Hillsong 2008: This is Our God

Earlier this year at the Acer Arena, Hillsong Australia recorded their 17th annual live album, set to be released on the 7th July. As of now this album will be titled 'This is Our God', and contains a collection of brand new songs with a few songs borrowed from United, such as 'You Deserve', which first appeared on the EP 'In A Valley By The Sea'.

I'm so excited about this new album, there are some crappy videos on YouTube where you can't hear anything, but as always, I trust that Hillsong will churn out something amazing. Felix Clack writes on his site that this album will be much more 'United-ish'... and as with the last few years, there is less and less of Darlene as she gets more involved with doing tours and stuff. There is fresh new talent in Hillsong, exploding with the passion to worship with song and praise, that's wonderful, but my concern is that Hillsong cannot neglect the more traditional listeners, people like my parents who complain that Hillsong is 'noisy'.

In contrast to those old songs from albums such as 'For This Cause', I must say that the style has changed a lot. Today Hillsong is much more rock. But I like it anyway, just that sometimes I really want that old style back, and that's where I turn to the old albums, and the song 'Reaching For You' still seems to be one of my favourite.

Great stuff... This is Our God indeed! I'm awaiting in anticipation!

United: With Hearts As One

As part of Hillsong United's I Heart Revolution, they have released their 9th album entitled 'With Hearts As One', the first out of a two part release. What this album entails is basically live recordings of the songs they sang during their tours all over the world, from Brazil to Africa to China to Japan and even Malaysia. These songs aren't new songs, but songs which originally appeared from past albums, dating back to albums as old as 'More Than Life'. Some have been played differently, so it's still refreshing. Way cool, but more importantly, it's amazing to witness how God uses people to spread the faith.

I always love live albums because I can feel the atmosphere and the voices of the congregation, as if I was there. So currently this album is available in the US and Australia, but there is no clue if it's ever going to make it to our shores. I badly want this album, so I hope it really comes.

In my attempts to find an answer, I dropped Hillsong an email asking them, and what they replied was this: For more information on the release of this album in your country please contact Alby Enterprises. Haha, guess they don't know too?

Oh and I found this new Hillsong song, Your Name High, on YouTube.

Yahoo! Mail: Safari support

I'm a long-time supporter of Yahoo Mail. I use it everyday, although I still maintain active Live Hotmail and Gmail accounts.

And recently, Yahoo Mail just got even better, with official support for the Safari 3 web browser on Mac/PC. And somehow or other, the big long rectangular ad on the right of the mail page disappeared, meaning more space to view your emails and no more annoying ads.


The good just got better, and for people like me who access Yahoo mail on Safari daily, this is simply great.

iPhone arriving to Singapore + Vista SP1

My dad woke me up today and excitedly told me that the iPhone was coming to Singapore in September. He said he heard it over the radio, but I can't seem to find official confirmation on the net, but anyway it is going to be with Singtel. This confirms a post that I wrote some time ago on the iTunes store coming to Singapore.

I can't help but feel a sense of excitement, although I'm wondering, how did Apple solve the problem of only allowing the iPhone to work with one telco? Because Singapore usually doesn't allow phones to be tied solely to only one operator... But never mind that. What I predict is going to happen is this: around June/July, there will be a special iPhone event by Apple to introduce the new software update 2.0 (3rd party apps) and also announce a 3G version of the iPhone which will look exactly the same as before, but with in-built 3G support. Then they will announce the 3G iPhone arriving in Asia, and soon Singapore will get it.

So apart from some iPhone hope this morning, I also connected Vista to the internet for the first time, upgraded Vista to Service Pack 1, installed Norton Antivirus 2008, ran scans and configured security settings.

The total install time for SP1 on my system was roughly 40mins, and the file size (from Windows Update) was only 70MB, because I got all the updates before that. The first thing I noticed was Welcome Center finally recognised my 4GB RAM and didn't show 3GB. The rest of the changes aren't visible. Install was straightforward, and it rebooted only once.


I have to say that after knowing Vista a bit more, I'm in LOVE with it, and I can't switch back to XP!

Windows Experience Index

Running Vista on a Macintosh via boot camp may not be the best way to enjoy Vista, but I get the best of both worlds. Today I ran the Windows Experience Index rating test on my new system, and it rated my iMac a base-score of 4.8.

So Windows Experience Index is a new feature found in Vista that helps end users understand how well equipped the hardware of a system is to run Vista and all the fanciful effects such as Aero. It accesses the capability of the system and then assigns a score to each individual component of the CPU, such as the processor, RAM, hard drive, graphics etc. Obviously, a higher score means a faster system.

So I ran the test, and my graphics card yielded the highest subscore of 5.9, which is impressive. My RAM got the lowest subscore, which is 4.8. Hence the final score, which is based on the lowest score received form a particular component, is a 4.8, and that's quite good by the way.

So generally here's how to compare these values:

1.0 to 1.9: Your system has just met basic requirements for running Vista Home Basic. Do not expect to do heavy multi-tasking or gaming on such systems. Best used for email, web surfing and simple word processing.

2.0-2.9: Slightly more responsive, but still unable to run Aero in most cases. Typically these are the systems that were upgraded from XP.

3.0-3.9: Minimum requirements for running Home Premium or better editions of Vista. Will do Aero, if only on one monitor. For high resolution screens, may have performance issues. Will run Media Center and allow you to play games.

4.0-4.9: Very good performing PCs, better than average. Will run the full feature set of Vista without glitches, including Aero. Will do HD video, dual monitors, and run intensive software well.

5.0 & above: You've got the top-of-the-line system. Will do almost anything, the system has dramatically exceeded the minimum requirements.

So I'm pleased with my base-score of 4.8!

My system has a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 800MHz FSB 4MB L2 cache processor, 4GB RAM (which shows 3 on Vista for some funny reason), 200GB HDD (supposed to be 500GB but 300 is for Leopard) and an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card.

I suspect that the reason for the low score on the RAM is because it is only running at 667MHz, which could be better, at say 800MHz. And it is only DDR2 SDRAM, not the latest DDR3 RAM.

iMac: getting along well

So my iMac has been with me for about 4 days. Here are my quick first impressions of Leopard 10.5.2 as I explore it further in the coming days.

1) I've noticed improved security overall. For example, before installing apps that I've downloaded, Leopard actually pops up a dialog box requesting my permission and stating the source of the download. Similar to UAC on Vista?? But definitely not as pervasive and irritating.

2) For the dock, the new small blue glowing oval thingy below the application that is currently running is REALLY hard to see. I prefer what's on Tiger, where it's just a simple black triangle to denote an open application.

3) Software update has had minor changes and works slightly differently regarding the way it downloads and installs updates. But I like this change.

4) I would have preferred more new wallpapers. Getting a bit sick of the old ones, and the new one's aren't really fantastic. Ok I guess I'm supposed to use my own pictures.

5) LEOPARD'S TEXT-TO-SPEECH ROCKS! I love the new voice Alex. Finally it speaks close to a human, with proper pauses and a deep rich voice. Absolutely a joy to hear him speak!

6) I like the new finder. Cover flow rocks.

Overall, it's still very evidently OS X. The changes in Leopard are visible, some of which significant, but not in a way that you're thrown into a completely new environment.

iMac finally here

Finally, after about 2 weeks of patient awaiting, my family computer, a 20-inch iMac, arrived yesterday morning. It takes the place of a 4.25 year old HP desktop, and proudly I must add.

Haven't really set it up yet, still have to install Photoshop and other essential apps. It is dual-booting Windows Vista Home Premium via Boot Camp. The work I have to do on Vista is more than on Leopard. Have to install Norton, Photoshop, connect to Internet, get Windows Updates, get SP1 (maybe?)... just time consuming stuff.

Will properly review this new guy when I have the time, probably next week or so, and also upload more pictures. But initial impressions are good. It is blazing fast, screen is gorgeous and very compact indeed. Being an all-in-one desktop sure saves space. Cables are also very few, avoiding the usual clutter of wires. In fact, it is just one wire from the iMac to main power supply, then another USB cable from iMac to keyboard, and mouse is wireless. There's another USB from iMac to printer, and the printer is then connected via a thick cable to main power. That's about it. Extremely neat and tidy.

For technical specs and stuff, wait for the full review.

Bark

Took this at the park connector at my house... I'm quite pleased with this. It has been raining continuously these past few days, so couldn't do much shooting, but thankfully today's sunny. The sight of blue sky is wonderful.

Random: My iMac isn't here yet!! Why on earth do they take soooooo long just because I upgraded the hard drive to 500gigs?

Surviving the IT show crowd

Just went to IT show @ Suntec this afternoon with Hong Aik... man the crowd was bad!


I didn't have anything to buy actually, but I decided to pop by just to see what the atmosphere is like. Hong Aik got himself a Sony Cybershot W80 for $349 and a Creative Zen 4GB for $199 with free earphones. I got my dad and myself a Sandisk 2GB thumbdrive each, and an 80GB HDD for mum (inexpensive gadgets). At the Sandisk booth I was SO SO tempted to buy the red 4GB Ducati Extreme thumbdrive at $119 (I told Hong Aik it looked like a vacuum cleaner)... but I didn't have enough cash. Argh.

Actually I felt that the prices weren't very very low. For example, at the Apple booth, the prices didn't deviate much from the original market price. The iMac's price didn't change at all, they were just giving free AppleCare. The iPods had a slight discount I think, but not significant. The salesman said the reason was because Apple controls prices, which is a reasonable argument. Over at the Canon booth, the SLRs were priced normally, and only freebies were thrown in, cheap stuff like CF cards, simple tripods and the Lens Workbook.

Btw, the freebies I got for my iMac I ordered a week ago at an Apple store is way better than the free AppleCare... I got free upgrade to 4GB ram worth roughly $600+, but AppleCare only costs $300+. Hah! And I didn't have to jostle with the crowd!

Apple store salesman: iTunes store coming to Singapore in 2-3 months

I was at the Parkway Parade Juzz1 Apple store this afternoon after lunch with my family. Got to play with the updated iPod touch featuring the five new applications, and since a salesman was next to me, I casually asked him how I could get this 20 dollar upgrade on my old iPod touch. In my mind I knew that it wouldn’t be possible because the iTunes store isn’t yet in Singapore and the only way to install this is through iTunes. So I asked without expecting any hope of a positive answer, but to my surprise, he responded saying that the iTunes store is coming to Singapore in 2 to 3 months and then I could buy that software update!

I was taken aback, pleasantly shocked at this good news. I think I did ask him “really??” in my state of disbelief. I’m unsure where he heard this from, because I’ve not read anything about this online, but if it really happens, I would be so exhilarated! So far I've not heard of any official confirmation about when iTunes is coming here, so let’s take this salesman’s statement to be partially true at the moment.

But on second thought, this could be all too true. I suspect the motivation for bringing the iTunes store here has to do with the release of the iPhone in Asia (including Singapore). I mean, Apple has a valid reason for doing so if the iPhone is reaching Singapore, because the iPhone requires the iTunes online store for registration and other stuff. So if the iPhone is to be supported locally, then the iTunes store has to come over to Singapore first. Well, this is just my speculation, but hopefully iTunes will come soon so that I can get my freaking iPod touch upgrade!