get the job done quickly and efficiently, try TypeIt4Me at http://www.typeit4me.com.
"To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness." -- Bertrand Russell
"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages."
-- Thomas Edison (Harper's Magazine, 1890)
A woman's romance with motherhood, green living, finance, and this heady thing called life.
Now I've mentioned 
There are plenty of online dating sites, most of which you need to pay to join. But there are a few 
