I read a lot and i read a lot of various topics from politics, technologies, sports to any interesting reads. And like most techies, a big chunk of my reading is done online. With me doing my Masters, i need to read even more. So i always wish that there is a tool that i can use to summarize a long document to a few key points (Being a techie, naturally i rely on technology). My wish sort of come true, when i stumble upon this website call GreatSummary.

It provides a tool with some algorithm to summary an article to a few key points.

Some info from the site on how it works

How GreatSummary Works
GreatSummary uses a patent pending algorithm to identify the major topics in a document.

This is a summary how the highlights look like

So I’ve tested it out, some sites it does works well. On some sites the outputs are not satisfactory. I guess i can’t be too demanding since it’s still on the beta stage. But give it a try, I find it useful to give me a preview of the document without dwelling too long into it.

Thanks to James Yeang who posted this tool in his blog.

US President Barack Obama really impress me in the way he uses the internet to win the US election. I read in the news on how he successfully digitized his efforts in promoting his ideas and vision to the public. Since my current passion is to really study digital marketing, this will definitely be an area i want to study on.

After some searching, I finally found an analysis of how Obama uses that. To me this is a perfect document on how small businesses can leverage on digital marketing to promote their products against the big guys in the market.

I haven’t started reading it, but will do soon. But i would like to share it to everyone who’s interested. Here’s the document “Social Pulpit”

Thanks to Guy Kawasaki for in showing the report in his blog and Edelman for compiling the report.

Recently I’ve been participating in many activities that involves in entrepreneurship or should i say the promotion of entrepreneurship. It’s always a fun and inspiring thing to do to talk to people who is so passionate and innovative.

I find entrepreneurs naturally very positive. They must be, else they will just stay employed.

I have many friends who have made it and many more who are just learning the trade. One thing i find very refreshing, in our country there are many opportunities for entrepreneurs to learn and get pre-seed funding.

Here are some of organization, clubs and events that is full of opportunities and information to help fellow entrepreneurs.

GEW (Global Entrepreneur Week)

Here’s some info about what’s GEW about

For one week, millions of young people around the world will join a growing movement to generate new ideas and to seek better ways of doing things. Dozens of countries are coming together for the first time to host Global Entrepreneurship Week, a global initiative to inspire young people to embrace innovation, imagination and creativity. To think big. To turn their ideas into reality.

Cradle

Interested in getting 150K to fund your ideas? Cradle is the place to go. If you have a good idea, check it out there. You will need to write a business plan and submit via their website. You don’t need to be an IT company. Any ideas that relates to technology. Check it out at the Cradle website

MDEC

Similar to Cradle, you can get 150K to fund your ideas. MDEC work closely with Microsoft in promoting this to technopreneurs. Go to one of their events and check it out. Here’s the link where you can go. Microsoft Malaysia’s Innovation Day

Celcom Challenge

Another program by Celcom partnering with Cradle. You can get funding for you mobile ideas which will be the next big wave of innovation.

Malaysia Association of Creativity and Innovation (Macri)

Ok, you know there’s opportunities outside. How do you write the “right” business plan to get the necessary funding. Here’s where Macri can help. It is basically an inventor and entrepreneur club that you can go there to ask information about:

how to get Cradle/MDEC funding

IP protection

and various challenges that an entrepreneur might face

Go to their Macri’s website and join the Macri’s Facebook group

In my line of work, I do need to work with people from different time zones. Adding a different time zone can really helps to manage the time differences.

To add a new time zone. Go to Tools menu > click Options > Under Calendar . Calendar options

Under Advance options > Click Time Zone > select the Show an additional time zone check box. In the Label box, type a description such as “Houston”. In the time zone list, click the Time Zone and click “Ok”

An additional time zone will appear next to your default time zone

It is the first time for me to have my “face” in a magazine. Being a person who prefers to stay out of all this, it took me a long time and much persuasion from friends to put my picture in the article. As they say, people attached credibility when they can put a face to what people write. So being a pragmatic person, just “la” do it lo

So this here’s my first article, about a Silverlight technogy with Deep Zoom feature. It allows you to zoom in to your pictures. 

You can download the softcopy here but the best way is. Buy a copy of HWM magazine; it features damn cool stuff about happenings in the IT world.
Here’s some links that you could checkout that I mentioned in the article

• HardRock Memorabilia
• My Own Photozoom album. (Cool wedding pictures courtesy of Daren Chong)

To view this, download Silverlight and here’s the softcopy of my Silverlight with DeepZoom article

Here are some snapshots of my article.

DeepZoom Tech

Hardrock - Best example of DeepZoom Technoglogy

Some steps on how to do DeepZoom

Just read some articles that Obama’s inauguration will be stream using Microsoft’s Silverlight technology…

Silverlight has been chosen to stream U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s swearing-in ceremony live on the Presidential Inaugural Committee’s Web site. Microsoft is also working with CNN using its Photosynth technology. Check it out @ Silverlight to Stream Obama’s Inauguration and Microsoft, CNN team up to make historians out of inaugural attendees

Watch Obama here @ http://www.pic2009.org/content/home/

Microsoft is having an event this Friday, 23rd Jan. Its all about how to write secure codes for your .NET applications. So for those folks who don’t need to balik “kampung” check it out.

Visit the link here to register yourself. http://www.microsoft.com/malaysia/events/devseminar/

I know i have not been updating my slides lately. Its really a very hectic few weeks for me as I spend a lot of time finishing up my presentation for a big event – Technet MSDN.

It was really a “good” experience because its the first time in my life that i need to present to 360 -380 people. Here’s the link to my slides for both events

Innovation Day – Building Interactive Applications with Visual Studio 2008

Technet MSDN – WPF & Silverlight – Sharing Skills and Codes

For those of you who wants to have the demo that i use in Technet MSDN. Check out Scot Gu’s blog . I “borrowed” his sample =)

If you are like me, my Outlook mail have too many folders storing different types of emails. Searching for your folders can be messy.

Here are some tips on how to add your frequently use folder in your favourite list.

Favorite folders are shortcuts to your most commonly used folder. Think of it the same as your desktop shortcut. To create a favorite folder, simply drag any folder up to the Favorite Folders area and drop it.

Remember though, if you drag “too many” favorite folders then you will end up with the same problem. So it should some selected folders that you always use

Favorite Folders in Outlook

The next time you need to access the folder, just click on the favorite folder.

To remove a favorite folder, just right click and select “Remove from favorite folders”. Do not, do not delete as it will delete the original folder as well