Musings by Grace Chng

So since Monday evening, I’ve been in Helsinki. Nice city, small and compact. Don’t need a lot of time to walk around the city.

Couple of things we (journalists from Indonesia and Thailand) noticed - plenty of cyclists but no motorcyclists. Well, I saw only 2 in 2 days. City streets are also paved in cobble stones which is a nice touch but what a rough time for the cars.

Talking about cars, one taxi I was in was a 7 series beemer! Well taken care of too. Volvo station wagons, volvo sedans and mercs were also driven by taxi drivers. Which makes for a safe ride, I suppose.

The hotel we’re staying in was Radisson by the seaside. It’s just across the sea. I could see big passenger cum vehicle ferries berthed there. Morning walks by the water front is really nice. Temperature was below 10degree C in the mornings but in the afternoons, it’s up to 20degrees. It’s autumn and the leaves on the trees are nice hues of purple, orange and red.

My fellow Thai and Indonesian reporters wondered why they didn’t see any porters and housekeepers. Quite odd because in Asia, we see them helping guests or going about doing their cleaning. Then I realised that the receptionists also doubled up as porters! It’s all DIY over in Finland.

Why were we in Helsinki? To visit Nokia, of course. Nokia house is in a quiet suburb by the Baltic Sea. Within 100m there’s a marina with boats tied up to it. My Nokia  contact says people boat to work. How about that? No traffic jams and you can feel the sea breeze in your face!

Nokia house is a nice building, all glass - all the better to catch the sunlight to warm up the building. Work-life balance seems to be the big thing here. We see people leaving office from 4pm. But then, I was told they start work early, 6.30am…..

Note: pix of helsinki coming up tomorrow. Can’t download photos at airport terminals.

I listen to podcasts downloaded from iTunes (yup, I’m the few lucky ones who registered on itunes US site before they slammed the door on registrations outside of the US) and I enjoy them.

They are usually podcasts of panel discussions and seminars held at Stanford, MIT or Harvard. Usually about tech of course. So I’ve listened to Mark Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt etc. Very useful.

Why then do people not listen to podcasts? Is it so difficult to do? At iTunes you browse through the lists. At other sites you follow, you download the audio file to the computer and then transfoer to the MP3 player.

Pew Internet’s report on podcasts showed that 19% of all Internet users listened to podcasts, up from 12% reported in August 2006. (Go here if you want to read the report http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/261/report_display.asp). Puzzles me why people don’t listen to podcasts?

It brings to you “live” information that you don’t have a chance to go to. Maybe the process is still too difficult. Also, you can start learning quite of lot of things from 101 in philosophy to genetics.

I guess, people are really lazy or are we not really a digital nation?

Many friends have asked how I manage 4 pets. Well, apart from the exercise, you need to know what they want and need. Yes, you’ve to pander to their desires!

Latte, the eldest at 8.5 years old and 27kg, was the leave-me-alone till I need you type. Meaning she doesn’t need the hugs. All she wants is to go out, be a “gila babi”, and run her lungs out. Loves swimming, most happy at retrieving a frisbee at the sentosa beach. After all, she’s a labrador retriever. In the last 24 months, her behaviour has changed. She’s now more needy, wants attention and seeks it. She’s hogging the entrance to the bedroom cos she wants to sleep inside - on the bed - if she can help it.  Guess she has taken the cues from her “ti-ti”, Uno.

Now, that is the most lovable, handsome boy dog in the world (which parent doesn’t think like this, huh??). Uno at 7.5 years old, has big eyes that just swallows you up. Everything about him is cute, from his ears to his big coconut head to the way he sits, drinks water and sleeps. Best of all, he loves the huddle and cuddle ie, he comes up on the sofa with me and we huddle, he on my chest and my head on his.  At about 10pm each night, he’ll come to the living room and looks for a sofa to sleep. I’ll have to clear one sofa quickly otherwise he’ll sleep on the paper, books or anything that’s on it. Uno, like Latte, is a brown labrador retriever, weighing in at 28kg

Sandy, at 4.5 years old, is a golden retriever. His parents split up and he landed up in my home. She’s also sleep-all-day type, leave-me-alone type. Except when she wants to play, then she brings the ball to me and stares at me until I chase her. Best of all, she curls up on my footstool (it’s a big one) and sleeps on my feet.

Zach, the latest addition, is a wee lad whose parents gave him up because he’s getting too growly and snarly and snappy. Well, in preventing a child from getting near him, I got on the wrong end of him and came away with a bloody finger. He’s better after 2 months with me, still a bit anxious. But he’s happiest when he can go “jalan-jalan” in the car. I’ve also learnt how to interpret his happy growl from his go-away growl!

So bonding with Latte is when I take her for our twice-a-week walk-run at botanics. With Uno, it’s the huddle and cuddle which is a nightly routine. With Sandy, it’s her curling up at my feet and sleeping on them. With Zach …. sigh, only time will tell whether I’ll be the chick of his life.

I’ve been having a little problem - well, not little when u can’t access Internet signals in my home. I’m on a wireless network using Apple’s time capsule which is both a N router and a hard disk. Altho’ it’s a N router, I get intermittent signals from my study which is 6 walls away in a L-shaped corridor.

Sometimes I’m lucky I get 1 bar of the signal, but it drops often. The best time is at night when the signals are strongest but only when my neighbour upstairs switches off his signals. Why I know it’s my neighbour’s signals? Well, his signals are strongest above my bedroom - so strong that it knocks out my own wireless bubble.

I can’t do without Internet so I’ve subscribed to mobile broadband - really good deal from STarhub in a promotion last month. First 3 months free cos there’s maxonline subscription in my house and thereafter 50 % discount for 2 years. Under $40 a month for internet on the go.

I’ve tried it at cafes and it’s wonderful not having to try endlessly trying to get on to wireless@sg.

Finally  I can surf on the iPhone using 3G. Guess what was causing the problem? My home wireless settings. It was in conflict with the device.

Singtel was equally perplexed. The product manager tapped away furiously and was about to give up when she gave it one last shot. “I hope your remember your home wireless settings password,” she said. “I’m going to wipe it out as a last try.”

She did and it worked. First time she saw this problem, she added.

Since the wi-fi surfing at public places is fine, I now have to re-configure my home wireless setting and HOPEFULLY, there’ll be no conflict. I’m crossing my fingers.

As to why I took so long to get this solved… well, I wanted to be sure that I’d tried every avenue I knew first before I went to SingTel. I even hooked up with geeky friend Julian to see what could possible have gone wrong.

For people finicky about leaving finger prints on the iPhone’s surface, there’s a special cloth that comes with the phone. I’m sure many noticed it. I didn’t - I don’t read manuals (if the product can’t be used immediately out of the box, I don’t have the time to fiddle with it) and the cloth was right at the bottom of it. It’s quite useful.