Clearance stock at ICON Design Store. Click to enter

 

Grand Raya Package at Peugoet and promotion ends 15th September. Click image to enter website.

 

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Ahhh… this is so overdue… I was supposed to upload these photos last week but never had the time to go around it. So yeah, I will be posting tons of pictures taken at this year’s STGCC 2013 which stands for Singapore Toy Game Comic Convention and I have to say that I was super impressed with the event. It was way better than last year and I will mark again in my calendar next year for STGCC.

They have reached a milestone that will be tough for another repeat for next year’s WCOPA 2014. To recap, WCOPA stands for World Championships of Performing ARts (WCOPA) and we were fortunate to have Bruneians to represent the country in this year’s edition which took place earlier in July.

Our local heroes – Fakhrul Razi, Kevin Lo and Maria Grace Koh – brought some medals back during the competition and this shows that we do have talents to shine on a bigger stage. This time round there will be a WCOPA concert on the 21st September from 8am to 10pm at the Jerudong Amphitheater featuring all the said artistes.

Fakhrul will be belting 5 songs but the song I strongly felt is his original work “Senyuman Gelapmu” which has been playing on my CD player while I’m driving. It’s just a fantastic piece and boy, FR does have a lot under his sleeves. He hinted that a new album is slated for a November release and some of his songs will be downloadable on iTunes. Awesome!!

Kevin Lo had a fantastic outing from the WCOPA event. He didn’t just bagged medals but also scholarship offers from the agencies from the States. He will be performing in a 30-40 minute act from the “The Crucible” and an excerpt from “My Fair Lady”.

Last of all, Maria will be singing four songs including her original composition “You”. She’s another talent with such soothing vocals and she was a former swimmer, representing Brunei on a few occasions. Perhaps the unexpected exit from the Beijing Olympics was a blessing in disguise and I’m glad Maria is happy with her recent exposure to music and even having her own songs made available on iTunes.

Representatives from WCOPA organizers with Setia Motors representative and Kevin Lo and Fakhrul Razi during the press conference last Saturday

Kevin Lo will be performing with his teammates for half an hour next weekend

The artistes with representatives from Setia Motors (Hyundai) the sponsors

Kevin Lo with his teammates gearing up for “The Crucible” and My Fair Lady

The concert tickets are sold at $30, $20 and $10. You can find them at participating partners – The Body Shop, Armtrix Enterprise, Laily’s Boutique, Mr Baker’s Bakeshop, Muffins N Co, Sapphira cake house, DESEO Boutique, BATA Shoes, Pet Link, Pet Vision, Kimchi Restaurant, Paddington House of Pancakes, Pho Real Restaurant, Virtuoso School of Music, Studio Scene and Vision Care in Kuala Belait.

For more inquiries, you can call 723 6243 or email info@ prismworksbrunei.com or follow @officialwcopabrunei on instagram. The event is organized by Prismworks Events Management.

Anyway, for those interested to join the audition for next year’s event, you can send in your submission of applications on the 21st September and send your application at the JP Amphitheater from 12pm to 6pm on the 21st September. The audition is open to actors, instrumentalists, vocalists, dancers and variety acts.

Who knows you will represent Brunei next year in WCOPA 😀

 

LOL. Do bear with me with the number of photos that are being posted below. It was more of the pending photos that I have yet to post on RA and I’d better do it soon. So how was your Hari Raya this year compared to last year? Mine was just so-so and nothing much to shout about either.

Now Brunei is gearing up for the celebration of His Majesty’s birthday which will begin on 15th September and following that month will be the chairmanship of Brunei for the ASEAN Summit which will being mid October. So a lot of things to look forward to now for Brunei and there are quite many small events happening as well. I shall keep you posted on that.

For now, enjoy the pictures taken during my rounds of Hari Raya last August and early September.

 

United Network Entertainment is a Bruneian based company that aims to raise creative awareness in the fields of arts, performing arts, music and sports, in Brunei, and bringing together the youths in our nation, that love doing the things that they love, and giving them the opportunity to create, and in the future, make a living out of doing the things that they love.

They aim to provide for local artists and youth in our nation with masterclasses and avenues to reach their fullest potential. We believe a creative individual should grow and learn in all fields possible, so that every individual develops in their own unique way and in turn, prove beneficial to the nation in their own fields and specialty.

They also provide high quality industry standard creative services in the fields of animation and visual development to Brunei and the International Industries.

For your info, the spots are on a first come first served basis.. and to quickly register before spots fill up. Refer to poster below or you can check out their Facebook page. Good luck 😀

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Her Royal Highness Paduka Seri Pengiran Anak Isteri Pengiran Anak Sarah with members of BLGA and official event sponsors

Haji Osmar bin Duraman and Almas Syadzwanie bte Kamis were the Men’s and Ladies’ Gross Overall Champions of the Patron’s Charity Fund Golf Tournament 2013 last Sunday

Her Royal Highness Paduka Seri Pengiran Anak Isteri Pengiran Anak Sarah attended the prize presentation for the tournament, which was held at the Royal Brunei Golf and Country Club. Hj Osmar and Almas Syadzwanie claimed top honours with their scores of 72 and 85 respectively over the three-day tournament.

In the Men’s Division ‘A’ Nett (Handicap 0-9)category, Ali bin Hj Rashid was the winner with his score of 72, followed by Lt Col (B) Hj Brahim bin Jumahat in second with 74 and Hj Khairul Hj Jamaluddin in third with 78.

Seruji bin Hj Setia is no stranger to success, and he topped the Men’s Division ‘A’ Gross category with a score of 75. Tony bin Hj Karim and Gajendra Gurung finished in second and third with scores of 79 on-count-back (OCB).

Hj Muhd Hanafi PP Hj Ahmad won the Men’s Division ‘B’ Nett (Handicap 10-18) category with a final score of 67. Hj Patera Hj Madil followed closely in second with 68 and a further stroke back in third was Hj Jalaluddin Hj Ghazali.

Meanwhile, in the Gross category, Hj Omar bin Hj Baha led the pack with 78. Hj Md Shahreen bin DP Dato Hj Hamzah (81) and YDM PDLR MG (B) DPS Hj Halbi Hj Md Yussof (84) completed the top three.

The Men’s Division C (Handicap 19-24) Nett category was won by Hj Md Shukri Hj Rahim with a score of 68. Shamsul Nahar Hj Idris (71) finished second, followed by Hj Said bin Ahmad (72). Minuddin Hj Md Daud claimed the Gross category after scoring 91. Cynta Raw finished one stroke behind in second, whilst Harris Aliamin’s score of 95 earned him a bronze-medal placing.

YDM Maj Jen (B) Pehin Dato Hj JMD Jaafar was the winner of the Senior Men’s (60 and above) Nett category after finishing the course with a score of 71. Hj Abd Lafip bin Hj Ghariff (74) and Dominic Chong (75) completed the podium.

The Gross category was won by Hj Rojer bin Abdullah, who scored 79, followed by Hj Abd Aziz bin Abdullah (82) and Alfred Shim (85).

Pg Hjh Zubaidah bte Pg Hj Mohammad won the Ladies’ Division Nett category by a margin of seven strokes with her score of 72. Hjh Asmah bte Omar and Hjh Azizah bte Ahmad (81ocb) finished in second and third respectively.

Dora Madai pipped Joan Chin to the Gross category title after both ladies finished the day with a score of 94, but OCB, it was ruled in the former’s favour. Almas Akalili bte Kamis (106) finished third. In the Senior Ladies’ (60 and above) category, Hjh Zainab bte Hj Ali topped the leaderboard with a score of 77, followed by Dolly Hj Rahman (78) and Daisy Yeoh (81).

Norintan Hj Shahreen was the junior (18 years old and under) (Boys and Girls) Nett category champion after blowing the rest of the field away with a score of 67. Md Irwan Hj Ismail finished 10 strokes behindin second, and Ryan Chee a further three in third.

The biggest winners, however, were the An Nur Harapan Foundation and Brunei-Muara District Red Cresent Society, who received donations of $12,600 and $8,400 respectively. Text by Jake Ten and Bahyiah Bakir of Borneo Bulletin.

HRH Paduka Seri Pengiran Anak Isteri Pengiran Anak Sarah presenting a trophy to Hj Osmar, the Men Gross overall champion

HRH Paduka Seri Pengiran Anak Isteri Pengiran Anak Sarah presenting a trophy to Almas Syadzwanie, the Ladies Gross overall champion

HRH Paduka Seri Pengiran Anak Isteri Pengiran Anak Sarah presenting a donation to Brunei Muara District Red Crescent Society

HRH Paduka Seri Pengiran Anak Isteri Pengiran Anak Sarah presenting a donation to An Nur Harapan

HRH Paduka Seri Pengiran Anak Isteri Pengiran Anak Sarah receiving a pesambah

 

Forward thinking… well, so-so for me

I wonder how many gadget addicts were up last night watching the keynote address by Apple on the launch of a few things – iTunes Radio, iOS7 and of course, the most anticipated ones – iPhone 5c and the iPhone 5s. There were no announcement on tablets or the smart watch. However, with the power of internet, we kinda knew what was coming ahead for the models of iPhones but of course, the juicy parts (tech specs) was revealed more during the keynote event. I have to admit though there’s no one at this moment that can run a charismatic key note than the late Steve Jobs. Even Ashton Kutcher can’t even portray the character of Jobs in his latest biopic (which was a huge flop in the box office).

I won’t go too much into the specs but if you are more concerned about the specs, you can click here. I’m just gonna highlight the major ones. Firstly, it has a Touch ID, a fingerprint identity sensor which I think it’s a cool for unlocking your phone rather than using the passcode or swipe. I’m not sure if it’s optional though hmmmm.. It has a 64-bit chip but not really interested to know in depth. Let’s just say that IOS apps developers can make full use of it compared to the previous 32-bit technology.

Hmmm not something I look forward to but I will treat it as a bonus

The battery has slightly improved by two hours on talk time. I did a spec comparison from the iPhone5 and the iPhone 5s. So even a slight increase, maybe it didn’t excite me as much and battery has always been a downside for me. You should see me carrying a casing power pack and a battery pack in my pouch wherever I go. Hence, the battery news was just old news to me.

I’m not too concerned with the new colours – space grey, gold and silver. For me, I’m more into what the phone or the technology can do. You also can choose the different colours for the iPhone 5c. Anyway, back to the iPhone 5s specs, it uses a A7 core processor. The current iPhone 5 uses A6 I believe. Phones have improved in the processor department that I couldn’t tell sometimes even if they said it has improved like 4 or 5 times faster. But when the iPhone 4 was introduced, I could feel the difference between 4 and the 3Gs. So let’s see what kind of feeling when I get hold of the iPhone 5s one day.

The only thing that I’m looking forward to the iPhone 5s is *drummm rooollllllll* ….. the camera… Ok, I am a heavy user of the camera on my iPhone 5 and I recently even buy a wifi SD card so I can transfer the images from my SLR camera to my iPhone so the pictures would look sharper on my instagram postings.. So there you go, the only selling point for me to upgrade to the 5s is the camera. I don’t really care about the other specs even the finger ID thingy (since I don’t lock my phone.. ok, that’s not even advisable) or the colour skins.. but maybe the battery life minor improvement might tickle something in me but the drawing factor here is the camera on the 5s.

I’m loving the new camera features

The f/2.2 aperture is something I look forward to

The price of the iPhone 5s taken from Apple Singapore website

So what’s so good about it? It has a larger sensor and aperture. The aperture is f/2.2 which is totally awesome because it can be as good as taking photos off my SLR camera. Of course, the best would still be with outside lighting or natural daylight to get the best out of the photo without the use of flash. They have this new slo-mo function but it’s not my cup of tea. I did download a 3rd party app for that before and I hardly use it. So I don’t see the big deal about it. Ok, perhaps the zooming part while recording a video will be handy for me since I post a lot of videos on my instagram. I could have gotten closer video of the “trike” riders at the roundabout last Sunday *lol*

So there you go. Just a quick summary of my view of the iPhone 5s and I don’t want to go over the other specs. It’s just nothing exciting. The same goes to Samsung Note 3 and the Samsung S4 when it was announced. Nothing really that sets a new bar for smartphones. The same goes for Blackberry, HTC and the underwhelming Nokia Lumia. I believe a new unknown player one day will come up with a disruptive technology for smartphones and wake up these giants battling specs that are not foreign but merely an upgrade.

But I have to admit it was a way better keynote than when it launched the iPhone 5 last year. Oh, regarding the iPhone 5c (read specs here), I won’t be talking much about it either. Yes, it’s a plastic feel iPhone 5 and it’s a cheaper version too to make it affordable for those who wants to own an iPhone. I’m pretty sure this will boost the sales and even the shares of Apple which had a turbulent year (or the past two years) after Samsung’s dominance in the smartphone category.

My overall verdict for the 5s is a “B” which translates to a 7/10. Maybe because the technologies used have not broken any barrier. The Touch ID thingy is a nice touch (see there, wordplay) but it’s not something that excites me. The only reason for my upgrade is the awesome camera features and maybe, just maybe, the slight improvement of the battery life.

The other iPhone 5 that was introduced – the “C” model

The price of the iphone 5c taken from Apple Singapore website

Ok, I can’t wait for OS X Mavericks.. I just hope there won’t be many bugs when it becomes available

iTunes radio.. Maybe I will play around with it soon

Click here to view the Keynote event by Apple

 

The month of Syawal is in high spirits in Authority for Info-communications Technology Industry of Brunei Darussalam (AITI). An open office was held to celebrate Hari Raya with all of the stakeholders of AITI last week. The event took place at its premises at the AITI Building, in Anggerek Desa.

The Guest of Honour for the open office event was the Minister of Communications, Yang Berhormat Pehin Orang Kaya Hamzah Pahlawan Dato Seri Setia Awg Haji Abdullah bin Begawan Mudim Dato Paduka Haji Bakar, Ministry of Communications. Also in attendance was Yang Mulia Awang Abdul Mutalib bin Pehin Orang Kaya Seri Setia Dato Paduka Haji Mohd Yusof, Permanent Secretary Ministry of Communications as well as Chairman of AITI.

Also invited were Foreign Ambassadors residing in Brunei, Deputy Permanent Secretary from Ministry of Communications, Directors and staff under the umbrella of the Ministry of Communications, companies who are registered under AAB and ICTAB, TelCos representatives, ICT Industry Players, Amateur Radio clubs, Dealers, Media partners and other stakeholders of AITI.

  Other activities that took place were AITI InterHouse singing performances and also live band to entertain the guests throughout the whole event.

  This is one of AITI’s way of saying Thank You to all stakeholders whom have worked closely with AITI, and to media partners who helped to highlight AITI in any form of publications and organisations that has collaborated with AITI.

 

The Authority for Info-communications Technology Industry of Brunei Darussalam (AITI) and Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) renewed their cooperation in the field of information and communications technology (ICT) last week with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) by Haji Yahkup bin Haji Menudin, Chief Executive of AITI and Mr. Leong Keng Thai, Director General (Telecommunications and Post) and Deputy Chief Executive of IDA.  The signing ceremony was witnessed by Awang Abdul Mutalib bin Pehin Orang Kaya Seri Setia Dato Paduka Haji Mohamad Yusof, Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Communications and Chairman of AITI.

AITI and IDA first established working alliance with the signing of a MOU in October 2007. Since then, both regulators have conducted bilateral exchanges, trainings, consultancy and secondment of experts to assist in e-Government and Telecoms Regulatory projects. Under the past MOUs, both organisations have achieved the following: 

• Review of Brunei Darussalam’s e-Government Strategies and Roadmap which was endorsed by the E-Government Leadership Forum (EGLF) in 2009.
• Telecoms regulatory training and workshop for AITI officers in May 2010.
• Secondment of IDA officer since 2010 to assist AITI in Telecoms Regulation, ICT Industry Development and International Relation Development.
• Bilateral exchanges between AITI and IDA on Corporate Services, ICT Industry Development and Infocomm Secuirty since 2010.
• Completion of Brunei’s Government Enterprise Architecture Phase 1 and 2 and Design of One Government Network in January 2011.
• The creation of a framework for the Domain Name System registration and administration for Brunei Darussalam.
• Industrial Internship Program for students to Singapore ICT companies undertaking ICT related Higher National Diploma.  Four ITB students started the industrial internship program in July 2013.

Signing ceremony between AITI and IDA witnessed by Awang Abdul Mutalib bin Pehin Orang Kaya Seri Setia Dato Paduka Haji Mohamad Yusof, Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Communications and Chairman of AITI

Haji Yahkup bin Haji Menudin, Chief Executive of AITI exchanging documents with Mr. Leong Keng Thai, Director General (Telecommunications and Post) and Deputy Chief Executive of IDA witnessed by Awang Abdul Mutalib

Media frenzy doing the signing ceremony at AITI venue

The renewal of MOU today reaffirms the commitment made by the communication ministers from Brunei and Singapore during CommunicAsia 2013 to renew ties and technical collaboration between AITI and IDA.  The new MOU further leverages on the existing co-operation framework and aims to cover new areas on training and assistance for AITI on high-speed broadband network and services, collaboration in internationalisation programs for Brunei-based info-communications start-ups to understand market dynamics and connect with key stakeholders in selective emerging markets, public service info-communications projects and other specific telecommunications regulatory issues.

“I am happy that the AITI and IDA collaboration over the years have produced concrete achievements.  I am delighted that we will continue to strengthen the close working relationship with the MOU signing today and collaborate on new ICT initiatives and projects as we tackle the fast changing ICT landscape in our respective countries”, said Haji Yahkup bin Hj Menudin at the MOU signing ceremony.

Mr. Leong Keng Thai, IDA’s Deputy Chief Executive and Director-General (Telecoms and Post), said: “Today’s signing of the new MOU between the AITI and IDA marks another milestone in the close and longstanding relationship between Brunei and Singapore in the field of information and communications technology. This MOU will further deepen our bilateral engagement to deliver mutual benefits to our people and businesses. We look forward to continuing our co-operation with AITI, and growing our collective strength for the betterment of our economy and society, through information technology.”