Archive for October, 2007
Saturday, October 20th, 2007
4 Lessons for Innovative Projects Consulting
I quote the following from SMU knowledge Hub, which is an article which I posted earlier in the Voice Biometrics post featuring one of my projects and team. On closer look the writer, Low Shiping, had really articulated well whatever we were asked on in consulting projects during the interview (which we could not really translate well to words!). The following are excerpts from the article.
* In consulting projects, clients are often uncertain about what they want as the end result. The onus is therefore on the consultant to assist their clients to accurately define and understand their needs and problems. This process could require a significant investment of time, effort and patience after which the imperative is on the consultant to articulate the various possible end results as well as the means to arrive at them.
* It is vital to keep the end user in mind at every stage of the business process. Consultants must put themselves in the position of the end user and try to imagine how their proposed solutions will affect them. Ideally, the solution should be user-friendly and hassle-free, no matter how technically sophisticated. The goal is to retain the end user and attract new ones, not to put them off and drive them towards the competition.
Keith: These 2 points really emphasize the importance of having good communications skills and acute business acumen. Bear in mind, in consulting projects, clients often want to act “fools”. What I really mean here is, clients tend to allow the consultants take charge and lead the war. Thus, it is important to remember to find the right questions to ask our clients, so we could unveil some hidden business values and concerns they had in mind. Do not wait till it is too late
* Dare to innovate. Every problem has an infinite number of solutions, but finding the best ones can only be done by taking risks and facing rejection. Without innovating, there will be no forward development.
Keith: If some part of A does not work, try B. If some part of B does not work, try C. If some parts of A,B,C do not work, try A+B+C combined - who knows, it may finally work. Technology acts in a mysterious way!
* Work with a multinational team to lend a “global” perspective to the task at hand as far as possible. Solutions that need to be applied in a global context can benefit from being developed by a diverse team whose members represent different educational and cultural backgrounds. Thus, different points of views can be presented and challenged, leading to well-rounded discussions about how to deal with the tasks at hand.
Keith: This was a team with 1 Burmese, 1 Indian, 2 Indonesians, and 1 Singaporean. Our China friend Huang Liang left for his master’s education in CMU; otherwise it would have been an even further amazing combination. The synergy, creativity, and dynamics - amazing stuff. Singaporeans indeed have a lot to learn from our counterparts, since we are brought up in an education system that have already been destroyed and revamp - one which do not encourage us to think out of the box, think creatively. Surely, our efficiencies alone won’t bring us too far in this dog eat dog work, but once “sprinkled with the different flavors” of the world, we can excel and ride the waves together in this globalized economy. A diversified environment definitely works for me, and is a hell lot of fun too!
Saturday, October 20th, 2007
Article Review: The Faceted Navigation & Search Revolution by Steve Papa
This was an assignment that was fulfilled by Yu Shuli and myself, and we were to review Steve Papa’s “Faceted Navigation & Search Revolution” article. In summary, faceted means having many “faces” - you know, like some Gods and Devils in religions and mythology. Every matter or content in the world has a set of distinct values - for e.g. you may have eyes that are brown, and hair that are black. It is these characteristics which define us. Similarly, contents like this post too has facets: Its genre is in Technology, while it is being authored by a Singaporean.
These are the unique qualities which ease the typical user’s life, without being necessarily interlinked. He is able to search articles which have been “faceted classified” using “faceted navigation”, without having to know too much about what he wants to look for. In the case of using a person as a content, you can think a matchmaking content browsing system this way: You may want a wife who is a teacher, stays near you, and has long hair. It does not matter which one you specify first - at the end of the day, you can list your criteria in any order, and the matchmaker’s IT system should just narrow down for you - it just makes sure the list of results meet your needs. Most importantly, this will save a lot of the end user’s time in formulating a search.
Faceted Navigation is not just about doing advanced search. It is also about defining facets for contents like a “wife”, and allowing others to search a whole massive repository of content through clicking on these facets and nodes within it. You can visit the below link to see what I really mean.
Hierarchical Navigation:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/nobelprize_facts.html
Faceted Navigation:
http://orange.sims.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/flamenco.cgi/nobel/Flamenco
Clearly, browsing the 2nd page(faceted navigation) is much easier. You are no longer required to clutter down a list in a hierarchical manner, which requires you to know the very “top” and “root” quality of a certain person. Now, this may seem to be a simple and real idiot proof concept, but this idea of bringing down a taxonomy with faceted navigation is only beginning to sink in to the heads of many enterprises. Indeed, this looks pretty much to be the future, as IT continues to power business and media needs.
I will end off this post with 3 deliverables: The link of North Caroline Library which recently implemented Faceted Navigation - http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/browsesubjects. It is touted as one of the best library interfaces ever by several critics. Don’t believe me? Take a look at other library sites - such as National Library of Singapore. Due to copyright issues, I will not be posting up this article itself. However, I have uploaded 2 files - respectively the presentation slides and the script that is used and which should be useful if you want more information on the article’s content itself. Have fun looking browsing!
*ps* Im kinda shooting myself in the foot writing about all the wonders of Faceted Navigation, because my blog doesnt even support that! 
Or maybe it does, i just didnt know yet. Please leave me a comment if you know something I don’t!
Saturday, October 13th, 2007
Good Industry Email Etiquettes and Practices
I am a self confessed EMAIL addict. Almost every time I have access to any PCs, I immediately log onto my web-based mails. And when I am using my IBM x41 at work, I frequently check my Outlook to make sure I do not miss out any mails. The first thing I do when I wake up, is not brushing my teeth - no prize for guessing correctly; is checking that darn mailbox(es). The anxiety and obsession associated when I do not check my mailboxes for 1 week include facing 100 unread mails, in which one of clients asked when that IT project finally is getting delivered, an announcement from the Professor, or a notification from Facebook.
Kind to think of it, there is no need to be panicking around even if I do not check my email regularly - it is just a natural habit, akin to not carrying your cell phone for 1 day. My life has become so intertwined with emails (& technology), and Im sure that is so with bulk of you too. The emails that you send out invariantly define and shape you, and so does the email that you do NOT send out when others anticipate your response. Clear, effective communications between parties too, has a prestigious place in modern emails. In this post, I will share some important email etiquettes and practices ensuring rightly that EMAIL, possiby one of the best inventions after Internet ever, does not screw your life.
1) Reply when expected.
This is a silly point to even bring up, but many people suffer from this basic dysfunction. When a simple email for availability for a meeting goes ignored by some, it frustrates the sender into doing extra work like calling them up. Even if you are unsure, the general expectations is to at least let everyone knows that you are NOT too sure, and you will inform earliest time possible (of course, this depends on whether you are able to find out promptly and if the email is urgent).
This is simple courtesy and manners. There is no rule of thumb when you should reply. You simply have to use your best judgment for different situations.
2) Let others know you arent checking that mailbox!
Again, this is common sense. If you are not going (or a chance where you are not going to exist) to visit your emails in 3 or more days, (a long time in the modern email standards for professionals!), it will do you good to inform your peers! For a start, an auto responder (e.g. out of office wizard) like what you see when you sent an email to complain to your favorite manufacturer, is appropriate explaining where you are, what you are doing, when you will back, and a disclaimer that you will try to reply where possible as soon as possible is the bare minimum.
Note however, this is insufficient in certain cases. If you expect someone to write to you anytime soon, or there is a party whom you have been liaising with for some time, remember to inform them before you go kaput, so they do not get a surprise door gift when they write to you expecting you to be around. It reeks of irresponsibility, especially when that party is a client of your company whom has been having some problems with a product you sold but urgently needs attention. Handover the case to a colleague, and inform your client about it if you are not going to be around for a week. That client would appreciate your thoughtfulness and considerate attitude.
3) Check, Double Confirm and Verify your To-List! ( i.e. check, check & check)
Reply-to-all appears to be a deadly invention. Many times, I have received emails that are supposed to be addressed to just one subject, but I end up getting it because the victim mistook Reply to All for Reply. Other times, fingers have lightning speed reflexes and hits Alt-S before the brain reacts. How deadly is this oversight when a Reply-to-All gets executed disastrously?
Remember not to tell Jason about …….
That client was a joker! LOL
Nice email. Now… when are we going to get that dinner sweetie?
Till today, I do not know of an email client or any technology at least in Outlook that prompts you to double check if you are going to send that email. Some ideas that emulate this though includes a Spell Check function that forces you to confirm sending the email or deferring sending all your email by 1 minute (allowing you to cancel sending if you have a bad feeling; silly but effective!).
Otherwise, it is good to cultivate a habit of making sure the email should reach the right people. On a side note, in the past, I often forget to attach attachments though I have not made the above mistakes before. It would too, reflects negatively, especially on my carelessness, and I have since decided to cultivate a habit to check my email contents too.
4) Is your content understood by your mum?
The above statement is an exaggeration, but it is crucial to be clear and explicit in your email nonetheless. And where possible, reply to all points in an email addressed to you. Imagine a chain of emails like the following about a web project
A (project manager): The interface .. something wrong. Cannot click somehow. The buttons on the top too.
B (designer): Interface? And buttons on the top too? Which page? All the time?
C (designer): Arent buttons part of the interface?
A (project manager) : I mean, there is something wrong with the interface. The buttons at the top. They cannot be clicked even after I tried clicking on it 10 times later.
B (designer): And what page is that at? Did you experience it all the time?
A (project manager): It is at the front page. Yes it happens all the time I tried for 10 times!
B (designer): I mean, even after you log in? or before you do?
C (designer): … lets just meet up.
The number of emails exchanged would have been reduced by half had the project manager been clearer and answered every question. The designer, B, too was guilty too but it is possible he was frustrated by the vague content provided by the project manager earlier too. Now, poor C has been copied in all these emails and has stepped in appropriately to stop the rot.
One final point: please do cache your emails on a personal folder where possible, if your mailbox has a defined amount of space. You will never know when you need to refer to these old forgotten emails!
Friday, October 5th, 2007
Creating Adobe PDF for Beginners
Its Friday and before I give a quick tip or two on creating PDF files, heres one of my fav strips from http://www.pbfcomics.com/ to end off a fine week. Its so BAD its funny 
Anyway, back to topic. Many of us create PDF files for different reasons: For that extra niche touch to your resume, reports or quotations, or to prevent people from modifying, printing or copying contents from the file. Don’t ask me why people want to do the later, but generally, PDF files carry an aura of professionalism and is considered a real essential. I personally use CutePDF for this purpose. Read the rest of this entry »
Friday, October 5th, 2007
Voice Biometrics - The future is near
I had the opportunity to work on a Voice Biometrics related project for almost a year in which my team had to evaluate the feasibility and usability, and to implement a work flow to incorporate the use of it in a banking environment. As it appears, there are several vendors from different parts of the world - UK, Germany, Australia, Etc. ABN AMRO has since introduced the technology for their customers in Netherlands (Read More here) and Here (from Ars Technica).
In a summary, ABN AMRO requires customer to first register their voice by saying their preferred PIN 3 times, and thus, they will be required to say the same string later on if they have to be authenticated. This analog phrase is than converted into gibberish numbers and alphabets like this “243ddf333480w-4443043kk0l….” through certain algorithms, and are called voiceprints. The conversion takes into account nasal cavity, soft palette, vocal chords, diaphragm and thus each voiceprint will be unique, just like thumbprints.
Im sure you have got at least one of the burning questions below.
1) Does the technology really works?
2) What if I had a sore throat or the place is noisy?
3) What if someone plays a tape recorder with the string?
4) Is it even reliable and credible?
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007
Down to Basics - Part III: Best Practices for the Average Professional
This is the last of the “Down to Basics” series. The Average Professional is one whose life depends on IT literally - laptop or data loss counts among the worse tragedies, while personal friendster accounts being hacked into is something that I have experienced myself - reputations can be ruined to ashes when the friendly hacker becomes overly friendly with your female friends (or male friends if you are a lady). This post aims to describe some important practices that should be adopted in this world where social and technology factors interlinked closely with one another.
BACKUP, BACKUP & BACKUP
I cant help but emphasize how critical this underrated task is 3 times. If you have finished a seemingly-take-eternity-to-finish report, save it in multiple locations such as your thumbdrive instead of just at your laptop. Note, I am not asking you to back up the whole machine everyday, but at least, save new critical deliverables whenever possible into multiple places especially if the new version is worth more than 5 hours of changes. Your professor or your boss will not accept reasons like “My lBM was working just fine!” when it decided to hibernate forever. If you need a good free backup & restore tool, please see the previous post.
CHECK, CONFIRM AND CLEAR ON PUBLIC MACHINES!
Why risk your reputation and all the confidential email exchanges between you and your loved ones when using the library pc? Social Networks like Friendster may have saved your password by default whenever you log in, while key logger programs may track your activities. Ensure the machine is cleared entirely before you trust it. Otherwise, what is the hurry anyway? Wait till you get home then!
MSN VIRUS - WHATS THAT?
There is no harm is asking additional questions whenever friends on MSN or other messaging programs sends you some “nice photos”. Some bots may be smart enough to even reply you - in that case, allow your intuitions to decide - does the naming of the file seem unlikely of that party’s nature? is the reply even “normal”? Gullibility will punish you severely, and even your friends.
LEAVE THAT BATTERY IN (YOU TRUST YOUR POWER CABLE THAT MUCH?)
If you are using a laptop regularly in your office or school, take it from me - just leave it in and allow the laptop battery to depreciate and finally exchange it under warranty. Battery has a finite lifespan, with or without regular usage. By leaving it outside of your machine, you are exposing yourself to risk of power failures or someone tripping over your cables, and in some cases, others mistakenly taking out the wrong cords (blur cords). When these things happen, you may not just lose any work that was not saved, but also eventually your hdd. Most importantly, don’t take out it during presentations by just running on Power!
CACHE YOUR EMAILS
I redirect all my emails from all accounts (School, Business) to a common mail account which allows up to 2GB storage; you guessed it - GMAIL. It not only an amazingly smart search engine when you track emails a decade ago, it also allows you to label them appropriately. I use MS Outlook Exchange (Rules & Alert) to forward all my emails to this GMAIL account. In times where my web outlook fouls up, or I got locked up of the school’s account, the Exchange server would continue to redirect all mails to my GMAIL account. This also serves more advantages in allowing me an easy mind when I am deleting mails from that limited 100mb storage in my school account - well knowing that mail, if required, can always be retrieved somehow.
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007
Down to Basics - Part II: Top 5 Applications for the Average Professional
There is often a software/web application produced for every useful feasible thing you can wish for - e.g. to rip off that youtube video for your presentation (google for it!), or a 3rd party to enable wonderful effects you see in Mac keynotes for your MS Powerpoint. Such is the power of Internet, where individuals all around the world share ideas and constantly innovate being aware of a potential huge global market.
It thus amazes me how poorly equipped is the average professional down the streets is when it comes to their machine. To most of them, a notebook is probably simply a tool to use MS Word, PPT. Hopefully, this post would be useful to professionals like yourself in determining the must-have applications you should have in your laptop in order to facilitate your projects and lifestyle. (DISCLAIMER: This post assumes users use Windows OS, and I am in no way affiliated to any of the following products or companies).
Note, on top of this list #0 would definitely be Mozilla for me - It is too good, too sacred to be even ranked on this list, and of course, deserves no mention since its akin to telling you water is necessary for you.
#1 - DriveImage XML : This software ranks number 1 in my list for very good reasons; It is free, easy to use, and saves lives (by preventing heart attacks and suicide attempts). Data Backup, at least on a fortnightly basis is good practice but few professionals religiously do it because they complain they have no time. This is a clear fallacy - you only need to leave your machine overnight after spending last than 30 seconds starting it. You should also use an external HDD to store your image in, so when your HDD crashes, your backup still survives on a separate element.
#2 - ScreenPrint : One of my favorite utilities on my laptop. This software is also free, and allow me to put together a presentation or report quickly by bypassing cropping, editing, resizing optimally any print screens. It is number 2 on my list, also because of its user friendliness and minimal resource requirement.
# 3 - AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition : Again, a freeware that is hugely popular. I do not have to elaborate how critical Anti-Virus softwares are: They are simply a necessity in modern systems. AVG is my alternative on machines that do no have bundled anti-virus solutions. The only downside is the occasional advertisements that that does not bother me. For added security, I recommend upgrades or Trendmicro’s online web scan - HouseCall
# 4 - CCleaner : This is one utility I use every week - to clean up the hundreds of megabytes that clog my temp folder after I unzip files or uninstall any obsolete applications, or the pile of chunks that resides in my Mozilla or IE repository. I also use CCleaner just before I do my defragmenting, just to save more time and to avoid processing negligible files.
# 5 - Microsoft Outlook : Not the most perfect application, but definitely the best in the trade for me. The fact that it supports Exchange, which is commonly used in many Organisation, alone justifies its no. 5 spot. I have minimal complaints about its Calendar, Notes and Task functions too - except that it should support a 7 days view in a way similar to 5 days view especially for wide-screen users (there may be 3rd party solutions, or is implemented in Outlook 2007). I frequently ‘abuse’ the spell check, the easy of attaching files via copy & paste, and the compatibility when sync-ing with many modern Smart Phones using Windows Mobile OS. There is also a handful of 3rd party software supporting syncing with Palm OS as well (I personally use Tungsten and is currently evaluating such solutions like Beyond Contacts and Keysuite - work like a charm!)
There you go, my interim top 5 applications for the average professionals - subject to changes. If you have anymore suggestions, or objections, share it right here!
