blog.dk.sg now!!!" />

Saturday, March 31, 2007

5 minutes to kill yourself

What would you do if you have 5 min to kill yourself in the office?

You would thought that it is easy to kill yourself. Trust me, its not an easy task.



And I did it in 1min 53sec. (Of cos, after a few failed attempts)

Slogging at work

Sorry for the lack of updates. Been busy at work lately when I should be busy with my assignment.

Left office on Thursday at 11 plus and went hunting for dinner. Went straight to bed after reaching home. Haven't been so tired before.

I've been slogging at work lately. Sometimes wonder why am I working so hard when my pay is still so low.

Saw Cobalt Paladin's twitter message today morning.



It seems like everyone is slogging at work.
The only difference is.....

I'm slogging for someone's business
He is slogging for his own business.

Sometimes, I wish I could slog for my own business. At least at the end of the day, its my business.

Or even better, get someone to slog for my own business.

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Thursday, March 29, 2007

Kiwi

This video won the Youtube 2006 video award most adorable category.



"Kiwi!" is an animation about a Kiwi - a type of bird that cannot fly, who spends its whole life working towards achieving his dream. The kiwi strived to create the illusion that it was flying over a forest as it soared down through the sky from the top of a cliff. Thus, the kiwi spent what must have been its whole life nailing trees to the side of a cliff. All this, to fulfil its one dream of flying, even though it was technically unable to. There are several powerful messages behind Kiwi, but mainly, it makes you think: no matter how absurd and seemingly out of reach your dreams are, what's stopping you from achieving them?


Other than being most adorable, I think it is also the most inspiring video.

How far will you go to achieve your dream?

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Final Year Project

I still remember 7 years ago while doing my final year project in Poly. The topic was simple, do anything you want. We have 1 year to do the FYP and each student is assigned to a tutor. And I was unlucky to be under the charge of her.

I still remember the first meeting we had. I went in fully prepared. I already got idea of what to do and I told her my plans in detail. I wanted to write a graphical user interface for user to write code in COBOL and invoke a DOS compiler to compile the file. In short, I wanted to do a COBOL IDE.

She wasn't very approving of my project, not because it is no good or out of scope. But because she herself has a project on hand that she wish I could do. She has a project to do a online photo album using JAVA.

I didn't quite like it. There seems nothing much to do except uploading and downloading photos. That was the year 2000. Blogging is still a new term which is unheard of for most of us. If I was given the same project again now, I would take it and do something like Flickr. But at that time, I couldn't envision the prospect of a online photo album.

I should have accepted her project and score points by listening to her. But I insist on doing the project I wanted. Her project seem easy and nothing much to demostrate my skills. She told me to go back and think about it. I agreed to go back and think about it reluctantly. I knew she won't take a no easily.

That was our first meeting.

We met again several weeks later. I told her that I'm not interested in doing her project. I wanted to do the project that I have in mind. She was angry and we quarrel in the meeting. The meeting ended rather fast as there is nothing much to say.

So I went on and do my project on my own. Unlike my friends who could often consult their tutors, I knew that I'm on my own. I don't really mind actually.

I didn't meet my tutor after the 2nd meeting until she emailed me around 1 month before the FYP submission date. Left with no choice, I bring my nearly completed work to meet her. I briefly showed her my progress. She didn't seem interested. I wonder why did she want to meet in the first place.

The last time we met was on the project demo day itself. We have to demostrate and exsplain our project to our tutor and a second marker. Most tutors would help their student explain the project to the 2nd marker too as they also know quite a lot about the project. But mine didn't. Or rather, she can't help because it was her 2nd time seeing my work.

As a whole, the FYP was an unpleasant one. Maybe I was too stubborn. If I took up her project, all these things wouldn't happen.

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I'm currently doing my project module for my part time degree course. Somehow, memories of that FYP keep coming back. I hope things won't end up as bad as the FYP.

Ping.sg economic

The recent ping.sg population boom got me into thinking about some economic stuff. No, I'm not talking about funding for ping.sg, although Uzyn wanted to move to a delicated server which require more funding. Well, that is another topic for another day.

What I wanted to say is, we are encountering a over-supply, under-demand situation. Alot of pings and very few pongs. Having more people joining ping.sg is a good idea. They create more pings which offer everyone more choices. This is over-supply. But not many people are clicking on the links, or pongs. We end up seeing a lot of post with 0 or 1 pongs. This is under-demand.

And if the situtation get worst, it is going to create a problem. This is going to be a major challenge to overcome as the site gets more and more popular.

--------------

One thing I notice, the number of pongs is following the 90-10 rule mentioned by Robert Kiyosaki in the book "Why we want you to be rich".

10 percent of the pings gets 90 percent of the pongs. While the remainding 90 percent of the pings fight for the remaining 10 percent of the pongs. Perhaps its because of the most popular chart on the top of the page.

Or is it because of my ping-pong theory..... Sex and Money attracts the most pongs.

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Short and sweet

Our tutor showed us one of the assignment answer done by my classmate. She wrote 18 lines for a 3 mark question. And her answer is perfect, 3 out of 3 marks. My tutor said it was the best answer she got for that question.

The thing is, I also got 3 out of 3 marks. And my answer is 5 lines long.

Shouldn't my answer be considered better? I wonder...

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

The Corrs feat. Bono - Dancing when the stars go blue




The Corrs feat. Bono - Dancing when the stars go blue

Dancing where the stars go blue
Dancing where the evening fell
Dancing in your wooden shoes
In a wedding gown

Dancing out on Seventh Street
Dancing through the underground
Dancing little marionette
Are you happy now?

Where do you go when you're lonely
Where do you go when you're blue
Where do you go when you're lonely
I'll follow you
When the stars go blue

Laughing with your pretty mouth
Laughing with your broken eyes
Laughing with your lover's tongue
In a lullaby

Where do you go when you're lonely
Where do you go when you're blue
Where do you go when you're lonely
I'll follow you
When the stars go blue
The stars go blue
Stars go blue

Monday, March 26, 2007

What was he thinking?

Our team has been sharing one login account to 1 of the system. The person who owns the login id has resigned for quite some time, but we didn't unregister his id until recently.

So another colleague went to apply for an id to share among the whole team. When he got his id, he mass mail to the team to inform everyone the user id and password.

When I look at the to list, something seems to be wrong. The number of recipient seem abit too little. We have 10 people in our team.... but there are only 7 people in the recipient list.

I don't know why was he thinking. The easiest way to mass mail everyone is to take an email from our teamlead copy the list of recipient. Our teamlead always mass mail to the whole team to inform us important stuff. If he use our teamlead's email as a guide, he won't miss out anyone. Simple thing like that also can make mistake.

And one look you know that the number doesn't tally. The list is too short, its obvious that someone is missing. And he didn't even bother to do a quick count to see if he missed out anyone. What the heck was he thinking?

Oh, no need to guess.... it is our fave guy again.....

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Which company are you from?

I've lost count the number times that someone ask me about the company I'm working with during Nexus.

Seriously speaking, I'm not very comfortable revealing my company name. Firstly, I'm attending Nexus as an individual. I do not represent my company nor do my company know that I'm attending. I paid the $15 registration fee myself.

And I'm beginning to more and more dislike my company, its policies and its staff each day. Somehow, I don't want to be anyway linked to my company at the event.

While browsing thru the attendee list, I found a number of people from my company. I don't know them. But I check the outlook addressbook and found that they are mostly director or manager level.

I feel quite uneasy when people ask me about where I'm working at. As much as possible, I tried to move away from such topics. Lets hope that next year I'll be in a company where I feel comfortable revealing its name to everyone.

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Sunday, March 25, 2007

We are still ISO certified

The external auditors came and left on Friday. She didn't manage to find any reason to tear away our ISO cert. I'm pleased to announce that our company is still ISO certified. :)



(PS: This lorry doesn't belong to my company)

I always wonder, what does it mean to be ISO certified. So what if a company is ISO certified? And so what if it is not? What difference does it make? Would you stop using a company's product if it is not ISO certified? Would you specially go check if a company is ISO certified?

If the company has a good process, it doesn't matter if you are ISO certified or not. So why is everyone chasing that status? Just like why is everyone going outsourcing when reports says that most company didn't see any savings in outsourcing.

And its irony that I've been assigned the ISO coordinator for my team. To me, being ISO certified means nothing. Its just a nice status that you can print at the back of your company's lorry.

Actually, its easy to pass ISO. You just need 2 tools.....



... and 3 skills. 无中生有, 人间蒸发 and 前昆大挪移.

After 2 years of being ISO coordinator, I think I've mastered the skill already.

the LITTLE red book

Everyone was given a copy of the event booklet called "the LITTLE red book (Future Edition)" at Nexus.



There is nothing wrong with my camera. That is really the colour of the LITTLE 'red' book. For a moment, I thought I had colour blind. Until I confirmed with the rest of the gang that it isn't red in colour. More of maroon colour.

Another thing..... do you know that the little red book is actually rather communist. The quotations from Chairman Mao is also refered as the little red book.

Imagine a gathering of 500 people, with a big banner saying "Leading in times of disruptive change". And everyone has the little red book with them.

I'm surprised that the ISD didn't arrest all of us yesterday.

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Nexus 2007

It was a great event. It's hard to believe that Singapore could held such an event and attract so many excellent guest speakers. Salute to The Digital Movement for organising such wonderful event.



I went to Nexus with the wonderful guys and gal from ping.sg. I so glad that I could tag along with them as I would never attend this great event if I'm alone. We reach the place rather late as everyone was late for the pre-event breakfast session. Luckily the event haven't started.

The first speaker is Nathan Torkington from O'Reily Radar. Great speaker. Really enjoyed listening to his speech.

Next was a short interview with the organisers of Nexus.



The first panel was about emerging opportunities in the flat world. The Microsoft guy clearly has an agenda of his own. Open Source not good? How could that be possible?

It was teabreak after the first panel. The teabreak provided a good environment for networking. As for me, I just stick with the guys from ping.sg and see how they network. Me just a nobody in the IT industries.....

After the teabreak, there was a dual track panel. One was on mobile web explosion at the auditorium while the other was about crowdsourcing at one of the smaller room. Being a blogger, it is obvious that I attend the panel on crowdsourcing.



The panelist for the crowdsourcing panel includes guest from Cnet, Stomp and tomorrow.sg. Its the most interesting panel for the event. The room was overcrowded. We should have taken the auditorium for this event instead. Didn't really buy everything that panelist from stomp said. She claims that stomp will post all submission by readers as long as it is not racist or anything to do with religon. How about political? Hmmmm....

Uzyn stole the stage for 5 minutes halfway thru the panel. It started with Clapping tree talking about tomorrow.sg's way of selecting article and how difficult it was for bloggers to gain readership. She mentioned about ping.sg which suddenly drew lots of attention among the audience. Uzyn took over the mike and talk about ping.sg briefly. Looks like we are going to get a hike in membership this few days. Haha.

It was lunch after the crowdsourcing panel. Uzyn was surrounded by lots of people asking him questions. The rest of the ping.sg gang just stood one side and watch his 10 minutes of fame. haha.

Rather surprised that lunch was also provided. I thought we have to go out and hunt for our own food. Wow, the sponsors must be good. :D

The panel after lunch was slow. I guess they put drug in our food, making everyone feeling sleepy. I went to the Future of the web panel, skipping rinaz's talk on second life. Sorry, but second life is a small subset of the future of the web. :D

We had another teabreak and chance for networking after the future of the web panel. The problem with all these event is that all you do is eat, sit, talk and listen. Don't get fat also very hard.



The last panel was on riding on change, which I totally catch nothing. Maybe I should wait for the podcast and re-listen to the discussion.

At the end of the event, there is a chill out plus networking session at one of the room. Free food and beer provided. Wah. The sponsors are really good. Had a great chat with some of the industries players. It was inspiring listening to their views and looking at some sample of the things they were doing.

Overall, it was a great event. Wish they could do it every year.

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Saturday, March 24, 2007

Chio bu reading crappy blog

Was at Nexus today where ping.sg stole the show, thanks to clapping tree. Will blog the details later.

Anyway, all I want to say is, we saw this really chio lady with a equally chio macbook going to ping.sg and she pong chillicrap's blog. And she actually stayed at his website for quite some time.

WAH CIAO. Lady, why waste your time on craps? Come my blog better.
If you prefer crap, I can crap with you too.

(See, this post is crappy enough)

Maybe crappy blog attracts more chio bu readers. I should crap more.

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NEXUS 07


At NEXUS now.
No wifi connection.
No power point.

Feeling so disconnected from the future.

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Ping sg shoutbox twitter

Don't play play, even the pingsg shoutbox also got a twitter account now.

What it does is, when someone 'shout' at the shoutbox, it will be published to the twitter and thus sending a sms to those who subscribe to the pingsg shoutbox twitter.

Cool huh?

But subscribe at your own risk. Your handphone will be flooded with SMS if there is a chat going on at the shoutbox. Haha...

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Friday, March 23, 2007

69 love notes in my mailbox

Open my mailbox and found 69 love notes inside.

No, not 69 love notes from 69 secret admirers. But the book "The 69 love notes - Secret to a loving and lasting relationship" by Kloudiia. Yeap, I'm one of the 69 person who pre-ordered the book.



The book launch was held yesterday night. But I can't attend as I need to OT. How I wish I could attend and meet Kloudiia in person. Maybe next time.

The book came just in time. I've just finished reading "The Starbuck Experience" yesterday. I was actually expecting the book to arrive next week. Quite surprised that it arrived just one day after the book launch. Cool.

Too bad it couldn't be found at book jetty yet. Maybe soon.

Kloudiia also attached a thank you card together with the book. How sweet. And she autograph my book too. :)



I think I can sell this book for $100 at ebay when she become famous. :D

Who should do it?

This is actually a grey area.

This is what happen. Colleague A used to be assigned this task in the team. There is a re-org in the team and A's task has been handed over to B. Few months down the road, someone discovered that there is an error in 1 of the item A did before handing over to B. In fact, from the beginning to the end of the task, it was all done by A. Although the task is now under B's responsibility, B didn't touch it because it was completed before B took over the task.

Now, who should fix the problem?
1) A fix it since he was the one who made the mistake.
2) B fix it since he took over the task from A

I would say it should be 3) B fix it with the help of A.

But that is an utopia which never exist... or at least never exist in my team.

I spotted a small error today. Wanted to get the person who did it fix the problem. But he said that he has already handed over the item to another person, therefore it should be fixed by the another person. He didn't even bother to explain or guide the other person. Just merely say its no longer under his charge.

True.... it is no longer his duties. But the mistake was by him. Shouldn't he take some responsibility and help fix it? After all, it just take mere 10 minutes to resolve the issue.

Pissed off by the way he shake off his responsibility.

No prize for guessing who is the person I'm talking about. It's always him....

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Thursday, March 22, 2007

Change PC

After setting up PC for everyone, I finally found time to setup my own PC.

I copied everything to the new PC via network and start to bid farewell to the desktop that has been with me for the last 4 years in the company.



The 1.6ghz, 256mb PC that has been working with me since day one in my company.

Good bye old PC. Hello new PC.



3.4ghz, 1gb. Shoik.

The new LCD screen is making my desk look very empty. I seriously need to place more documents so that I will not give others an impression that I have nothing to do.

Pirates of the Caribbean At world's end Trailer



Welcome to Singapore.

It's just a dent... Really!

Someone from SPUG spotted this.

Read this article from Channel News Asia.

Police officer crashes his car into pillar along walkway at Jurong

SINGAPORE : A police officer crashed his car into a pillar along a walkway at about 6pm on Monday.

The incident happened in front of Block 274D at Jurong West Avenue 3.

A police spokesman told Channel NewsAsia the plain-clothes officer had lost control of his vehicle.

It then mounted the kerb and hit the pillar.

No one was injured, but the car's bonnet was dented.

The police are investigating the incident. - CNA/ms


The report says that the car's bonnet was dented.



More pictures can be found here.

It's just a dent... Really!

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Outsourced work plagued by cost overruns, underperformance: survey

Here is a very interesting article from Channel News Asia about outsourcing.


Outsourced work plagued by cost overruns, underperformance: survey
By Jeana Wong, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 19 March 2007 2028 hrs

SINGAPORE : The practice of outsourcing has not really brought in its much-touted benefits for companies, according to Deloitte Consulting's latest outsourcing survey of 280 of the world's biggest global firms.

The survey revealed that outsourced work have been plagued by underperformance and cost overruns, leading companies to start counting beans and to manage such work proactively.

To prevent costly mistakes, legal and accounting experts suggest that companies examine their own processes and think hard about exit strategies.

Outsourcing has been a popular catch phrase among companies looking to cut costs by hiring external parties to provide specific operational services.

But a Deloitte survey has found that outsourcing itself could lead to more staffing and tweaking of the services than expected.

And this ironically raises costs and eats into any expected cost savings.

"Typically, for organisations that outsource, they might have variations in terms of their practices across different regions or perhaps different operating companies. These different practises would mean that they are not able to accept the standardised solution offered by a vendor in a wholesale manner," said Phua Jer Hong, regional practice leader of Strategy & Ops Advisory at Deloitte Consulting.

"In other words, the majority of the organisations have yet to realise the cost savings that they are originally entailed or have identified in their business case. They are also putting in place a larger-than-expected retained organisation to manage outsourced vendors, as well as to manage the outsourcing deal itself."

Rather than being fixated on cost savings, Deloitte suggested that companies think of outsourcing as part of their overall business strategy.

For instance, a company entering a new overseas market could outsource its human resource operations. This would turn what would have been fixed costs into variable costs.

Companies could also transfer their risks and liabilities if they outsource non-core operations like disaster recovery.

Deloitte said companies could also start by centralising and standardising their own processes first before outsourcing what they identified as their non-core functions.

While there are many benefits from outsourcing, legal experts say companies will need to figure out their exit strategies right from the outset, so they are better prepared during transitions or when the relationship with an outsourced partner sours. This is especially if in-house staff have been transferred over to work with the vendor team.

"When you are in a transition out, make sure you think about where these employees are going to go and how you are going to downsize the relationship. Employees for certain jurisdictions in certain countries are, of course, a very political issue, a public relations issue, so you want to make sure you get this right from the outset," said Chin Hooi Yen, associate director of Gateway Law.

"The other thing is intellectual property. You want to ring-fence your IP and protect it throughout the relationship. And when you exit, you're still in control of your intellectual property, and not left it in the control of the vendor."

Of the 70% of respondents in the Deloitte survey expecting cost savings from outsourcing their work, nearly 40% had paid extra or hidden costs for services they believed were included in their contracts.

In the same survey, nearly two-thirds of respondents who outsourced have brought those services back in-house. - CNA /ls


So anymore top management people still want to outsource?

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Which university did you graduate from?

Continue to help setup the new PC for some of the colleagues who are on leave on Friday.

So as usual, I connect the new PC to a network point, help my colleague map to the shared drive and ask them to copy their data to the new PC.

Then one colleague asked me this question:

"So I copy everything in C drive to the new PC C drive huh?"


WTF..... For goodness sake, if this question is being asked by someone with non-IT degree, I can still understand. But this fellow has an IT degree. Does he has any basic IT knowledge? You just need to copy your data over. Your software need to be reinstalled onto the new PC manually. It will not work if you just copy your program folder over to the new PC. This is basic IT knowledge that even non-IT people would know. Does he really have a IT degree or is it bought online?

And my reply to him was:

"Which university did you graduate from?"

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Few hours later, another colleague walked pass me and saw me setting up PC for other colleague. He came over and had a short chat with me. He said that being a LAN admin in a IT dept is actually quite an easy job since everyone here has a IT diploma or degree.

I told him that story and both of us laughed for 5 seconds before continuing our work.

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I know, I sound rude. No matter how stupid the question is, I shouldn't be insulting the person by asking him which University he grad from.

But it is the same person who didn't restart the job, didn't setup the laptop, anyhow promise deadline, didn't inform us till last minute, arrow me to cover his meeting and give excuse saying he don't know.

I think heaven will forgive me for being so rude.

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Monday, March 19, 2007

Not my type of retirement

Recently, I begin labeling some of my colleagues as people with "Retiree Mentality" (RM). These are people who are in the company waiting for retirement. They are unwilling to put in extra effort, go by the books and unwilling to take up changes.

People with RM in my company are all perm staff. They are always scare of doing things that has never been done. They follow the rule book and unwilling to make slight changes for special cases. They don't know a lot of things and are unwilling to learn. They don't want to do too much as doing too much means more chances of making errors. They are afraid to make mistakes. They are just there waiting for time to pass and waiting for their retirement.

There are many characteristic of a RM person. These are just few of them. And sad to say, some of the RM people in my company are holding high position like Directors and Team Lead.

This is not my type of retirement. I don't want to find a secure job and work till I'm too old to work. I want to be rich enough to stop working before I reach the retirement age. I want to get out of the rat race, to earn enough passive income to pay my bills and have enough to live a good life. Its not easy to reach that stage, but not impossible.

But I'm not heading towards that direction. In fact, I don't even know what direction am I heading. But I know it's the wrong way.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Me LAN Admin

Our company bought 27 new PC lately. One of them is for me!! :D
Its about time they upgrade my PC. I'm on a 1.6ghz, 256mb PC. Its still alright for normal duties. But when there is a large list to vlookup or I need to use jbuilder, this machine crawls.

As I'm the LAN Admin on duty, I have to help setup the PC. So there are quite a lot of PC to setup, I decide to do 3 at one go. Could had gone more if the space allows.



The whole thing feels so like the days before my Poly when I was doing parttime job as a trainee technician. Setting up PC like a factory worker at a mass production line. Everyone who walk passed me will go "WAH" or "WOW".

After setting up, I need to get the new pc owners to transfer the data from their old PC to the new ones. At first, I wanted to pull the harddisk from the old PC and plug it to the new PC. But then, the old PC's HDD is on IDE while the new PC is on SATA.

So the only option is to use network to transfer data. Slow, but better than nothing. So with a borrowed hub and power extention cable, I set up some of the new pc on the floor. Using 1 monitor, mouse and keyboard, I connect the new PC to the network one by one, share the drives and get the users to transfer their data.



It is an interesting sight.

Corona Beer Freezing Trick

Put a Corona beer in the freezer for 3hr, give it a knock and it "freeze instantly".



Cool. Should work with any other beer right?

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Guess what's for dinner


Yummy

Updating windows

There is a reason why I hate to update my windows.



The constant pop-up to remind you to restart your windows after updating.

I'm using my PC now. Can I don't restart now? Can I wait till the next login to activate my new updates?

Pissed off by the constant bugging by Windows. There is no way to turn off that reminder. If you click restart later, it will pop up again every 10 to 20 minutes until you finally give in and restart your stupid windows.

I will restart when I want to restart. Stop bugging me!

Argh. How I wish I could switch to macOS.

Renewing broadband contract

My Singnet broadband contract just ended recently and my subscription rates have been reverted to the normal rates. In case you don't know, the price published on Singnet website are all promo rates. Once your contract is over, they will revert you to normal rates which is much higher. You must re-contract in order to get the cheaper promo rates.

Unlike mobile phone, broadband doesn't require you to upgrade your device frequently. Therefore they have no carrots to make people renew contract. That is why the ISP tie you by offering you cheaper rates for signing a 12 mth contract to make sure you don't switch operator. Which I find it quite stupid. It's as if I'm not welcomed to be a customer if I don't have a contract with you.

Why am I penalised for not renewing my contract but staying with your company? Why?

waste of paper

Went AMK hub for lunch today. Can't really remember the name of the place. Wow noodles or something. Its just opposite New York New York.

It is one of those "go counter order food and they will send to you" pattern. The problem is, there is only 1 counter. And the cashier taking order is quite blur type, thus jamming up the whole place and creating a queue. (And you always thought that the queue is because the food is good)

Putting that aside, there is something seriously wrong with their process. When you ordered your food and pay up, the point of sales system will print out 2 receipt for you. One in Chinese and one in English. Why the heck do I need 2 piece of receipt? Can you just print a Chinese receipt or a English receipt? Or combine both language on 1 piece of receipt. Why the need for 2 piece of receipt?

Nevermind......

Most restaurant make their point of sales device also print another order item list using the printer located at the kitchen. This is for the cook to see what food to prepare. Since the kitchen and cashier is usually separated by a wall, I guess this is a good method of passing message. Although I would prefer a more environmental friendly method like using monitor to show the order items.

I guess this restaurant is also doing the same thing. In addition, they also have another printer at the drink counter to print the drink orders. The staff at the drink counter will prepare the drinks based on the printed drink list. The only problem with this is...... The drink counter is just next to the cashier. In fact, the printer for the drink order is just next to the cashier's monitor.

Why the need to print the drink orders? Why can't the cashier just tell the other staff what drinks to prepare?

What a waste of paper.....

Wireless what sg?

It has been 4 months since we have been promised free wifi across Singapore. But the wireless@sg is not as smooth sailing as the media reported. Not many new hotspot has been setup. Those major hotspot are not ready yet. Most of the wireless@sg point you see are existing hotspot that used to charge money, now changed to free.

Being free has a price to pay. Free means more people are accessing, resulting in slowness and more downtime.



Its not that I'm very far from the access point. My signal bar is half full. Yet I get disconnected frequently. And even when I'm connected, it doesn't mean that I can surf the net. Sometimes I'm just connected to the network but not to internet.

Its frustrating. Why the heck am I still paying $10 a month for such unreliable service? The Singnet hotspot used to be quite reliable before wireless@sg era. I don't remember having problems. Now that it become wireless@sg, it became problematic.

Why is paying customer sharing the same router as non-paying customer? How can Singnet ensure that paying customer get faster download speed? Why should paying customer suffer when the network is congested with non paying customer? Shouldn't paying customer get priority?

I think I'm going to cancel my wireless@sg plus subscription for sure. Wireless what sg? Its all overhype. Too many people access, too little bandwidth. End up you get tons of wireless access point but none able to get you online. I wonder how will our neighbour do with their Wimax implementation.

Malaysia's telecoms regulator has named four newcomers as winners of Wimax wireless high speed internet licences.
The winning bidders were Bizsurf Sdn Bhd, MIB Comm Sdn Bhd, Redtone-CNX Broadband Sdn Bhd and Asiaspace Dotcom Sdn Bhd.

The firms are expected to invest up to 300 million ringgit ($85.7m; £43.9m) within the service's first three years.


Hope their coverage at JB is wide enough that it can cover some parts of Singapore too.

I'm actually eyeing at M1 broadband. The cheapest plan is at $22 at month. Hmmm... worth considering....

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Thursday, March 15, 2007

Canadian breast examination ads



Or you can also drop me an Email and I'll help you do the examination. Absolutely free.

McDonald's beats Starbucks in coffee smackdown?

I still can't believe it when I read this article from LA Times.


McDonald's beats Starbucks in coffee smackdown
By David Colker, Times Staff Writer
11:37 AM PST, February 2, 2007


In the ultimate coffee smackdown, it was yuppie Starbucks vs. Ronald McDonald.

And the clown won.

Consumer Reports magazine said today that in a test conducted at two locations of each emporium, its tasters found McDonald's coffee to be "decent and moderately strong" with "no flaws." On the other hand, the Starbucks brew "was strong, but burnt and bitter enough to make your eyes water instead of open."

The March issue of the magazine, due out Monday, thus advises, "Try McDonald's, which was cheapest and best."

Actually, not all that much cheaper. McDonald's now charges $1.35 for what the magazine considers a "medium" sized cup of Joe. Starbucks gets $1.55 for about the same size cup. But of course, McDonald's has yet to offer half-cap lattes and it's hard to imagine Ronald in basic barista black.

Other fast-food coffees in the test included those from Burger King ("tasted more like hot water") and Dunkin' Donuts ("inoffensive").

No matter how much McDonald's revels in its win of the taste test, the company might be hard-pressed to use it in promotions. Consumer Reports, which takes no advertising, strictly prohibits companies from using its findings in ads.


The clown actually won Starbucks? How could that be possible?

OK, I'm not a big fan of Starbucks. I still prefer Coffee Bean anytime. The only reason why I go Starbucks is for the wireless@sg. I only order Cafe Mocha at Starbucks. Nothing else. The other drinks are too sweet for my liking.

But at least I still can find a drink that I like at Starbucks. Until now, I still can't find a drink that I like at McCafe. Nothing. All the drinks there are too sweet or doesn't taste good. And the stupid cup is hard to hold and drink with. The cup surface area is wide and thus the drink gets cold fast.

I've lost count of the number of times I walk over to McDonalds to order a soft drink instead of getting a coffee at McCafe. And I am a coffee lover in case you don't know.

OK, maybe they are referring to the McCafe in USA or LA. I can be quite sure McCafe can't win in Singapore. The standard just isn't there yet.

I miss the coffee at Coffee Bean.....

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Trick to lengthen paper assignments



No wonder they started using wordcount instead of page counts.

Nexus 2007

I'll be attending Nexus 2007 that is happening on 24 March at NTUC Centre.

Read their blog here.

Good thing is some of the folks at ping.sg are going too. Can join them. At least got some company. :D

Labels: ,

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Oversea opportunity

My teamlead is looking for someone to go china for 1 month to train the outsource staff there. Somehow, everyone thinks I'm the most suitable candidate.

But they forgot 1 thing..... I'm still studying part time. How to go oversea for 1 month? Its too disruptive to my studies. If really want me to go, I can only go after my exam which is somewhere in May.

Anyway, I'm not really keen in going there for 1 month to train the people. Most likely will puke a lot of blood. Not worth it.

Walking Memory

I notice that I've become a walking memory nowadays after buying the portable harddisk at the PC show. Here is the list of storage memory I bring out today.

Portable HDD - 160gb
Laptop - 80gb
Thumbdrive - 1gb
SD card in PDA - 1gb
m2 card in HP - 2gb
PDA - 128mb
HP - 64mb
Spare MS Duo Card - 1gb
Spare SD Card - 256mb
Spare MMC Card - 256mb

I'm really a gadget freak.

Middle of the night

Don't know what is bothering me. I don't even know if there is anything bothering me currently. Don't know if I'm feeling happy or moody at this moment. Its a weird feeling....

But I don't think I'm feeling moody now. I shouldn't be cause there isn't any reason to be. Then there is also no reason for me to be happy too. Its just some weird feeling inside me which I don't know how to describe. Its some sort of emptiness feeling.

There seems to be something missing currently in my life. I just can figure out what exactly is it. And if I can't figure out what exactly is it, how am I going to fight for it? And if I can't fight for it, how do I get out of this feeling?

Oh crap... I should be sleeping instead.

Somehow, I got this feeling I'm going to have a hard time falling asleep tonight even though I'm tired.

Monday, March 12, 2007

Commonwealth Day

Today is Commonwealth Day. Funny, Singapore is a Commonwealth country, although we don't have public holiday on this day, the least we can do is make it known to everyone. Oh well....

The theme this year is "Respecting Difference, Promoting Understanding".

Sunday, March 11, 2007

4D and TOTO also never so accurate

My teamlead just emailed me on Friday.

The external auditors has choosen our team to be audited. They will be coming on 23 Mar.

KNN... 4D and TOTO also never so accurate. So many teams in the project, heng heng our team ganna selected this year. Why like that?

Wah piang. Going to be damn busy cleaning up the teams documentations. Should I take MC on that day? Hahaha...

Visual DNA



Get your Visual DNA here...

Killing the popup

I hate to do this, but I couldn't stand the popup.

It took me quite a while to discover that is the webstat4u counter that is causing the popup. Which means I have to make a painful desision. To keep it with popup or to remove it. Webstat4u has been with me for as long as I was blogging. I already had it since my first blog. (Which I already forgotten the URL) It didn't have any popup until recently. Oh crap. What is wrong with you guys? Its 2007 already. Popup is so 1997.....

I kept the webstat4u counter for a couple of weeks, hoping they would stop the popup. But how naive I was. So I have no choice to remove it.

Goodbye webstat4u. It was fun having you around....



So I'm now left with extreme tracking. I like extreme tracking a lot because it is able to show me the last 20 referrers url. Which is good for finding who has linked me. :)

But I miss the counter graph that webstat4u has. Extreme tracking has a graph, but it doesn't look nice. Anyone got a nice web counter to recommend?

Saturday, March 10, 2007

PC Show damages

Its hard to go to PC show without buying anything. My damages at this PC show was quite huge.

Bought a portable harddisk... Finally.



160gb, with one touch backup button. Casing looked decent and is quite hard. But don't think it is going to protect the harddisk from a fall. Well.... Which harddisk casing can protect the harddisk from a fall anyway?

1 thing I don't like about this harddisk is the cable. Wah piang. The cable is so long and bulky. Can't even fit into the leather pouch.



I am going Sim Lim Sq soon to buy a shorter and less bulky cable. This cable is making the whole harddisk so un-portable.

Then I bought this.....



OK, CYMA did not have a booth at PC show. But I was walking toward the PC show at Suntec when I saw this shop having 20% discount for CYMA watches. So I went in and take a look. They didn't have the blue colour that I've been eyeing months. So the salesperson offer asked me to wait while she transfer the watch from another branch.

So I shop around until she gave me a call 1 hr later. Went back, but disappointed that it wasn't exactly the one that I've been eyeing on. The colour is correct this time, but not the design. So I looked at the black colour one. Quite nice too actually. Was abit tempted to buy already. But maybe the salesperson think that I don't want, so she threw in another 5% discount. That means 25% discount!

OK, SOLD. Anyway, I've been eyeing on that design for so long already. Although not the colour that I want, but this colour looks good too. And the discount really saved me quite alot. :D

Now.... all I need is to practice that Andy Lau pose....

Interview post mortem

Actually, I'm still not exactly sure if I want to take up that job if I'm selected. The primary job was kinda boring. But the secondary profile sound very interesting. The question is, how much time will I be spending on the secondary profile? It is unclear. Well, it will be a hard desision if I really get selected.

Anyway, the interview didn't really go very smoothly. I was calm on the outside and 100% nervous on the inside. Anyone who knows me well will know that when I'm nervous, I'll start talking non-stop and talking non-stop I did at the interview. So much so that at one point, I was wondering..... Why the heck did I say those things?

The interview was a good practice for me. It was a 2 way conversation. The 2 interviewers asking me questions and I asked them some questions too. But I feel that I should have asked more questions. Perhaps I was a bit nervous and scared that I might ask a question that sounded stupid.

I thing that I should look out in the future.... watch your choice of words.

Let see if I'll be selected for this job. Then it will be another headache time.

Friday, March 09, 2007

PC show price list

Think most of the price list is here.

I'm looking for a cheap 160gb portable hdd.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Job interview

After sending out tons and tons of resume, I finally get shortlisted for interview at one company. Finally..... for a moment, I was wondering if I'm really that bad that not even a single company wants me to go for a face to face interview.

Actually, I'm not exactly interested in the job position. But I still agreed to go for the job interview. Think I need to brush up my interview skill. Maybe I can take this as a practice so that I would be more confident when I go for the interview of the job that I'm interested in.

Oh well....

Oh ya... I just renewed my contract with my company for another year. In my own words, its "selling my soul to the company for another year". Guess this will be the last time I sign a contract with this company.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

800 morons

The police and civil defence received about 800 calls today with regards to the trembling.

For F**K you call the police and civil defence? Did anyone commit a crime? Is anyone injured or sick? Do you need an ambulance or fire engine? Is your building going to collapse soon?

Is there anything that the police or civil defence can do to stop the tremble?

Wake up your bloody idea lah. What is the purpose of calling the police or civil defence? What if someone got a real emergency and couldn't get thru the line?

Morons....

Interesting earthquake experience

The earthquake was actually quite a funny experience.

------------
A colleague who owns a car wanted to go to the carpark at the basement to drive his car out of the building asap, in case the building collapse. We were at the top floor. Told him that if the building really collapse, the top floor will be saved first, while the basement most likely last.

------------
The first thing the admin clerk do is to call the building management. She wanted to report to them that they felt the building shaking. But the line was engaged.

I wanted to tell her that even if they were sleeping, they would had also felt the tremble.

------------
Bump into a director from another dept while waiting for the lift. She jokingly told me that she need to rush down to her dept urgently to get her staff to evacuate if necessary.

I wanted to tell her that most likely her staff already got out of the building since their office is at the ground floor.

------------
On our way to lunch, we jokingly said that must find a open air place for lunch. Ya, right.

------------
Heard that some of the building at Raffles Place and Shenton Way evacuated the whole building. If you see the news, you would see videos of people at the ground floor of the building.

If the building is going to collapse, being at your office is much safer than being at the ground floor.

------------
Our building management made the following announcement over the PA system shortly after the 2nd tremble.

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, further trembles has been felt in the building. Please remain calm.


Ya, we all felt the trembling, unless you are in the toilet. So what is the purpose of the announcement?

Few hours later, another announcement was made

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, no further trembles were felt for the past few hours. Please continue your normal operation


You mean got people stop work because of the trembling?u

--------------
Was watching Channel News Asia's website. Some viewers submitted video and CNA uploaded it to their webpage.

Wah paing!!!

Video of lights swaying, necklace swinging and water in fish tank moving also can submit to them and upload to their website.

Told my dad to shake his fish tank or the light so that I can take video of them shaking. Maybe can submit also.

---------------
The news reported that some schools send their students home after the 2nd tremble. Maybe they were afraid the building might collapse.

But hor, if the earthquake is strong enough to make the school building collapse, would the student's home collapse too?

---------------
Both Police and The Building and Construction Authority (BCA) issued separate statement saying that there is no need to panic because our building can withstand trembles.

If you ask me, I only listen to the BCA for the obvious reason.

---------------

Did you see or hear any interesting earthquake experience? Come share share.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Shaking event

Felt my office shaking just before lunchtime. It was quite scary. Felt a bit giddy. Not sure what happen. At first I thought I'm going to faint, maybe because not enough sleep or something. Then I notice my colleagues also felt the trembling.

Next question on our mind was.... what happened? First thing that come to my mind and some of my colleague's mind was the building construction just across the road. Did the building collapse or something? Someone looked out and from his body language, we could tell that the construction next door is alright.

Could it be the construction affecting our building's foundation? Could our building be another Hotel New World? Everyone was wondering what happen and what to do next.

I was having a discussion with my colleague at his desk. I left my handphone at my desk. After the tremble, the first thing that came to my mind is get my handphone and put inside my pocket. Just in case if the building really collapse and I survive, I can still call for help. Or at least play mp3 or games while waiting for help. Ok, I think too much already.

Everyone in office is wondering what to do next. The directors were deciding whether to evacuate everyone or not. As it is near lunch time, most people started leaving their desk for early lunch.

While waiting for the lift, we overheard someone saying our colleagues at HQ in CBD also felt the tremble. So it has nothing to do with the construction next door or our building's foundation.

Then the next question. Is it an earthquake in Indonesia? I don't know why, but somehow my creative thinking mind was wondering if it an earthquake or nuclear bomb explosion. Haha.... I was thinking, maybe one of the nuclear power launched a nuclear attack or test that causes huge trembling. Or worst, some terrorist got their hand on a nuclear bomb and set it off somewhere nearby.

OK, I think too much. It is really an earthquake in Indonesia. First time felt an earthquake. Quite scary.....

Our office tremble again after lunch. It was the aftershock. But this time I was in the toilet and didn't felt it. The rest of my colleagues all felt the shaking.

Conclusion: The building foundation at our toilet is the strongest. hahahaha....

Calvin Klein underwear

If you guys notice, I've been putting Calvin Klein underwear in my X-mas wishlist. But nobody gave me that for X-mas leh.

Anyway, I got 1 lately. My first branded underwear.


Tag:

At first I thought these branded underwear are just good to see only. But I didn't expect it to be so comfortable. Can really feel the difference from my usual 3 underwear in a box.

Not only is it comfortable, it also sort of push my backside up. Suddenly I feel so sexy. As though everyone is looking at my butt. It also gave my tool good support.

Loved the new underwear. I think I'll buy more in the future. They are expensive, but worth the money.

But hor, their size is slightly different. Damn those bloody ang moh. I'm supposed to be 'L' size, but end up wearing your 'M' size. KNN.... *&#%$@

Monday, March 05, 2007

Windows fails second virus test

I'm not surprised when I saw this article.

Microsoft's Live OneCare security software has failed tests which check how well it spots and stops malicious programs designed to attack Windows.
OneCare was the only failure among 17 anti-virus programs tested by the AV Comparatives organisation.

Microsoft's software only spotted 82.4% of the 500,000 viruses that the independent group subjected it to.

The test is the second in less than a month that Microsoft's anti-virus software has failed.


Now... no wonder the Mac people are laughing.



But then, this is no laughing matter. There is another report that says that Mac users 'still lax on security'

Apple makes great play of the fact that its OSX operating has yet to be attacked by a virus while Windows XP machines are plagued with problems.


Which is quite scary actually. I keep telling everyone that all it takes is for someone to find out how to write virus for MacOS and almost all Mac will be doomed. In the past, it seems to be meaningless writing virus for Mac as there are not many users. But as Mac get more and more popular, I won't be surprised that hackers are already writing virus for Mac already.

Its just a matter of time.....

周杰伦 - 菊花台



周杰伦 - 菊花台

你的泪光 柔弱中带伤
惨白的月弯弯 勾住过往
夜太漫长 凝结成了霜
是谁在阁楼上冰冷的绝望

雨轻轻叹 朱红色的窗
我一身在纸上 被风吹乱
梦在远方 化成一缕香
随风飘散你的模样

菊花台满地上 你的笑容已泛黄
花落人断肠 我心事静静淌
北风乱夜未央 你的影子剪不断
徒留我孤单在无眠 神伤

花已香完 飘落了灿烂
凋谢的石道上 命运不堪
手摸独桨 秋心拆两半
怕你上不了岸 一辈子摇晃

谁的江山 马蹄声狂乱
我一身的戎装 呼啸沧桑
天微微亮 你轻声地叹
一夜惆怅 如此委婉

菊花台满地上 你的笑容已泛黄
花落人断肠 我心事静静淌
北风乱夜未央 你的影子剪不断
徒留我孤单在无眠 神伤

菊花台满地上 你的笑容已泛黄
花落人断肠 我心事静静淌
北风乱夜未央 你的影子剪不断
徒留我孤单在无眠 神伤

Letter to myself

Hi DK

Its been quite some time since I really sit down and talk to you. I guess it would be nice if I can write in your blog and talk to you for a short while.

I know you are sick and tired of studies. But this is the last year. Fucking last year. I know you are pissed off because your bloody promotion depends heavily on that freaking piece of paper and you wondering why the bloody hell did you choose such a fucking long degree program. You could have taken a degree that took 1 or 2 years to complete. But you moron choose the stupid UniSIM program with honors. That means at least 4 freaking long years to complete the bloody paper. And I know you are pissed off because you are doing the same role as a Senior Officer but getting a pay of a Junior Officer just because you don't have that piece of paper.

But hey, you made it so far already. Just one more year. In fact, less than 1 year to be exact. Its already March now. Come on.... Wake up. You can't afford to fail. Failing will means another year of suffering.

Just put everything you got and get over with it.

Best Regards
DK

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Global market flu

I didn't really read much about the recent market crash. Was too busy with work everyday that I didn't really bother much. I knew the investments that I had on hand will sure to take a beating. After all, the market crash is mainly cause by Shanghai. Nearly half of my investment is China related. The others should more or less be affected by China.

But I didn't expect the impact to be so big. In total, I lost nearly $800 over just one week. Luckily, it was just paper lost. I'm glad that I'm not in need of cash lately. Else I would be in trouble. Look like I have to hold on to some of the funds even longer than I expected.

Which make me remember something that I read from "Why we want you to be rich". Funds, shares, currency are not a good form of investment. You have totally no control of it. Take this week for example. For no reason, many people around the world made heavy losses.... and they didn't do anything to cause that lost.

It is just not a good form of investment. Perhaps I should find a better form of investment.

Another Thinkpad battery recall

Lenovo is recalling 205k Thinkpad batteries made by Sanyo.

Wah.... if you recall, my thinkpad was using Sony battery and was affected by the previous Sony battery recall. They replaced my Sony battery with a Sanyo battery.

So when I heard the news that they are recalling Sanyo battery, the first thing that came to my mind was..... Am I affected again this time?

I mean, I don't mind having my battery recalled. Its always good to have new battery. Furthermore, its all free of charge and they even deliver the battery to my doorstep.

So I checked Lenovo website and found this in their FAQ....

Q9. Is this recall related to the Sony battery recall?
A. No. The two recalls are unrelated.

Q10. I replaced a defective Sony battery in my notebook PC. Are any of the batteries shipped as Sony replacements being recalled?
A. No, none of the batteries we shipped as replacements in the Sony recall are affected by this recall.


Aiya.... no new replacement battery this time.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

I can still go home myself no matter how drunk I am

Went for a drink with some colleagues after the boring company dinner. Maybe it was boring because we had the worst table location. Right behind a pillar. Or maybe because he is at my table too. Or maybe because it was a busy day.

Anyway, we head down to St James for a drink. I think I drank too much. Maybe because of stress lately. Or maybe not too good mood. At first it was still alright. Got quite high. In fact, never had this feeling for a long time already. I should had stop drinking when I got to that stage. But I didn't. And the rest of the night was horrible. I puked in the toilet. I think this is the 4th time in my life that I puke after drinking.

Well, my colleagues didn't know that I puked in the toilet. Anyway, they are also quite drunk already. So we went home. I shared a cab with 2 female colleagues living around my area. But seriously speaking, I couldn't remember how I got up the cab. But 1 thing for sure, nobody helped me up the cab. And I slept in the cab.

So 1 colleague got off the cab at clementi. The other got off near my house. Left me alone. I don't remember telling the taxi driver my street name. But I do remember directing him to my house. And I remember pointing left and telling him to turn right. And quickly correcting myself by saying "I mean this way". And I manage to direct the driver to my carpark where I paid him. I don't remember how much is the cab fare actually, but I do remember paying him and getting change.

Then I puke again at my void deck. After that, I took a lift, reach home and puke somemore at the toilet. Aaahh.....

Remind myself not to over drink next time. It would be a pleasant evening if I could stop drinking when I reached the high stage. Puking after drinking is very bad for the body. I'm still trying to recover from the damage I did to my body yesterday.

Anyway, I've proven yet again that I can go home on my own no matter how drunk I am.

Friday, March 02, 2007

Cab-ful day

Its a Cab-ful day today.

Woke up late for work again. It was rainning and the weather is perfect for sleep. How I wish I cold sleep a little longer. Oh well. Left home rather late.

It seems impossible to flag down a cab. Tried calling the booking hotline for all the cab company but could get thru. I knew if I can't get thru the hotline, I most likely couldn't flag down a cab. So I keep trying for 15 minutes but still couldn't get thru the line. Then I saw an empty cab appearing out of nowhere. So I quickly flag it down. Saved me the booking fees.

------------------

Worked until 11pm today. I seldom stay in office until so late. Didn't had my dinner.

As I was in the cab, I was thinking what to have for dinner. Most of the shops near my house should be closed by now. Don't know what to eat. Don't feel like cooking instant noodles.

Suddenly, I got an idea. Why not go McDonalds drive thru at King Albert Park? Its 24 hours. Just that I've never been to a drive thru in a cab before. The Taxi driver sound kinda shocked when I proposed that idea. But he agreed to make a turn to the drive thru.

So I brought my first McDonalds meal from a cab. I guess I've attracted alot of attention from people inside McDonalds. hahaha.

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