Paypal and DBS Bank have a collaboration for providing yet another method for paying your purchase online. Previously Singapore shoppers could take advantage of Paypal by connecting it with their debit/ credit card. With the collaboration, those who are DBS Bank customers have one more choice, topping up their Paypal account directly from their DBS account. There is no fee for topping up your Paypal account too, although you will still be subjected to exchange rate fee – if you purchase in foreign currency, and some applicable Paypal fee, if any.

Many online merchants now accept Paypal, including eBay, Gmarket, neko treehouse, Apple Bazaar and many more. With Paypal, you will be spoilt for shopping choices, could shop more securely and have easier checkout process too.

For more details and how to, click here to go to DBS Paypal page.

For a limited time till 30th September 2010, the first 5000 customers get $10 rebate with a minimum spend of $100 on your first online purchase. Are you still qualified? Shop now!

The acceptable timeline to Australia for registered airmail is about 1-2 weeks.

We had checked on this and found that it could be due to the shipper we were using. Previously, the shipper that we used for Airmail (to Australia) do not fly direct to Australia. They route to other countries post office first for stopover, before reaching Australia. This transits increase the shipping time and hence the delay.

To improve our customers’ satisfaction, we have now changed our shipper for Airmail (to Australia) to Singapore Post.

Airmail via Singapore Post Office to Australia do not route to other countries and fly direct to Australia, hence it reduces the time needed for the packages to reach our customers in Australia. The timeline should now improve since now it will take about 1-2 weeks transit via Singpost.

We hope with these changes, we will continue to improve the shopping experience we have with our customers in Australia.

Please kindly contact us at customers@applebazaar.com if you do face any problem in the shipment of your parcels. We will do our best to assist you.

Regards

Joe

Firstly, gears such as Power Gym Rings:

Power Gym Rings

Resistance Band:

Resistance Band

And.. pedometer. This is a mini pedometer and very affordable too.

Mini Pedometer

The best of all in today new arrival is … TRX Home Fitness Kit. Easily set up an exercise space at your home. All you need is this kit and your home door, because there is door anchor in this pack. Training DVD included too. As quoted from TRX, “Make Your Body Your Machine”!

TRX Home Suspension Trainer Kit with Door Anchor pack

Can’t wait? Simply click on the pictures / gear names to start shopping @ Apple Bazaar now!

Cupid is often used as an icon representing Valentine’s Day, seen as a nude boy or nymph with wings that is holding a bow and aiming an arrow. In Roman Mythology Cupid is the god of erotic love and beauty. In Latin the word cupid means desire. It was believed his arrows were used to bring a message to the hearts and souls of couples. This intimate message of romance and love could only be heard and felt by them. His aim is often spontaneous and unpredictable. Although many yearn for the attention of Cupid, he too can become smitten by the shear power he possesses.

Valentine’s Day is often used as a day of proposal for many ‘young love’ couples in the hopes that the magic and significance of the day will provide an everlasting effect upon their upcoming union. Many couples will marry on this day and bring enhancement to its meaning year after year. Even children will see this day as a way to express their growing emotions of love and admiration towards a special classmate and to the adults that encompass their daily lives.

Gifts are usually given and exchanged between people sharing relations of love and romance. It is very customary for a man to present a woman with flowers or jewelry to reflect his observations of her beauty to him. It is not uncommon for a woman to spend hours preparing herself to become the vision her man will desire.

However, Valentine’s Day is considered a Hallmark Holiday and there are countless cards, trinkets and memorabilia to mark the occasion and honor the ability to express love and admiration towards another. Chocolate is also used in the exchange of valentine emotions and ideals. The shapes, sizes and collections are endless and are found everywhere.

Although many gifts are given, sometimes it is a small and simple kiss from the heart that can be the most suggestive and reflective of one’s feelings. So long as it has come from your valentine!

The most stated legend is that during 3rd Century Rome, Emperor Claudius II made it illegal for young men to marry. He felt young, single men were better soldiers. Valentine, a man of the cloth, thought that it was a great injustice and would secretly marry young couples. When he was discovered, he was condemned to death and therefore became known as a martyr (one that will choose death over renouncing religious principles or beliefs). He was buried outside of Rome on February 14. A different version suggests that Valentine was persecuted for helping Christians escape Roman prisons and the day of his death was then noted. Another legend is that commemorating this date was an effort to integrate Christianity with the Pagan celebration of Lupercalia. This was a belief that spring began in the middle of February and was seen as a time of purification and fertility when rituals and animal sacrifices where performed. Then there are some cultures that relate this day to romance based on mating habits of birds and other animals.

It was Pope Gelasius, in 496 who began the first celebration for the Saint Valentine, declaring it a holiday. The idea came from the Calendar of 354 written for and dedicated to a Roman man of wealth named, Valentius. It mentions the martyred Saints of Valentine. He established this day after the Roman lottery for pairing couples was declared illegal and un-Christian.

However, over the centuries the purpose and meaning of recognizing this day has changed and varied over decades and across societies. The applied versions become largely based on popular novels, articles and represented images of the times and places. Generally, idealizing the practice of romance and the emotion of love on this day came from 14th Century England. It was then associated with Courtly Love, a medieval European concept of expressing love & admiration between members of nobility. Over time this concept has become somewhat misconstrued, as this shared affection was kept secret. It was considered an erotic desire combined with a spiritual attainment that husbands and wives did not share.

The icon closely associated with Valentine’s Day is Cupid (a nude boy with wings holding a bow and arrow), in Latin it’s meaning is desire. Cupid is the god of erotic love and beauty in Roman Mythology. It was believed he brought an intimate message of romantic love to the souls of deserving couples.

Today, even though its original purpose has mostly been lost, it is a day for showing others that you hold them in your heart. It is a day representing love, affection and admiration.

For those of you who do not know ESS stands for Electronic Speech Systems. I wanted to make that certain specification before I went on and talked about the domain of the company, its area of interest and their accomplishments.

ESS Technology Incorporated, the public name of the company, is a manufacturer of computer multimedia products and it has its main office in Fremont, California. The company it is functioning since 1984 and the co-founders are Fred Chan, a VLSI designer and software engineer and Forrest Mozer, a space physicist at the University of California, Berkeley. The company has over 500 employees all over the world and Robert Blair is the CEO and President.

Nowadays ESS it is known for their line of portable multimedia players, but back then, in the beginning, it was popular for their line Audiodrive, a line of chips for audio cards.

ESS used to produce synthetic speech for home computers systems (as Commodore 64), realistic sounding voices that became very popular in time. One of them is “He slimed me!” from Ghostbusters and another one is “Another visitor – Stay a while, stay forever!” from Impossible Mission.

In the mid 1990s developed the Audiodrive line, a line that was based on manufacturing pc audio and video chips, which were being used in all sorts of gadgets. And the development continued until today. ESS Technology Inc. it is known for designing and manufacturing high-performance audio and video chips and semiconductor devices for different market domains: home, consumer and automotive.

The products that this company has to offer are the following:

• DVD solutions: DVD processor, transmitter, decoder, everything that can ease up the work with the DVDs.
• TV and radio solutions: TV tuners and radio tuners; they support digital TV standards as well as standard TV standards: ATSC, DVB-T, DVB-C, NTSC, PAL, SECAM and FM radio formats.
• Digital media player solutions: chips that allow playback of MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG-4, photos and music formats on different phones, media players and such.
• Internet solutions: chips that allow high integration and low cost for WAN/LAN connection, phone, fax etc.

The company is among the first ones one the market in this particular domain. That is because through the time it maintained a well-based relationship with its clients and manufacturers, its goal has always been providing the best service and the defect products rate has always been one of the lowest.