Tea with AK71: McDonald's shows us how!

We often come across signs at eateries which say "No studying." Although these signs do the job, they are not very friendly and they do nothing positive for the public image of the establishment as well.

We know the reason for these signs but couldn't they be worded nicely?

A good example of how it should be done!

Thumbs up for McDonald's!

Singapore Airlines: Slow to board the social media flight?

I might be slow here but I only read in The Business Times recently that SIA took over an unofficial facebook page. Apparently, the SIA facebook page was originally set up by fans and had almost 100,000 members.

Until almost two years ago, I didn't really know what was social media. OK, I heard of blogs, which I thought was a classy bog, and Twitter, which I thought was a noisy chatroom, and Facebook, which I thought was a vanity item. Yes, that's me, an IT dinosaur.

After I got the hang of blogging, it took me quite a while to get on Twitter and, more recently, Facebook. While blogging serves a purpose for me, being a platform for me to pen my thoughts and analyses, I could not see any advantages of being on Twitter and Facebook. I only started accounts because of requests by some readers.

Since starting a Twitter account many months ago, a grand total of 33 people are following my blogs using it. My Facebook account is less than a month old, so, having 3 members is a start. However, I think the most popular way in which readers follow my blog is still through Feedburner. Almost 600 people are following my blogs via feeds!

I know people who have terminated their Twitter accounts because they were not very successful. I also know people who claim that Facebook is more effective than Twitter in spreading the word. I kind of suspect that these are just different tools for different purposes and, most probably, Feedburner is the best tool for my blog to keep readers updated.

So, the view that SIA is very late in latching onto social media and how it has been detrimental to its business is something I do not quite understand. For those who do understand, please be kind to me. Laugh a little if you must but enlighten me with your insights please. :)

Tea with AK71: Good food at good prices!

Recently, I had some good food at good prices:

Breakfast at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. 1 for 1. I paid $7.70 for two sets of the above plus two cups of tea. A great deal!

This was a treat because I always see a long queue at the Western Cuisine stall at Kopitiam, Bukit Panjang Plaza. I hate to wait too long for my food but there was no queue that day! $6.10 after discount! Not bad.

Buuuuuuurp! I was a happy man! :D

Carpark Not Enough!

Although there are cries of discontent in some quarters and this is amply evident in the last General Election as well as the Presidential Election, it seems that more HDB dwellers are doing better in recent years.

How do we know this? Wait for Jack Neo to make a movie "HDB Parking Lots Not Enough!", maybe.

I read an article in The Straits Times on my iPad today that the "pace of growth of car ownership has overtaken that of HDB's carpark-building programme.

"The number of HDB carpark spaces has risen from 539,800 in 2005 to 557,000 as at June this year - a 3.2 per cent rise.

"But the number of HDB households - the bulk of Singapore households - with a car has grown by 26.3 per cent to 310,400 over the same period. And the number with more than one car has shot up by 76.5 per cent to 45,900."

It seems that we could use the scarcity of HDB carpark spaces as an indicator of economic prosperity in Singapore. Given the cost of car ownership in Singapore, the growth of car ownership amongst HDB households probably shows that many are better off in recent times.

For me, I am glad that I do not have a problem finding a parking lot in the HDB estate where I stay now. Well, not yet, perhaps.