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Adrian LeeInternet Marketing Geek Musician
December 04 adrianlee.infoHey for those of you who don't konw - I've finally gotten my own domain name! Check out my new Wordpress site at www.adrianlee.info.
As I mentioned, this doesn't mean I'm abandoning my space at all. All it means is that I've got an easier address to a site which is much more easily customizable for a nerd like me, while I still have this space to just upload random photos, write random essays and other random things.
I'm still deciding how to skew it, but I think I'll just follow my guts where that is concerned.
November 23 Office 12 - Now on my Ferrari!I've just installed Office 12 beta on my Ferrari (laptop, not car) - and I have to say Powerpoint 12 absolutely rocks. I mean it is absolutely stunning - the new shapes look like they came straight out of Photoshop, and the new fonts (Calibri et al) are a massive improvement.
The ribbon takes a bit of getting used to though. I've had trouble finding buttons (across all the Office applications), so I need to re-train my reflexes. But it sure looks prettier. But then again, I'm using a wide-screen 1600 wide resolution, so it looks beautiful. If you're still on 1024, you'd be out of luck and it does get annoying. I do see the value for new users however.
And Excel is awesome with it's automatic conditional formatting (e.g. all numbers above 0 shaded green, all numbers below 0 shaded red, all at a click of a button). My favourite feature.
It's mightly slow however. Still, this is just beta 1. November 21 Talking about Bush's Exit StrategyThis is just really cool - iFILM now has a "add to MSN Space" button that allows you to blog about any video you see on the site. Here's on of Bush being embarassed (again)... Quote Bush's Exit Strategy November 19 KICK Everyone first, then KISS them!Keep It Complex, Knucklehead!
No no no. Keep It Simple Stupid. That's the axiom right?
Simple is half the story.
People who preach simplicity in ALL things I think are misguided. Complexity is a fact of life. And complexity must be grappled with. And unfortunately, the solution to many a complex problem is even more complex. I just wanted to remind everyone reading my blog that fact (not many of you I guess).
However, the thing of REAL beauty is pure simplicity. (By now you're going "HUH?!). And that's the crux of the matter. The most successful thing will be the thing of utmost complexity that has the simplest output.
And ALL outputs should be simple - from your Powerpoint slides to your latest product to the Grand Unified Theory to the meaning of life.
Why are humans successful? Because of the brain. How easy is it to use your brain? Lift a finger now. Simple? Can you imagine what kind of complexities are going through your neurons, nerves, muscles, bones when you lift a finger?
So next time you meet someone who wants to KISS everything, KICK them first. Then KISS them. You'd probably win the fight.
"Everthing should be as simple as possible, but not simpler"
Albert Einstein
November 17 The Poverty GapThe illiterate women villagers with their digital cameras and printers donated by HP, powered by portal solar packs, and making out of it. And HP asks them to repay the money for the cameras.
My thoughts now are mixed. Corporates are incentivized to overcome that in order to get more customers, and get more money. But in my mind, corporates adopt a too short term view on things. They expect ROI in the short term, even from poor markets with huge long term potential (if the poverty gap disappears). And who's to blame them - they've got rich spoilt shareholders like me to answer to.
Here's the half-thought - in addition to tax breaks that companies get from donating to charities and NGOs, why not give them a tax break for money directly invested in emerging countries for programs they execute themselves?
Governments should pay the salary of a corporate employee who dedicates themselves to this in their country. This one way to circumvent corruption.
Governments should give a tax break or a killer incentive for every program that is successfully followed through in an emerging market... like ladies with digital cameras.
Honestly, I don't know enough about public policy to know if this is already true or not... or this might just be stupid. But flames are welcome.
P.S. Thomas Friedman. I've heard the man quoted by three separate people in the span of a few weeks - an army colonel, and two microsoft vps. I imagine that, every two seconds, somebody is quoting him. November 02 Exciting times indeed!You know, I'm just absolutely one of the luckiest people to be working in the Internet industry at this point in time. I feel like I'm right in the middle of a revolution!
We've just announced a whole software services strategy centered around Windows Live!, which to me is really exciting stuff - here is where you can get more information on the announcement via Scoble's blog. I'll take this opportunity to talk about web 2.0, the meme/buzzword of the moment with the whole direction of the Internet - and which is something which excites me.
Web 2.0 - right now it means different things to different people, and in fact I don't think the idea has percolated down to tiny Singapore yet even on the most part except for some clued in people. To me, it's more than a trend - it's a seismic shift in how the world consumes information and services on the Internet, driven by how people consume, technology and economics.
Consumption - The Long Tail describes this perfectly. People are getting increasingly spoilt for choice, and they demand their exact niche. Individualism rules thanks the the web's ability to empower choice. Now, consumers make the choice, not the suppliers.
Technology - RSS adoption is huge now... and will become the new way by which information is consumed. We're seeing that happening even in Singapore with bloggers like Brown, Miyagi leading the charge. Combine that with AJAX and we're seeing history in the making.
Economics - There is money in the web now! I should know since I'm familiar with the revenue figures that we pull in as MSN. Over and beyond that, new platforms like Google adSense (and soon adCenter!) has enabled the tail of the web to earn money as well - just fueling the ecosystem - incenting people to create even more content for themselves on the web.
I predict that in 5 years time, we'll be using the web in radically different ways - websites will be as rich as Microsoft Office applications (Excel, Powerpoint), and we'll be controling our own destinies with these sites.
To point - can you imagine, a website that combines Flickr with Spaces, pulling on search engine results from MSN or Google, that shows you location via Virtual Earth, and dynamically updates your blog with that information all on one mini-page on Spaces - all without a single page refresh?
Wait no longer - the day has arrived! October 24 New Homepages are Up!Time for my bi-monthly update post :-)
Things have been crazy hectic with a whole bunch of stuff happening -
New homepage launches! - Just check out http://www.msn.com.sg/, http://www.msn.com.my/ and http://www.msn.co.id/ with http://www.msn.com.ph/ coming soon! For the public reading this (all three of you), we've received a whole bunch of feedback and they are pretty interesting
 :a. You either love the new look, or hate the new look.
b. Most love the weather module and how it works (DHTML and Javascript and XML baby!)
c. Our news search engine needs a little bit of tweaking - yes we know and are working on that right now :-).
d. Most of you liked the RSS feed aggregator, but even I think it can be improved. We're aware of that and all I can say is just watch this space!
Of course, this is not my piece of work (I just facilitate from tiny little Singapore), but feedback of course is uber important no matter where it comes from, so feel free to post comments! September 02 MSN Keywords Launches!MSN Keywords has launched in Singapore on the 31st of August! Truly exciting, first in the world... but I'm wondering where the blog buzz is on this. We've deliberately kept it localized and low key (on a global scale) since France would be coming up in the future, but I still wanted to mention this on my space.
I'll upload photos of the launch event soon. Award Winning Search?This is funny... Yahoo! has a blog entry raving about itself, and it mentiones their "award winning desktop search", without any mention that the desktop search is Copernic's and not actually their's.
Don't get me wrong... I think Yahoo! is doing several things really well. But please, give credit where it's due. August 04 Start.com Jr?I wanted to mention one last thing - if you like Start.com, and you like acessing the breadth of the web for news - do check out the new Malaysia homepage currently in beta at http://malaysia.msn.com/. And please do send in your feedback for better or worse... we are looking to improve.
The feedback form can be accessed from the top left hand module/square/portlet/widget/thingy. I'm personally very excited about this because it is seamless, painless personalization through cookies right up there in front of all users to use as they please. As this kind of empowerment has never been available to the common user before in such an easily accessible manner (Start.com, Google's IG, My MSN, My Yahoo! in my opinion are either geek niche (but cool as hell still), or behind a sign-in block. This is up front - a country's homepage!). There are kinks to work out though (like roaming personalization), but it's a truly exciting first step!
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