Lester & I just came back from Barcamp Singapore II, an event generously organized by the awesome people over at E27, PHP Usergroup as well as Garag3.

Andrew McGlinchey (Geo Product Manager for SE Asia, Google Singapore) started the Unconference by sharing with us the cool things developers have created using the Google Maps API as well as the new features that Google Maps are now sporting.

He also talked briefly on the whole Google Maplets API, and showed us this cool demo of a mash-up of two maplets which allows one to find the nearest hotels based on a street name/area and then calculate the distance between that hotel and any other landmark or position in the map.

Gerald Lim, Chief Technology Officer from Bak2u then proceeded on next, to talk about Mobile Security and why it is so important in today’s day and age.

We then broke into 2 breakout groups, one focusing on Mobile applications and the other on Webapps using Google Map’s API. We decided to attend the mobile application track as we felt that it was more interesting.

Watching all presentations by Widgeo.us, Tencube, MobileSorcery & Cinepura, really got us thinking about how can we push our company one step further. How can we differentiate from the already saturated hosting industry here.

We were really excited about Tencube & Cinepura. Tencube is basically a mobile security company, similar to the Bak2u guys, but we felt that Tencube have a really slick and aesthetically pleasing UI to their web application. Basically, Tencube installs a software on your mobile phone, which you can then control remotely online through their web application. Their service allows you to lock the phone, send out an alarm, backup your contacts, data and relevant information onto their web application and then re-downloads it to a new phone, as well as completely wipeout your phone in the event of theft.

Although there were many physical limitations to their software, like people just doing a hard-reset and having full access to the phone, we thought that the ability to store your phone contacts online and then sync it to another new phone (in the event that the lost phone is no longer recoverable), is something to lookout for.

Cinepura on the other hand is basically a simple web-based application that is optimized for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It allows users to find out Cinema showtimes for the day as well as display IMDB ratings for the movie. So no longer do you have to manually look through the different films on IMDB just to grab the ratings. Everything is sorted by IMDB rating on Cinepura.

I don’t think many people know this, but we at FRRO, are also involved in web-development as well as web-design work. So if you guys have any web development work that needs to get done, drop us an e-mail. We’re available for hire and we do development mainly in PHP/mySQL.

We’d also like to hear comments from you on features or quirks that you think we can improve on or implement on FRRO.

Lets get in touch.

Tim Johnson, a Product Marketing Manager at Google, had recently introduced a new application called the Google Web Security for Enterprise. Powered by Postini and featuring a jem or two from Scansafe, this software is supposedly able to cater to businesses of all sizes, irregardless of their needs.

Google Web Security for Enterprise protects organizations of all sizes against web malware attacks in real time and enables the safe, productive use of the web, without incurring hardware, upfront capital, or IT management costs. The product enables organizations to control how employees use the Internet, and provides easy-to-use tools to create, enforce, and monitor the right web policy for your organization. Now, through a new add-on feature, we’re extending that security to users wherever they may be working.

Protecting off-network users used to require them to connect via a VPN when they were out of the office — often with mixed results. With this new feature, all off-network users’ web traffic is automatically directed to scanning infrastructure to enforce your policies and protect their computers, requiring no action on the part of individuals. It’s easy to deploy and users can’t tamper with it, ensuring your security and appropriate use policies are always in place.

Here are a few screenshots to pique your curisiousity:

On a hindsight, it will be worthy to note that Postini was snapped up by Google back in Q3 2007 for US$625-million. Here’s the welcome note written by David Girouard on the arrival of Portini aboard the Google vessel.

TechRepublic’s first weekly video show, Screensavers for IT Executive, focuses on identifying 5 warning signs that CIO may not be the best career goal for you.

Welcome to the first episode of TechRepublic’s new weekly video show, Sanity Savers for IT Executives. This show will provide actionable tips for CIOs, IT directors, and other senior IT leaders to help them become more effective leaders, make good technology decisions, align IT and business goals, and better manage their teams of IT professionals. We’ll also provide tips aimed new IT at leaders to help them get a jump on the path to success.

At the same page, there are links to an accompanying article, “10 signs that you aren’t cut out to be a CIO”

Interestingly enough, by a sheer coincidence, we were going through this whole debate about choosing between being a technical specialist/professional and being a manger/CIO in class.

So if you’re in the IT line, this article/videoshow is quite an insightful look into what you should be expecting if you’re looking to take up a managerial position in the IT industry.

tunesBag is a fresh approach to listen to your music anytime and anywhere. Just fire up your browser and indulge in your eclectic music taste – or in those of your friends. Yes, we all love our iPod – but it doesn’t allow for sharing. Not only does music sound better if it’s shared with friends; tunesBag has all the funky bells and whistles that you would expect ‐ plus that extra bit more to make it different.

Founded by 27-year old Hansjörg Posch, tunesBag is currently in closed beta and is free-to-use at the moment. However, there is a chance that it may charge a premium fee once it is opened for public usage. You may want to read up on the development blog, sign up with its Google Group; or simply follow their progress on Twitter.

In January this year, a non-profit organization representing independent music labels, called Merlin, issued an open invitation for independent music labels to join them so as to create the fifth largest record label after bigwigs like EMI, Warner Music etc.

This is so that they can have better bargaining power at negotiation tables with online music stores like iTunes. In the past, it can be a hassle for online music stores to carry indie music labels’ records as they have to deal with the countless labels individually, creating a large overhead on costs.

Merlin, hopes that by teaming up, they’d be able to sign more deals, on behalf of the thousands of independently owned music labels, with big distributors so that their music can be distributed online and compete on equal ground with the major labels.

Ars.Technica writes that Merlin has already gotten 12,000 labels on board.

From Merlin Network:

Merlin exists because the independents need their own body to ensure their interests are properly represented by an organisation focused wholly on their sector. Independents work in a incredibly competitive environment, ruled by shrinking physical sales, a digital market that is not replacing the fall in revenues, and where independent’s ability to compete is being eroded by the major corporations that dominate the market, from both the supply and retail side.

Merlin is not an aggregator or distributor. Its remit is to represent its members in new media deals that can’t be easily negotiated locally or individually or are not covered adequately by existing arrangements.

Merlin also does not operate in the space occupied by Collecting Societies, rather Merlin aims to address the gap between what these societies are able to offer their members and what labels and aggregators can achieve individually.

Merlin is a stand-alone body and a sister organisation
to the Worldwide Independent Network (WIN).

Not only that, it looks like grassroot activities for independent music labels have been increasing, with the latest one (at least to me) being Slicethepie.com. In the past, musicians have to struggle to raise funds so that they can send their music for recording. With the power of the internet, Slicethepie helps bring the struggle online to a wider audience.

At Slicethepie, artists basically upload demos of their music onto the website and readers of the site basically rate each track. The top 20 rated artists will then move onto a section of the site called Showcase, where fans can help to finance these artists by buying “Backstage Passes”. These “Passes” can then be used to claim a free copy of the album when its recorded.

The cool thing about the site is that, it seems to introduce social lending into the concept of supporting independent artists. Fans can also buy “Contracts” from artists which will entitle them to returns based on the number of singles and albums sold by the artists in a 2 year period.

So if you’re a local artist, why not give it a shot, who knows your bedroom music could just be the next international sensation. I hope as technology grows, the Davids in the music industry will finally be able to take down the Goliaths.