What do you do when the entire nation is rushing to file their taxes just two days before the April 15 deadline? Put your e-filing server on maintenance, of course!

That’s what the taxman has done today, interrupting taxpayers’ attempts to file their income statements for at least six hours, at the time of writing.

The problem was first noticed at about noon, and since then, taxpayers have not been able to log in to the IRAS (Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore) e-filing website.

At noon, it had said the site would be up by 2pm. At 2pm, it was still down, and a message on the website said to wait until 4pm. The latest “maintenance” will keep taxpayers waiting until at least 6pm.

It is unknown what’s wrong with the server right now, but one thing’s sure: it’s contributing to the online jam as more people fail to log in and file taxes on time.

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Electronic Art’s new game is basically Magic The Gathering Online turned into real-time-strategy and is a fantastic game. But it has one HUGE problem – there is a bug which makes you lose your virtual assets and currency. The problem becomes serious when you realise that the exchange rate is 1 battleforgepoint (bfp) = 2 singapore cents. So when I saw 1050 bfps disappearing from my account, it means I lost the equivalent of S$21.

In my case what happened was that I had sold an ultra-rare card called enlightenment for 1050 bfps. I saw the money going into my game account but when I relogged into my account, both the card and the 1050 bfp was gone! Turns out that I am not the only one and that there are at least five other chaps who have had different problems.

This things are not a problem when gamers raise a ticket to customer support to remedy the situation but going by what the forumers are saying, some have been waiting for over THREE WEEKS for this issue to be resolved but still no sight. The problem with this bug is that it has affected the confidence of many gamers to continue trading until they get a resolution on their first bug. I recently paid $80 for additional BFPs to buy more cards but unless Phenomic (the studio which developed the game) can get its act together, it will be losing some customers pretty soon.

That’s what a new application, now pre-installed on the recently-released Sony Ericsson C510 candy-bar phone, promises.

Shown to a group of media here on Wednesday, it’s offers “zero-click” access to your Facebook pals’ status updates because it shows up on the main screen without you having to go into any menu. It’s Sony Ericsson’s latest attempt to hook up its users to the social media world easily.

What you get is a scrollable list of your pal’s status updates on-screen – and you can click on their faces to interact more. It’s a bit like the live RSS updates on the main phone screen that Sony Ericsson currently offers on some of its phones, which to me, is an excellent tool.

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At yesterday’s Lotus Singapore 2009 — part of a series of regional roadshows that IBM Lotus is holding in Asia Pacific — the key theme emphasized throughout the conference was on collaboration.

I was expecting more updates on IBM Lotus’ cloud computing platform — LotusLive — which was launched earlier this year in January, but the IBM folks didn’t have much to say on this. I wrote about this when it was first unveiled.

There’s little to add to what I haven’t said already, except that LotusLive is one of many such platforms in the market all looking to ride the next big tech wave. All the big software giants — e.g. Microsoft Azure and Google App Engine — are looking at the social collaboration/cloud computing space.

Who will win out? It’s anybody’s guess, but no one would discount behemoth Big Blue with their clout.

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First, there were the Apple iTunes Store and Amazon.com’s MP3 downloading service. Then mobile phone giants like Nokia and Sony Ericsson waded into the online music selling fray. Now, search engine vendors Yahoo and Google are gate-crashing this ever-burgeoning party – with a bang.

On Monday, Yahoo announced it has refreshed its music service to encompass a bigger ecosystem with external online music providers like Apple, collecting a fee with every referral, according to Reuters.

New York Times over the weekend reported (screenshot above from the article) that EMI, Warner Music, Universal Music and other big wig record labels will be working with Google to offer free downloads of music in China.

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We have Social Media Breakfast (SMB), Mobile Mondays and Web Wednesdays.

We have groups like The Digital Movement (TDM) and e27 running all kinds of events from Barcamps to Blogouts to Unconferences, with much of the content revolving around social media and start-ups.

Do we really need another social media get-together platform in Singapore?

The folks behind 24seven — bloggers Claudia Lim and Kelvin Lim — think so. And thus Tweet Tuesdays was born.

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Went to the first ever WordCamp Hong Kong today and the highlight for me was certainly hearing from the founding developer of the WordPress platform Matt Mullenweg, which this site – and millions of others – run on.

Affable Matt took the WordCampers, which I’m guessing numbered around maybe 50, on a journey back through time – from how he started working on it and ending off a little into the future – with features request for the next version of WordPress. But there was much more.

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Targus has recently introduced a series of peripherals aimed at Mac users who tend to be a picky bunch when it comes to design. The Targus for Mac line includes the Bluetooth Laser Mouse (seen above), Wireless Mouse, USB Hub, Bluetooth Presenter, File Share Cable, Privacy Screen and Chill Mat. Techgoondu laid our hands on a few of these products which should go down well with owners of both new and old Macbooks and Macbook Pros.

Bluetooth Laser Mouse

At first glance, this Bluetooth enabled mouse is shaped somewhat like Apple’s Mighty Mouse which I have been using with my 2-year-old white Macbook. Ergonomically, it feels familiar and comfortable to hold and control mouse movements. The grey edges and base of the mouse is made of material that gives users with a good grip.

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StarHub has just won the OpCo contract in Singapore’s next-generation national broadband network (NGNBN), a deal which will see it operate and manage the “active” infrastructure in the new network that promises speeds of 1Gbps in future.

The active infrastructure refers to stuff like switches and anything that is “manageable”, that is, anything other than the physical cables which are being laid by the NetCo (awarded to the OpenNet consortium of Axia NetMedia, SingTel, Singapore Press Holdings and SP Telecommunications).

Essentially, StarHub will be the go-between for RSPs (retail service providers) looking to offer ultra high-speed broadband and services like perhaps pay-TV in future over the new network. It will also be the one likely to be hooking up your terminators/modems to the fibre optic cables being laid to homes, schools and offices by the NetCo. …

After months of running a free beta trial, Nokia has finally launched its push mail service via SingTel – the first of its type in Asia, so says the press release.

From tomorrow, SingTel users who buy the new Nokia E63 phone and sign up for a S$5-a-month MobileM@ail Plus data plan for two years will get the push mail service free of charge.

According to Nokia and SingTel, MobileM@il Plus also comes with a bundle of 10MB data and PhoneSafe – a mobile phone security offering that “lets customers lock phone, backup and delete important data such as emails from phones remotely”.

The big deal about the push mail service from Nokia is that it works right out of the box. All you need is your e-mail address and password to get going. …