So Ronaldo is leaving...

£80m is simply is an irresistible offer. Manchester United have agreed to the £80m offer, from Real Madrid, for Cristiano Ronaldo. If the deal does go through, it will be the world record transfer fee. Real Madrid just broke the record by spending £56m on Brazilian midfielder Kaka, now they are going to splash the cash on Ronaldo.

So he is leaving

Ronaldo arrived at Man Utd for £12m in 2003. And in his career at Man Utd, Ronaldo has won the Fifa World Player the year in 2008. To me, Ronaldo is a great player and it is definitely not going to be easy to find a replacement to fill his role. However, despite his footballing brilliance, he is pretty much flawed with his short-temper and arrogance. He is now playing at his peak and £80m is simply too good a deal to reject. I am sure selling him is a good piece of business.

First H1N1 case in Singapore

A female SMU student, who had just returned from New York, is the first confirmed case of H1N1 in Singapore. She was in New York from May 14—24. She arrived back in Singapore on SQ25 on 26 May at 6.30am and was seated at Row 55. She developed a cough onboard the plane but has no fever and thus she past the thermal scanners in the airport. She is now in Tan Tock Seng Hospital and is in stable condition.

I always thought it was a matter of time for this virus to get to Singapore. And now it has really came to Singapore.

Vista SP2 is out

After a long wait, SP2 is finally released

I am not a fan of Windows Vista, but to be frank, Microsoft had made vast improvements on this OS with its previously released SP1. And since then I have been waiting for its SP2.

Some notable SP2 changes:
- Includes ability to record data to Blu-Ray Disc media.
- Improves performance for Wi-Fi connections.
- Includes Windows Search 4.0, with improved indexing and search relevance.
- Address overall Vista system performance issues. Microsoft says SP2 repairs nearly 700 nagging Vista bugs and security updates.
- Boosts power management efficiency by 10 percent.

I feel it will be a great patch and is looking forward to finish installing it. Will review its performance after installation. Stay tune.

YouTube getting bigger, but is it getting more profitable?

In mid-2007, six hours of video were being uploaded to the site every minute. It grew to 15 hours in January of this year and now stands at 20 hours a minute, YouTube said.

20 hours of videos uploaded every minute

We can see an exponential growth of videos being uploaded to the site, but Google has yet to make profit from YouTube. Google bought YouTube in 2006 for 1.65 billion dollars and after 3 years, they have yet to recover their investment. As more videos are uploaded, it is clear that maintenance costs are getting higher. If profit is not coming in, will YouTube be able to sustain in the long run? Having more videos doesn't really mean higher popularity and profit. And with more video uploading sites on the rise, I think YouTube might face difficulties in the future.

Manchester United are the champions!

Fans like me endured a difficult 90 mins in today's game between Man Utd and Arsenal. Man Utd need just a point (a draw) to be crowned the champions of the Barclays Premier League 08/09. Although Man Utd have some decent chances of scoring, it was Arsenal that dominated play and possessions.

I have to admit that Arsenal played remarkably well and Man Utd is somewhat fortunate to get a point after a goalless draw. Man Utd did not even get a single shot on target in this game. But I believe that is not going to concern fans as Man Utd has successfully clinched the title. With this result, Man Utd won their 18th Premier League title and that brings them on par with Liverpool's record. I think all eyes will now be set on the European Champions League Final between Man Utd and Barcelona on 27 May 2009. Will Man Utd win a consecutive Champions League title?

Mas Selamat is caught and I am back

Hi all! I am back after a tough and busy week of intense coding and project meetings. Now I am happy that I am officially on summer holidays. Well, the news which caught my eyes in these couple of days is definitely the re-arrest of Mas Selamat.

After escaping from Whitley Road Detention Centre more than 1 year ago, Mas Selamat is finally caught in Malaysia. Singapore would of course welcome the arrest of Mas Selamat, who once planned to hijack and crash a plane into Changi Airport. But the Singapore government would be most relieved by the re-capture of the JI leader. The escape of the Mas Selamat is certainly one of the most embarrassing incident in the whole of Singapore history. No one in Singapore would have imagined that such an notorious criminal could escape detention by climbing out thru the toilet window. The re-capture of Mas Selamat will certainly salvage some "face" for the Singapore government.