Lengthy but awesome biography on Marissa Mayer

An unauthorised biography featuring former Googler and now CEO of Yahoo!, Marissa Mayer, published by Business Insider, is a MUST read! The write-up pretty much summarised Mayer's personality as well as her brilliance that make her who she is today.

Read the biography here.

10 Steve Jobs videos you should watch instead of Ashton Kutcher’s ‘Jobs’

Sorry to say this - I actually read several reviews that Ashton Kutcher's movie - ‘Jobs’ were rather poor and this made me changed my mind watching it. The Next Web published an article on 10 Steve Jobs videos you should watch instead of Ashton Kutcher’s ‘Jobs’ and I thought they were excellent to watch!

Enjoy!

National Day Rally 2013

5 photo mobile apps to help you look more beautiful

The Next Web made a review on 5 photo mobile apps capable of making enhancements on your photo, making you look more beautiful.

The 5 photo mobile apps are:

1. Beauty Camera (Android)
2. Beauty Booth (Android | iOS)
3. Photo Wonder (Android | iOS)
4. Beauty Plus (Android | iOS)
5. Meitu Xiu Xiu 美图秀秀 (Android | iOS)

Let us know how the above help you.

JAVA: Get MD5 Hash On String

The following demonstrates how to perform MD5 hash on string. For it to run, you will need to import these 2 packages.

• java.security.MessageDigest
• javax.xml.bind.annotation.adapters.HexBinaryAdapter

public static void main(String[] args) {
    try {
        String hash1 = computeMD5Hash1("hello world");
        String hash2 = computeMD5Hash2("hello world");
        System.out.println(hash1);
        System.out.println(hash2);
    } catch (Exception e) {
    }
}

//using HexBinaryAdapter to convert byte array to string
public static String computeMD5Hash1(String plainText) {
    String hash = "";
    try {
        MessageDigest md5 = MessageDigest.getInstance("MD5");
        hash = (new HexBinaryAdapter()).marshal(md5.digest(plainText.getBytes()));
        hash = hash.toUpperCase();
    } catch (Exception e) {
        hash = "";
    }

    return hash;
}

//no library to convert byte array to string
public static String computeMD5Hash2(String plainText) {
    String hash = "";
    try {
        MessageDigest md5 = MessageDigest.getInstance("MD5");
        byte[] bb = md5.digest(plainText.getBytes());
        for (byte b : bb)
            hash += String.format("%02X", b & 0xff);
    } catch (Exception e) {
        hash = "";
    }

    return hash;
}

VIDEO: How to Coil Cables

The following video demonstrates techniques on how to coil cables such that they can be neat and won't be twisted. Interesting tip.

National Day Parade (NDP) Theme Songs (Consolidated)

28 May 2015: Added theme song for NDP 2015.
20 June 2016: Added theme song for NDP 2016.

Just come of the video compilations used as themes songs for National Day.

NDP 1998: Kit Chan 陈洁仪 -- Home 家



NDP 2001: Tanya Chua - Where I Belong



NDP 2002: Stefanie Sun 孙燕姿 -- We Will Get There 一起走到



NDP 2003: Stefanie Sun 孙燕姿 -- One United People 全心全意



NDP 2008: Joi Chua 蔡淳佳 -- 晴空万里



NDP 2010: Corrine May -- Song for Singapore



NDP 2011: Sylvia Ratonel -- In A Heartbeat



NDP 2012: Olivia Ong, Natanya Tan -- Love at First Light



NDP 2013: Sing A Nation Choir -- One Singapore



NDP 2015: Dick Lee -- Our Singapore



NDP 2016: 53A -- Tomorrow's Here Today

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's National Day Message 2013

Watch Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's National Day Message 2013 (English) below. For the transcript, click here.

Google Releases Seven Videos On Typical Manual Spam Actions Received On Webmaster Tools

Google released seven videos for the most common manual action notifications related to spam for websites in your free Google Webmaster Tools. The videos include user-generated spam, hidden text and/or keyword stuffing, pure spam, thin content with little or no added value video, unnatural Links to site video, unnatural links from your site and unnatural Links to site – impacts links.

User-generated spam

Hidden text and/or keyword stuffing

Pure spam

Thin content with little or no added value

Unnatural Links to site

Unnatural links from your site

Unnatural Links to site - impacts links

» Google Releases Seven Videos On Typical Manual Spam Actions | Search Engine Land

The Phantom of the Opera 2013 Casts (Singapore)

Source [Phantom of the Opera World Tour Facebook Page]

How to Do a Partial YouTube Embed (Custom Start and End)?

Suppose you have a long YouTube video but would like to do an embed only from say first to second minute? It's actually possible with a simple tweak.

The following is the standard embed code (without changing anything) of the PSY - Gangnam Style YouTube from first to second minute.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/9bZkp7q19f0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

To do a partial embed from the first to second minute, you will first need to convert the periods into seconds. So it would be from the 1*60=60 seconds to the 2*60=120 seconds. We will then add the 2 new start and end parameters to the embed code. The following is the customised embed code.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/9bZkp7q19f0?start=60&end=120" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The video goes like this!

World Map

Source [via]