Singapore Owns more of Australia than Australia?

Wow .... I didn't know that, but according to the article the figures are :

Australian Government:

• 17% stake in Telstra: $9.6 billion
• Australia Post: $5 billion
• Medibank Private: $1 billion
• Australian Submarine Corp: $200 million
• Total: $15.8 billion

VS

Singapore Government:

• Optus: $10 billion
• Alinta energy assets: $4.3 billion
• Victorian electricity transmission monopoly: $2 billion
• Old Texas Utilities Australian portfolio: $5.5 billion
• Property: $2 billion
• Australand stake: $1 billion
• Total: $22.8 billion

I guess you do learn a new thing everyday ...

[From : Crikey - Singapore Owns more of Australia than Australia]

My Reading List, now on BookJetty!

Been playing around with BookJetty lately and think its a great way to keep organised on your reading list, especially if you are a voraiously reader like me. No more having to tell your friends "Yeah, I just read a book on [insert intersting subject] the other day which I think you would be keen on but I can't for the life of me remember its title ... "

So, I've gone and created a booklist in BookJetty to organise my reading and well, if you're keen, you can see what I've been reading instead of my schoolwork lately.

Thanks for the great site, Herryanto!

How to Become a Creative Genius

Just read this over at LifeHack.org.

Basically, the thing you can do to achieve Creative Genius-hood are to :

1. Keep a Notebook and Pencil on hand at all times (Ideas like fleeting renegades which are hard to catch.)
   
   
2. Ask Questions.
   
   
3. Be a Voracious Reader (Can't agree with this more, especially to read beyond the bounds of your normal scope as different disciplines offer totally different viewpoints and modes of thinking.)
   
   
4. Seek out new Experiences (Don't fear the unknown but instead seek to challenge it)
   
   
5. Become a Whole Brain Thinker (Work with mental techniques like mind mapping that make use of the power of the brain as a whole.)
   
   
6. Have Imaginary Dialogues
   

Read the rest of it here.

Steve Job's Customer Service?

Just read the following article, where some guy apparently emailed Steve Jobs after getting sick of waiting for AppleCare to respond to his cry for laptop repair.

Pretty interesting and though I can't really verify it, but on the surface it seems that while Apple may not have such a good frontline customer support (sometimes?), an email to the top man himself kind of boosts their speed.

In any case, good publicity mileage for Apple.

[via : Consumerist]


(PS: Kind of interesting also because I just read from somewhere that a study showed that only 11% of most senior executives' time is spent on sales and marketing related activites, the crux of any company's survival.)

Is Toshiba Also Going to Sell Computers Pre-loaded with Open Source Software?

Just read a story that "Toshiba Italy reportedly is considering offering pre-loaded Linux in its Tecra, Satellite, Portege, and Qosmio notebook lines"

Interesting that it comes right after my earlier post today about Dell's plan to do something similar. Would this be the start of a trend by PC manufacturers to preload opensource software into their machines and move Opensource computing into becoming a mainsteam option?

[Full Story: DesktopLinux.com ]