Here are some of my social networking profile pages:

• Facebook
• Friendster
• LinkedIn
• MySpace
• Catster

I am going to join Twitter and FriendFind soon just to see what the fuss is all about. In the mean time, let’s connect via these social networking sites.

Tagged As: Social-networking

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I adopted another cat early last month and named her Mini. She’s a really sweet, affectionate and intelligent cat. I bumped into her while I was walking to the lift early last month. She was begging for food at my neighbour’s door so I invited her to my place for free food, which she happily obliged.

Soon after this initial meeting, she began to visit my apartment and ask for food. I continued to feed her for about a week and decided to adopt her as she is such a cute and wonderful cat.

I got more than I thought. Who would have known that she was pregnant when I adopted her? Mini gave birth to 2 cute kittens last Friday. Therefore, I have a total of 4 cats at the moment. Thankfully, Mini and her 2 kittens are doing fine at the moment. I will post more pictures when they are older. They look like little hamsters at the moment.

If you’ve got cats and you would like to network on Catster, click on my Catster profile links and add me as your friend.

I have not decided whether to keep the 2 kittens or not. I think I would either put them up for adoption once they are about 3 months old or keep them. It took me about 4 weeks to get my 2 cats Milo and Mini to get along. Milo does not seem to recognise Mini since she gave birth to 2 kittens. Most likely this is due to her new scent and the scent of her 2 new kittens, which are both new to him. What that means is I would have to redo the whole introduction process again.

Tagged As: cats, Catster, kittens

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My Australian Skilled Migration application was received by the Australian authorities on 30 April 2008. They sent me an email to confirm my application after processing my AUD $2600 application fee. I am glad I paid the application fee last month because the AUD was slightly lower last month that its current value today. I think I might have saved close to a hundred bucks.

According to the instructions in the email, I need to get a medical examination and a police background check. I can either wait for them to tell me to do it or I can do it as early as possible. The usual troublesome paperwork of getting passport-sized photos and filling up forms is about to resume.

I will get a police background check in June and maybe I will get the medical exam done in July. The processing time for a Skilled Migration applicant usually take 7 months or less. What that means is I should get my Australian PR by 30 November 2008. This is my second Australian PR. I used to have an Aussie PR when my family moved to Perth, Australia in 1987. This is my second migration to Australia, which I never thought would have happened because I have not set foot in Perth since 1988, a full 20 years! It would be nice to rekindle some old childhood friendships when I get there.

Tagged As: Australian Skilled Migration

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I finally received my Australian skills assessment results and I am happy to announce that it was approved. I received my approval letter last week on 15 April 2008.

It did take about 3 months but I am sure it would have been faster if not for the delays. If you’re reading this, send in certified true copies of documents instead of the originals. I had a few original copies of references letters and I submitted one of them to the Australian Computer Society and they were rejected. Extremely inflexible if you ask me.

Now that I have the green light to submit my application for the Skilled - Sponsored visa, I have about 3 application forms to fill up, AUD $2060 to pay to the Australian government for the application fee and some other paperwork to do.

In my process of applying for this visa, I have learnt that some of the common myths of emigration out of Singapore are absolutely untrue.

1. Myth no. 1: You must have a degree to emigrate to Australia. This is not true at all. I only have a Diploma and it is enough. If you don’t have formal qualifications, you need to prove to them that you have related work experience.
2. Myth no. 2: A migration agent is necessary and they can get your application approved faster. Rubbish. I went to a migration agent because I didn’t know what to do at first. Then the migration agent I went to told me which visa I can qualify for and what are the documents I need to prepare. However, I did not follow up with the migration agent because I did think paying him SGD $4000 for filling up forms was a good investment. Read the instructions carefully and do it yourself. The Australian government does not give applicants priority if they submitted through a migration agent. Save that money to move your stuff or pets over to your new country instead.
3. Myth no. 3: Your skills have to be on the “in demand” list of occupations. My chosen profession was not in the Migration Occupations in Demand List (MODL). That does not mean that they don’t want you.
4. Myth no. 4: Places like Melbourne and Sydney are “full” and it would be hard to migrate there. I am not so sure about this but I do know that there is a labour shortage problem in Western Australia. Common sense tells you that they need more people in that area. The Australian government is issuing an additional 6000 visa this year for skilled migrants. Obviously, they want and need more skilled people in Australia. If your plan is to migrate to the eastern side, get to Western Australia first and move to the east. Unless your visa is for a “designated area”, there isn’t any restriction on you to move around within Australia.

Even Lee Kuan Yew once stated that most Singaporeans cannot leave. This is nonsense. A more accurate assumption would be that most Singaporeans can leave but they won’t. You do not have to be the “top 20 to 30 per cent of educated Singaporeans have the skills and abilities to emigrate to anywhere in the world”.

I once believed I was not able to emigrate out of Singapore because I listened to friends and relatives who knew nothing about how to do it. You should not listen to these unqualified people like I did. Instead, go to immi.gov.au and check out the requirements yourself and visit a qualified Australian migration agent that has free consultation.

Tagged As: australia, Australian Computer Society, Migration Occupations in Demand List, MODL, singapore emigration

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More reasons to dump Internet Explorer for Mozilla Firefox….

Internet Explorer 7 is so slow I can’t bear to use it unless I am testing my web sites. More information about this at ZDNet.

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Since today is the 29th of February, this is an opportunity for me to submit a post to rant on how silly our calendar systems can be. Most people on planet earth follow the Gregorian calendar, which I am not sure how and why it became an international standard. I find it extremely stupid that we have to add an additional day to a so-called leap year just to balance the days of the years.

Being a Chinese, I thought the older Chinese calendar systems were superior than the newer Gregorian calendar. However, a lot of feng shui masters disagree on the exact date of every year’s Chinese New Year, because some believe we should follow the Chinese Solar Calendar while others follow the Chinese Lunar Calendar.

The Chinese New Year is often referred to as the Lunar New Year or the Spring Festival. The problem I face with these 2 Chinese calendar systems is I can be considered to be born in the year of the Dog if I follow the Chinese Lunar Calendar or the year of the Rooster if I follow the Chinese Solar Calendar. This is because the spring season did not arrive when I was born according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar, which meant that it was not officially a new year yet. As a result, I feel out of sync with time and I can’t really tell people what animal sign I belong to unless I clarify which calendar you are referring to.

Last year, I discovered a superior calendar system - A calendar I believe should have been the current international standard rather than the Gregorian system. That calendar is the Mayan calendar and it is amazingly simple and perfectly organized.

There are 13 months in a year, 28 days in a month, 4 weeks per month, 7 days in a week and 1 day of renewal to celebrate the new year. The new year starts on 26th July on our Gregorian calendar. With a calendar like this, we won’t have nonsense like leap years and uneven months. Everything would be orderly and predictable and we won’t be out of sync with time.

I also found this free Dreamspeall Mayan Calendar software. It is really nice to look at and it displays all these mystical looking Mayan symbols and tells you what they mean.

This is how it looks like on my Windows machine:

Another thing that really bugs me is daylight saving. Fortunately, we don’t use it in Singapore. However, some states in the USA and Australia do and this is another way we become out of sync with time and out of sync with reality. We have to “lie to ourselves” to make believe it is a certain time when we know it isn’t true. It is not like the problems with the date isn’t enough and we have to screw up the hours of the day as well.

I believe my life would be much more organized if I didn’t have to use the Gregorian calendar. Maybe the world would be a better place if we use the 13-month calendar. However, I doubt this will happen any time soon as it would be a very radical change.

Tagged As: 29th of February, Chinese calendar, Chinese Lunar Calendar, Chinese Solar Calendar, Gregorian calendar, leap years, Mayan Calendar

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I just downloaded and installed Firefox 3 Beta 3. It is slightly faster than the version 2.0.x. I like it very much but I wish they could do the “font smoothing” effect like Internet Explorer 7 does. That would make the fonts look nicer and more readable.

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I submitted my skills assessment application to the Australian Computer Society in mid January. It should take about 4-6 days to reach Sydney, Australia by air mail but they received it and opened up my package at the end of January.

It seems like I missed out on 1 step - I forgot to certify true copies of my reference letters. I do not remember it was a requirement but maybe I overlooked it while I was reading the instructions. Any way, I had to visit a lawyer to get it certified and I mailed them back to the Australian Computer Society last week. They just acknowledged to me via email that they have received the documents.

This is kind of funny because I sent in a copied reference letter and an original reference letter. It seems like they do not accept the original reference letter. Very inflexible indeed. My skills assessment application should take about 12 weeks. I am hoping that it will be done by the end of April 2008 or earlier because the Australian visa application will take about 7 months.

A couple of days ago, the Australian government announced that they will be adding 6000 more visas for skilled workers. That is great news for me because I will have a higher chance of getting one of these visas!

Tagged As: Australia Migration, Australian Computer Society, certified true copies, reference letter, skilled migration, skills assessment, visa

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I have decided to apply to migrate to Australia again. I have been putting in the initial steps to get myself out of Singapore for good. My previous migration attempt failed because the relationship between my mum and his brother, who is an Australian citizen, broke down about 2 years ago when they had an argument over their mum’s money. I was hoping he could “sponsor” me in my application but it was not to be.

I went to visit an Australian migration agency and I was told that I could get an Australian permanent residence visa because my younger sister is currently living and studying in Perth, Australia. My little sister was born in Australia and therefore she is a citizen of Australia. She recently moved to Perth to start her veterinarian course earlier this year. What that means for me is she is eligible to “sponsor” me via the “Skilled Sponsored” visa scheme.

I initially wanted to hire an Australian migration agent to help me through the process. However, once I consulted a few agents and got a feel of what the whole process would be like, I decided it would be so much better if I do it myself and save up to SGD $4000 - $6000 + in agency fees. It is just a lot of simple but troublesome paperwork, which can be confusing if you do not read the instructions properly.

The first steps of my migration plan are:

1. Take an IELTS General Training English Exam - Hey! I passed this with an overall score of 8.0/10. This exam cost me SGD $300 to take at the British Council. You need an overall score of 7.0/10 and above to be considered proficient in English. Therefore, I will be awarded the maximum number of points for the English proficiency requirements of my visa application.
2. Get certified true copies of my passport, birth certificates, army discharge letters, qualifications etc.
3. Get a statutory declaration of my self-employment status for the past 3 years, detailing the activities I did on a daily basis.
4. Get reference letters from my previous employers.
5. Update my resume.
6. Take some new photographs of myself.
7. Submit my skills assessment application to the Australian Computer Society (AUD $350).

This process could take 2-3 months to complete. I need to get my skills assessed by the Australian Computer Society and pass me IELTS English Exam before I can apply for my “Skilled Sponsored” visa. The visa application should take about 7 months. The entire process could take any where from 10 months to 1 year or more.

I am now stuck at the reference letters part. I need 3 reference letters from my 3 previous employers. I hope I get them as soon as possible because it has been dragging on for more than 3 weeks now. Once I have my reference letters, I will be able to submit my skills assessment application without further delay.

I can’t live in Singapore any longer. I feel like I would regret it for the rest of my life if I spent any more of my precious time in Singapore, which I do not consider a first world country no matter what Lee Kuan Yew says. “From 3rd to 1st World Country in One Generation” - Yeah right! First world countries are democratic, have minimum wage laws, fair elections and respect for their citizens’ rights. My country has none of these characteristics so I am not calling it a first world country because it would be making a mockery of all the true first world countries in the world.

Tagged As: australia, australia computer society, IELTS English Exam, migration, migration agency, migration agent, perth, reference letters, resume, skills assessment, statutory declaration

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I thought my 1st generation 512 MB iPod Shuffle was dead since last year. I must have left it in my drawer for at least 1 year. Today, I decided to try my luck to see if it can be revived so that I could use it during my run a few hours ago. I suspected my iPod Shuffle had a firmware problem because I remember this was my 3rd iPod Shuffle. I had it replaced twice within a year. This particular iPod Shuffle went dead very shortly after I got it replaced and my 1 year warranty expired at about the same time too.

I don’t like the iPod Shuffle because it seems really fragile. Moreover, it does not have a screen to display my MP3 song titles and I hate using the iTunes software. Nonetheless, I wanted to see if there are any fixes for the infamous iPod Shuffle 1418 error in iTunes 7 since the last time I tried to fix it.

I downloaded the latest version of iTunes after waiting a long time for the download page to load up. Apple must have improved iTunes because they no longer separate iTunes and the iPod software. I used to have a lot of crashes when I plugged in my iPod but I was surprised to see my iPod was actually detectable. Unfortunately, I still received the 1418 unknown error when iTunes tried to update and restore my iPod Shuffle’s firmware.

Just when I was ready to throw in the towel, I did a search on google for “iPod Shuffle 1418″. I realized I was not alone! I saw a web site called 1418Hell.com (down at the moment) that was dedicated to this bug. I scoured Apple’s web site to find the iPod Reset Utility and it took me some time before I finally found a working link to the Windows version.

Here are the official iPod Shuffle Reset Utility 1.0.2 download links:

• iPod Shuffle Reset Utility 1.0.2 for Mac
• iPod Shuffle Reset Utility 1.0.2 for Windows

I ran the iPod reset utility and it fixed my iPod in a matter of seconds. I then launched iTunes to update my iPod Shuffle to the latest 1.1.5 firmware. I was lucky to have some battery life left in it and I loaded my jogging playlist and put this tiny “chewing gum stick” into my pocket. The best thing about the iPod Shuffle is it’s size and weight. It is so much more comfortable having this in my pocket when I run instead of my newer Creative Zen Microphoto MP3 player.

To all 1st generation iPod Shuffle owners, I hope you find this page and bring your iPod Shuffles back to life!

Tagged As: 1st-generation, iPod-Shuffle, iPod-Shuffle-1418-Error, iPod-Shuffle-Reset-Utility, MP3-player

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