1. If you have online access: Search online in the Wireless@SG – Coverage Areas section of the Infocomm123.sg portal.

2. If you are online AND looking for WiFi spots in a specific area: Search online in the Wireless.map.gov.sg site.

3. If you do NOT have online access: Download and install the Infocomm123.sg Wireless@SG WiFi Finder on your PC or mobile phone beforehand. Just follow the on-screen instructions.

First, read Beth Kanter’s post on Twitter for Nonprofits: Waste of Time or Potentially Useful? where she quoted Chris Brogan’s 5 Ways to Use Twitter for Good. Now, let’s see: Quick Human Answers, Conference / News Briefings (or news flash), Friendsourcing, Micro-Attention-Sharing, Direct People to Good Causes, or Staying in touch with others without being intrusive… I could use some of these.

Was finally tempted enough to check out Twitter. Still, Twitter seemed to have greater potential for meaningless distraction than meaningful connection. On first impressions, most of the twitters looked pretty random and pointless. Also, seemed to me that Twitter works somewhat like a Shoutbox, except that it has the advantage of mobility — i.e. it can be received via IM and mobile phone.

“WHY ON EARTH would people want to tell the world what they are doing right now? … To think aloud? Brainstorm? Cry for help? Connect to some human? See something unexpected? Just plain bored? Exhibitionist?” was some of my first twitters. These question have been answered quite quickly through several happenings and/or snippets of information.

Found this interesting article, Group Messaging Instincts: How to recover them (thanks to one of tmas68’s twitters) which explains how ‘one-to-many’ broadcast messaging is part of our human instincts, just like the way ants use chemical messages, bees use dance and dolphins use sonar.

Next, subscribed to Mashable’s useful one-liner news updates on Web 2.0 happenings and I thought, “Great! A simply way to be updated on the move.”

Then, added John Edwards as a friend out of curiosity and was pleasantly surprised to see that he has added me too very quickly. This illustrates to me the political potential of a tool like this. Whether Edwards actually reads my twitters is immaterial at this point in time. Perhaps his secretary’s secretary does or doesn’t. What impresses me is that virtually, he seems willing to be a follower.

Next, checked out TwitterVision because Scoble mentioned it and tmas68 too. I’m impressed though I ‘ve seen a similar version in BlogPaul’s Frappr TwitterAmI map (see below) earlier and had created my own Frappr map.

The fact that TwitterVision is a visual display of real-time messages from real people (with names and photos) contextually placed on a map makes the experience rather mind-boggling. (Educational visualization)

Just 7 hours ago, Alex King twittered that Twitter Tools 1.0b2 for WordPress has just been released. This means, I presume, my daily twitters could be published together as a post like the way tmas68 does on his Vox blog. (Mobile micro-blogging)

Finally, my Web statistics shows that this blog’s getting a good amount of Web traffic from Twitter.com.

I think I’m going to be twittering for a little while more.

Afternotes (2007-03-22):

• More useful tweets: Slashdot, BBC, TechMeme, Chris Brogan, Scoble and other celebrity bloggers are in Twitter too. Many, however, also send out lots of personal/useless/distracting tweets. I truly hope Twitter would make it possible for users create two separate channels — one for business and the other for friends/fans. E.g. tmas68 added a business line at 1news4tm yesterday.
• Just found a list of Twitter scripts and plugins. Use at your risk!
• Beware of addiction! See Amy Jo Kim’s explanation of How Game Mechanics Can Make Your App More Fun and Kathy Sierra’s post Is Twitter Too Good?

With Miki, SocialText hopes to involve mobile professionals in real collaboration using their mobile devices, not the one- or two-word terse statements common in Blackberry usage, Mayfield (SocialText founder and CEO) said.

Early on in SocialText’s existence, one of the company’s first basic wiki products worked reasonably well on a Palm Treo device.

…Mayfield says Miki could help further the adoption of wikis because it will allow users to walk out of a meeting and keep collaborating, without dealing with the hassle of e-mail. As more and more workers find themselves using mobile devices to stay in touch, it certinaly won’t hurt.

The SMS Reference Service, the latest initiative from NLB [was] launched during the FIND IT campaign. Customers can SMS their reference queries to the National Library by dialing 9178 7792 on their mobile phones. The SMS Reference Service is targeted at educators, designers, entreprenuers, researchers, consultants, academics and tertiary students who need to find the sources to answer their information, reference and research needs. This service adds to the suite of email, fax, phone and onsite reference services currently provided by reference librarians and gives customers the option to pose their queries from virtually anywhere and on the move.

Sample SMS queries:

• Info on history of Hoover Park Estate in Singapore (related to the Heritage Collection)
• Info about the beauty industry in Middle East. Where can I find the info and resources? (related to the Business collection)
• I want information on early childhood education, including journal articles. (related to the Education collection)
• What is the role of design in Adidas? What are some of their famous products and what is their design significance? (related to the Design collection)

The operating hours of this service are as follows:

Monday to Friday 9am to 9pm
Saturday 9am to 5pm
Sunday 1pm to 5pm
Closed on Public Holidays

Each SMS is limited to 160 characters. If more than 160 characters are sent, the message will be broken up into 2 or more SMS. Users of this service will receive an auto-generated SMS reply after sending out the enquiry. The turnaround time for an actual response to an enquiry will be up to one working day. SMS enquiries received after 9pm on weekdays, after 5pm on Saturdays and Sundays and on public holidays will be attended to the next working day. An automatic acknowledgement SMS will be sent to users, informing them of the above. This service is free of charge and users need only pay their mobile phone service provider the usual SMS charges.

What you can expect from the service :

Reference librarians from the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library at the new National Library will recommend materials from our library collections as well as electronic and web resources to help you with your information needs. For simple fact-seeking questions, we will also be able to SMS you quick answers. The turnaround time for recommendation of resources would be about one day while quick answers could be provided as soon as we can!

What a great idea! When will such sms services be available industry-wide? For example, sms support services for advice/help, sms sports/beauty centres to book or cancel sessions, sms restaurants to order meals, sms taxi companies to book a cab, sms a corporate mobile line to apply for urgent leave and to inform colleagues…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp. Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates on Wednesday mocked a $100 laptop computer for developing countries being developed with the backing of rival Google Inc. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The $100 laptop project seeks to provide inexpensive computers to people in developing countries. The computers lack many features found on a typical personal computer, such as a hard disk and software.

“The last thing you want to do for a shared use computer is have it be something without a disk … and with a tiny little screen,” Gates said at the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum in suburban Washington.

Reminds me of one of those famous last words (negative predictions on ultimately successful technologies). As one of the list members, Yisahy Mor, put it, “Thinking of technologies Gates went to the trouble of playing down. Some examples that come to mind: Mac, Linux, Internet standards…”

Hardware Specs: Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 OS, approximately seven-inch (17.78 cm) touch panel, minimum 800 x 480 resolution, approximately two pounds (0.972 kg), WiFi- and Bluetooth-enabled.

Software: Apparently, all Windows XP software are still supported. Instead of a cryptic Start button, the “friendlier” program launcher now has these functions on the desktop by default: Connect, Communicate, View, Listen, Play, More Programs and Tools.

It was like discovering a treasure trove. All i did was: registered for a free account, downloaded and ran the Avantgo program on my PC, selected some recommended channels (e.g. ChannelNewsAsia, CNET, Straits Times, Washington Post and Wired) within AvantGo, added some personal channels (e.g. Creighton University’s Daily Reflections and Mobile Gabriel (click “Subscribe”), Universalis), and then synchronized my PDA. Also downloaded the BibleReader, as well as the Douay-Rheims (w/deuterocanonical books), the Modern King James Version – MKJV and the Latin Vulgate from Olive Tree.

Now, i can browse lots of interesting stuff offline on my Tungsten — news, features, technology reviews, as well as different versions of the bible, daily mass readings, reflections, morning and evening prayers. Hmm, Avantgo has been around since 2001. Some of my colleagues had in fact been working on some PDA projects at least one or two years ago. Currently, there are supposed to be more than 1,200 Avantgo Web sites! Surely, after filtering out the “dross”, some can be put to good educational uses?

(See also Teaching & Learning with PDAs.)