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Turning sand to stone

Recently I started to realize the nature of the path I have been threading upon has shifted. More and more am I faced with tasks that require through put of more than 24 hours effort within a span of 24 hours. I started to feel strongly the limitations to being just one man.Strangely too, I started unknowingly to gather around myself a band of comrades in my conquest.

This gradual shift in the path I am threading on has slowly but surely forced me into another paradigm. No longer can I consider solving a problem when I encounter it as an acceptable method to resolve issues. Half the time, I might not even be the person handling the issue and facing the problem when it happens. This really brought the need for me to really sit and consider things thoroughly before attempting to deploy any human resources available at hand to the fields. In a sense it is a tougher job and more draining for the mind than simple physical labour. It felt almost like mentally reaching out to the psychic universe and attempting to knead the ebbs and flows to your wishes before sending your forces out for exploration.

There are a few things that I have been pondering of late. How was it that conquerors could build armies from scratch and grow them into massive forces capable of overrunning entire continents? What was it that inspired the members of these armies to such heights that they were willing to forsake their lives in battle to win a war? What was it that kept the members of these armies together despite proofs written in countless research articles stating that high level of social loafing are bound to exist in places where population density is extremely high?

While these are not important questions that I need answers to at the moment, due to the fact I am still in direct communication with each member of my band of comrades, it will so start becoming a pressing situation when I start to form a heirarchy of more than two tiers for my operational needs.

I guess it is time once again to turn to history, philosophy and religion to search for the answers I am looking for. Many before me had faced themselves with this question, and many of them had came up with their own version of what the answer should be.  To save time, I guess I should not reinvent the wheel.

However one very challenging task faced is the idea of bringing these methods to life. A simple analogy to describe this task is the phrase “when does the extent of technique ends and the realm of art really starts”?

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The use of Zen as a tool for work and as a philosophy in everyday life

Recently my schedule became more and more hectic with assignments of drastically differing nature packed back to back.

Gradually I started to feel acutely the ineffectiveness on my part when I kepts thoughts from a previous assignment on my mind when I started working on an assignment occupying the next occuring time slot. Unconciously,  I started engaging myself in this mental practise which I came across many times in Zen literature as well as in modern literature works by Japanese Authors (Eiji Yoshikawa and Haruki Murakami).

Prior to the start of any time slot when an assignment was supposed to occur, I would mentally empty all thoughts in my mind and pictured myself as one with the work that will occur. Forgetting all notions of the past and the future.

When the past is forgotten, one forgets that one has ever exerted mental and physical effort in periods shortly past, the mind is not distracted with the notion that one needs rest to recuperate from this recent exertion.

When the future is forgotten, one forgets that one will need to exert more mental and physical effort in the periods shortly to come, hence one does not spare efforts to cater for the future and thus gives one’s all for every minute and second that comes to past.

In this state one enters into a state of trance, the work becomes the self and the self becomes the work. One is thus able to concentrate fully on the work at hand and fully exertly oneself in the task to be accomplished without prejudice for the past, the present, the future and all other manners of distraction that exist in this Saha World.

One interesting after effect I personally felt through this practise was the fact that my mind was able to come forth from my hectic schedules stress free and fresh.

Just the other day, while sitting in McDonalds doing some work, Alena started messaging her friend. Out of boredom she sent her time of birth to her friend for some online fortune telling. She was pretty much amused and tried to convince me to tell her the exact time of my birth promising to share the findings with me. I did so only after getting her to promise that she will get her friend to calculate the time of my passing from this life time as well. She spanked me thinking I was once again joking.

Interestingly she kept quiet and did not talk about the response she received from her friend. When I finally came out from another phase of trance, I asked her for the results. She had this worried look on her face. I forced her to tell me my fortune readings.

Strangely it conincided with what I have been thinking of for the longest time.

“Men born at this time, mostly reside within the temples and meditate from dusk to dawn.” was the fortune reading

“Well, I guess it will soon be over between you and me. Perhaps we should part soon. ” I joked.

She spanked me once again, but felt deeply worried about my wanton nature towards people in my personal life.

I suddenly recalled this psychic whom I met back at the Spiritualist church in London who had this strange vision when he first saw me of this smiling tibetan monk and a golden thread with four notes (knots) on it and a fifth missing. Probably the same monk whom I “imagined” when Sian tried to brought me on a stroll on the spiritual planes back when I was staying at her place in London.

Perhaps that is me in the future beckoning to the me in the present, the only divide being that missing fifth note (knot) on the golden thread. I wonder what that might be. It is all up for speculation actually

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Impressive Tool for deciphering what a font in an image is

Today I came across this very interesting problem. One of the client’s image logo sent over to me was too low of resolution. The printing company I went to engage wanted to recreate create the image from scratch and thus asked me what font was being used in the image.

I was at a loss. Obviously the client was of no help, she was just an marketing executive . Doing a quick search over the internet I quickly realized I was not the first to face such a weird problem. Thankfully there is already a tool available that helps to decipher via a process of reverse engineering from a raw image file. It was truly impress. Check it out here

http://new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

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The joy of living like nomad and the ease that comes with learning to fail properly

Yesterday I suddenly experienced a drastic paradigm shift. For the past few months, I always attempted at creating a peaceful and quiet environment back at home to allow for better concentrate while at work. It was a lost cause. The presence of mom and dad plus little blackie gave me no peace whateverso. Any attempts at doing so would have resulted in immediate failure.  Only short spans of peace could be achieved, this was when everyone was out and blackie was having his afternoon nap.

Satheesh was kind enough to pass me the use of his wireless mobile card. It had been sitting much use in my bag for the past few months excepts on occasions when I had to do some off shore co-ordination when I was at Toshiba’s data center and service center.

It was morning yesterday when I took my laptop and aigo’s demo kit for a trip to Aigo’s main office. After some hiccups here and then we managed to settle the outstanding matters with Aigo.

I met up with Alena for lunch this Taiwanese eatery near east coast beach. Shortly after lunch, I took out my laptop and started checking some mails which Kelvin sent over a short while ago. Quickly I forgot the presence of Alena and concentrate on my work at hand. After 1 hours of solid uninterrupted work I decided to take a break.

We arrived at East Coast beach where I decided read a book. It was not long before she dragged me into roller blading with her. While she attempted hard at keeping her balance and fall as little as possible, I took the more practical approach, an approach which I unconciously acquired during my work as a software developer.

I started by concentrating my efforts on learning how to fall properly while on blades. In fact I fell more 30 times during the short span of that 2 hours on blades suffering no injuries whateverso. This was totally weird in contrast to the pained expressions passerbys gave when they saw the scene.

Alena on the other hand whil attempting to stay on her foot, minimized her falls to less than 10 times during this entire period of 2 hours, managed successfully to sprain her right wrist which left her feeling somewhat hindered in her movements for the rest of the day.

One interesting thing to observe is this. Taking the notion of falling for granted, I was thereafter truly able to focus my mind on acquiring the techniques to manage the skates properly. Fear (of falling) is truly a most unneccessary distraction in this scenario. Also 40% of my time during this 2 hour period was spent sitting on the bench observing the techniques strangers while on blades as well as chatting up with any particular blader whom I wanted to clarify in more details th techniques they. In some instances, I received weird and uneasy expressions from bladers unused to speaking with total strangers on the streets. However being mechiavellic as I am, staunchly believing that the ends justify the ends, I ignored these and continued on my conquest of the blades.

After that two hours on blades, I believe given another two to three sessions on blades I should manage nicely.

Once again, I have deviated. Back to the discussion on life as a nomad, we sat down at coffee bean and enjoyed some coffee, bossa nova music and the view of the beach at night, while I once again started to work on the net. It was truly great, getting the peace and quiet I needed to concentrate on my work while not having to spend an ounce of effort at maintaining it. Alena mean while took a chinese book on Business Management from my bag which started reading it.

We left for dinner at bugis area. Thereafter I sent her home before finding a spot by the Singapore river to spend the night. Thus it is, I woke up the next day having a great view of the sun rise over the marina promenade. I was truly feeling that life for me is once now again free and the way it should be.

Now I sit just across the street from Hotel Rendevouz in the lobby of the SMU Business faculty enjoying the afternoon breeze and the lively scenary while surfing the net and charging my laptop free of charge, courtesy of  SMU. Haha. I think today I will spend once again out doors, enjoying my new found freedom and space. Life is GREAT!

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The importance of process innovation within a company

In June 2009, whilst sitting in the park enjoying the afternoon breeze under the clear blue skies, I was  pondering deeply the directions Gary Web Consulting Group was headed.

I came to a conclusion thereafter that it was necessary to increase sales volume for Gary Web Consulting Group. One of the methods I identified after having an evening discussion with my brother Cliff Teh, was to establish more industrial partnership mainly with IT companies and IT brokerage houses. This was basically to leverage on their expertises and existing networks to achieve what I envisioned.

10 months later in April 2010, Gary Web Consulting Group has managed to established quite a few partnerships with firms within Singapore, US and the UK. Sales leads volume has visibily increased over the span of these months,  leading to subsequent increase in sales turnover volume.

Whilst currently Gary Web Consulting Group is still working within its maximum operating capacity of 160 hours per month, in anticipation of the possible need to constantly operate above and beyond its monthly maximum capacity in the near future, I have recently started to shift my attention inwards. One of the chief areas of focus is the further streamlining of the various existing business processes within Gary Web Consulting Group. The objective was to attempt at reducing unnecessary steps via its re-configuration or through leveraging newly available technology. Such a process will make possible a higher rate of throughput with the available 160 hours per month. This whole exercise can be classified as concious pursuit of process innovation. Whilst the eventual product created remains the same, the methodology applied during the process of creating the product differs.

Process innovation aims not at increasing the overall yield via increasing the aptitude levels of individuals involved, but attempts to increase the overall yield inspite of aptitude levels of individuals involved.

A simple example would be the adoption of digital camera use by a industrial photographer. The feedback cycle is immensly shortening as compared to the traditional camera where feedback was only available when the photos were developed.

Business process that have experienced process innovations within Gary Web Consulting Group are as listed below:

  • Off site communications
    • Asynchronous communications is made possible and more coherent with the use of voice and videos
  • User Training and knowledge transfer (through the use of videos)
    • Essential knowledge that customers will need in the management of their site is made possible via the use of videos. Also a knowledge repository has been created online for 24 hours access
  • Website Implementation creation
    • Knowledge in expertise in the customization of existing open source content management system now allows faster time to market in the creation of a web portal

Business Processes that has been identified for process innovation

  • Pre-Sales
    • A systematic approach is to be develope to further improve sales success rate
  • Interface Design and Mock Creation Process
    • More research is required to acquire tools that will aid in further reducing this particular process. Currently per design and mock  up requires up to 2 man days for creation via the use of Photoshop and thereafter skin it via CSS and html. It is most ineffective.
  • Human resourcing
    • Attention is required in developing a system to more systematically acquire and retain capable human resource in the near future
  • Project Management
    • Whilst the current project management methodology works superbly in a small team of up to 4 people. This method has not been trialed on a team of a larger size
    • Tools are to be acquired and methodologies created to further aid collaboration and communications within a team
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Keeping the brain useful

Most of the time after thinking extensively about a problem which I would like to come up with a solution for, my brain gets tired and refuses to listen orders anymore. This is when it starts to go off tangent and deviates to ponder on other subjects.

Therefore in, I realize it is most productive for me to be to be working multiple problems of very diverse nature at the same time. That way the brain is can be kept interested on the subject it is working on.

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A possible solution to an interesting problem

A few months ago I was having supper with Steven and Pasha. That night we were discussing about how to make a site grow organically. Steven raised a very interesting question. Most new websites face the problem of generating new and meaningful content on a timely basis.

The ability to constantly generate new and meaning content on a site requires that the site be in the first place in the form of a content management system. [1]

The second requirement is that either the administrator or his team of people constantly login to the system to create new contents. There is the problem of training and gaining familiarity if we are engaging a team of people new to the system.[2] Also suppose if it is just one person generating the content, that person will be required to commit alot of time and effort to generate such a content. [3]

The obstacle is a formidable one for budding webmasters.

I have been helping Jim with the administration of SingaporeRental for close to a year now. Apparently we were constantly met with problems 2 and 3. This resulted in a bottle neck which slowed down the content generation speed on SingaporeRental.

Today finally being somewhat free and unoccupied with things I decided to do a little RnD. This little RnD process which I got myself engaged in proved to be fruitful afterall. Hopefully with this new implementation problems 2 and 3 can be solved for SingaporeRental.com

I have meanwhile setup the same architecture for a few more the sites under my ownership just for RnD purposes only.

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Surprise popularity of Joomla 1.5 Component Simple Thickbox Gallery

After being frustrated having spent a long time looking for a simple gallery component on the Extensions.Joomla.org site to display my portfolio, I decided that I should write my own. To do so, I simplying incorporated the jQuery library, the Thickbox library and created a Joomla 1.5 component that required almost zero configurations.

Users simply installed the components, select the section or category they want displayed and Viola! the page was automatically created for them.

I used it for my own company site to display my portfolio and suddenly had an interesting thought. I might as well have it packaged nicely and submitted to the Joomla Extensions directory.

It took me two weeks and some minor changes here and there (mostly paperwork) to finally get it approved.

After a few days I went and had a look at my Google analytics account which I had installed for my company site a long time ago.

I was in for a surprise. Site traffic surged from a daily volume of less than 10 visitors a few months ago to as high as 400 daily visitors these past few days. It was totally crazy. Visitors were mostly from the US and Europe. So I guess my idea of coming up with solutions to solve potentially painful situations does seem to be a very sound.

Currently I have identified a painful situation that is being experienced in SMEs. I am working on coming up with a solution for them via the use of technology. Hopefully it will help them save time, effort and lead to increased effeciency in their work process.

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SWFupload and Joomla integration revisited

After trying 1 hour and getting no where integrating SWFupload fully into the Joomla Administration backend. I finally called it quits.

The problem is that while the SWFupload component shows up nicely in the front end any call by the component to the scripting backend always results in a login request page. This is despite attempting to follow official instructions on the Joomla Documentation Site.

Finally I created a fileuploader.php file that does not have foreign access restricted by the Joomla CMS permissions.

To prevent crackers from exploiting this file as a possible entry point to crack any Joomla systems installed with my soon to be launched Joomla 1.5 component, I have limited file upload type to just XML types only. Now it works fine.

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The sad case of being an unfilial son once again

It was advertisements now on Channel U. The previous 15 minutes were showing how blangadeshi workers could go out of their way to help their friends in need.

Suddenly, I notice something amiss.

“Mom! How come these blangadeshi could be so willing to fork out money to help their friends in need and can be so close to each other in the community and you are preaching about being on guard against everyone around you including our own relatives??”

“Humans are selfish by nature.” mom replied

“But they don’t seem very selfish to me.” I argued.

“Me and your dad has met with enough trouble with customers who dont pay up after borrowing money even if they have money.”

“But that cannot mean all people are like that”

“Most people are like that because humans are really selfish creatures. If a person is poor, everyone will avoid him” was mom’s reply.

“Ok Mom. I will take your advice to heart. In case you get broke in the future, it is not my fault and neither am I unfilial if I choose to avoid you. I was just following your advice you know.” I said flashing my million dollar smile.

“Shut up! and watch the television! ” she ended our conversation.

Once again my mom got totally pissed off.

Sometimes I believe it is truly a failure on my part as a son, why is it not possible for me to just accept what has been told to me lock stock and barrel by my parents? Why is it that I always find it necessary to iron out all contradictions that exist within any piece of information given to me before accepting it. Why too then do I even after accepting any particular piece of information do so with a deep sense of doubt; a doubt derived from my belief that somewhere in the world some facts are going to be unearth in the future, facts of which will overturn everything which i believe to be true until now.

Perhaps if I could numb myself to such an extent of being unaware of all the contraditions that are happening around me then I might be able to live happily in blissful ignorance.

Alternatively, perhaps if I could change myself to such an extend of being able to accept the existance of contradictions without feeling the strong urge to question them and thereafter sort them out, I will be able to live happily in peace with myself too.