Asian Tiger

Your auto air-conditioning seems not as cool as before. Your car seems stuffier than usual and the first thought that comes to mind is that your car is low on refrigerant or commonly known as air cond gas. Beware that changing your air-conditioning refrigerant means emptying the remaining and filling it up again. You’ll be charged for what may not seem to be the problem (air conditioners have lots of places that could cause loss of coolness).

If you want to be sure that your car’s air conditioner is low on refrigerant, pop open your hood and peek inside. Make sure that your car engine is running and the air conditioner (set to maximum coolness) is switched on.

Locate a tube that has a glass opening for viewing. If needed, wipe the glass clean so that you get a good view of what’s inside. If you see bubbling liquid similar to boiling water, it means that you have sufficient refrigerant. If not, you need to top it up.

The picture below demonstrates what I saw under the hood this morning when I checked. The liquid is bubbling alright which means that I have enough refrigerant.

Tags: refrigerant, gas, auto air, air conditioner, air conditioning, air cond,

Remember how a telephone is just a telephone?
Remember how a calculator is just a calculator?
Remember how a television is just television?

Today, things have really changed around us. A telephone now has evolved into a mobile communication device with the capabilities of calculators and television (my earlier post on the Nokia N92 proves just that). The reverse is also true; i.e. television has evolved not only to bring audio/video but acts also as communication devices. We have now entered into the world of technology convergence.

Soon, the new generation of televisions will boast not only its flatter and thinner dimensions but a growing list of functionality as well. IPTV provides video on demand, Voice Over IP and Internet web access on top of what your normal ‘idiot box’ would provide. Do you know that there are currently 1,300 IPTV channels that you can actually watch for free? All you need is just a broadband Internet connection and a device that allows you to watch videos. These devices are not limited to the television but also the iPods and cell phones; bringing about mobile TV.

In the very near future, the ‘idiot box’ will transform into an intelligent box when IPTV really takes off here. I can imagine myself ordering pizza delivery using the TV remote controls - life is bliss.

Tags: IPTV, technology, convergence, television, mobile TV

I’ve mentioned before that many webmasters are obssessed about Google’s Pagerank (PR) and this is proven through when one of my readers emailed and asked me whether if there’s a tool to check the PRs of backlinks. It didn’t strike me as odd that not only are they checking their sites’ PRs periodically, they are also checking the PRs of links pointing to their site. When you have a few hundreds or thousands of links pointing at your site, it is no longer possible to manually keep track.

Observing the need to satisfy these webmasters, I found a tool on the Internet that would solve the PR cravings - Backlink Checker provided courtesy of SEO Consulting.

It’s in German language but don’t let that deter you for all you need to do is key in your site’s URL and click on the “Check” button. Wait for a while and the results will be populated on the screen. The nifty bit is the summary at the end of the report. It provides you the total count of links sorted out by PRs. The image below is the result for http://www.amoswong.com/.

Enjoy this tool and satisfy that craving!