The MICT campaign on BTS encoraging people to report “society harming” websites.

Like what? Websites by government organizations that are still using animated cliparts, frames, background midi and embeded WMVs?

Those equally damage the image of the country.

turbow:

Happy Bar Code’s day (:

You know how a few years back, hipster nerds and geeks like Adam Brody and Jon Heder have “supposedly” made nerds and geeks cool? Well, the trend never caught on here. Here, nerds are still nerds. The only things that excite them are computer codes and girls.

Why am I ranting? I signed up for the Windows 7 Blogger Day event on Saturday because I, according to the posted qualification of participant, am a blogger and have an interest in new technology. Although I am a Mac, I was genuinely interested in Windows 7.

I signed up, went, and left half way. I did have plans to leave early but I thought if the thing was worth canceling plans, then I would. But then things didn’t go that way.

If you had followed the #win7thai Twitter feed on Saturday, among the peer-praising and Windows-wowing tweets, somewhere there’s Gnarly Kitty doing what she does best—ranting. But it was a justifiable rant. Why? Think of this scenario for a second. I was in there, with my Chanel and my itsy bitsy tiny pearly white Samsung netbook (I was clever enough to not bring a Mac) and I was lodged in the back of a room full of male computer nerds. The females I saw were either staff or girlfriends of the lucky few who managed to keep a successful romantic relationship with the opposite sex.

Basically, any female forms in that room were deemed unimportant.

Rather than a professionally composed workshop for Windows 7 enthusiasts, it was more like an offline get-together of Bangkok’s best known nerds, who by the way know each other. They should have warned me that the event was for insiders only so I wouldn’t have embarrassed myself, dragging my female ass to a place where I would not be welcomed.

After series of inside jokes exchanged at one another, even between the guys from Microsoft themselves who apparently were best friends with these attendees, the event finally started. The program promised a showcase by a group of Thai bloggers and developers, some of whom I have seen and followed online, who would come up and show off their favorite Windows 7 features.

By the end of it, if you asked me what Windows 7 can do, I wouldn’t be able to answer a thing.

Oh they showed off some features alright. Like how Windows 7 new wallpaper gallery can make you switch from one half naked girl lying on the bed wallpaper to another half naked underage Japanese girl in tight uniform wallpaper in a matter of a second. Oh and I also learned about the nicknames these guys give to different versions of Internet Explorer, such as gigs, mistresses, boring first wives and new younger girlfriends.

Then they showed one of the guy’s TwitPic gallery—which I still don’t know how that was relevant to anything about Windows 7—and it was full of even more thumbnails of Motor Show girls, PGs, sexy uniformed girls and more Korean/Japanese fresh meats.

And some of these guys were online individuals I have longed to meet, those I have had respect for for their coverage of technology in Thailand. The David Pogues and the Brian Lams of Thailand. Though they weren’t the ones displaying these photos, I just can’t imagine them being among those who cheered and whistled as each slide showed up.

I was there, sitting at the back, speechless and offended. And they all seemed to be enjoying all this. One even said it’s alright for him to do this because he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Oh really? Don’t you think that because of your personality and derogatory thoughts about women, that’s why you don’t have a girlfriend?

And there was this poor girl, a Microsoft trainee. She got the very look that would make nosebleeds out of these nerds. She was the subject of teases and jokes between the guys and I did not understand why she did not feel offended. She even added fuel to the fire at times by flirting with the presenter about how he did not have enough of her pictures on his presentation.

Where the hell was I? Microsoft’s secret gentlemen’s club? Did you people not see there were other attendees whom you did not know, who were female?

Just imagine this for a second. If this exact same event was held in, say, Silicon Valley, California, what would the reaction be? More cheering, clapping and encouragements? No. It would be more like lawsuits, discrimination charges and a huge PR clean-up by Microsoft.

So I left. Learned nothing. Besides not getting any useful information about Windows 7 out of it, I didn’t even at least get the documents. Thanks for the big Microsoft PR photobook, a B20 tshirt and an even cheaper notebook. But I think only those boring sheets of paper with useful information about Windows 7 would be able to make up for the time I had lost watching members of my gender being ridiculed.

iStudio and Apple conferences are boring, I must admit, but at least I learn things. And most importantly, at least I was considered valuable to their brand and service. If I wanted to see a group of men going googly eyes over half naked girls, I’d go to my neighborhood coyote club.

For those who want the iPhone 3GS but despise True Move and don’t have enough trust for MBK vendors, here’s a slightly more expensive solution.

At HTC Store, 3rd floor of Digital Gateway in Siam, they have iPhones 3GS for sale. The sign only says 16GB. But they do have the black ones, which are basically nonexistent at True shops. But look at the price. B27,900 for 16GB while True sells it for B25,000++.

The Nation Newspaper

BANGKOK: — CAT Telecom is keen on using MCOT’s 2.6GHz spectrum to offer WiMax broadband cellular services as part of its plan to develop new wireless businesses.

CAT’s new CEO, Jirayuth Rungsrithong, said yesterday that CAT would talk seriously with the broadcaster’s management on a possible tie-up to develop WiMax on the 2.6GHz spectrum.

CAT has already floated the idea to MCOT, he said.

However, the National Telecommunications Commission has earmarked only the 2.3GHz spectrum for WiMax, since other potential alternatives, such as the 2.5GHz spectrum, are now being used for broadcasting.

CAT’s board on Wednesday appointed Jirayuth to a four-year term and will evaluate his performance every six months.

Jirayuth said that besides seeking new business, his other top priority is to finish merging CAT’s CDMA 2000 1-x cellular network with Hutchison-CAT Wireless Multimedia’s network by December.

Hutchison-CAT is a joint venture of CAT and Hong Kong telecom operator Hutchison Telecom.

CAT operates its own CDMA network in 51 provinces, while Hutchison-CAT markets the CDMA service under a contract with CAT on a separate CDMA network in 25 provinces.

Hutchison-CAT leases the CDMA network from BFKT, which is wholly owned by Hutchison Telecom.

Their combined network will strengthen the state enterprise’s CDMA service offering and marketing.

Hutchison Telecom has already informed CAT of its intention to sell the BFKT network to CAT.

CAT’s CDMA service, which has 350,000 subscribers, generated revenue of Bt618 million in the first eight months of this year, while Hutchison-CAT, which has 1.1 million subscribers, contributed about Bt400 million to CAT in the same period.

CAT’s CDMA network in 51 provinces features the 3G wireless broadband technology, Jirayuth said.

CAT plans to upgrade the BFKT network to the technology after the merger, as it wants to evolve the merged network to 4G technology in a few years.

CAT targets total revenue of Bt52 billion this year after posting revenue of Bt31.9 billion in the first eight months, of which Bt12 billion was from its own operation and Bt19 billion from its concession holders.

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When two government companies plan to join forces to do something IT-ish, don’t keep your hopes up.

Holy mother of all geeks. The fourth flood of The Emporium has turned into a mega tech hub! From a sad little corner on the fifth floor it now looks like an IT mall.