Exiang Blog

Men commited suicide after years of break up

2007-09-02T01:38:00.001+08:00

Leong hanged himself in room with wire.

According to his mum, Leong became jobless and depressed after the breakup many years ago. Since then, he kept asking for money from her Thus, she has to continue to work in the hawker center as a dish cleaner.

When his mum advised him to work hard and stop asking money from her, he promised that this will be last time. Indeed, it is the very last time.

Leong than hide inside his own room until the family discovered his death in the midnight.

Why she dumped him? Why he isn't recovered after so many years? Why he decided to commit suicide? Why he choose to hang himself with wire? Why don't he try others method? Why?

Why i don't ask for money from my mum? Why i din't get the sickness of depression? Why i never jump down from my 19th floor hill view apartment? Luckily, i don't have any wire here and there's not even a hook on the ceiling of my "cheap pluck" apartment to hang a wire.

Yeah... i m already stop asking why she leaved me. There are many things which have no answer and can not be solve by logic. Asking why is just not helping.

I believe he did try hard to get rid of all this. At least, he tried to live for many years. But in the end he still failed...

Back from Seatru Program @ Hutang Changar Beach, Redang

2007-08-23T23:53:00.000+08:00

When life get stuck, the stuck get going with a vacation. Redang is always my favorite island, and this time i have stayed in the most unexplored side of it: the Changar Hutan Beach. The beach is located north of the island, isolated from commercial resorts and tourists. It's own by UMT (or more well known as KUSTEM) and is use for SEATRU turtle conservation project. Thus, it's really clean and beautiful.

The preparation
Signup for the project is easy, simple instruction can be found on their website. I booked the slot (Aug 4-11) back in Jan and then confirm with a small sum of deposit. Slots runs out very fast but you can always call them to try your luck if there's volunteers who doesn't turn up in time.

SEATRU also posted lists of equipments to bring over there. So the shopping began.

The Day before
I went there with two of my PJ ex-housemates. I purchased bus tickets online thru MaraLiner website. The bus depart at 12pm and arrived in Kuala Terrengganu at 9pm. We than stay in the town for a night at Mutiara Hotel. There isn't much choices for chinese food in the town other than Uncle Ng Restaurant. However we never tried it as the two kids afraid of running out of budget.

The first day
Taking a taxi from town to KUSTEM is around RM20. We then meet with a kind KUSTEM student when we were there and he brought us to the little SEATRU hut. There, we meet others volunteers as well as Prof Chan who then gave us a brief power point presentation. Then, we departed to Merang Jeti at 11AM. I had a bad-tasted nasi lemak there as lunch... (hey, nothing is worst than cyber's food).

Kuala Terrenganu -> KUSTEM -> Merang -> Laguna Resrot -> Changar Hutan Beach

I was the only male in the group of 8. I thought i could owned the whole master room but it ended up... cry... :(( Anyway, the living conditions is much much better than i expect: as good as commercial one!

Here, we get introduce to the experienced workers: Adi (MR tipu), Mann (Cool guy) and Garry (Maggie Hair)... as well as the friendly research assistances: Fong, Huda, Irene.

After learn about the schedule and daily routine, there isn't much things for us to do. We are then given our mask and life jacket and we are free to snooker around before 3PM (so we not disturbed the mother turtle).

We help to cook our lunch and dinner. As Fong promised, I have never get hungry here. :) yummy~

At night, we brought our carpet out to the beach and wait for the turtle to come up + enjoy the star sky.

Drunken San teach me how to spot the Scorpio (tat's my horoscope, yeah)! She said it will always be there all the months.

Then, around 11PM, we finally saw the mother turtle landing. It was so dark that I even mistaken it as a stone. She was just 1 meter away from me and I was freeze that time; It's a really experience to get contact with a turtle that close.

to be continue...

Breakaway - Chagar Hutang Beach, Pulau Redang

2007-08-03T01:16:00.000+08:00

I m going to Redang for a volunteer program to look after sea turtle for a week, starting tomorrow. It's not that type of relaxing vacation that you thinking, it's more like adventurous outdoor activities. I will be staying at the other side of Pulau Redang, which is a reserved land from tourists.

SEATRU invites volunteers to participate in its long-term tagging and in-situ egg incubation research and conservation project located at Chagar Hutang Beach, Pulau Redang, Terengganu, Malaysia.

A week on my favorite island, no laptop, only turtle :)

I hope i manage to get some inspiration from this trip. Stay tune and i will post up more interesting story when I am back.

For more information about Seatru, please visit: http://www.umt.edu.my/seatru

Control

2007-07-18T22:49:00.000+08:00

Since her leaving, I have learn about individualism.

Individualism go against Confucius teaching. Confucius encourage one to love people around him and to think for others before himself. Individualism is the opposite: One should take care of himself before he can manage to take care of others.

Then, I have reset my mind to adapt individualism for my thinking method now. I am not selfish but I am just being realistic, so that I will be stronger and continue living on my own.

One should practice individualism because at the end of the day, the last person that going to leave you is you yourself. Only by practicing individualism, one build dependency on himself and not others. Afterall, we can't control others' person thinking as well as we can't control others person's life.

We can only control ourselves and ourselves will never betray us, ourselves will live with us and stay beside us up to the last moment of life!

Control... I have decided to gain back control of myself after realized that I will never ever know what is in her mind. Only by controlling back myself, I don't further waste effort on her. Only by controlling back myself, I live for myself and treat myself better as I don't have to divide resources for her.

I wish i could control my heart to pump slower now... else i might just die off for over-speed-heart-rate.

Next Step: total format of mind and environment, erase of memory...

NULL

A story...

2007-07-08T11:52:00.000+08:00

It started long long time ago at this little river side town. There's a rich family in this town and they have a daughter named Chua. She had reached the age to get marriage but she is still picking here and picking there: she wanted to control her own life destiny to find the best one for herself.

Unfortunate strike: war came. All parents were worried about their daughter when the news of the "Rape of Nanking" arrived. Thus, the family wanted to marriage out the daughter quickly. In result, she was marriage to a well-doing business guy that's 10 year older than her which she had never meet before. And worst, he had a wife in the far far away homeland.

That's the destiny of a women in the era of 1940s.

It's not a fairy tale, so they don't live happily ever after. Although the war is over but her mother-in-law had commit suicided in the homeland due to the war. Her husband is very very sad for this and he had changed. He gamble and drink days and night, spending all his money without leaving a single cent to the family.

Chua used to has a baby but had accidentally aborted. Since then after, Chua lost the ability to give birth. She then adopted a baby girl and a boy in the hope that they will bring some happinesses to her family and also to take care of the duo when they are older. Of course, she wouldn't let the kids know about this. She named the gal as Huang and the boy as Seng.

Time fly and now is the ear of 1970s. It's a fun era where everyone dance with the music and have fun crazily without the worry of AIDS.

The kids had growth up and they are teenager now. They soon discovered their differences and suspected they are not belongs to this family. Again, Chua try to cover it.

Huang then marriage to a nice and humble business man in the capital city of the country. Seng alone stay back in hometown with the family. The life is hard as they have not much saving and properties.

Soon, Seng found his love one who named Moy. Moy came from a chaos family from the village. She tried to escape from the family stayed with Seng. Then, they were marriage even though Seng has no stable income. They give birth to baby gal and named her Yin. 3 years later, she was pregnant again with a baby boy.

Again, this is not a fairy tale so they don't live happily ever after. Accident strike in the night where Seng went out for supper: He got bang down by a drunken motorist when crossing the road. Seng passed away then and 7 days after that, Moy delivered a baby boy.

Life is harder now. Moy has to take care of the old duo as well as the young duo. Nobody knows what supported her going through all these. Meanwhile, Huang isn't living a happy life too. Huang husband's businesses had failed and he got an heart attack due to it. He then passed away leaving two kids, a gal and a boy too.

The family seem to be cursed. All these happened in the 1980s.

Time fly and the two women in the two city had gone thru many hard time and successfully bring up their kids in their own ways. Chua's husband passed away later. It's the 2000s now.

Huang's kids had growth up and they had both formed their own family. Moy's daughter had just get marriage and form her own family as well. But the curse remain on Moy's son...

He is now sitting above the balcony, the choice is simple for him: jump or don't jump. He definitely know the feeling of jumping down from 19th floor height. But he doesn't know how's the feeling of the moment when he bang the ground. That's what make him hold.

His life has never been easy for him. His ideal world is to have everything in binary: either true or false, simple and direct. But the real world that he is living in are always give him more than 2 choices:

What waiting for him infront is his own destiny that he created himself; there's no support from his family, nothing at all. He built it all by himself from nothing... null...

Or he can choose to give up whatever he had built so far and back to the messy home that he never feel he is belongs to. There, he has to take care of 2 unfortunate womens from 2 different era. Suposingly 3, but 1 had just leave him behind after used him for 5 years...

Or he could choose to leave this place and go somewhere far far away and start all over as null. He can afford this as he is confidence and he really has nothing to loose...

Or he could choose the path that his grampa had chosen: to continue fallen...

Or he could just jump down from here, perform his last jump and leave all the messy and miserable to this world. With his dead, he would buried the family curse together with him as he is the only son of the family. He would finally get the total freedom that he always seeking for...

Are you there?

2007-06-30T12:00:00.000+08:00

When I'm dreaming
And I find myself awake without a warning
Then I rub my eyes and fantasize
And all at once I realise

It's morning
And my fantasy is fading like a distant star at dawn
My dearest dream is gone
I often think there's just one thing to do
Pretend that dream is true
And tell myself that you are there

Don't ask, just Join.

2007-06-19T18:40:00.000+08:00

After many post of boring text, here are some pictures. So you might ask: who is rain lam? Why is he so famous? Of course, i will tell you: Don't ask, just join.

Click Here to Join Rain Lam on Friendster

He dance

Definitely a celebrity

and.. also... !

Why so many job site in Malaysia?

2007-06-15T16:57:00.000+08:00

Months ago someone approached me and ask me to code a "jobstreet-like" system for him. After analyzed all his features and request, I charged him 5k. I thought this is a reasonable price. Weeks later, he come back to me and tell me he is no longer interested. He already found 1 freelancer that do it cheaper. I ask him the price and he said: RM500!

This is fucking stupid. First, doing a job listing site is already stupid. Second, using a RM500 system is a bad decision. I don't mean 5k is better. Either one will never be a 2nd job street. (How u wanto compete with a well established company that hired teams of ppls and constantly improve over the system?)

Malaysia is a fucking funny country. When someone succeed in something, everyone started to follow. Look at how many job Listing site out there now?!

Just to name a few:

http://my.jobstreet.com
http://www.joblinkasia.com
http://www.jobsdb.com
http://my.tiptopjob.com
http://my.jobisland.com
http://www.bestjobs.com.my
http://www.surfdreamjob.com

p/s: If you are not in the list, please email me and i will add yours in.

Some of them try to be simpler (Google idea?), some try to be everything... some try to place ads all around..... none of them are jobstreet.

Come on, what's so cool about building a 2nd jobstreet? Why spending money advertise at the back of taxi again?

To solve the problem and fulfill the needs, I going to start one open source project that mimic all functions of jobstreet and put it out there for FREE. Let's see who can be the jobstreet 2.0.

Waiting required more than just patient

2007-06-01T15:59:00.001+08:00

It's pretty much like fishing, but it definitely require more than just patient.

If you are fishing in a pond that definitely have no fish in it, then there's no point to talk about patient.

Normally we wait because we don't have control over something. We wait for the share market price to up because we cant control it. We wait for the last day in the office because we cant just quit immediately after resign.

Sometime we wait but we have control. For example, we wait for the share market price to drop to go in so that we can get more quantity. We can do it now but we don't because we wanted more.

When we waiting for something that have uncertain outcome, it required some luck. Good example is like waiting for the announcement of lottery result.

When we waiting for something that's certain, it required patient.

After all, I think waiting is good; It's like taking a rest.

When you are in a long journey, why not slow down yourself, or even stop awhile at the roadside. Then you can take the opportunity to enjoy the scenery around you and who knows you might discover something special.

I have already choose my path years ago. I dunno how will it lead me to my destiny, I have little control over it, everything in future is dynamic and uncertain for me. However, walking this path have makes me stronger after each obstacle that I go through.

When think back, why I choose the path while others don't? I believe it's the stability that they can't afford to loose. For a person like me where I have nothing more to loose; then there's isn't anything that can stop me.

Press On

2007-06-01T11:10:00.000+08:00

Press on.
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

by Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald.

About Ray Kroc:
age 52 - Started his journey of entrepreneur
age 53 - Opened first branch of McD in Chicago
age 58 - Opened 228 branches of McD around US
age 59 - Bought over the McD rights
age 63 - McD listed on share market

Confidence

2007-05-08T01:43:00.000+08:00

One shouldn't lost his confidence even at the valley of his life. As a human in such gigantic society, it's impossible not to depends on others but there isn't much things that we can control other than ourselves. Understanding this fact will tell you better to put hopes on yourself than on others.

Some parents like to control their children just because they wish their children can perform what they failed to do. I am totally not agree with it as everyone should be threated as an individual. An over dependence child who live under the shadow of his/her parent is just someone that have no true control over himself, and if one day when his/her parent suddenly gone, s/he will suddenly feel lost.

As we are living inside a society interacting with many others people, our confidence keep on being challenged. With laziness and slavery attitude, we often prefer to depends on some others' "great guy" while we can actually DIY. A good example is the stock market.

Without confidence, one can never success in anything he is doing. Confidence come from nowhere but knowledge and experience. Only if we stop depending on others people than we can acquire the opportunity to try and learn. Sadly, today consumerism market will never encourage you to do this.

And... Confidence shouldn't come from others people as I have realized that everyone around you come and go naturally, no one can stay forever with you... not even your love one.

Take back your own life, take back your control, take back your responsibility, take back your confidence!

Beware of E Barrel

2007-03-27T16:12:00.000+08:00

Another pyramid scheme. The first time i heard of it is during December 2006 during my trip to Bentong Thailand. An uncle, obviously a rich boss is telling it to everyone on the bus.

The second time i heard bout it is during CNY, where my gf bro told me bout this. I shoot his mouth off.

Third time, i heard bout it from a friend of mine, that is around End of March.

I made a search to the domain name: http://whois.domaintools.com/buyebarrel.us, found the following facts:

1) The server is located in Hong Kong
2) The registrar is located in Singapore
3) The server is hosted by Kartz Global, world famous anonymous hosting company

Now, let me explain idea that i have gotten from this 3 facts

If I am the founder of Ebarrel, i would love to setup my server in hong kong mainly bcs of my target market of the huge population of chinese people in China. There is another fact: everyone that doing MLM is targeting China market as well.

Register my domain name in singapore could be a way to hide my real identity. I am definitely not an American.

Using anonymous hosting is more suspicious! Why would a International company wanted to hide his own real identity?

Conclusion, this is very obvious that EBarrel is not making money from investing in oil and energy. They are making money from the money you give to them for investment.

How it works?

I hav a sum of money as start cash, probably none too
Then i spread the news out
I just need 2-3 curious and yet greedy ppl to join
Then, i giv them the money as promise

Normally these ppl wont put 1000k directly
at starting, they will try with 100
but it's ok, nvm, coz at the starting I dont have such large amount of pay out capital too

I pay them money day by day
it is tempting and believing

After 3 months, they get back 100 + profit
Now, they will be greedy
i will be sure they will put the 100+profit back
some even add more money to reach 3% per day (different plan have different return rate, that is to encourage people to put in more money)

ok. they will spread around the news too
so my group of income growth

Last, all i need to do is let it expands... up to a point where it is impossible to cover anymore
i will close this company!
by tat time, i will be damm rich
and lots of late joiner will die

p/s: some of the big boss willing to invest big money into it bcs they think they will beable to quit before the company shut down

The world is dynamic, nothing is static

2007-03-14T14:55:00.000+08:00

As the creator of Davatar, i keep questioning myself: Does people need dynamic avatar when they can easily have a static one? Isn't that dynamic avatar will fail to create a solid virtual identity for them?

In real life, everyone likes to be stable. Stable in life, stable in job, stable in future... To me, stable means static, which is also means no changes.

Human beings hate changes.

Changes means dynamic, it caused fear from the unpredictable that caused it.

However, they all fail to realized that there is no such things as forever stable without changes. A static object have vibrating atom within its structure, these atom are not static.

Employer try their best to give their employee sense of security - stable in job. However, all employer know there is no such thing. They cant even be sure bout will their biz fail one day. Business world is dynamic.. but how could they ensure their employee with stablity ?

We got a conclusion: One need to use lots of resources/energy to maintain stability, just because the world is dynamic in nature.

One have to understand the nature of dynamic and learn to manipulate it to create the illusion of static. This apply to anything.

If i gone crazy one day...

2007-03-05T16:31:00.000+08:00

Brain looping on the same question that give no answer, obviously it is an infinite loop but I have no intension to escape from the loop. Soon, i feel the overheat and my mind halted once a while, then finally, I loose out of control in it.

By this society standard, i am considered someone which has "Mentally Illness"...

I wont have to giv 1 month notice to quit my job, i quit immediately...
I wont have to work on those unfinished projects, i quit immediately...
I dont have to think about her anymore, i quit immediately...
I dont have to care bout paying loan, i quit immediately...
I dont have to worry bout funding, i quit immediately...
I dont have to dream about being a successful entrepreneur, i dont give a fuck anymore...
I dont have to attend my sister wedding, i will stay in my room...
I dont have to play games, my mind is fun enough...
I dont have to think about the future, not even the past that i wanto forget...
I dont have to go anywhere, i will stay in my room...
I dont have to think about MVC, not even OOP make sense to me...
I dont have to think about beer, i wont like it anymore...
I dont have to think about who the fucker that reading my blogs, i wont be writing it anymore...
I dont have to worry bout am i gay or not, gender is not a matter anymore...
I dont have to think is it min or max, i have already found the balance...
I dont have to think bout open source anymore, no one will use the code produced by crazy fellow...

I simply dont think anymore, the mind will definitely shut down after the power exhausted, soon or later...

being crazy is good... it is a total escape from everything, even logic and system...

I HATE valentine day!

2007-02-14T01:56:00.000+08:00

To me, Valentine day is just a highly saturated celebration; i hate valentine day as much as how those Christian hate about Christmas.

In the early 1800's, St. Valentine's Day was virtually unheard of and seldom acknowledged. In the 1840's, merchants seized this Old World celebration and the link to romanticism and turned this day into an oft-celebrated one. The sale of "valentines" became prevalent. Soon, whole industries grew up around times of celebration, such as greeting cards manufacturers, candy-makers, and florists. Read More.

Obviously, all these are the evil capitalism tricks where they manufactured lots of luxury products and try to sales them by relate it with some human feeling, such as love, happy...

In exact, all these happened 200 years ago in the west while the east are still happily enjoy the simple and healthy lifestyle that haven't get spoiled by capitalism.

However, when they over mass product their valentine goods and hits the market limit inside their own country, they started to spread their idea to us. These could be my grand grand grandpa and grand grand grandma. The influence is so strong that everyone here started to follow blindly, thinking that you should spend $$ to show your love to celebrate valentine day.

Rose, Chocolate, Greeting Cards, Rings, Nike shoes...

The influence is so strong: Me, even as someone who awake from this evil plan, still can't escape from it. Why? My love one could be so spoiled by the media influence, peer pressure.... and wanted me to buy her flowers.

This explain why I HATE valentine day, it is all about consumerism!

Those that think they can buy true love by buying $ flowers and $ chocolates is just as dumb as those who think they will receive true love from the valentine gift they received.

No wonder, people trapped in this system can never easily discover their true love.

Paul Graham Startup Guide

2006-12-28T17:18:00.000+08:00

The only way to make something customers want is to get a prototype in front of them and refine it based on their reactions.
Your initial plans are almost certain to be wrong in some way, and your first priority should be to figure out where. The only way to do that is to try implementing them.
Start by writing software for smaller companies, because it's easier to sell to them.
It's easier to make an inexpensive product more powerful than to make a powerful product cheaper.
If you have the cheapest, easiest product, you'll own the low end.
To be self-funding, you have to start as a consulting company, and it's hard to switch from that to a product company.
The way to get rich from a startup is to maximize the company's chances of succeeding.
By 38 you can't take so many risks-- especially if you have kids.
Don't let your code get too big
Don't isolate developers from users
Hiring people is the worst thing a company can do
The only reason to hire someone is to do something you'd like to do but can't
Apartments tend to be in better locations than office buildings
Professional means doing good work, not elevators and glass walls.
The other reason to spend money slowly is to encourage a culture of cheapness.
Design your product to please users first, and then think about how to make money from it.
Talk to as many VCs as you can, even if you don't want their money.
If you really think you have a chance of succeeding, you're doing the rich fellow a favor by letting them invest.

No matter what kind of startup you start, it will probably be a stretch for you, the founders, to understand what users want. The only kind of software you can build without studying users is the sort for which you are the typical user. But this is just the kind that tends to be open source: operating systems, programming languages, editors, and so on. So if you're developing technology for money, you're probably not going to be developing it for people like you. Indeed, you can use this as a way to generate ideas for startups: what do people who are not like you want from technology?

Obviously, starting a company in expensive KLCC tower won't work.
Open source blind you away from understanding your non-tech educated users, but helps you to get to low end.
Do thing raw and rapidly is more important than well planned long term goal.. bcs..you have to be dynamic to compete with big guys.

You wont be success until age 30

2006-12-21T11:23:00.000+08:00

When I was a kid, I went to this fortune teller. He study my palm, and my name, then told me this:

Yee Siang, you wont be success until age 30

This message ghosted me for quite a long time, until i growth up, and suddenly realized that on day:

What the fuck? Why I have to let you define my own destiny?! Why are you qualified to judge my life and fate?

Since then, I learn to be confidence in what I am doing, and understand well who can evaluate me and who can't. Sometime this make me a self-centered person, but sometimes, it helps me by-pass many difficult time.

In the end, I know i will ended up for living "who I am" and not "Who people expected me to be".

Why miniMAX chose SVN than SourceSafe

2006-12-17T18:45:00.000+08:00

miniMAX have been using CVS with for our sourceforge projects since the starting of the team, and have been switched to SVN since 4 years ago.

There are many choices out there, mainly, source safe from microsoft which are famous in places like ... Malaysia.

I don't really use source safe before, so i can't comment on it. But i have google some links which will show you why:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000660.html
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q133054/
http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/windev/sourcesafe.html
http://www.subversionary.org/node/71

2007 New Year Resolution

2006-12-16T02:22:00.000+08:00

After I reviewed my 2006 new year resolution, i have my new set of 2007 new year resolutions now.

Career
I never let anyone or anything else to limit or direct my career path. I am a entrepreneur and I still keeping that spirit now.

Get MacroPages.com release for Free beta testing then explore the biz opp slowly
Get Davatar.net 2.0 done with Cradle Funding
Get 7sea done
Setup and Run miniMAX Production Server, then upgrade the miniMAX Development Server
Setup miniMAX Sdn Bhd with a good portfolio, better branding and an open environment
Exploring the China market
Moving into Mobile market
Escape the working-for-people loop by keep on exploring business opportunity
Get to know more talents and hope that I can get them their dream jobs
Terminate phPluto project

Education
Just like what ppl said bout "Don't let your schooling limit your education":

Master Flex, Actionscript 3 and AMFPHP, yeah! year 2007 is a flex year!
Try to integrate flex to existing PHP framework
Continue enhancing current PHP framework with cache for better optimization
Keep an eye on the development of Zend Framework and Adobe Inc, as well as the impact from Windows Vista
Back to C/C++ world with wxWidget and Ogre3D
Better documentation system and implement that to Davatar and Macropages
Continue exploring better project management system, maybe experiencing 2 difference environment, such as Malaysia vs China

Living and Family
Nothing is more important than people who love me and people that I love. They are the source of my motivation.

Get a postpaid line and 3G phone that runs Flash Lite and QRcode
Get a better living place with less people and less messy things around, then setup my very own working space there
Back to hometown more often, watch out my retired mum so that she don't get cheated by those greedy MLM ppl
Go more places for vacation with my gf; probably Hong Kong Disneyland, so that she can meet her favorite Pluto and got the soft toy there
Subscribe to jumbo play and get to play some of my favorite games such as Tomb Raider
Setup my mini-home bar so i can have alcohol drink anytime i wants :D
Eat more vegetable and less meat
Wish my sis get marriage. She is so old and desperate now. HaHa!
Pray more so that my 2nd hand Nisson still working fine everyday, especially the air con
opps. ya.. maybe this year should experience reverse bungee jump.. or.. get to persuade my gf to do couple bungee jump with me!

2006 New Year Resolution Review

2006-12-14T17:03:00.000+08:00

X-mas coming soon... (gotto change the name as some Christian dun like us calling the "commercial Christmas" as Christmas), X-man is giving out present to little kids.. opps.. it should be the big fat old Santa.

I don't care much bout Chirstmas or Xmas.. to me, it is just means a week before the new year is coming.

I drunk madly on last new year.. leaving a deep impression to mr wong... hahaha.. but i will no longer doing it anymore.

I also wrote bout my new year resolutions for year 2006. Now, lets review it:

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

Hmm.. I am not so sure yet, just list down the overview here:

Get Web80 launch and hopefully get a total of 500 members by the end of the year -project launching halted but development continue on
Davatar.net finally made its Release and get into top 10,000 in Alexa Ranking - still far from this ranking (3,105,518... damm it)
miniMAX making the first ton of gold before May, else I will gotto fall into the loop of working for others - already falling into the working loop
My Personal website... where are you? - still not up yet, but there is one at macropages
Hopefully I would have time to revamp MGDC - Thanks junior and lih hern, but i still go some job with it
Hopefully, HoverEX can do Alpha Release - opps.. it is more than abondance now

Other than all those boring programming job:

Wish to live a normal life style.. i am too old to sleep late and eat maggie mee most of the time - i no longer live with maggie mee... and can have nice chinese food in PJ area
Get out from the Stupid Cyberia.. Hopefully can stay together with my gf ;) - finally get out of the stupid cyberia... but still cant stay together with my gf .. :(
Bring my gramma to Muar, that is her hometown afterall - opps.. dun hav the opportunity yet.
Continue Making stable income for living - yeah.. get paid salary now.. consider stable.. but is not something i chased for
Get a New PC/Notebook after Window Vista Release - nop.. bill din get to meet the deadline.. we cant wait him right, so i got a dell notebook for my gf, and now using company acer laptop
Tour to Langkawi, never been there before - this is sad, lobak will be more sad.. better dun talk bout it.
Get a passport and have a tour to Thailand - yeah! went to phuket with frens in mid of the year.. and will be going to thai border again in the end of this year
Eat alot of nice food from various places around the country - nop, but, got to eat lots of nice food in gf's mum place and shen zhen china

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In conclusion, things i wish for and working on always come in another way that i have never expected before.

For example, all my projects in minimax doesn't meet my goal but work out unexpectedly:

Davatar.net, although it din't hit the Alexa target, but i have got a fren helping on it and now is close to get Cradle funding to further enhance it.
Macropages.com, launching was failed but i get to further develop it to more complete
Maggot Galaxy shut down and reappeared as the Seven Seas.. and is now waiting for the competition results.

My career, too, just works like my projects:

miniMAX din get to finished HoverEX as expected, which caused me to take a break and decided to get working experience to understand what's going wrong
Then, i meet ken with lobak, and thanks to the frustrated CSSB projects, we joined Zeltrans and Podcastland
Then, lots of projects came, such as flash podcast, pixelads, bclnshop...
Then, lobak leave...
Suddenly, ken said we are going to China... and i was in Shen Zhen. where.. I was just wished to escape from cyberjaya...

Traveling wise... i get to go to many places, such as

Phuket, Thailand
Kukup Island
Fraser Hill
Shen Zhen China
Wu Dong, Thailand

So.... that is the summery for the past 1 year... and I am now 24 years old.... which i think.. i m quite old now..

I will think bout my year 2007 resolutions and write it here later on.

Malaysia PHP Programmer, where are you?

2006-11-28T23:36:00.000+08:00

It is weired that PHP Programmers are so hard to find in Malaysia. I never realized that until I have to find one.

As I know, the following company in PJ/KL area is actively looking for PHP programmer:

Zeltran
DragonBack

Of course they are looking for "good" programmer, but "good" is hard to define and maybe that scared lots of ppl away. They are actually looking for CONFIDENCE PHP Programmer. It means, you are confidence in your skill and are able to deliver. The best is, you have involve in developing some web application and are able to show your portfolio.

Most of them will allow you to work in:

Contracted
Part time
Full time

So, my friends, please don't hide up, please contribute your skill and get paid!

Projects on hands...

2006-11-24T12:17:00.000+08:00

I think i have too much projects on hands... but I am blur as I think I lost the list of their priority.

Thus, i started this post trying to keep track all of them. Writing them down as a list make me feel better.

Web Application:

MacroPages (still in alpha version... beta is in minimax server, once release, sure kill off all other competitors... still searching for the right marketing plan and partner)
Davatar (still in beta version... dunno when will release, but i enjoy checking the hits every day)
BCLNShop - an online e-commerce store (is done... just need mantainance, thinking of open source the system for the good of mankind, since no one appreciate it here)
xxx Pages (can't tell, it is my secret weapon)
elib - Books and Library management system (i do for my housemate, might consider open source it)
phpluto - Open Soruce profile and project social networking site (something that i wanted to do back in uni time, but is not completed... will see...will see)

Game:

HoverEx (no matter how good the code is... looks more like an abundance project now)
Maggot Galaxy (this project is officially terminated as Seven Seas kick started, graphics created will be my personal portfolio and experience learn will not be wasted)
Seven Seas (is now on the top of my priority, something that will push me learn flex and web services in depth, and let me complete the dream of terminating maggot and web88 projects)
RPG Storytelling Game (always wanted to use poser and camera to create some reality mix virtual characters game... figuring and forming the idea in my mind and i just found a right tool for it)

Research:

Flex Research (I forsee it to be the next big things in next 3 years)
Learning PHP Zend Framework (I hope it can beat RoR!)
Learning regular expression (damm, why this thing is fucking hard to master?)
Flashlite mobile Research (thinking of getting a 3G phone now... FYI, i still using nokia 3310)
Project Management (am exploring the advance features of SVN and just get Branches and Tags idea works)

Community Works:

MGDC and Chinese Cari Forum Game Development Moderator (hmm.... i seldom go there nowsaday)
Some secretive project for some secretive groups of ppl... (:-$)

Others:

Some educational course ware things (boring but just for the $)....
miniMAX Portfolio (need lots of writers to help, on process, on process...)
Freelancing work for kiosk system
Getting a dedicated server
Setting up a studio in China (my boss said one and i trust him 50% only)

Roommart member get caught

2006-11-21T17:06:00.000+08:00

Got this news from a fren's email asking me is this the guy who started Roommart. At first i thought, he must be getting some new prizes from XXX cup or XXX award again... but I am wrong.. he got a bad luck this time.

This is definately a shocking news for Multimedia University (which the names were not mentioned in the report) and Microsoft Malaysia. Room mart is the startup project that they and Mavcap Cradle fully funded and i can remember how much effort was spend on publicity at the time. I too remember how big was their partition allocation in the startup room located in MMU Incubator, Cyberjaya. They owned 4 partitions, which is 50% of the room, than any others startup.

Is him the guy that I read in previous newspaper: who selling quality DVD (bought from Penang Street) on the Internet, blocking all Malaysian IP, and delivers with DHL? I am not sure, but i admit that i admire that guy for being creative. And I laugh at Malaysia police force that announced they got the collaboration from Australia police force to discover the site... cos the malaysia IP is blocked..

hmm... If you are geek, you will understand this is a joke, coz we all know there is something called proxy.

I think... the guy here is not a MMU student, but he is definately part of Roommart startup.

Well, I am sure room mart is very famous now, but i am sure the CEO is not interested continue the biz now. The last thing i heard about him was that he is selling lamb burger. If you are Malaysia, you will know what I mean.

Sorry for being sarcastic, I neither get any funding from MAVCAP nor award from Microsoft Imagine Cup. I also din get such big partition for miniMAX in the incubator.... :(

Last, my advice to all tech savvy, don't think Malaysia Government is stupid o.... they are watching you and collecting your data quietly, just that they haven't react yet. This is what MR M used to do to his beloved colleague too.

Full story below from Thestar Online:

PENANG: An IT expert was fined a total of RM8,000 after he pleaded guilty in the Sessions Court here to three counts of offering to sell four pirated DVDs over the Internet.

Poh Wee Leng, 30, from Petaling Jaya, was fined RM2,000 for each infringing copy while his friend, Huan Su Ling, 25, who was jointly charged with him, was freed after the prosecution withdrew the charges against her.

FINED: Poh being led out of the Sessions Court in Penang after he pleaded guilty yesterday. Huan (below right) was freed of the charges.

Poh, who is currently pursuing a master's degree in Business Administration, yesterday admitted committing the offences at a house at Solok Tembaga Dua in Island Park here at about 1pm on Oct 12.

He and Huan had claimed trial when they were first charged on Oct 17.

The four titles of the pirated DVDs were Garfield: Tale of Two Kitties, Garfield, The Da Vinci Code and Mean Girl. The two Garfield titles were stated in the first charge.

The offence under the Copyright Act 1987 carries a fine of RM2,000 to RM20,000 per copy or maximum five years' jail or both.

Judge Hadhariah Syed Ismail ordered Poh to serve a total jail term of 18 months if he failed to pay the fine. Poh, who was represented by R.S.N. Rayer, paid up.

Poh was funded by Malaysia Venture Capital Management Bhd (MAVCAP) in 2004 to develop a portal for ROOMMART that allowed users to find roommates and accommodation.

MAVCAP is wholly owned by the Ministry of Finance Inc.

Huan, who is pursuing a master's degree in Computer Science at Universiti Sains Malaysia here, was given a discharge not amounting to an acquittal.

She had represented Malaysia at the Imagine Cup in Brazil in 2004 organised by Microsoft.

Imagine Cup is the world’s premier student technology competition.

Phing

2006-11-21T16:38:00.000+08:00

Phing is a project build system based on Apache ant [ant]. You can do anything with Phing that you could do with a traditional build system like Gnu make [gnumake], and Phing's use of simple XML build files and extensible PHP "task" classes make it an easy-to-use and highly flexible build framework.

Phing is a build tool for PHP projects with builder written in XML. It is able to do nightly build, encode php code before packaging with ioncube or zend encoder, automatically include pear package and more...

Read More: http://phing.info/docs/guide/2.2.0/

All you need to get started as a web developer just like me

2006-11-21T12:48:00.000+08:00

Browser
Thanks to browser war, you need lots of different browser to stress test is the website you created is either "what you see is what you get" or the opposite one.

Firefox
Firefox is always my best friend during development process. As an open source project that respect W3C standard, firefox should always be the standard in HTML and CSS rendering.
Get it here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Opera
As an alternative browser that have its own loyal community, Opera Mobile Edition has also been well known in latest smart phone. In most cases, pages that display well in Firefox will have no problem in Opera too.
Get it here: http://www.opera.com/download/

Internet Explorer
The long cursed browser by all web developer, be it you happy or not, still monopolize the large naive user group. Most Malaysia, Korean and China users are still using Internet Explorer and do not aware of Firefox. Thus, you still need to test your website on this sucky browser.

Microsoft do not allow you to install more than 2 different version of IE on the same machine. However, there is always a solution from the hacker group.
Get standalone IE from version 3 to 6 here: http://browsers.evolt.org/?ie/32bit/standalone

Wap Browser
Sometime web developers do WAP page as well. And not all developer is rich, like me, i am still using Nokia 3310 that are not WAP enabled.

Firefox WMLbrowser plugin
Simple and nice and integrate into your Firefox browser, a must for all developers that developing dual version of a website with WEB and WAP compatible.
Get it here: http://wmlbrowser.mozdev.org/installation/wmlbrowser.html

Klondike WAP Browser
A standalone browser but is lightweight and accurate.
Get it here: http://www.apachesoftware.com/download_kwpe.html

Text Editor
I prefer to write plain HTML code and CSS code for greater control, rather than those spaghetti code generated from FrontPage. The following editor is what I recommend:

Scintilla and Scite
SciTE is a SCIntilla based Text Editor. Originally built to demonstrate Scintilla, it has grown to be a generally useful editor with facilities for building and running programs. It come with syntax highlighting and utf-8 unicode support (turn on manually), is my best friend no matter what i code.
An installer that includes extensions contributed by Bruce Dodson.

NVU
In case you forgotten how to write fancy html tables with many complicated rowspan and colspan, a WYISWYG tool became handy. NVU as an open source project, respect W3C standard, are able to generate the minimum HTML tag and code for your need.
Get it here: http://www.nvu.com/index.php

CSS
Firefox WebDevelopers Toolbar plugin
I cant develop website without it. It allow you to turn on and off every single function of your browser, such as cookie, css display, images display and so on; Thus, allowing you to stimulate your users browser configuration. (We know there are still freak that refuse to turn cookie and javascript on, or... still browse in text-only browser).
Get it here: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/60/

Firefox CSS Viewer plugin
This tool allow you to mouseover any HTML entity and get the rendered CSS result. Very good for debugging CSS directly in your Firefox browser!
Get it here: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2104/

Javascript
Firefox Firebug plugin
A quick overview of FireBug's features:

JavaScript debugger for stepping through code one line at a time
Status bar icon shows you when there is an error in a web page
A console that shows errors from JavaScript and CSS
Log messages from JavaScript in your web page to the console (bye bye "alert debugging")
An JavaScript command line (no more "javascript:" in the URL bar)
Spy on XMLHttpRequest traffic
Inspect HTML source, computed style, events, layout and the DOM Javascript

Get it here: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1843/

Reference
W3Schools.com
Lots and lots of tutorial and reference here layout systematically and are newbie-friendly. It is so good until my University lecturer have to steal contents from here as teaching material. I pointed him out and got a B- for my Internet Computing subject. A lesson I learned here: Don't let anyone stop you from being a great developer, especially those unqualified one.
Go: http://www.w3schools.com

GotAPI.com
This site is super as it crawl all sort of docs from the Internet and put them all under one roof. Highly recommend for all geek.
Go: http://www.gotapi.com/