CEO, David Conner, explains OCBC's system outage on 13 Sep 2011

	As the holder of one OCBC Visa card, I received this email from OCBC yesterday evening on behalf of the good man.
	Dear Customer, I owe you an explanation of what caused our systems to go down last week along with an update as to where we are now. Since cutting over to our back-up system mid-day on Tuesday, 13 September, our information technology team focused their efforts on identifying the root cause of the technical problem which caused our banking channels to go down from 9:00 am for more than three hours - services were restored progressively from 12.20 pm and were fully operational by 1.00 pm. Our team was determined to find and fix the problem so as to ensure there would be no repeat channel outage. After reviewing several possible causes, the team isolated a network device that did not function well. This device acted in combination with a parameter setting in the main banking system to trigger a suspension of the system’s network communications. This situation in turn affected our ATM network, branches, and internet and mobile banking channels island wide. Our team took the time to identify the fault, simulate it and repeat the simulation to confirm that they had indeed identified the exact cause of the technical problem. This deliberate process was followed so as to ensure that we rectified the problem correctly and, in so doing, would prevent any future recurrence. After implementing the repair, our team tested our main system thoroughly to ensure that it was working well and then returned our technology operations from our backup system to our main system over this past weekend. The service outage did not meet our commitment of having our channels operating for you at all times. This is unacceptable. Again, I apologize for any inconvenience that this incident caused you. I am grateful for your patience and understanding during the time our systems were down and thank you for banking with OCBC.
	Yours sincerely David Conner, CEO
	Who could hold a grudge against OCBC with such a letter written? Perhaps it was easy for me to say as I was not affected by the downtime at all, however he was sincere and admitted to the company's mistake to the point he knew it was unacceptable. Let's hope that such a incident will not happen again or it would definately tarnish OCBC's trust and David Conner's name. Anyone out there affected by the OCBC downtime in Singapore?

FAST FOOD WAR COME ON NOW!!!!

UPDATE!!!!

When Mac comes out with a 1-for-1 deal to the alldealsready Singaporeans,

Trust the king to come up with something EVEN better, burgers at a dollar, its a buy 1 get maybe 3 more free!
And this is what the king in the midst of its 'never-chicken-out' campaign said on FB:

Why settle for better when you can make it EVEN better? The King takes pride in 100% flame grilled burgers and believes that everyone should have it the REAL way. To prove his point.......because the King never chickens out of challenges. And real flames.

This is outright war against McGrill!!! I hope macdolnalds respond, and we can have the greatest fast food war of all times! I hope KFC and Texas Chicken joins in too! Not to forget LJS!

My admiration for BK marketing department had just hightened once again.

Bukit Timah Hike!

Siong took a day off from work to help me out my flea. The booking did not went through thought and we went hiking at Bukit Timah Hill instead!!! Boy has it been long since I last stepped foot on Singapore's tallest hill! The terrians and tracks have changed slightly, but I am glad the things I like: - the fresh air and greenery, the permanantly good weather among the forestation and not to mention, the gushing stream of cooling clear water along the Jungle Fall Path.

History of Bukit Timah Nature Reserve
Bukit Timah was one of the first reserves established in 1883. All the reserves were worked for timber except for Bukit Timah. In 1951, the reserve was further protected by legislation and is now adminstered by NParks.

And this is the route we took

1. South View Path
2. Catchmeet Path
3. Resticted/ Blocked up routes =P
4. Diary Farm Loop
5. Seraya Loop
6. Jungle Fall Path

We hiked about 3 hours in all, and here's some pictures!

Helpful monkeys helping each other with grooming,and the most adorable monkey with his usual antics =)You get to see strange wonders of nature if you take the nature paths... and enjoy the cooling nature walk with occasional burst of warm sunshine from a break in the canopy.
Towards the end of the route along the jungle fall path, a refeshing stream of clear cooling water serves as a great reward from the long hike and exercise =)And after going round and round the nature reserve, we finally reached the summit! At 163.63m high... TADA!!!! After disembarkment from the summit, we had a full lunch with fishball noodle, char kuay tiao and nasi lemak, lots of sugar cane drinks and a cooling avocado sea coconut for dessert!

Then a good rest treating our sore legs and tired bodies =P

SUPER Happy National Day 2010!!!!

It was homemake pancakes in the morning with some burnt ones....Siong brought me to ECP for some fun before he starts work officially... he makes good effort to keep his girl happy! He tried roller blading for the first time. I was the better one there and became his walking stick for a beginner. I saved him many times but he still had a couple of falls (Ai yo yo....) but still came out unscathed, save for some muscle sores at the end of the day. Blading @ East coast was fun (during national day), even if Siong probably scared the wits out of the people behind him by many near-trips... He got me thinking how cool it'll be to be dancing and blading at the same time! Siong brought me to his grandparents place in my short shorts, I hope I havent made a bad first impression! We also managed a trip to 1-Altitude gallery @ One Raffles Place - the best view I've seen in SG so far! Everything was BELOW us! And to end the night, a nice instant noodle meal (which Siong disrupted the cooking process and the hotdogs exploded and the brocolli melted) and a cheesy desert with his family. Great way to spend national day metinks too :DDD

I did this post in 5 mins.., a template was provided by dear Siong!!!! Kekekekeee!

And everything was picture perfect!

I'm falling I'm Falling!!!!!Yun to the rescue!!!! =pAt one altitute, we were greated by people in red shirts at the 63rd floor.
And an amazing view from the 64th storey!

I can pick up the IR with my fingers!

Shawn's height was just nice for the view. I had to jump or look through the glass! There's aircon in the toilet or it will become like an oven!

And I'm a happy girl with Helium Balloons!!!!

I am summarising my April. Everything's jumbled up and I really don't know if they are in the correct order, so the picture sequences below are by no means any form of suggestions in terms of timeline. This is the Citron hand cream that I got from Crantree and Evelyn and I am in love with it. Not only does it do its job of keeping your hands soft and smooth, it has a refreshing citron smell that makes me wonder if the company should invest in produing perfume as well. It's in my bag everyday since the day I owed it! Jessica got the rosewater hand cream from the same company for her 21st Bday last year. It smells great too, though not as nice as my citron one =P

We had lunch Shokudo at City Hall after abit of shopping. Mine was too dry and not as delicious as it looked, but Jessica's chicken as holy good. I'm gonna have the same thing as Jess the next time I visit Shokudo again! Or may Jess wanna eat there again too? =DDD

I finally had my Pedicure done to get rid of the pile of dry skin I have at my heels that is causing me alot of itchiness and frustration. It was a ' Buy a classic pedicure and get a express manicure free with 4 nail arts'. I added a scrub too just to pamper myself =P. The service and skill did match the cheap offer though. The pedicurist made a hard poke into my cuticle and caused some minor bleeding while the manicurist did a terrible painting job, not putting on the base coat before applying my OPI and I could see the two layers of blue very distinctively. The OPI (surprisingly) caused my nails to peel two weeks after I removed the badly chipped nailpolish.

Some left over packed lunch I made for a kite flying occasion organised by the Taman Jurong adventure club. It's really a wrap just that I had sooooo much left over 'liao' the prata was not big enough to wrap everything, it became more like a thin crust pizza instead.Had a cheesecake and TWO root beer floats after kite flying that day. That was the last time I had a cake. THAT WAS TWO WEEKS AGO!!! I NEED MY CAKES!!!! CHEESECAKE!!!! MAYBE FROM BAKERZINE!!! *super obvious hint hint*It's the exam period and of course, (although I only have but ONE paper this sem =DDD) HOW CAN EXAMS EVER COMPLETE W/O A DAY STUDYING AT MY SECREAT HIDING PLACE?! =D The menu had changed and for some reasons I forgot to take the lunch, but I had this new dessert! Hot choc mud pie with two servings of vanilla ice cream. Sweet and YUMMY! way to reward myself and Shawn!

Patience!

When did food at Quad looked sooooooo fulfilling and appetizing? =D

A relaxing day at another of my favourite hideout after exams. It's different from coffee nations as this is really a place away from books and studies. Only magazines or day dreaming about setting foot on a cruise allowed here! (at least for me!) The food here is slendid too, I'm gonna come here more often!

A pretty and splendid tea break at TCC only AN HOUR after a full TeoChew Porridge lunch and only ANHOUR or so before a 2 hour dance practice. Surprisingly, it was the most ordinary scrones with their accompanying jams that I find the most tasty. I have ran out of my limited vocab to describe food, so I now pass on to the pictures to say their thousand words la.

I don't think this is a nice picture of myself with a failed attempt to look cool, but I do think I look like some Nihon Oonano Hito stick in the bamboo forest. This is taken at Esplanade though and the Bamboo structures and designs are real cool. Go there and take pictures!

There was this particular picture of a particular meal that I had really really REALLY wanted to take but didn't not was this dish from New York New York called Steamed Fish in Butter or something like that. The reason being, it looked too good that my hands could not fight the temptation of picking up the fork and knife in oppose to picking up my hp camera, and after a mouth of the juicy heavenly fish that LITERALLY melts in your mouth, that makes your eyes squish,the sides of your mouth unknowingly going up, and your eyebrows lifted, I could not put down the utensils I have in my hands to pick up the cam. Was too busy.

Also, THANK YOU NK and Alice for helping me with my Jap 2!!!! VERY VERY VERY Much appreciated!!! =D

This week

I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves with abit of captions.


Chincuinilllalaala or smth ( Coffee with peach alcohol and honey) at ******* *******. The reason I'm not saying - I'm a selfish ass who wants to keep this quiet place that I really like all to myself. =P The caramel buscuit is really good too.

Some shop that found trading vintage and interesting antiques.

Look what I found! Too bad the shop is close.

A visit to the Bird Park last sunday with my free pair of tickets!!!! Check out the videos below too!

NK's so tall and wearing a brown polo tee, the birds prob tot he was a walking tree.

Hey you! No looking at other guys!

Morton's Steakhouse on Thursday Night. Love it, so Not gonna tell the exact location too =P I probably forgot what's the hotel's name anyway ... *hint* hAHahahh!

FREE FLOW Mini Steak Burgers so good you won't believe your tastebuds and want to try more to make sure your tongue isin't making any mistakes. We did! The guys had more than us coz the lady who'e serving us is a LADY.

GImme some toO!!!

Ok it's all jumbled up. This was supposed to be before mortons. A cheesecake after a hard day's work. And I like working with XY! =D

The LOAD.