The Snow Leopard, affectionately known to wildlife experts as Panthera uncia, is on the most endangered species of big cats still left in the wild.

This beautiful big cat is found around the highlands of Central Asia, and it’s estimated that there’s between 3500 to 7000 left in the wild.  Snow Leopards are considered medium-sized cats, and will grow up to about 50 inches in length, with a tail almost as long their body.  They’re perfectly adapted to live in such extreme conditions. Their coats are long and thick to keep them warm, their paws are big and wide to help distribute their weight when walking on snow.  Their tails are long to help keep balance when they’re navigating the rocky edges of a mountain, and it also acts like a blanket to keep their face warm when they rest.

This crepuscular hunter lives a solitary life (except when a mother is tending to her cubs), much like most other big cats.  But unlike it’s cousins in other parts of the world, the Snow Leopard doesn’t roar, possibly due to an absence of a larynx.

In the IUCN Red List, the Snow Leopard is considered endangered, despite 600-700 living in captivity.  Like it or not, being endangered means this species could possibly face extinction.  Loss of habitat is one of the greatest threat, along with poaching, loss of prey and lack of effective protection could mean their numbers in the wild will continue to dwindle.

Today, Apple launched the much anticipated Mac OS 10.6, also called Snow Leopard.  There’s been a lot of coverage of this OS and all the 106 reasons it can make your mac computing life better.  However this big cat who inspired the Apple team to name their new OS after, is in serious need of good publicity.

We can help save these amazing animals simply by raising awareness of their plight and I hope as you read this on your spanking new OS, you’ll take some time to stop by the Snow Leopard Trust. They’ve been doing amazing work for the past 25 years, helping this amazing big cat through various conservation programs; most important of which is partnering with locals who live in the same regions as the big cat.

Below is a brilliant clip from BBC’s Snow Leopard: Beyond the Myth which I find absolutely breathtaking.  Enjoy.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hcepkhlO_s]

This story made me chuckle.  

According to CNet, Microsoft Head of Research, Mr Rick Rashid was quoted as saying:

If you use a Macintosh or an iPhone, which honestly I would not recommend, you would be using code that I wrote more than 25 years ago.

I could be taking this quote entirely out of context, but I find this terribly amusing.  To be fair, Mr Rashid is partly responsible for the Mach kernel used in the FreeBSD variant of Unix.  FreeBSD was of the components later developed to make up Darwin, which is one of the foundations of Mac OS X and later, the iPhone. 

But this is stretching it a little too far for me.  In this case, would Alexander Graham Bell be credited as one the iPhone’s creators since technically, he was widely credited as inventing the telephone.  How about Thomas Edison as a co-inventor of the iPod, since he invented the phonograph.

Mr Rashid went on to say:

It just shows you things really do survive and get used in interesting ways.

Let’s add humility to the list of achievements Mr Rashid can be proud of, right above claiming credit for your competitor’s key technology.  

The good thing is that, Mr Rashid’s comments can be seen as a concerted effort on Microsoft’s part to dismiss the iPhone. 

The bad thing is if Mr Rashid is saying he’s partly responsible for Mac OS X/iPhone but not recommending it, is he saying something about the quality of what he developed?

OK, perhaps I’m over-reading into this.  But if he meant what he said, then I wonder how Vista is working out for him.

**Long post ahead, be warned.**

Singtel threw a party at midnight of 22nd August to launch the iPhone but I was terribly unimpressed, so I’m not going to talk about that. My buddy Jimmy was there with me and he has some coverage of the event on his blog as well as some videos. See if you can spot me.

I went back the next day to buy my iphone and about two hours in line later, I came home with my brand new white iPhone 3G. I mucked around, got everything in sync, fiddled with the settings and even took it out to town. 24 hours later, I’m here to share whether I think the iPhone lived up to its hype.

Let me start by saying what it cannot do. Out of the box, the iPhone:

• Can’t send MMS.
• Can’t do video calls (despite being 3G).
• Can’t create group contacts.
• Can’t send contacts.
• Can’t let you replace battery.
• Can’t set custom ringtones (unless you buy it off the iTunes store)
• Can’t shoot Video.
• Can’t cut/copy and paste anything.
• Can’t voice dial.
• Can’t edit Microsoft office documents.
• Can’t perform turn-by-turn GPS navigation.

Unimpressed?  You should be.  I used a Dopod running Windows Mobile before, and I know these functions exist in smart phones. Why didn’t Apple include them right from the start? Do the lack of these functionality then, make the iPhone a failure? Maybe not.

I hated my Dopod running Windows Mobile. I’m so relieved my dog chewed it up to a million pieces when I left it on the couch one evening. The phone was big and bulky, had a slide out keyboard with keys that are too small and an irritating stylus that I’ll always fumble when trying to tap something on the train during peak hours. I’m not even going to start on the Windows Mobile OS. From how much I had to adapt and learn to live with that, I wonder why they’re called smart phones.

The iPhone just doesn’t feel like smart phone. In fact, I’m quite certain it’s not. So if you’re looking for a smart phone and you absolutely cannot live with any of the iPhone’s missing features above, then you can navigate away. The iPhone is NOT FOR YOU. I repeat, the iPhone IS NOT FOR YOU.

The iPhone is what a phone should be – everything is gorgeous, everything is working seamlessly. It can’t get simpler than plugging in to your computer and have iTunes sync every email account, contact and calender to your phone. Within minutes, your iPhone is ready to go.

Right out of the box, the iPhone should be enough for most of your needs. Good voice quality over calls, SMSes are a breeze with the iPhone’s predictive/learning keyboard that will auto-correct your mistypes for you. Surfing the web with Safari is great. On the move, I checked the number of a restaurant and made a reservation for dinner, saving the number on my contacts and when I got home and did a sync, the number was added to my Mac address book. Call me an ignoramus, but I don’t believe this was possible without installing extra software or buying an expensive dongle.

If you have an iPod like I do, you’ll be happy to note that with the iPhone, you can retire or giveaway your music player (like I did). The iPhone does a great job with playing music. Navigation is a breeze with the touch interface, and to me the best part of the experience is how the earphones makes what’s good even better. Along the wire of the right earphones is a little plastic piece about halfway between the Y-junction and the earphone, that you would speak into if a call comes in. When a call does come in, it fades out the music, you click the plastic piece and you’re connected. Click again to end the call and the song fades back in where you left off. While listening to your songs, a single click pauses or unpause your song, and a double click forwards to the next track. So, if you’re commuting, you probably never need to take off your earphones once you step out of the house.

I could go on but from the first 24 hours, the iPhone is certainly changing how I’m using a mobile phone. Very much like how my first iPod 6 years ago changed the way I consumed music. I think there’s a little too much hype surrounding the iPhone. The truth is, it’s not a phone for everyone. For me, I’m happy that my phone has no ability to make me work on my office documents. I don’t need a phone to make video calls because even when I had a phone that could, I never used it.

So if you’re thinking of whether you want to make the leap and buy one? Look at my list above and think about it yourself. If you want a business phone, then look elsewhere. There are smart phones out there trying to slap on a candy-coated GUI. Palm and RIM makes great working phones that can do a lot more than what you need. For me, I’m going to keep going with the iPhone. Apple has a pretty good track record in the recent years and I believe its only going to get better as the months pass. If like me, you’re looking for a phone that can extend your digital life then the iPhone could just be the right fit.

Now, I’m going to look at the iPhone and see if there’s something else I don’t know.

You’re ten years old today, and you’ve come a long way.

You started as Bondi Blue running on a 233 MHz PowerPC G3 with Mac OS 8.1 and a hockey puck mouse and in ten years, we’ve seen you evolve from a teardrop-shaped all-in-one, to a Lampshade, and then morph in a flat panel display.

Beautiful.

You’re still sitting on my study table, and I still can’t bear to sell you after serving me well for so many years.

In your ten years, you have achieved many things. You put Apple back on the computing map when Steve unveiled you to the world. We’ve seen you appear in countless movies and TV shows simply because you were so aesthetically pleasing. You changed the way other PC makers (copiers) think about their ugly beige boxes. You popularized USB in a way that had hardware makers producing peripherals to match your colors. You showed how bold it was to rid the world of Floppy disks.  You were the first Apple product to upgrade to an Intel chip.  

Here’s a gallery in Wired as a little tribute to you. And here’s to another great ten years to come.

Happy birthday iMac. The world would have been a little duller with you.

 It is confirmed! Got a mailer from Singtel and 22nd August 2008 is the big day the 3G iPhone lands in Singapore.  

Singtel iPhone mailer

T minus 9 days. I’m holding my breath.