n305er Industries

Just a few weeks ago, I attended a Buka Puasa Event organized by National Instruments. It was an annual event where they will host a product and innovation sharing session and then Buka Puasa when it’s time to Break Fast.

The problem is not the event. Although the agenda (Green Engineering) is boring, there is the most obvious bad attitude that Malaysians show during that day. The event was supposed to start Sharp at 3pm with some welcome and introduction speech followed by breaks and demo sessions until 7pm. At 3.30pm, the amount of people who showed up could be counted using our 10 fingers. A pathetic amount given that NI is a major Engineering support company and this event should attract and generate lots of ideas, questions and discussions among potential education organizations, potential business partners and engineers.

However, the event just went on without the full audience anyway and around 6.30pm, when it’s about time for the free buffet, the Hall suddenly become 90% full.

Shame on the Malaysian Culture!

In a new department now, but things weren’t as good as expected. I got ill for 1 week on the second week on my new job and had been popping Clarinase and Paracetamol like candies (Within dosage limit) for the past week on top of vitamin C, Garlic oil and Fish Oil supplements. The only thing which helped me feel better was sleep and sleep is a luxury for me since most employers here just still want us to come to work even when we’re sick.

Anyway, there’s been a lot of ideas going through my head lately and also some of the plans were discussed before with some of my friends. Among them, starting an online business, and getting side income via working freelance as a web developer and designer. But there are a lot of things that I needed to learn first and most of them probably involves improving my coding skills and gaining some knowledge about starting our own business.

There’s also plans about travel some time to play. (Yes yes! FINALLY!) Well, going to Genting Highlands will be good to release some stress and some vacation plans on January… Something different from routine lifestyle.

But besides play and work, probably the thing worrying me most will be studies. I’ve gone ahead and registered for tutorial classes for Engineering Council part 2. Part 2 is equivalent to an engineering degree but does not have the luxury of a normal part assignment part exam total score. All pass and fails are based on the exam and it fully tests our knowledge and maths skills without the chance of gaining points with research through assignments.

The worrying part isn’t if I can make it or not on any particular paper, but there’s a total of 5 papers and 1 report to complete part 2. Usually, most people will do it within 2 or 3 years but I’ve registered for all 5 papers to go within 1 year. I’m worried if I can keep up with the lessons and able to pass the exam or not. I’m really keeping my fingers crossed on this one and this time, I’d probably won’t be aiming high for distinction or merit like I used to in Diploma level.

So plans plans plans…

1. Work smart and hard
2. Plan carefully and initiate them for side income
3. Play hard and stay healthy during vacation time
4. Study hard and pass my exams!

Sounds like a short list? But there’s a lot of effort required. Not forgetting that I also want a new phone and my own laptop if possible.. HAHAHA…

On a side note: Why does so many people keeps asking me about MacBook anyway? It’s good but it’s not worth it in my opinion. And in fact, if you ask me, I’ll just tell you it sucks because it’s Apple and Apple stores and apple services sucks in Malaysia. And because you didn’t do enough research on more affordable alternatives, you suck too.

If you’re really going to use the software, then it’s another story. But if you get a Mac and still expect it to run like windows, then I’ll take your RM6k and sell you a cheap 15″ laptop with Ubuntu. That’s 3k for the laptop, and 3k for my services and charges for your stupidity.

And yes, I’m actually cursing on my blog because Apple fan boys are the most idiotic bunch I’ve ever seen. Ever read any of Cnet, ZDnet’s, Gizmodo or engadget’s comments on any apple related posts?

There’s a big problem with my blog which makes it unable to grow into a bigger, better blog. It’s a personal blog, and personally, I’m not a very exiting person. I don’t have nice stories to tell, nor do I travel or eat a lot. I basically do the same things daily, eat the same things daily, get into the same argument daily and blog about the same things daily.

I’ve always wanted to create another blog either related to technology, food or traveling, but I can’t. I do not have the resources nor the budget to even do it.

I did try to get into a local project before which failed miserably. The “last man standing” on that project has taken over the entire project and turned the website into a photography blog. It was kind of good and I was happy for him since I thought him how to use WordPress. But it seems that he has become inactive as well… That blog’s domain is going to expire soon. Will my old partners update it? I wonder.

Yet again, no mood to work right after I stepped into the office. I don’t really know what kind of environment is this to work in. It’s not even a big office but it’s far from being cozy. It’s not relaxing and it’s not quiet.
And if it’s not quiet, it’s not even packed with inspiring people to work with, no enthusiasm mood and no main focus for success.

I’m also awaiting a call from a company. Sigh, they haven’t call me yet.

It’s been a long time since I’ve practiced in this exercise. Which is to set small personal goals for myself to achieve each day. Lets see how it turns out today.

1. Complete Features and Bug Fix on ConSpur Extractor
2. (Done) Update and forward my Resume
3. Prepare required documents for interview(s)
4. Consolidate and tidy up email’s Inbox

Someone called my friend a few days ago asking to meet up for a discussion of a business opportunity. By Business opportunity, you’d think it probably a partnership, project for you to do, or they just want to scam you.

We meet up the person yesterday night and started off with a friendly introduction about how she has a day job and always thinking of earning extra as emergency backup and to help support her family. I was already getting the idea that this is no ordinary business proposal or a project presentation.

Then, she took out her laptop and started a power point slide and the first slide showed us a question about how “happy” we are with our current financial status. The basic starting point for any MLM introduction. I was like “FUCK!” but just tried to endure the session as I am not brave enough to rudely reject her on the spot.

So now,what I got is, network 21 is a company which has some sort of link with Amway, it’s a motivational and educational MLM company which teaches the members how to do business properly and I can’t really figure out any logic on how Network 21 actually get their money from.

Damn…

It’s back to working on the extractors again. It’s totally boring and not motivating at all. I’d just wish to get over with this.

Perhaps I’ll blog later about one of the extractor I’m working on. If you actually find it interesting, PLEASE send me your resume so I can send it to my boss!

I thought I’d be a lot more free to do many other things once my final exam was over and was planning a few things which I wanted to do. Namely, I had planned on creating a few websites, one which belongs to a potential client. Go to gym more, wash my car, fix my PC’s display and clear up lots of junk laying around.

But work is taking up a lot of my time and I need to finish up some projects quickly so I can move on and apply for another job in a different department. My current job isn’t really that bad, but the working environment is very unhealthy. Just being in the office listening to everyone talking stresses me out. Also, nobody seems to understand and value all the work I’ve put into my work. They just want things done quickly and want it to work. Maybe all the department needs to do is to move to China and not continue to expand in a country where people are trying to improve the quality of things instead of the quantity.

Reading thought some materials about costs of a professional work. Sometimes, people just do not understand the effort and the value of an item or work being put into their project. From the outside, the end product might look like just a simple static item to do simple things, and that’s just how they value the project.

This is what is spoiling the professional industry. Just like how I’m struggling to meet my “client’s” requirements. I believe almost every single programmer falls into this category.

For example: Your clients wants you to make a program, and that program’s function is simply to store information about your stock into a database. It may sound as easy as, Step 1 enter item and amount, Step 2: store in hard drive, Step 3: Load data when called. Never will the client think about the trouble the programmer has to go through for that program. What kind of interface does the client needs? Bar code, keyboard, 2D bar code, or RFID? What kind of database structure do they need? Nested categories? Simple storage? What kind of output do they need? Printout, website, full report, or summary?

Besides those things, there are other things to consider such as infrastructure, program environment, modularity for support, etc. All those things are blind to the end user and all they know is they key in the data and the computer does the rest. All those happen in real time and it’s so easy and straight forward, a programmer just need to type and click a few commands for the computer to do all that.

Now, I feel really bad being underpaid for doing all this kind of work but end up being targeted as doing easy jobs. They don’t understand the work I put into and the trouble I went through to make sure their data is as accurate as possible.

Programmers, and designers don’t just make something work and look good then sell it to you. We are solutions provider. We work our ass off so you can be a little lazy or a little more efficient at yours.

Value, must not be judged by looking at the end product. It must be judged by the actual usage and work put into. If you asked for a product that function doesn’t add a lot of value to your system or working environment, that’s your fault. It’s not the programmer’s fault for following your orders.

If you take a look at incoming links to my blog, you’ll actually realized that those links are pointing to pages which didn’t exists in my blog. That’s because I’ve actually removed a lot of old posts and restarted my blog several times in the past. There were a few reasons for doing that. The main reason was poor management and poor commitment. My blog used to have at least 100 visitors daily. Compared to 1 visitors monthly now? Hah!

I wonder what was it which attracted so much attention then? Studying the contents of the link back, most of them were actually criticism on politics and current issues. That includes issues such Xia Xue and Kah Soon. In my old blogging style, I would blog first and think later about the consequences of what I said. Now, I would consider if I even have the time to blog or not.

Completing my diploma has given me some free time now. I’m thinking 0f brushing the dust off my camera and start taking more pictures for my blog again.

So can I make lots of visitors daily again? Hope so.