yowkee essential

Happy Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is approaching. Wishes all Chinese a happy and prosperous new year ahead! It’s the year of the dog.

I was quite unlucky lately. Just two days before Chinese New Year Eve, I had the stomach inflamation. Diarrhea and vomitting — I can’t remember when’s the last time I vomit, bad feeling. So I was weak through out whole day yesterday and luckily some friend could drive me back to home town in this CNY eve — it’s the traditional family should gather together in CNY eve.

Anyway, the good side and also the bad side, I couldn’t enjoy all the traditional food this round.

ISV Thought

I have tried once to be self-employed and running software business a few years ago. The planned product isn’t out to the market at planned period of time and then I quited of some personal reason. I treated it as a failure in my mind, but this failed experience has been getting me back to think about working as a ISV (Independent Software Vendor) time by time.

Since then I have been following some ISV or MicroISV’s blog on and off. Some people’s success story really inspiring me but I have never taken any actions at all. What are those obstacles stopping me to go further? I have been pondering about it these few days, and here are my analysis of my own fear:

• I have no confidence to start a software business on my own. Ever since I started playing managing roles and act as a manager, I have less and less time putting my hand on any coding. Time flies and I do enjoy the manager role with its challenge and working with group of smart people. But to think about my own capability to start a MicroISV (one or two person ISV), I am hesistate. Despite, age of 33 has gotten me the fear to compete to young people. It looks like full of young and brilliant software people out there, and most of new pattern of success seem coming from young people. So, is it too late to start?
• Lacking of ideas: the question of “what to develop” has been sticking in my mind for months and I couldn’t get myself an answer. Lots of smart people’s blog suggested ideas aren’t the key thing to your product — you tend to find out what’s your strength, do the marketing analysis and following instinct. Well, I am not there yet.
• Security. Still, I have myself and my family to feed. There should have a stably cash flow plan if one got to sustain his/her startup business.

Finally, I have started to do some analysis on my own thought and reason of my procrastination. Feeling good to putting down the words. And from now on it should be the time to target to remove the obstacles one by one.

Fresh Air

I need some fresh air. I am in a bad shape now after 2 weeks of busy working. This is not right, one shouldn’t over work for more than consecutive 7 days. The consequence is: you lose the usual cool, creativity, ability to create, and worse, you can’t remember what have you done the previous day!

It means I am disorganized, although I do think the project’s work load is a little too extreme on the current manpower. Lesson to learn, a project signed and started too late is always a bomb.

I hope to back to normal blogging as I did in November. That’s good, no matter if anyone read it or not. Writing itself gave me some satisfaction. The blog entry of half a million ringgit race 2 bring some traffic lately, surprising even bring over one of my ex-colleague. People are still used to emailing good web URL nowadays.

Disease

At first it’s sore throat, then flu’s coming. Getting medicine and antibiotic, it turned into coughing. Coughing, that’s the unbearable part. I almost lost my voice now. When you can’t voice out whatever you’re trying to tell others, that’s suffering — especially in an office environment.

Office’s the incubator for disease. Think about how many people open and close the same door. People cough and sneeze.….So if you’re sick, don’t think about going to work, take the rest and get well. It would help you, as well as others.

Trip

Wow.…another month gone. :-) Time flies.

It is 6:30am early morning. I am waiting my sister to drive me and my wife to airport - we’re going to Bali. Yes, a trip! It would be totally relax trip, which I’m looking for over last 3 months. My last job stopped 2 weeks ago, and since then I’ve been enjoying jobless: reading, sport, movies.… (err…but didn’t do any blogging at all. It’s weird, when you’re out of one field, you are just.…out…I don’t even read blogs)

The new job would start on Oct 10. I would use this time gap to re-energy myself and regain the rhythm of my life, and my career, and blogging.

Depressing

I haven’t been blogging lately because I was depressing, hanging nowhere and get bored with everything related to Internet. My depression come once in a while, sometimes without reason. It could be due to some events, or may be it’s just part of my personality.

Nonetheless, I would like to force myself to keep blogging, even just paste some dummy links would do. My previous blogging ceased when something unpleasant happened. I was just too easy to let go and escaping, on anything.

I would like to try. It’s a good habit to regularly posting to blog, so as a very suitable pratice for my discipline.

Taxi Driver's comment

I was in this taxi, the driver speaks very good English. He said:

Tell you honestly, 9 out of 10 taxi pass by, that’s only one good taxi driver. But 99 out of 100 passengers are BAD CUSTOMERS! They are always picky on the direction you choose: “Hey, why you take this way…” That was once the charge was RM4.90. I told the guy I really don’t have any shilling at that time. He insist to get back his 10 cents! End up I have to give him back one ringgit, by losing 90 cents. All they want is money, money, money.…sigh…And those passengers wearing nice shirts, shining ties ROBBED me with a knife, twice!!

He went on to mention he has only 8 dollars in pocket, but the nice looking young guy robbed him. Well, the ridiculous city. 99% are bad? No, I am a reasonable passenger and not the only one. He didn’t hear my grunt though. It is pathetic. I’d seen some unreasonable passengers , who treat taxi drivers like an enemy (‘coz of mouth-to-mouth bad reputation); there are also quite a number of taxi drivers cheating on their meter, or took you to the wrong way. It’s just difficult to build trust between taxi drivers and passengers, especially in KL. Somehow if we do think a bit of each other, reminding ourselves that we’re both just people trying to survive in this big city, thing would go easier.

Relax, life is tough.

I'm Back

I have a break from blogging. I didn’t intend to do that though I like it :).

To put the recap: we drove to Ipoh for my sister’s father in law’s funeral. Coming back to KL, I brought my parent a 2 days KL trip. What others I did? Shopping, shopping and more shopping, watching T3 (hence the title), surveying digital camera, driving and more driving, all these exhausted activities distracted me from blogging/Internet.

While I was not blogging, I felt guilty of let the blog frontpage hanging for 4 days. And when I didn’t read blog, I am uncomfortable, feeling like I haven’t finished something I should have before going to bed.

All additive stuff is drug. So do Internet, so do blogging.

Meanwhile, Project Petaling Street v1.5 has officially launched! You could link to PPS if you are a Malaysian and you have a blog. More details here. I didn’t contribute much to the beta testing (shame on me), mostly because of my low spirit and personal events. The beta test is well done. Congrats, Aizuddin.

Thinking of buying a Palm

I want to buy a Palm. Yea, a PDA, and Pocket PC is totally out of choice due to number of applications running on it. Moreover, Palm application is more friendly, try it and you’d know. My Palm experience is limited to playing around with Handspring Visor Deluxe 2 years ago. It was used mainly for some application development and testing purpose then, so I don’t really ever use Palm day in and day out. Anyhow, such a small and stylish gadget could do me a great favor, in a particular field — DISCIPLINE. There are so many times I forgot things to do and I always want to jot down some random thought, regularly monitor my spending, time management…enough reasons for it.

Here’s come the survey..nope, I am lazy and tired, and hate to surf around to check out which’s good which’s bad — and then confusing myself (always end up to confusion). My choice is limited to a few latest Palm PDA (Tungsten series, Palm Zire 71 or some Sony CLIE models) since Palm seem to be on the edge after their Tungsten series (so Handspring is out. And btw, they’ve been merged with Palm). Blog rocks! I just checked Aizuddin’s survey, compare of Palm Zire 71 and CLIE SJ33, and his review of Palm Zire 71, I have almost made up my mind. Palm Zire 71 would be the choice. Feel good of how helpful is blog.

At last, the only problem is, I am greedy. A Palm, or a decent digital camera? No decision yet. (No budget for both).

Sad

I heard enough bad news today. This morning, I was told father of my brother in law passed away today. Then at the afternoon, I got a SMS — telling me on the decease of a friend’s dad.

It’s a sad day, hearing all these news, and the failed operation? of conjoined twins Laleh and Ladan Bijani. In their last letter, they said:

Both of us have started on this journey together and we hope that the operation will finally bring us to the end of this difficult path, and we may begin our new and wonderful lives as two separate persons.

Nobody could really imagine how they actually gone through all these years. I take my hat off to them, for their courage. And may them rest in peace.

No, I will not fix your computer

Sometimes I would just wish to wear this. I would like to say: “Hey, it ain’t my stuff. Leave me alone!” Some people, they just don’t understand you need some foundation in order to understand some higher level stuff. And they’re so lazy that don’t even googled themselves or do some pre-study. Worse is, it’s their daily jobs. I like to help non-IT literary people. But I can’t keep helping IT colleagues to explain on some basic knowledges (repeat again and again), answering lots of scripting syntax problem (like I am a walking dictionary). But I actually just google, and showed them (of course, teach people fishing instead of just giving fish).

Well, enough grumbling. They are nice people and my good friends. In fact, I realize it isn’t easy to change one’s personality (me too). Most of the times, I would just accept. If it’s bothersome, a bit grumbling could cure. :-)

Random talk in a sleep

After week of being sick, I am now suffering from low spirit. May be I should have taken a break, from work, from blogging, from programming.…away from computer, away from TV…

Oops, but I have just joined the PPS 1.5 Beta project. I am a late-comer to the core team, so it’s good to start with the beta test. Watch out for it, the project has attracted many smart people, and sure it’s enjoyable to read them.

The new syndication format design exercise is well worth monitoring. I have no any big projects on hand ever since my department having a re-org few months ago. But soon I might take up a new challange on some new development, and work with new group of people. The ongoing discussion gave me lots of inspiration.

Relief, away from illness

I can’t believe I still have to take pills after sicked for one whole week. It goes from diarrhea, disease converted into fever and headache, then it seem OK. I went back to Office and then the fever is back. The next morning I felt totally alright, and the fever came back again at afternoon. And then again, and again.

This is terrible, you won’t like it when coming back and forth between healthy and fever. Doctor said:”It’s OK, it isn’t dengue, not SARS either, just fever”. So that’s it, end the story. I got two full days rest and finally this Saturday I am fully recovered, except the muscle-ache at the shoulder, which came with overslept.

Now I have the determination for my plan of weight control — swimming, jogging, badminton…Healthy is everything, you bet.

Sleeping Days

I’ve been sick for two days. When I was sick, all I want is health. Nothing else could compare to your good body. The virus infection start from diarrhea, then convert into headache, fever. Feeling weak with fever, and then sleep, sleep, and sleep…

Of course there wouldn’t anybody interested in this, just to keep my blog at least once a day. :P

I listen to music, then sleep

Don’t really have the courage
To stand where I must stand.
Don’t really have the temperament
To lend a helping hand.

Don’t really know who sent me
To raise my voice and say:
May the lights in The Land of Plenty
Shine on the truth some day.
…

The Land of Plenty, Leonard Cohen.

My car

I sent my car for servicing this morning, be more specific: changing the tyres, front brake, balancing, alignment… I have to admit that I didn’t know much about car except to drive it. Sometimes I even feel embarrass to mention of that among my friends because they all seem pretty good in automobile knowledge. Being ignorant, I don’t familiar with the average market price on car servicing, so I’d just always send the car to the neareast workshop.

My new 13” tyres (175/70R13) cost me RM130 each, it is branded Classiro and imported from Indonesia. Is it over-priced or OK? May be I shouldn’t bother, as long as the service is good and no problem after all. What really bother me is, you got nothing to do while waiting for your car being fixed. There are always people hanging around, watching how their cars being fixed. I’d just feel bored. It’d be nice if the workshop located near to a cafe, which equipped with wireless Internet access :-), even better if the workshop itself providing Internet access. Haha, just my imagination, it didn’t sound justifiable to them.

Oh yeah, I owned a 1.5 litre engine Proton Wira.

Ask for opinion of Digital Camera

I am considering for getting a digital camera. There are so many brands in the market and they all looks pretty similar. I try checked out some survey on web but it just didn’t help me to make decision. It sounds good to have something like Canon Powershot S50. But my budget may be just be enough to get a 3.2 mega-pixels camera (may be 4.0 Mpixels).

I knew this blog haven’t brought enough eye-balls for polling :). Just wonder I might could get some hints and personal experience from you. If you drop by here for any reason, and you got a digital camera, would you share some information like what kind of digital camera you have, and what’s the best thing you think of it?

Thanks!

Weight control

While I am worrying lost control of my weight, been seen Sam Ruby and Sifry’s experience with Atkins.

Not knowing if the plan/product is available here, I am planning to try more exercises first, maybe at least swimming for two days per week? Hmm, I am over weight of about 8KG, got to be get serious on that.

Sneezing

Oh, no.…I can’t stop sneezing.…I used to have light nose allegy, and really really hate it!! Remember I was sick a fews day ago, here it come again…

Interview

About 1 month+ ago, I was pretty fed up with my working environment. I thought why not start my job search engine again, after 2 years engaged with this company. Well, then I went to Jobstreet and submitted a few job applications, without keeping much hope. Why? Because it seem I didn’t stand much chance with age over 30, because younger programmers are cheaper, because you ain’t get a manager position if you aren’t a manager yet.… In Malaysia, you didn’t much chance if you want to stay technical-focus/oriented and maintain your salary growth path.

And one month passed, last week that’s one response came suddenly. So I went for interview this evenning. The office looks good, bright and quiet environment, probably it’s due to off office hour. We didn’t go into details since the interviewer telling me it’s just a brief interview to know about candidates and they would shortlist suitable one for second round.

I asked him how he judged who is the suitable candidate since most of the resume looks quite similar? The interviewer is a kind and honest guy. He said obviously a properly written resume would get his eye balls first. There are tons of job application sending through email nowadays and worse, they’re all looks alike, they use job agency’s formatting (e.g. Jobstreet). It’s hard for a company to do resume filtering and profiling, and diffcult for them to know how good you are in particular area. Said for technical strength, everybody has the I-have-to-push-myself attitude and putting high score on everythings he/she could possibly handle/study or even just heard about. That’s how the current technical job market scenario.

However, it ain’t easy to skip away the hassle. Most of the applications still come with the same formatting and you couldn’t simply ignore them. Applicants still stand a chance to get interviewing. That’s how I get it. The guy said working experience is prioritized for such senior position. That’s great (but in my mind, I was wonder: well, it’s luck). For technical job, what I most worry is being interviewed by someone who couldn’t judge how good you are, instead of just depend on the submitted CV, which, probably happened in 8 out of 10 cases. While you are in that situation, what the heck possibly the interviewer could differentiate better among good? By document writing skill? Promoting skill?

What’s the morale? In short, if you want to find a job, you’re still obligate to prepare a resume properly, try to stay easily noticable by your targeting company is always the first step. Be cool, be nice, and prepare well for interview. And then, just wait for your luck. Yes, I am still believe it’s about fortune anyway after reading lots of article about smart interviewing.