The Hong Kong government will hire more contract IT staffers in the next few years, said government CIO Jeremy Godfrey Friday. According to Godfrey, there are currently more than 1,300 IT contract staffers engaged through 10 contractors working in different government departments. He estimated that the government will need an additional 200 contract IT workers. “As one of Hong Kong’s largest users of IT, the government’s IT expenditure has a major impact on the healthy development of the ICT sector. Our strategy for facilitating the ICT sector is twofold,” said Godfrey. “While keeping IT spending at a high level by…
Business
Govt CIO: We need more contract staffers
Business
Reliance insurance bid for Air India unfair: NIACL
NEW DELHI: Public insurer New India Assurance has accused the troubled NACIL of flouting the tender norms for about Rs 45,000-crore insurance cover for Air India’s fleet to favour a consortium led by an Anil Ambani group firm, which refuted the allegation. While NACIL declined to comment on accusations contained in a letter sent to it by New India Assurance, Reliance General Insurance said it had supplied all the information and documents desired by the aviation company for the tender. In its letter to National Aviation of Company of India of India Ltd (NACIL), New India Assurance Co said, “Tender…
Hack
CableCard card tuners on the way
We were momentarily excited when we heard that CableCARD compatible tuners will be available for purchase by the end of the year. A card like this would allow you to hook up your digital cable to your computer and record programs natively. This has been possible for a long time with analog cable and PVR software such as MythTV. Up to this point, recording digital cable has required a dedicated cable box and workarounds to allow the computer to change channels.
Wait a minute though, the announcement was made by Microsoft? Indeed. Microsoft has been making a big push…
Facebook
Non-Profits Participate In Opening Of The Facebook Gift Shop
This morning at Mashable’s Social Good Conference in New York, Facebook marketing and outreach director Randi Zuckerberg spoke about Facebook’s plan to reach out to the world of nonprofit organizations via their Gift Shop. Caroline McCarthy covered the announcement on CNET.
At the conference, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook is going to be reopening their Gift Shop to charity gifts. She said, “We are exploring ways for developers to use the Gift Shop to offer… virtual, real and charity gifts.” Before this morning, Facebook had announced their plan to open the Gift Shop to third party developers looking to make a…
Facebook
Facebook Now Promoting Twitter Export Feature To Page Admins. Are The Two Companies Moving Toward An Open Relationship?
This evening, Facebook began fully promoting the new Twitter syncing tool via the top of Facebook Pages and are encouraging page admins to sync with Twitter. With millions of page administrators (which still appear to be a fraction of all users), this new tool promotion will also serve as a significant promotion for Twitter in general. At this point the service is well known but by launching the product internally and making people say “Why’d they do that?”, Facebook is in essence using Twitter to keep their own company honest.
All along Mark Zuckerberg has been clear about his decision…
Facebook
David Recordon Leaves Six Apart, Joins Facebook
After working closely with Facebook over the past few months, David Recordon has left Six Apart to join the fast growing social platform with the title “Senior Open Programs Manager”. While the title may be a bit ambiguous, it’s clear that he’ll be working with Luke Shepard and others to help integrate open standards into Facebook. Earlier this year when I spoke with Recordon, he appeared pretty excited about Facebook’s continued opening of the platform.
This hire comes with news of others as Spencer Ante reports. According to Ante, Arturo Bejar “will soon join as a director of engineering from…
Hack
Bench power supply adapter
Every electronics workbench could benefit from having a bench power supply. Converting a PC power supply works, but often, it involves splicing wires and limits the supply to only bench use, and building one from scratch is definitely an undertaking. To counter this, [silic0re] and his father came up with a detachable adapter that simply plugs into the existing connectors. The adapter provides posts for four different voltages and can be built in no time. It’s nice to see a solution that will let you use any power supply laying around without having to worry about the dangers of opening…
Facebook
Twitter Striving To Innovate Quicker Than Facebook
This afternoon Twitter announced that geolocation data would now be added to users’ tweets. It’s something that Facebook has actually been discussing for some time off and on but adding such a feature to all feed stories isn’t the easiest process. In the meantime Facebook is still trying to adjust their platform to provide greater access to information. It’s essentially the “out opening” of Twitter, a similar strategy that Google attempted, starting with OpenSocial.
Interestingly enough, the model appears to be working for Facebook. The latest data from comScore suggests that Twitter’s growth took a break for July and the…
Tech Support
Moving WordPress Blog Safely
Moving a blog can make it unreachable for 24 – 72 hours, unless the new domain name has fully propagated around the Internet. It is just the way it is and WordPress doesn’t have anything to do with such limitation. Moving is best done when you have the time or have planned ahead.
Moving Towards a New Domain Name
The first thing to do is create a database back-up. The entire WordPress installation needs to be downloaded with no exceptions. This is not the time to tidy up your install or to upgrade/change anything. That would have to wait after…
Hack
Dry Ice Cannon
sent in his entry into a “creativity contest” at his university. He and some friends put together this dry ice cannon. Take note of the creative mechanism they used to mix the water with the dry ice. A large amount of gas is expelled as soon as the two begin to meet. If the gas is supposed to escape through the same opening, it is difficult to get all the material through. They have added a second opening just for the exhaust during mixing. Great job guys. How about some downloadable plans.
Automotive
Winter Car Care
As the weather turns colder, it is time to think about your carfor a second. A little preparation can go a long way to makingyour winter travels a lot safer. Here is a checklist to get youstarted. .Check the antifreeze. The freezing point can bechecked with a simple tool available at any auto parts store.Make sure you check the antifreeze when it’s cool. Opening a hotradiator can be a dangerous thing. .Check the air pressure inyour tires. As the air gets cooler pressure drops in your tires.Maintaining your tire pressures will reward you with higher gasmileage and longer tire life.…
Life
Write Love Letter
You want to learn to write love letter? Although possible, was considered to be ancient, but I do not have one when we know and can make a romantic love letter. Back to Nature, back to nature, back to the past. Experience how to write a beautiful love letterWell, for those of you who want to learn to make love letter, try the following tips:1. Create the atmosphere that supportsClean your desk, place a picture of you care about in front of you, and play the music you sweetie, you can create rileks. However, to make a sentence-a sentence that…
