Step 1. Go to m.nlb.gov.sg in your smartphone browser. You will come to a page called Library in Your Pocket (LiYP).

Step 2: Select “Quick Reads”.

Step 3: Select “High Browse Online”.

There you see! My 17th July post on Cover Story, which is a segment where we pick book solely by the looks of the cover. This is my first contribution, and I blogged about a book titled Censoring An Iranian Love Story: A Novel. 

There are definitely more posts to come from me, as I will be contributing to a monthly segment called Fiction Alert, which is part thematic, part trendspotting in the Fiction world. Should be interesting! Look out for the Fiction Alert in the coming week. So, I urge you to support our blog.

You must have seen this coming; ever since my first Apple product (an iPod Nano) in late 2009 , I’ve been slowly but steadily Apple-ing myself. Then came my iPhone. Then an iPad. Now, I want an iMac. To be honest, I wanted an iMac before I wanted an iPhone, but I never got round to getting it because I didn’t feel the need to upgrade my laptop at that time. Like I said in this post when I bought my iPhone, I am going down a road of no return.

It all started when my laptop can’t restore itself from sleep mode a few weeks ago. I will have to force shut down and restart the laptop. So the smart thing to do will be to shut down my laptop each time I’m done using it instead of putting it to sleep, right? Guess what, my laptop refuses to shut down. Sometimes I can leave the shut down screen for 15 minutes and nothing happens. So in light of all that, I reformatted my disk, wiped it clean and all. Didn’t solve the problem. Then came something worse- because I essentially restored everything to factory pack, my OS (eh, Windows Vista) is stuck in 2008. So I have to install updates after updates. And happily, my laptop refuses to update itself. Today, I waited half an hour for it to update itself before I finally gave and force shut down my machine.

Rant aside, I want an iMac. You’ll ask me, why not a MacBook Pro? Seriously, I don’t think I need a portable machine in the near future. I have been using laptops since 2005 and not once have I brought it out with me to, I don’t know, hog space at Starbucks or something. So that’s that. And I’ve been dreaming of playing The Sims 3 on a 21.5 inch monitor. And it’s just more ergonomic for the screen to be at eye level. And wireless keyboard and remote – need I say more? And the screen is huge so The Sims 3 will look great on it. And it fits the decor of my room. And can you imagine rendering your own 3D universe on such a huge screen playing a game like The Sims? (Yes, obsession with The Sims because it’s been crashing like crazy on my laptop.)

Ah- so yes, saving money is in order. :)

In your Settings menu, you should see the new feature, Personal Hotspot. It is toggled OFF by default. Press it to go to its interface.

Toggle the Personal Hotspot ON, and enter a password (highly recommended to prevent leachers). The password has to be 8 characters and above.

Next, go to the WiFi setting of your iPad or laptop.

Similarly, toggle WiFi ON. In the available networks you should see your iPhone. If you are connecting for the first time, it will prompt you for the password, and store the password for subsequent connections.

On the lockscreen you can see information about your Personal Hotspot, in this case, I connected my iPad and there’s “One Connection”.

Simple as that! This is immensely useful if you don’t have a 3G plan, and if you are in a place without free WiFi. I love this new feature that allows me to share my 3G data plan between devices!

I already own a Kobo account prior to getting my iPhone; I love their competitively priced ebooks. I didn’t use to read on the iPhone, but now I do and it’s all because of a new feature in the app – Reading Life. It’s basically statistics of your, for a lack of better term, reading life.

This screenshot shows my average reading stats. I haven’t read much on my iPhone, so it shows only 6 reading hours.

Based on this app it shows that I mostly read at night, between hours 6 pm to 12 midnight. Yes, I read at bedtime.

Apart from statistics, I love the look of the app and how I can browse by book cover. There’s also the page curl flipping animation when you flip a page, which for many is the hallmark of a reading app on an iPhone/ iPad.

My book covers featuring Fall of Giants (Ken Follett), Feed Me (various authors), Fitting Ends (Dan Chaon), Food Rules (Michael Pollan), Funny Boy (Shyam Selvadura), Gluten-free Girl (Shauna Ahern), Grimm’s FairyTales, My Name is Nujood Age 10 and Divorced (Nujood Ali), and In A Mist (Devon Code).

And of course, you can buy a book through Kobo and instantly read it on your device. I find the prices at Kobo really competitive; a novel is priced about USD$10, way cheaper than printed paperbacks in Singapore, and also, there are 20% discounts most of the time; discount codes come up as and when, so  gets really affordable. Coupled with the low USD rate now, I simply love to browse the online bookstore and make purchases.

So if you love reading, I personally highly recommend this app.

Kobo books: http://www.kobobooks.com/

This is the free version for the iPhone, featuring 35 sounds that you can mix and match to your preference and 2 binaural frequencies. What are binaural frequencies? According to this website it is when sounds of two different frequencies are heard through the two ears using earphones and are combined in the brain. For example, if you have a 400Hz in one ear and a 410Hz in the other, the difference of 10Hz is the so-called binaural beat frequency generated by the brain. Apparently if one can tweak this and find an optimal state for relaxation or focus. I’m not sure if it works, but it was fun to listen.

So what I did is basically play a 20Hz binaural beat for focus, and then play two other sounds – heavy rain and thunder. I know, it’s been raining these days. Let’s just say I got used to the sound and during the dry hours I play this on my phone. Bizarre but hey – to me it’s real pleasant and I found myself better able to do stuff. There are other sounds too, like the ocean waves (I think that will be great for relaxation and play pretend you’re on a beach vacation), wind (for those who like it gusty), birds, windchime, etc. It’s pretty funky for a free app.

And no, I am not paid to review this app. I wish I were, but I’m not. So tant pis pour moi.

TUCH for iPhone.

This is a minimalist product made by TUCH, which is based in the US. This iPhone pouch is made out of one continuous piece of leather, without any stitching or glue. It’s all based on some slot system – very nifty. I got mine in black, or as they term it, obsidian.

TUCH for iPhone requires the phone to be naked. Apart from screen protectors and other sticker-like protection, the phone must not be encased in any plastic or metal cases to fit into the pouch. When new, it’d be a tight fit. However, the leather, being leather, will stretch over time to fit just-nice. As of now, the leather pouch really fits like a glove. (And yes, I have a cute wallpaper on my phone.) The leather used is real smooth, not as pebbled as it looks. The interior is the original suede of the leather, very luxe. The suede incidentally is good for wiping, somewhat, fingerprints off the back of the phone.

So you think, its just a normal leather pouch, why do I have to order it all the way from the States. Let me tell you, this is no normal pouch.

As exhibited above, at the bottom of the pouch are speaker holes and a hole for the iPhone dock. I found the speaker holes to be the deal-sealer when I was considering whether to buy this. The point is, I am positively deaf when it comes to hearing my phone ring. Regardless what ringtone I use, I always find it really hard to hear my phone ring in my bag. These speaker holes will help, or at least, not hinder my ring-hearing abilities as other pouches would. Also, the hole for the iPhone dock really means I can charge my phone or connect it to the computer without removing it from the pouch.

Another cool feature is the card holder as shown below. I inserted my Spongebob laminated EZlink into the card holder slot at the front. The official product information says that it will hold up to 3 cards (given time for the leather to stretch a little).

So, it really is never just about the iPhone.

To order your own, you can go to their official website at http://www.tuchmade.com/ (they make iPad and Macbook holders as well), or their Etsy site at http://www.etsy.com/shop/TuchMade.

(NOTE: Of course I bought and paid for my item, I’m just plugging this wonderful product!)

In the words of a friend on Facebook – I have been iPhoned.

Yes, yours truly now owns an iPhone 4. Along with the ten million apps it can come with. I know I just posted a ranting post on how non-iPhone users are left out of a certain bank program, I still stand by what I said. Anyway, back to the topic of ME get an iPhone.

A little more than a year ago I got my first Apple product, an iPod Nano. That was in possibly September 2009, and I recall seeing iPod vending machines when I was in Las Vegas and being very tempted by it. After I got my iPod and realizing exactly how incredibly easy it is to use and how pretty it is (mine is hot pink), somehow deep down inside I knew I was going down a road of no return. Fast forward to this year, a friend of mine uses an iMac desktop at work. I too was tempted to get a set because I’ve heard really good comments about it. Plus, its white exterior will go well with my predominantly white furniture in my room. But I didn’t buy it, I spent my budget on my Pentax dSLR instead (well, not ALL the budget). So no more talks of getting Apple products.

Until a couple of days ago. I saw someone on a bus playing an incredibly fun game on her iPhone – Coin Dozer. You know, that coin pushy pushy game that is utterly brainless but very fun? So I came home and downloaded the game on my sister’s iPhone (3GS) and started playing it. Among my sister, my niece and myself, we were fighting to, well, push coins. My sister then commented asking me to go buy my own set to play Coin Dozer.

And I did.

So effectively, to put it down in words, I bought an iPhone to play a silly (but fun) coin pushy pushy game.

That aside, on a serious note, a few people have heard me complain about how laggy and crappy Windows Mobile 6.5 on Samsung Omnia 2 is. I can launch a programme, and wait a couple of seconds for it to load. That is gross beyond words. So I had to get a faster, more responsive phone. The iPhone obviously fits the bill.

So I’ve had my iPhone for a few days already. There’s nothing I can hate about it, except that there’s no space for me to hang straps and other random rubbish hanging things. Boo.

I know how I used to joke about how you need an app in iPhone 3G for digital zoom on the camera. I am still laughing because iPhone 4 has the zoom built in. (iSnobbery!) Just saying.

And just one last note – I didn’t reserve the set, I just went half an hour before store opening to queue up for a walk-in set.

So we got a new TV yesterday. It’s one of those fancy-schmanzy flat-panel full HD LCD TV that’s as skinny as a runway model. It’s bigger, 32 inches, and it can read SD cards and USB flash drives, making it an overpriced photo frame I suppose.It has 1920×1080 pixels, if that’s the kind of things you understand. So we came home and hooked up the TV to the Starhub set-top box. The graphics look like shit. Imagine taking analogue TV signal and stretching it to a 12:9 aspect ratio. It didn’t have the sort of clarity and WOW I expected with a HD TV. So I did a little scouring on the Internet and it turned out that to make full use of the HD-ness of my new TV, we need HD-compliant set-top boxes instead. Great, and so now we have to pay more per month just so we can watch TV clearly. So we bought a TV to incur more cost. Great news technology!

A softcore unveil:

The box. So plainly written what’s inside. Not an ounce of mystery. Or is there?

Inside the box – the 300-page manual. I’ve only gotten halfway through that manual.

There, the neckstrap with the word Pentax embroided in red.

It’s red! It’s red!

With matching 15-50mm zoom lens!

Another shot.

A red DSLR. While it may look bimbotic and frivolous, it has good specs. I’ll leave you to go google Pentax K-x reviews. For now, I’m still exploring the ten million functions it has. I’m really impressed by its low-light performance for now. Remember my Magma pictures? The restaurant was on the dark side (not the deng-deng-deng-dengdengdeng Dark side, but lighting is dark), so the camera boosted itself to iso6400. When I looked at the preview in the LCD after the shoot I had a shock when it appeared that light. That moment I utterly fell for the camera (until I came home, loaded it to my computer and saw NOISE, but that’s understandable and mildly tolerable).

Arh~ I love my new camera. :)

I got myself a Bookeen Cybook Opus – it’s a 5 inch basic reader. No fancy snazzy functions like WiFi or touchscreen or even a dictionary, but I guess it fits a general purpose of fitting into a bag and providing entertainment like a book. I got this because it was on a good discount I can’t pass up. The Opus was one of the readers I considered getting last year, but at that price point then, I wouldn’t have. The price I paid for this is much more reasonable in my opinion.

A softcore unveil:

Unboxed from the shipping box.

The product box. I like the design, but hate it that they use Twilight as an example book. Feh.

Inside. The Quick Start Guide, the reader and the PU sleeve.

The reader. I can hold it in one hand!

Size comparison with a regular paperback novel. It’s smaller than a regular paperback.

Because of the built-in accelerometer I can turn the reader 180 degrees if I want to push the page turn buttons with my left hand.

Or I can turn it this way if I want a widescreen.

So far, I think the Opus a lot but the size bothers me. PDF books look horrid on a 5inch screen – either go with minute font if you want to see the whole page, or enlarge and having to scroll. And it’s not like I can convert those PDF files because I loaned them from the library website. But this works fantastic with ePub. The screen is suitably matte and doesn’t reflect light unlike an LCD screen. I love reading on the Opus because it’s so light to hold.

Overall, I think having an ebook reader has dramatically changed my reading experience. There are so many public domain books I can read, and I can loan books from the library website. I think for me, it’s a good investment.

In any case, when I get my Sony back I might consider letting go of one of it, having two e-readers is far too decadent for me.