Saturday, January 26th, 2008
A supersized big apology for neglecting this space for 2 months! There is some good explanation I can offer though: Firstly, I was away for a Business Study Mission in Cambodia and Thailand for a good 2 weeks in December. I would later provide a link to some takeaways from this trip in the form of a journal (later entry), but meanwhile, I have to say being in Asia and especially South East Asia, you got to visit Ang Kor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Here’s why (:
Now, it is easy to see why I will come back to Ang Kor City really soon. For some reasons, we only spent 1 day in this place, and about 2 days in total in Siem Reap. And I learnt a new local lingo – “Boom Boom”.
If you plan to go here soon, please do let me know just in case I could join u!
It was also my first visit to Bangkok (I know la… sua ku), Honestly, clubbing doesnt feel the same anymore in Singapore now, after visiting Slim @ RCA. Other than that, nothing really eventful, nor do I have any useful information for you, except don’t eat too much squids on the roadside or you will kena rashes like me!
Now, the second reason to my hibernation mode is my evaluation of a new desktop tool. For some reason, I hated Wordpress’s web interface. I could have messed up some settings and thus posting in that WYSIWYG interface is a painful process. I tried W.Bloggar (which interestingly enough sounds like a virus name), which though was’nt too bad, it just was’nt good enough for me. So here I am, typing this using BlogJet, one of the premium tools in the market. So far it has been good. Again, I will use another blog entry for this trial post, so do keep coming back for more updates.
It feels good to be back here though, little red dot (:
Friday, November 16th, 2007
I found this very cool application on http://portableapps.com/. Features are as follow:
“Convenient
Now you can carry your favorite computer programs along with all of your bookmarks, settings, email and more with you. Use them on any Windows computer. All without leaving any personal data behind.
Open
PortableApps.com provides a truly open platform that works with any hardware you like (USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive, etc). It’s open source built around an open format that any hardware vendor or software developer can use.
Free
The Portable Apps Suite™ is free. It contains no spyware. There are no advertisements. It isn’t a limited or trial version. There is no additional hardware or software to buy. You don’t even have to give out your email address. It’s 100% free to use, free to copy and free to share.”
I have read about it before but it wasnt until today I finally found this application by chance. This program is especially useful if laptop/pc sharing is very prevalent in your organisation, or when you switch between machines very frequently. Speed is quite reasonable and you can easily share your operating environment with your peers in case you would like them to continue on your projects. And oh btw, it works only in Windows :S
Friday, November 16th, 2007
Out of curiosity and support for a fellow developer, I accepted Michael’s invitation and attended his baby event yesterday. I reached around 7.30pm and was pleasantly surprised to see Hazel coming along with Euquin too. And it was over subscribed too! (darn.. looks like my support wasnt so helpful). Michael started the party at 8pm with his PHP crash course, but I missed almost the whole entire bit on the 2nd presentation to chat with a few old friends outside the room. The 3rd, from Uzyn of Ping.sg, was refreshing; Having been exposed to so many SMU style of presentation, geekish presentation is a fresh whiff of air. If you are interested, you could get more materials from http://blog.simplyjean.com/2007/11/15/get-your-php-user-group-presentation-slides-here/; I must say, I am immensely impressed with the live blogger, Jean, too.
Now for the review; Certainly, A+ for Michael’s almost 1 man show for this. Generally, this get-together was not bad. Not lousy, Not overly fantastic, but pretty not bad. Firstly, I’m not too sure how interesting it is to make experienced php coders to sit through the opening 1hr. Perhaps this cant be helped, since this event aimed to get as many people of different background together. I have to admit it was great for me, a non-php coder, coming from a purist Java background, with MVC framework like Struts my weapon of choice. PHP certainly looks fun to me! (I am trying to pick up ROR though right now too).
Next, moving on.. While going through Jean’s live blog on Raymond’s bit, I found several debatable points in the floor’s discussion and presentation. For happiness, peace, harmony and prosperity, I shall not elaborate too much on them. If you have read my very first post in this blog, I adopted a very neutral view towards open source solutions vs commercial solutions, so you will now how I feel towards the presentor’s arguements. I also wonder where that someone gets the fact that “most banks do not run Linux or PHP”. Maybe he/she meant something else like for frontend or for office work/purposes? Anyway, many banks I know of have extremely complicated technology infrastructures and organization that span globally from India, Singapore and even Hongkong, and they obviously do not run on a single platform all the time in their server operations. While PHP may not be adopted on the frontline of banks, they sometimes use it for intranets or some 1-time event websites.
The security workshop was a good refresher for me, with a couple of more web applications related security concepts which can apply to all other languages. However, at some stage, I felt the meet up was going to spiral out of control with questions popping out frequently, probably due to some rushing through of the presentation which defeated the purpose. By the time the whole thing ended, it was close to 11pm - something which I had not expected when I reached the seminar room at 7.30pm. Perhaps, each talk can be scaled down to just 30 minutes in future, with 10 minutes of discussion time in future! All in all… this was a relatively enjoyable event abeit the lengthy session. Unfortunately, I will not make it to the Dec session as I would be abroad, but I am sure it will be very much looked forward to by many others.
And yes, something was missing throughout. REFRESHMENTS! *hint hint* 
OT(not related to event review, and warnings: technical dangers ahead): I have to also point out that web application developments arent that straightforward as some inside the room seem to think so. Yes I know PHP has its own MVC model too - afaik CakePHP is one of them. However, many PHP coders I have asked do not even know what that is (to date, Michael and I are still looking for CakePHP programmers for a project, please contact us if you are one!). I cannot comment much on how effective CakePHP functions as a MVC framework too, but my experience in using Java to code many web applications has been beautiful so far. I cant complain much about the support, the community, the elegance, MVC frameworks such as Struts, and commercial Java Servers for superior performances. The only thorn is probably EJBs for me, which its true intrinisic value is something I have yet to figure out. Similarly, some systems would require thread applications in the background on top of the web tier application. It is thus desirable at many times to use the same language for the entire system so the team does not have to deal with multiple languages. This is where Java and even ASP.Net would come in very beneficial for many companies; Disclaimer though: I do not know if PHP is a good language choice for thread or background applications (it can be done i think for scripting), nor know much on perl’s features. Perhaps, to draw a more compelling comparison of PHP’s true value compared to the rest, I should try developing a PHP web application myself (=
On the point that banks prefer more established technology, thats spot on, but its more than just that too. In evaluating web technologies, as mentioned earlier, we should look at other factors such as framework and number of developers who understand that framework, and availability of established vendors who can deliver robust applications. This goes as well for MNCs. Now, the golden rule of IT development is the all familiar “if it aint broken don’t fix it”, which these companies would follow religiously, especially when these platforms are already working so well for them. Even if PHP is established, I doubt the switch to PHP will come so easily. Another suspicion I have, though I cannot confirm, is that PHP programmers generally charge less than their ASP, JAVA peers, and thus are more suitable for SMEs and start-ups.
* I apologise for this very unstructured review, as I am doing this at the wee hours of the morning. *
Wednesday, November 7th, 2007
Recently in our shared office in SMUBIG, I had a chat with Leonard Lin, one of the key founders and drivers of Tyler Projects (already relocated elsewhere though!), who has brought us Battlestation in Facebook, and Mobile Weapons. Do check their very cool applications out! Anyhow, we discussed very briefly about the business of innovations in the IT world; A theory popped out of my head. Looking at the most successful technology companies in the world - Apple, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and recently Facebook, they all had a very common similarity.
They all had founders who got their hands dirty.
All of these companies had founders and leaders who did everything themselves, or at least got heavily involved in the developments. Bill Gates hid in his catastrophically-sized room for months while coding; Facebook was almost singled handedly coded by the founder and current CEO Mark Zuckerberg (of course, with a little support from his buddies); Google “Wonderkids” Page and Brin both coded their PageRank algorithm and offered many companies who laughed them off, and the rest they say, is history. There are many more examples in Dell, Creative and LinkedIn. And now, the closest to heart local example whom I mentioned right in the start; Leonard and his team of developers. Now, dont kill me for stating the obvious, but this is exactly what a geek can have in advantage over many people! building a giant business on their computers. My point is, you can’t just have a great IT idea and expect some others to execute it all beautifully and perfectly for yourself. Heres 5 reasons why.
1) IP Issues. Heard of Connectu.com? Mark Zuckerberg was supposed to code this pre facebook social network for them as a paid developer. He is currently facing a lawsuit and charge that he had stolen the concept from his former employers.
2) Failure in translation. This is a classical case of vision mismatch; the CEO articulated his ideas to the CTO. The CTO builds him something. The CEO screamed and ranted. The CTO remains helpless. The programming team scratched their head. The COO shaked his head in disbelief. The designers cried their heart out after learning they had to change the whole design.
3) Lack of ownership. The programmer and his master, the visionary sit down together. The visionary promises 10% equity stake to him. The programmer must finish everything. If everything works out nicely the visionary will be CEO and the visionary will get rewarded. If everything fails, the visionary does not lose anything. The programmer wasted his time. If you are the programmer, you would probably give your all, 110%.. NOT.
4) Misalignment of vision. The developer and the CEO have different ideas and dreams. The CEO wants a cube, but the designer thinks a bubble is nicer. Would this partnership ever work out? Yes, if the CEO force his ideas on the developer, and the developer became grumpy, and finally deliver a half past six job. yay.
5) Inexperienced IT Leader. The CEO thinks technology is magic, and expects the developers to give him the world; 3 months down the road, the team gave him half of what he expected; the least important features which took more time then any other important functions.
Of course, these problems can be mitigated through counteractive measures in each of them. However, that technically-inexperienced leader should be articulative, charismatic and trusted as well. So far, I have found very few examples of such leaders in innovative IT products. Now, the innovation process is very complicated and tedious - clearly, just having an idea is not sufficient; nor does having just the technical skills. If you have a wonderful and killer innovation in mind, I urge you to either pick up the relevant IT skills yourself, or establish a clear rewarding system for your team, properly outlined.
On the first point, I recently heard that a middle aged friend is picking up Ruby On Rails. It did not surprise me a bit; That bloke has wonderful Web2.0 ideas and concepts, and probably want to build a killer web app himself. I applaud him on his efforts. On my second point, no one likes to work with nothing promised, and thus you will get nothing too. If you have some spare cash and want to outsource it, sure, do it, but make sure for your money that company understands exactly what you want, and does not steal your idea somehow. If not for these potential touchy issues, at least, getting your hands dirty will mean saving you some costs (yes yes… theres the opportunity cost… but well…. )
Finally of course, a best friend who is a geek would really help your business idea a long long way. Trust me, if not, at least trust Steve Jobs (: Start befriending one now!
Saturday, November 3rd, 2007
As analysts/consultants/students/marketers/startup wannabes, the one thing you often rely on for reports that are truly worth evaluating and reading is a credible source of database. Many companies and academic institutions subscribe to these important databases such as Economist, ThomsonOne and Factiva.
However, a common problem associated with these collection of journals and data repository is in finding the right one itself. It would be inefficient for that individual to search for the required information in each of these database. Shuli and I examine the different possibilities in facilitating an effective search across academic databases in a paper, which is available at http://www.keizng.com/docs/Search%20engine%20comparision.pdf using SMU as the base for the case study. The following is an excerpt from the article.
The library at Singapore Management University (SMU) subscribes to a number of academic
databases which contain collections of journal articles, conference proceedings and working papers
among other documents. These are frequently accessed by students and faculty who require the
documents in their course of their daily research and work.
Currently, the process of searching and retrieving articles is tedious as it is not possible to query
different databases at the same time. For example, documents pertinent to the topic of “Search
Engine Indexing Technologies” are present in numerous journals by different publishers who each
maintain their own database, so these relevant articles could be spread across various databases
like JSTOR, ScienceDirect and EBSCOHost. In order for a user to obtain articles from a variety of
sources, he has to access each database individually from the SMU library website and then perform
his search repeatedly, across every database that might contain relevant documents.
This method is laborious and time-consuming, and often results in users restricting their search to a
small subset of the available databases, as it would be too troublesome to repeat the search for all
the known databases.
As such, there is a high possibility that documents relevant to a user’s
research are neglected because they are found in some of the smaller or lesser known databases.
Hence the need for an integrated searching experience. After speaking to the librarians at SMU
about this problem, we understand that they are looking to alternatives to the current search process,
and have short listed a number of approaches that could address the above problem. This
document aims to describe and evaluate these approaches in order to determine the one that can
best address the needs of SMU
Quite obviously as seen in the article, the approaches being evaluated are 1)In-house search engine method (which can also be considered as Federated Search, but not for this report), 2) Google Scholar method and 3) Meta Search Method (which for the sake of the report is also considered as Federated search, though some people would consider them as radically different styles). I hope this article will somehow find its way to the desktop of the librarians, and that students will find it useful in a tip or two on Google Scholar within the report (:
Saturday, October 20th, 2007
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
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
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
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 More …. »
Friday, October 5th, 2007
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?
Read More …. »
