i.justrealized

Last August Citibank Singapore launched its mobile banking platform to enable their customers greater banking options. The can be seen as an all-in-one solution that allows customers to do regular banking transactions and get real-time information through their mobile phones. I’ll show you one of their key services — Citi Mobile.

Citibank customers can take advantage of the new service using their existing Citibank Online logins:

Citibank Citi Mobile login and front page

There are no additional tools to download and uses a two-factor authentication through an encrypted connection. The One-Time PIN (OTP) is sent via a flash SMS, an SMS that is sent as a layer on top of your browser for mobile banking browser-supported mobile phones. This would mean that you do not have to close your browser to check the OTP in your SMS inbox. Take a look at the screen shot:

Citibank Citi Mobile two factor authentication

In addition, no financial information is stored on the mobile phone. The security features of Citi Mobile ensures it is as secure as Citibank Online.

Essentially Citi Mobile is a streamlined version of Citibank Online targeting mobile users. You can perform payment transfers as you would in Citibank Online which is the full fledge internet banking destination for Citibank:

Citibank Citi Mobile payment and transfers steps

To use Citi Mobile, just go to www.citibank.com.sg with your mobile phone.

The following services are offered via Citi Mobile:

• Card and bank accounts balance enquiry
• Card and bank accounts transactions enquiry
• Credit card payment due date and credit limit enquiry
• FX rates information
• Funds transfer & bill payment
• Information on the best Gourmet Pleasures dining and other deals from Citibank Gourmet Pleasures
• ATM and branch locator via FindMyCiti

For more details, check out Citi Mobile at Citibank’s home page.

Opps. If you’re on Snow Leopard, never log into your guest account. Logging into the guest account then back to your account can cause your account’s home directory to be deleted as though it is brand new. It is speculated that Apple’s Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard deletes the user’s home directory instead of the guest’s directory.

Snow Leopard bug can delete account data

A bug has been reported in Apple’s new Snow Leopard version of OS X that can result in the loss of an entire user account’s data. The glitch seems to be triggered by using a Guest account and then trying to log back into a regular account.

According to multiple topics on the Apple Support discussion boards, the problem can occur when a user logs into their Mac’s Guest account — whether by accident or on purpose — and then tries to log back into their regular account.

In some cases, users have reported finding their regular account empty of data, as though it were a brand new account.

Speculation is that something makes Snow Leopard treat the regular account like a Guest account, from which by default all data is deleted upon logout. Further speculation is that the problem occurs when the Guest account was already enabled in Leopard before being upgraded to Snow Leopard. (Source: IT Wire)

This is really bad if it’s true. Apple has yet to confirm this.

Microsoft’s subsidiary Danger lost all their customer’s data in server failure. Any contacts, photos, calendars, or to-do lists that haven’t been locally backed up are gone. Microsoft’s reputation is sure going down for this, it’s a major failure.

Letter from Microsoft / Danger to T-Mobile Sidekick customers:

T-MOBILE AND MICROSOFT/DANGER STATUS UPDATE ON SIDEKICK DATA DISRUPTION

Dear valued T-Mobile Sidekick customers:

T-Mobile and the Sidekick data services provider, Danger, a subsidiary of Microsoft, are reaching out to express our apologies regarding the recent Sidekick data service disruption. We appreciate your patience as Microsoft/Danger continues to work on maintaining platform stability, and restoring all services for our Sidekick customers.

Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device – such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos – that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger. That said, our teams continue to work around-the-clock in hopes of discovering some way to recover this information. However, the likelihood of a successful outcome is extremely low. As such, we wanted to share this news with you and offer some tips and suggestions to help you rebuild your personal content. You can find these tips at the T-Mobile Sidekick Forums (http://www.t-mobile.com/sidekick ). We encourage you to visit the Forums on a regular basis to access the latest updates as well as FAQs regarding this service disruption.

In addition, we plan to communicate with you on Monday (Oct. 12) the status of the remaining issues caused by the service disruption, including the data recovery efforts and the Download Catalog restoration which we are continuing to resolve. We also will communicate any additional tips or suggestions that may help in restoring your content.

We recognize the magnitude of this inconvenience. Our primary efforts have been focused on restoring our customers’ personal content. We also are considering additional measures for those of you who have lost your content to help reinforce how valuable you are as a T-Mobile customer.

We continue to advise customers to NOT reset their device by removing the battery or letting their battery drain completely, as any personal content that currently resides on your device will be lost.

Once again, T-Mobile and Microsoft/Danger regret any and all inconvenience this matter has caused.

[via Techcrunch]

It annoys me that my Recently Added and Top 25 Played are all not in order when they’re in my iPod Touch. The Smart Playlist in iTunes looks correct but it never syncs correctly to iPod Touch. In my iPod Touch, it just shows in some random order.

How to fix iPod Touch Smart Playlist appearing randomly

I chanced upon the fix to this by unchecked “Live Updating” in Smart Playlist. Just click on the smart playlist and choose “Edit Smart Playlist”, then uncheck “Live Updating”. It does syncs in order now although it is still not ideal.

Smart playlist in iTunes

This has been broken since the OS 3.1 update. Currently at iPod Touch OS 3.1.2, it still does not work.

This is just a temporary fix, at least my playlist look more sensible.

A “speaking piano” reciting the Proclamation of the European Environmental Criminal Court at World Venice Forum 2009. Unfortunately it’s all in German, but what the piano says is all English, and it’s really neat to watch.

Speaking Piano – Now with (somewhat decent) captions!

Possibly the coolest thing I have ever seen. A work by Austrian composer Peter Ablinger. [via Makezine and Neatorama]

Full translation of the words in YouTube: (more…)

This is posted in 1996:

From: Lawrence Page

I have a web robot which is a Java app. I need to be able to set the User-Agent field in the HTTP header in order to be a good net citizen (so people know who is accessing their server). Anyone have any ideas?

Right now, Java sends a request that includes something like:

User-Agent: Java/1.0beta2

I’d rather not rewrite all the HTTP stuff myself. I tried just searching in the JDK for the Java/1.0beta2 figuring I could just change the string, but I couldn’t find it. Perhaps it is stored as a unicode string?

An easy method of setting the User-Agent field should probably be added to Java, so people can properly identify their programs.

Thanks, Larry Page

A web robot? Guess what is it?

[via Guyro]

Beau Lotto’s color games puzzle your vision, but they also spotlight what you can’t normally see: how your brain works. This fun, first-hand look at your own versatile sense of sight reveals how evolution tints your perception of what’s really out there.

Beau Lotto is founder of Lottolab, a hybrid art studio and science lab. With glowing, interactive sculpture — and good, old-fashioned peer-reviewed research — he’s illuminating the mysteries of the brain’s visual system.

Beau Lotto: Optical illusions show how we see