Mobile Computing

When I arrive in a new country I like to buy an English language newspaper and read it to get a feel of what is happening in the place. Singapore is no exception and as I read the Straits Times as Gemma watched a seemingly endless Singapore Idol on TV. If you thought the UK Pop Idol was bad (and I did) then you really should watch Singapore Idol, it makes Pop Idol seem like a night at the opera in comparison. I was interested to read that the following day would be the last day of Comex 2006 at the Singapore Expo hall, Comex being a large computer and electronics fair. I told Gemma that we were going. She didn't seem very happy.

The next morning we took an MRT over to Expo bright and early. Lots of other people had the same idea, the place was packed before the doors even opened. Gemma relaxed slightly when she saw that there was also a clothing sale going on at the same time. The exhibition was spread out over 3 of the halls and was packed with both punters and stall staff shoving leaflets at them. I think a small forest was probably used to provide the leaflets that day. One hall was obviously the cheaper end as it was populated with smaller stalls selling all kinds of bits and bobs. For some reason Gemma became quite enamoured of a flexible keyboard that she saw there.

After perusing the stalls and collecting leaflets we decided to retire from the stalls, have some food and review them. In a cafe outside we discarded most of the leaflets and concentrated on the ones we were really interested in. Laptops. After some deliberation we chose one and went back in to buy it. We are now the proud owners of a dinky little IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad X60. It's a tiny wee thing and doesn't weigh a great deal. The fact it came with insurance and 3 year international warranty is what swung it for this particular model. We had decided to buy a laptop when we got home anyway, but thought lets just get it now as we may be coming home early. When we got back we were pleased to see that we had a free travel kit with dinky mouse and various cables, as well as that essential accessory, the USB powered hoover!

Gemma asked if I wanted to go look at the camera manufacturers while we were there, pure folly on her part. I managed to reign myself in, figuring that if I did go look I'd probably end up lugging an SLR around with us as well as the laptop. After we left the hall Gemma found a t-shirt that she liked and spent the next 10 minutes looking at every single one on the rail, hoping vainly that there would be a size other than 'Elfin child'. After returning and transferring photos to the laptop I have realised that perhaps I ought to have looked for a camera because I've found an annoying dust particle inside the lens assembly on mine. I can clean the outside of the lens but not the inside, so I don't really know what to do short of dissassembling the camera.

Happily at the moment Singapore is trialling a free Wifi service in some of it's malls, which means we can take advantage of the new toy and upload our photos to Flickr. This entry is coming from Subway where we had breakfast this morning.