Internal DVD Writer Wanted

Requirements:
- fast CDRW capabilities
- supports DVD-R, DVD+R, and DL
- below SGD 90

Sources: TomsHardware, Expert Reviews, Hardware Zone, CNET

And the candidates are as follows, in inreasing order of preference.



1. Sony DRU810A 16x DVD Writer

Specs: CD (W48/RW32/R40), DVD-+R (16x), DVD-+RW (6x), DVD+RDL (8x)
Price: SGD 85 - 115

Stores Offering:
Fuwell (SimLim #04-52)
Cybermind (SimLim #04-59)
Best Bargain (SimLim #05-22)

2. Samsung TS-H552U Dual Layer DVD±RW Writer

Specs: CD (W40/RW32/R48),DVD-+R (16x), DVD-+RW (4x), DVD+RDL (6x)
Price: SGD 78

Stores Offering:
Cybermind (SimLim #04-59)
Best Bargain (SimLim #05-22)
Costronic (SimLim #04-11)


3. NEC -3540A

Specs: CD (R48/RW24/R48), DVD-+R (16x), DVD+RW (8x),DVD-RW(6x), DVD+RDL (8x), DVD-RDL(6x)
Price: SGD 85-99

Stores Offering:
Costronic (SimLim #04-11)
Storage Studio (SimLim #04-28)

4. LITE-ON SOHW-1693S

Specs: CD (R48/RW24/R48), DVD-+R (16x), DVD+RW (8x),DVD-RW(6x), DVD+RDL (8x), DVD-RDL(6x)

Price: SGD 99

Stores Offering:
Cybermin d(SimLim #04-59)
Bell Systems (SimLim #05-68)

3. BenQ DW1640

Specs: CD (R48/RW32/R48), DVD-+R (16x), DVD+RW (8x),DVD-RW(6x), DVD+RDL (8x), DVD-RDL(6x)
Price: SGD 79-83

Stores Offering:
MediaPro (SimLim #05-77)
Fuwell (SimLim #04-52)
Cybermind (SimLim #04-59)

Reading for Today: Edgar Schein

I heard about Schein in yesterday's departmental retreat. The soon-to-be director introduced Schein as the person who wrote the seminal work on organizational behaviour.

I was hooked. I told myself I'll google Schein and read more about him.

So here's the first reading on Schein I got my fingers on. "The Academic as Artist" the autobiography of Ed Schein.

http://web.mit.edu/scheine/www/scheinartist.pdf

Reading it, I 've realized a couple of things about myself.

I am an artist at heart. I love the excitement of looking at ideas and beautiful representations of them. Funny to hear this coming from a person with a masters degree in computer science, but the one and only thing that i love from computer science or IT in general is the beautiful designs that people have put in place to bring "the computer" to life.

Interestingly, these are designs that are visible in many things outside IT. A conversation I had with a medical student friend of mine (she's a doctor now), introduced me to how the human body regulates temperature - which inspired me to develop a scheduling algorithm for computer grids.

Should I be an academic? I'm not sure yet. I know what I should do If I do decide do be one though (I should get a PhD - it has to be in something that i have a passion for and it has to be both sustainable and scalable).

Like Schein, I breathe "opportunistic creativity" .. I look at things and see different possible ways of interpreting them. I am possessed by many threads of thoughts all at the same time. People either love or hate their conversations with me. They love the conversations if they enjoy the richness of maneuvres and variety of angles that i bring to the conversation. They'll hate the conversations if they feel it's *too much* information or that I am doing this deliberately to annoy/belittle them :)

Edgar Schein's work included the identification of "career anchors", i.e. themes that people prioritize when seeking a career.

I have identified one: i want to work in an environment where i can be creative, i can generate ideas, share them, and also be inspired by the ideas of others.

Without ideas, I'll wither and die.