http://www.singhealth.com.sg/Newsroom/NewsReports/2008/Health+Level+7+(HL7)+launch+(ST).htm

This looks like a pretty new protocol?  Wondering if private clinics might need some software to link to the patients’ health record.  Also how will it work?  Will it require the patient to log in at the clinic? 

Surely the clinic cannot access the patient health record just through his NRIC number without validation on the patient side.  That will be a gross invasion of privacy.

Hmmm… must drop KKT a tinkle on this…

I can understand the itch.  It is something that you are exposed to… and greatly irritates you.

Currently, I am in a FAT-FIGHTING phase of my life… and I guess… a lot of my blogs will be about such health issues.  I am currently using a online portal to track my workouts and nutrition – http://www.gyminee.com.  It works kind of fine save for a few problems:

• Does not allow me to key the details of my workout through an iphone/mobile app (pretty impt as iphone is like the defacto exercising companion nowadays)
• It lacks local data for the nutrition segment.  Hmmm… wouldn’t it be great if the nutrition segment can tap of HPB’s vast repository of nutritional information… all localized with the average Singaporean in mind? – http://www.hpb.gov.sg/hpb/default.asp?pg_id=993
• Integration to Social Networking Sites… so that you can get your friends to be involved in exercising, dieting and living a truly healthy lifestyle!

Hmmm…  I am itchy….. but do I have enough hands to actually scratch my itch?

But the point is, it gives us a convenient way to keep in touch.  A blog is also cool.  Friends reading your blog will know what’s happening to your life.  In fact, imagine.. if everybody kept a blog and just write a little about what they are doing… we will be all very, very well connected into each other’s live.  I guess that is how tweeter is working…   But did not really have time to look into that.

I looked at Facebook and MSN.  both have an easy way of updating the users’ current status.  Hmmm.. would it not be nice if there is a way for me to update my status somewhere and all my MSN, Facebook, etc… get updated all at once?  I think that will be something really convenient.

But.. hmmm.. maybe that’s how tweeter works?  No idea… and worse… no time…

Jiang Hao is having 51 beats a min in Facebook but is just back to Singapore on MSN.  Not synchronised status…

Well, with the advent of the RSS feeds, I hardly even go to Straitstime Online (even though I just paid for a 200 SGD subscription just 2 months ago… )  It used to be good… because online definitely works better for me compared to reading off a bulky 50 page stack of yellowing papers… but the problem became more of relevancy.

Well Google Reader together wih the Plethora of RSS feeds help to solve this problem.  I am able to tap on the latest technology news that I like.  One of my good friends send me an interesting TechCrunch article on some struggling i-Phone developer and I am instantaneously hooked.  Now, I am a TechCrunch subscriber.

I think StraitsTimes way of monetising content will one day be irrelevant.  You see… a large part of straitstimes news, especially the overseas segments are just bought… in-bulk from reuters, bloomberg, etc… These people just stream their content over the internet for free.  The only thing that is really being reported, i.e. sending someone down to a scene to perform your classic interview is generally for very local content.

An avid finanical news reader will just stream in the content from Bloomberg, CNBC, New York Times, etc… and they will be almost all covered save the little tit-bits of local news…. which frankly… did not quite interests me save the gst credits policy… which was really something ingenious.

In that case, should Straitstimes just do it the normal way, i.e. through pure advertising and give their content for free.  They can monetise their feeds through things like feedburner too.. to serve ads to customer.  But as my friend pointed out to me over lunch, this surviving on advertising model alone no longer works.  Online advertising has only worked for one company, i.e. Google.. and they key was in a great business model in the Pay-Per-Click system.

Hmmm… so what is going to happen to our StraitsTimes and SPH?

Surely, this should work well for the private sector too?  Currently a lot of private sector sales go towards relationship building, etc… A lot of time is also spend sourcing for vendors, comparing codes, evaluating the different vendors.  Even for us, when we need to say… print certain materials, we have to go hunting around many vendors to find one which we like….  Sometimes, I do wish we have a Gebiz to use… and I can just post my requirements… and get all those vendors to send me some proposals….

And to top it off, we have a great backend administration panel for us to rate the different offers and finally come out with a procurement decision objectively…..   So less currying favour and more honest pricings.  Surely.. this will be good for the shareholders of the private enterprises!

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One of the main problems faced in doing an outsourced operation is power.  Yes, fast expanding economies results in power demands increasing at exponential rates.  Coupled with the problem that building a Power Plant take a couple of years… this generally results in a temporary (hopefully) shortfall of power.

I believe… another problem with such countries is the subsidizing of electricity.  Somehow, even though there is insufficient power to prevent load shedding, authorities are prevented from correcting this demand and supply inconsistency by raising the price of power.  Electrical power like oil prices are fixed at artificially low prices for fear of upsetting the general populace (my own guess… no official data to verify).

Just recently, the state-owned Telephone company launched a strike nation-wide over wages.

PTCL Strike in Pakistan

The current electricity price in Singapore is 21.38 cents per KWH, based on the post below.

http://www.post1.net/lowem/entry/singapore_electricity_price_increase_2007q4

In Pakistan, the electricity rates for the top bracket, i.e. maximum consumer, is only half of that, i.e. 10 cents per KWH.  To deal with the shortfall in power, the government started imposing periods of loadshedding whereby the electricity supplies will be turned off during certain timings for certain districts.

I hope they will just free up the pricing of electricity and let it go up naturally.  It will resolve a lot of issues.  Generally, electricity demand in Pakistan is very price elastic as the general populace are very poor.  I believe a small increase in electrical charges will solve most of the electricity problems.

Businesses with an inelastic demand for electricity will be able to pay for all the electricity they need.  Electricity supplies will be naturally diverted from residential activities to high-value business activities, thus greatly stimulating the economy.

At the first glance, investors might be mistaken that Pakistan has cheap electrical costs, i.e. half of Singapore.  On the contrary, the truth is that electrical charges in Pakistan is much, much higher, if you take into account all the indirect costs…

Because of the artificially low price, electricity shortages are caused.  Businesses are forced to incur expensive electrical set-ups to combat the shortage of electricity during load-shedding periods.    Below is a diagram of the electrical set up of my office:

Initially I started with a simple cheap UPS.  However, as the UPS output was not exactly sinusoidal, I had to get another higher end UPS for the computers.  (Yes.. after some research, it seems that square wave UPS damages the computer circuitry).  That seemed to work for quite a while until the rain season came in.  Somehow rainwater causes massive disruptions in the power network… causing long periods of blackout, i.e. 3-6 hours.

Generally, UPS do not provide power for 3-6 hours.

Ended up, we had to get a generator… with a Switch Box.  I thought I had finally solved the problem… but no.. the UPS just refuses to get charged.  Well, the problem was that the generator did not have a stable output voltage, i.e. so we will need a voltage stabilizer….

So that is the result of "cheap electricity" charges:

• 1 Generator
• 1 Voltage Stabilizer
• 1 SwitchBox
• 2 UPS

Generator

Expensive UPS

Cheap UPS

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