This time at PZPortal, we have the privilege of interviewing Michelle Lim, Marketing Specialist of Asus Singapore who happens to be the head coach of Asus’s Campus Elite program. So what is this ACE program? Read on to find out!

But before we proceed, a BIG THANK YOU to Michelle for frequently providing us with exclusive photos of Asus newly released hardware.

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1. What is the ACE program and how did it came about?

ACE is also known as ASUS Campus Elites. This program aims to educate and interact with students from the various tertiary institutions (e.g. polytechnics and universities) on ASUS products, the latest technologies and also to build a network/relationship between ASUS and the students through the various activities and events that we organized.

2. What are some of the activities organized by ACE so far?

-Exclusive training for selected members
-Career talks
-Workshops in school
-BBQ Gathering
-Sponsorships
-Product loans

And many more in the works.

3. How does ACE reach out to school regarding their events?

We will approach our supporting clubs in the various schools and let them know about the proposed events. After the discussion, the club will allocate various members to plan and execute the events. As for ASUS, we will follow up closely with the various club, provide them with the publicity materials (if needed), products and even manpower. Thus, through our long term partnership with our supporting clubs, we are able to see the increase in our ACE member’s database.

4. How many members does ACE have and what is their average age?

Officially, we have 122 members in our ACE members and growing. However, there might be more as not all ACE members registered in ASUS Campus Elites website but rather they registered with our supporting clubs. Our members’ age range from 17 to 23, with the majority members from year 1 and year 2 polytechnic students.

5. What are some of the perks members get to enjoy during their time in ACE?

-Career opportunities (part-time and full-time)
-Certificates (member who participated in our workshop/training)
-Testimonials (members who hold leadership position in our supporting club)
-Discount for ASUS products
-Exclusive information on the latest technologies from ASUS
-Product loan and testing
-Networking with industrial professional
-Learning of new technologies and products through the various workshops we organized
-Invitation to close-door events

6. Beside engaging students, does ACE have any plans to engage alternative media to expand their membership base?

We are planning to increase ACE’s exposure in forums and on Facebook. Also, we have plans to include ACE in selected ASUS online contest and campaign to increase our member’s database.

Check out this site to see an example of how we tag ACE along in our contest: http://asus-ez-ui.com/contest.php

7. What is the biggest challenge you faced so far as ACE’s Coach?

The biggest challenge is to capture the heart of our potential members. Thus, when it come to preparing materials for workshop and training, we will revised our material according to the needs of the students such as not giving too much technical terms that general students might not understand, we also try to make learning IT more fun rather than just giving talks in lecture hall. There are many things that we are still learning and adapting through the activities that we organized and we hope to learn more about the student’s behaviour in order for us to better adjust our program toward their changing needs.

8. What do you think of ACE program at large and how has it benefited students?

I believe that it is worth being part of ACE program. Other than those perks that we are offering, the purpose of this program is  to allow students who are passionate about IT products or this industry to learn more about us and for us to groom them and probably recruit them into ASUS. Our company believes in nurturing and motivating our employees to explore their highest potential and eventually to become the world’s most admired leading enterprises in a new digital era.

9. As ACE’s head coach, what do you think hold the future for the ACE program?

From the previous questions, you could have guessed that the key ingredients of this program are our members, clubs and schools. Without these fundamental groups, we won’t be able to achieve what we have today.

Win figurines of Nakano Azusa by joining Snickers Hunger Buster challenge. All you need to do is to follow Hungry Buster twitter account and lookout for hints to find out where Sneaky-Hands might be. The fastest person will win a Canon Ixus 95 IS digital camera and the figurine!. Only 4 to be won before the contest ends on 19 August, so hurry.

Source: Animax Asia

Yes! As pushed by the community of PZ portal, We will be holding a Draft Session on next weekend!

Currently we are discussing on which of this 2 days we will hold the event. Anyone interested just need to post here!

Timing 01 :

Date :  23rd July 1900 Hours

Timing 02 :

Date : 24th July 1400 Hours

Info :

Let us know whether which of this timing you will prefer and if you prefer to draft any set (Currently set to M2011 incase we have new players joining us!).

Requirment : $13.50 for 3 boosters (I’ll try to see if this can have a prize for the winner of the draft)

Please bring sleeves if possible so you don’t spoil your cards.

Prize pay out currently is set to Pool Rare.

Seats are limited as per shop space, so let us know asap!

Anything just email me here.

Location :

Beauty World Centre
144, Upper Bukit Timah road
#03-28 Beauty World Centre
Singapore 588177
PH: 65-64661660

URL : http://www.cardmastergames.com/

P.S : To the Shop Keeper / Owner, I’ll be emailing you the details once I have it ironed out. Thanks!

May you find a partner in this event!

Source: Forbes.com

With the annual Black Hat security conference coming up, many are looking forward to see what new ways of “playing” around the world of network and systems. One demonstration  seem to have cause a stir in the crowd. Entitled “”How to Hack Millions of Routers”, security researcher Craig Heffner plans to release a software which allow anyone to hijack your router by simply having you visiting a harmless looking website.

Based on a technique known as “DNS rebinding”, it forces a victim’s browser to connect back to their own network when they visits the malicious site and by hijacking their browser gain access to the router’s settings. Although many patches have been applied to plug the exploit, Henffer says that he had managed to bypass the patches however would not explain how its is exactly accomplismed until his Black Hat talk.

User however would be pleased to know that the attack only setup the initial connection path for the attacker. For the router to be compromised, the attacker would still need to gain administration access into the router. This can be don by using the vulnerabilities in the router’s software or by mis-configuration such as using of default login credentials.

The long awaited Opera mini 5.1 can now be found on Android marketplace. Opera mini has been very successful in compressing webpages up to 90% of it’s original file-size and formatting it to display on mobile phones. The latest 5.1 version is also designed to consume less system resources, which is very useful to handsets with hardware constraints. Opera mini 5.1 is also available at Apple store, or can be downloaded directly from their website.

Google also releases App inventor for Android. App inventor allows people with completely no experience in programming a chance to create their dream apps. More information can be found out at the official site and google’s blog post. The video below gives a brief idea on how it works.