Libra

I discovered this gem of a utility yesterday night. It is something I have been looking out for in quite a while, and I am simply astonished that this particular version I found can be so full featured - and FREE!

If you have a considerable collection of books (as I do), and you have been thinking of cataloguing them inside a personal electronic database, but you never got around to doing it because you simply don't have the time to input all those information into the computer, then Libra could just be the program you have been waiting for.

The "smarts" of the Libra program is that instead of entering all the voluminous book details of each book (book title, author, synopsis etc), you enter just the ISBN number (a 10 digit or 13 digit number that uniquely identifies every publication) into the program. Libra uses the ISBN number to cull all the nitty-gritty details of the book from the Amazon.com database, and transfers this information into your own personal database! Because Libra will also pull the book jacket image from Amazon, your book collection is presented in a very pleasing fashion as the following screen capture will attest:

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/njwong88/Libra/photo#5111727272205672498

As you can see from the image, Libra can also catalogue music CDs (the 3 titles on the bottom shelf). Libra can also catalogue video DVDs. (The titles in the screen capture are some books/music in my personal collection. You can click the "View largest photo" link to see the book/CD titles more clearly if you want to know what I have been reading during the past few months )

The program is dirt easy to use and requires no tutorial. And despite its already outstanding feature set, the author has even included a feature which allows you to use your webcam to "scan" the ISBN barcode instead of typing in the 10-digit (or 13-digit) number manually. However, I couldn't test this capability as I don't own a webcam (currently).

Amazingly, this program is developed by a Singaporean company (CodeJam Pte Ltd at Noel Building in Playfair Road). It is sad that instead of reading about this amazing-amazing software from this local company from our veritable Straits Times, I have to learn about it from an American

You can download Libra (and read a much better sales pitch of it) from here:

http://www.getlibra.com/

Remember to click the "About Us" link to read the authors' humorous description about themselves...

Mormonism

There are many branches of Christianity, each having a slightly different tenet from the other. For example:

• Catholicism
• Protestant
• Presbyterianism
• Anglicanism
• Methodist
• Baptist
• Pentecostalism
• Charismatics
• Quakers
• Sunday Adventists

This is just a few of the denominations with churches in Singapore. According to the Wikipedia, there may be as many 300 Christian denominations in the world [link].

However, one of the strangest is that of Mormonism (also called the Latter Day Saints). Mormonism was only established in the United States in 1830, but has a very controversial history because its founder, Joseph Smith, claims to be a latter day prophet who had spoken personally to both the Christian God as well as his son Jesus Christ, and that they had told him to establish a new religion because none of the churches then were practising Christianity correctly. The story of the creation of the Mormon's sacred text, The Book of Mormon, is also one laced with incredulity.

South Park has a segment that accurately portrays how the Mormon religion was founded. As you watch it, you will understand why I find it absolutely amazing that intelligent people today can believe this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTeMEGG4U98

For example, one of the US presidential candidates for 2008 is Mitt Romney, who is a Mormon. Another famous Mormon is the best selling science fiction author Orson Scott Card.

If you are interested, you can read more about Mormonism from this Wikipedia entries:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Mormon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Smith,_Jr.

Straits Times Forum - Charging laptops in the Community Centre

The Straits Times published one of my letters to the Forum (its in the Online edition and not the Print Edition). Read it if you are interested in my say:

http://www.straitstimes.com:80/ST%2BForum/Online%2BStory/STIStory_153523.html

I really loved the comments, especially the contrarian viewpoints that were offered. It is extremely interesting how very differently people can interpret my short letter from my original intention. When I wrote the letter, my thought processes were this:

- It only costs pennies to power laptops.

- There are more electricity draining equipment such as air-conditioners which are MUCH MUCH more expensive to run compared to laptops.

- CCs are funded by government money for the benefit of the public, especially poorer people. Come on, the Singapore government is super-duper rich. Just look at the PM's million dollar monthly salary. Why besmirch users for tapping into the power socket to power their battery drained laptops when it only cost pennies?

- I was also thinking in terms of the convenience provided to the casual user who may need to recharge his laptop once in a while. I am actually very thankful when I am outside to be able to find a place to charge my laptop battery so that I can continue using my laptop - especially at the end of the day (no thanks to lousy battery technology, most laptop battery can only hold 2 hours of charge). I sometimes do this at fast food restaurants (thanks, McDonalds).

- I am thus in favour that the publicly funded Community Centres allow users to recharge their laptops, and would like to encourage this behaviour.

Obviously, free facilities given in good faith should not be abused. Many critics against my letter state that providing free laptop charging will be abused by the public (and they really draw it to extreme conclusions). Unfortunately, the Singapore Government has been quite effective in teaching everyone that nothing is free (e.g. to get your free CPF $400 top ups during election year, you first have to put in $50 into your CPF account :-) ) and that free things will be abused.

Personally, I think we can encourage altruism in our society and not think so negatively about so many things. Call me the optimist :-)