Great mapping website

Just found this great mapping website a few days ago: http://www.gothere.sg/

Here are some of its features: (click on thumbnails to view larger images)

1. The search - by street names, building names, postal codes:

2. Comprehensive public transport info - buses at bus stops:

3. For the drivers - car park rates and ERP rates:

GoThere.sg is built upon the superb Google Maps API. Google Maps API is an open technology that allows anyone to build applications on top of it. There are already other exciting mapping websites such as ShowNearby that are also built upon Google Maps API. Streetdirectory can basically forget about making any comeback using its own proprietary technology.

Is M1 broadband injecting Javascript into my web pages?

Recently on all the web pages that I surf on my PC, I have been seeing blurred images instead of the normally clear ones. I almost went to have my eyes checked, but turns out that it was due to a mysterious chunk of Javascript has been injected at the bottom of every web page that I visit. It’s frustrating because not only the images are blurred, some of the web pages are even broken and inaccessible due to the injected Javascript.

Well, how blur is blur? The first image is the original clear image:

and the following image is the one dished out by M1 and what I saw on my browser:

[ Start of technical paragraph. Feel free to skip this paragraph if it makes you giddy ]
When I view the source of the HTMLs, I notice a chunk of Javascript being injected at the bottom of every web page that I visit. This injected Javascript is extremely intrusive because it replaces all the images on web pages with compressed version of the images (for techies who are interested, I’ve listed this Javascript in its entirety at the bottom of this post). I did a further check at the University of Washington Web Integrity Checker and confirmed that the web pages has indeed been modified in transit after leaving the server and while on the way to my computer.

The question is: who is sneakily injecting Javascript into my web pages to replace all the images with the compressed and blurred versions?

My first suspect is naturally my ISP, M1 Broadband. As a simple test, I disconnected my notebook from M1 and connected to Wireless@SG instead. The problem disappeared! The images shown on web pages are the clear ones! I then connected my notebook back to M1 broadband, and the images are blurred again.

So on two occasions within 22 and 23 April 2008, I called up M1 Broadband technical support to inquire if they are purposely compressing all the images at their gateway. On both occasions, the technical support guy’s answer is a firm “No”, regardless of how hard I tried to reason with them. Sensing that these guys might be unaware of this issue themselves, I thanked them and hung up. Just before writing this blog entry, I sent an email to M1 to relate my problem again. Hopefully I can receive a better written reply from there.

If you’re using M1 Broadband and have been facing the same problem too for the past week or so, do leave a comment here. Thanks!

Flock browser

If you love the Firefox web browser, chances are you will love the Flock browser too. Branded as “The Social Web Browser”, Flock is powered by the same Mozilla engine.

I consider Flock as a one-stop web browser having built-in features that offers a great deal of conveniences. Instead of you visiting multiple websites to check for updates, the Flock browser aggregates all these info for you. For instance, Flock alerts you whenever a new email is received at your Gmail account or whenever your friends update their Facebook profiles.

Some of the features that are built right into Flock:

• Gmail - Get notified via a highlighted icon whenever you receive any new emails.
• Facebook - View the latest friends updates and their photos. You can update your Facebook status from Flock as well.
• Flickr / Picasa / Photobucket - Upload and manage your photo collections.
• del.icio.us - When you bookmark a web page, Flock offers you the option of bookmarking it in your del.icio.us account as well.
• Twitter - View the latest friends updates. Update your Twitter status from Flock as well.
• Blog - Draft and publish your blog entries from Flock.
• RSS - Built-in RSS reader. Get notified via a highlighted icon of new updates to your subscribed feeds.

As you may have noticed at the bottom right of this post, I published this blog entry using Flock.

Highly recommended! Try it out at: http://www.flock.com

Blogged with the Flock Browser

A tale of two Facebook groups

This week’s 15 Jan 2008 Digital Life (a Straits Times accompaniment every Tuesday) showcased examples of companies and organisations leveraging on social networking sites.

One of the showcased was Singapore’s very own Speak Mandarin Campaign. The Promote Mandarin Council has created a group in Facebook to promote the Speak Mandarin Campaign. The name of this group is: Speak Mandarin - Are You Game?. According to the Digital Life article, the group has an “impressive” membership count of 100+ (the current count is 140 as at time of writing this blog entry).

This reminds me of another Singapore-related Facebook group that I chanced upon. Unlike the earlier Promote Mandarin Council group, this other group does not have the publicity backing of any government councils or organisations; it seems to be started by a couple of individuals. And yet, its membership count is 2274 (almost twenty times more)! The name of this group is: I’m pissed off that my prime minister’s getting S$3.1 million this year. Perhaps the Promote Mandarin Council can take a leaf from this group’s book to grow their membership beyond the “impressive” 140?

It seems that Singaporeans are more concerned about this other issue than speaking Mandarin.

Blogged with Flock

Facebook

I had never given much notice to Facebook or any other social networking sites as I reckoned these sites are for people who couldn’t make any friends in real life and hence resort to making friends in the virtual world.

However I was sort-of forced to get myself acquainted with Facebook a few months ago. It all started with a potential customer telling me how he hoped to leverage his business on Facebook’s huge user base. During that conversation, when he remarked “I’m sure you must have played with Facebook right? It’s amazing that blah blah…”, I had to sheepishly interrupt him mid-sentence and admitted to him that I did not even have a Facebook account (much less knew how to leverage on it). Fortunately, he was kind enough to continue sharing his ideas and asked me to let him know if his ideas make sense or not after I have played with Facebook.

Fast forward to today. The lead has since turned cold but at least I’ve managed to use Facebook to get in touch again with some of my long-lost ex-colleagues and army friends. To date, my most far-fetched link-up is with a primary school classmate whom I have lost touch for the past… 21 years! I also come across a current photograph of my primary 3 maths teacher. Wow, those forgotten memories of primary school are coming back again.

Looks like I have to eat my words at the start of this post.

 

Blogged with Flock

Blogging from Flock

This is a test posting, posted directly from Flock browser.

Blogged with Flock

Grails quick start

Just to jot down my delightful journey on learning the Grails framework: http://fernvale.wordpress.com/2007/08/03/grails-quickstart

How to download YouTube videos

Just found a way to download YouTube videos onto my computer. Here’re a series of steps on how to do it, giving you the flexibility to view them at your own leisure later even without an Internet connection.

1. Browse to the YouTube page that shows the video to be downloaded. For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNF_P281Uu4
2. View HTML source of the page.
3. In the HTML source, search for the word watch_fullscreen. On the same line, take note of the video_id and t that follows. For example: …watch_fullscreen?video_id=bNF_P281Uu4&l=222 &t=OEgsToPDskLbIWM30wSDZHe8P7dYRFaU&soff=…
4. In your browser’s address bar, manually key in this URL: http://www.youtube.com/get_video?video_id=…&t=…, replacing the values of video_id and t with the ones you noted in the step above. For example: http://www.youtube.com/get_video?video_id=bNF_P281Uu4&t=OEgsToPDskLbIWM30wSDZHe8P7dYRFaU
5. When prompted, simply save the file anywhere on your computer. That file is actually the video, in Flash Video (FLV) format.

Or, if you find the steps above too troublesome, you can install the FireFox addon Fast Video Download , which basically does all the above behind the scene for you.

One last thing, what program do we use to open the downloaded videos? I recommend installing the highly popular VLC media player from http://www.videolan.org/vlc.

Browse Happy!

Do you know - Microsoft Internet Explorer can make your computer unsafe. Why not switch to another browser that’s more secure?

REACH my foot

Spotted this question in REACH’s FAQ:

• Q: I am using browsers such as Firefox and Mozilla as my default Internet browser. Why can’t I submit my feedback when using these browsers?

• A: The Portal was designed to be best viewed with Internet Explorer 6 and above.

What a joke. Isn’t REACH supposed to “reach” out to everyone? Seems like it’s reaching out only to Internet Explorer users. Eh, like dat hor, a lot of good citizens using Firefox will be falling through the cracks leh.

Another joke awaits when I tried to submit my feedback using REACH’s survey form… it says “Error encountered at System”:

They win liao lor.

Got Joost

Joost (http://www.joost.com) is a new software that allows you to watch TV over the Internet. It has dozens of channels to choose from: http://www.joost.com/whatson/channels.html

I just installed the Beta version a few moments ago. First impression: cool user interface and fast streaming speed. Nothing fanciful on the list of channels yet. As Joost gradually picks up momentum, I believe better and premium channels will start to appear.

Could this be the next big thing on the Internet?

Introducing Gmail Paper

Hey, get Gmail to print out all your emails on actual paper and delivered to your doorstep… for free! http://mail.google.com/mail/help/paper/index.html

Apparently, even photo attachments will be printed out as well! I quote:

Photo attachments are printed on high-quality, glossy photo paper, and secured to your Gmail Paper with a paper clip.