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Bazaar happenings in the clementi neighborhood

I happened to chance across a post on Sammy Boy Forum last night. It was said there was actually a special massage parlour in Clementi Ave 2 area. It was just a few streets away from my place.

I got curious. It felt so strange that what normally happens in sleazy places like Geylang could actually happen in heartland areas like Clementi!

This afternoon after finishing my session at the gym, I decided to take a walk. I finally arrived at block 354, this is where commerce mainly takes place in this area.

I managed to locate the “Da Jie Niang Dou Fu” shop easily. The “Da Jie Niang Dou Fu” shop is a landmark which one of the members of the sammy boy forum posted.

I started walking down the main stretch of block 354. Upon detailed study, I realised there were actually three shops which looked quite suspicious. They were mainly located towards the end of the 5 foot way before it took a left turn. Out of the three shops two were empty while the first one was occupied by two PRC chinese looking ladies. I guess this must be the one. Having confirmed that this location that the members of the sammy boy forum posted was no bullshit but the real thing, I kept on walking down the 5 foot way and took the left turn.

It was not before long that i chanced upon this really eriee looking shop. I stood outstide trying to figure out what this shop was supposed to sell, when the proprietor of the shop beside that one told me to speak to the owner.

Apparently this shop is run by Shaiful. I wonder if he is related to the first shop keeper that talked to me.

This Shaiful is a pretty interesting character. His shop has been around for the past 5 months. He apparently runs tours to places around Southeast Asia to sites that a supposedly haunted.

Seems like his next trip is happening on the 9th this month to Vietnam. This whole thing seems pretty bazairre and interesting. If you are a really interested to find out more about his trips just head down to location stated here on Things To Do Singapore

His website is still under renovation, it is www.soulhunterz.org. I wonder when he would get it up. But I am definitely looking forward to it.

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The dawning of the new age

With on the onset of the latest trends happening in the internet, borders are actually being teared down. Compared to 5 years ago the type of sites I am now building for clients is a totally different breed.

Back then, clients were all asking for sites that look sleek, cool and standalone. When I first built an ERP system for my second company Frontiera Group that was integrated with the EBay API, none of the other companies in Singapore were doing.

Nowadays instead of looking sleek and cool, clients are actually demanding for sites that are CONNECTED!

Yes! connectedness. This is the new buzz word with this web 2.0 trend that has dawned upon us. By connected it means the ability to populate multiple strategic places with our intended content with just the click of a button.

A simple illustration could be that of ThingsToDoSingapore.com, a single entry on ThingstodoSingapore.com results in a post on the Facebook Fan Page, your own facebook profile page as well as a post on the Twitter Page. Plus and update on Ping.Sg

At the same time, it aggregates contents from YouTube.com and other blogs too.

Not to say the other mirror sites:

blog.thingstodosingapore.com
thingstodonear.info
thingsfuntodo.com

Companies are starting to demand for increased ability to put contents in front the face of their target audience with less effort. That is the expectation that an IT company has to meet in the Web2.0 age.

Thankfully all hope is not lost, no single programmer has to spend long hours in front of the computer just to create those functions. We have the open source community to back us up. All we have to do is to just fill up the gap when we do find one. What we fill up, we give back to the open source.

In this web 2.0 day and age, power is no longer held in the hands of the few but divided amongst the mass.

Then again on the other side of things. while this utopian view is what most observe, conforming to social norms, a few tends to rise to the top. This commonly is called the black swan.

It is indeed worrying. Consider these black swans as the hubs and the rest of us as spooks. Suppose if someone does cripple the hub, the rest of us the spooks will definitely get affected.

Such a scenario was experienced on ThingsToDoSingapore.com when the Russians decided to do a denial of service attack facebook one day due to some renegade Russian expressing one radical view too much over the internet and harnessing too much support.

Due to the connectedness ThingsToDoSingapore has with the facebook connect API, it experienced slow loading times for the period until the facebook team fixed the Russian problem.

While it seems connected is a good option, it does have its pros and cons like all systems.

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chains chains and more chains…

What a night! Alena who sat beside me on the bench was once again in tears. I watched her, not knowing what to feel. She seemed totally agreeable with the first two terms I set for our relationship but not the third.

Term 1 : We will never ever have kids
Secretly still I think she is coveting that I will have a change of hearts 5 to 6 years down the road. Seriously though I have no intentions at all of bring another child to this world only to be imprisoned by life immediately. Memories of my childhood behind locked doors and grilled bars and afternoon stuck bored brainless in school are still vivid in my mind.

Term 2 : We will never ever commit to the purchase of houses
Was out with Madelyn the other day, heard from her she and her husband just got themselves in a 30 year mortgage. I guess they should be old and immobile by the time they finish paying off their loans. My life out of prison has just started, I am a freeman!!! I don’t really feel any motivations to head back in again for another 30 years of my life.

Term 3 : I will need to wander off alone for months
A life of wandering is the ultimate symbolism of freedom in its purest essence. Being restricted from such would be no different from a life of imprisonment, such a life is no life at all!

I wonder how she would not come to see of it this way? What is the point of keeping me around always, when I will only get more grouchy and restless, causing more annoyance than good to those around me with my presence. My feet is begging for the taste of hitherto unwalked paths and the horizon beckons.

It seems like I have over the past few months dug out all the most unlikely haunts there are to be found on this tiny red dot and am almost to the extent of being able to memorize all the places like the back of my palm. It was so torturous. I just need some new playgrounds to get lost in.

Truth is recently, the sight of my family and Alena only reminds me of the invisible chains they have in their hands. Chains they unknowingly but inevitably will use on me. Chain which Alena aims to build using her tears and quarrels and my parents their constant nagging. Instinctly I felt threatened, very threatened. Even my visit to my relatives yesterday didn’t help.

Oh yeah, this relative of mine was out with serious intent to do some brain washing. “????” The fruit thus fallen soon becomes the root. That was the four lettered gift she bestowed before I left. Prior to my departure, I agreed to have those four words written in my diary but nothing more. Quietly, I actually thought to myself she could go screw herself with that four word of hers. No offence but who is she to dictate how I should live my life. Just the thought of it left an extremely foul and pungent taste in my mouth.

Debts owing should be coming in over the next few weeks. I have finally put a curb to the two most massive drainage to my capital over the past 12 months, Alena and my parents.

I have paid my dues to my parents for the year at least and Alena is on the brink of starting her job in Singapore. Not that the pressure I exterted on her didn’t help. One could look at it as cruel but I don’t really feel the incentive to provide the fish forever. I don’t run a charity organization. There is no such thing as a free lunch, or in my case a constant free lunch. She has been feeling stressed recently from her job search. Hey tough life! too bad. Time for her to seriously get her kick together and move along.

Chains chains chains… All these chains, the time will soon come to drop them all. Lucky on the commercial side there are not much new bondages coming in. Good keep it that way. It will facilitate my shifting. Perhaps I am selfish, perhaps I am heartless. If such is the case, so be it. I only live once and I aim to live it!

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Getting Google Friends Connect to Work with FaceBook Connect

It seeems getting facebook connect to work with google friends connect has been a issue on the minds of most developers and not many of them has came up with an idea solution for it.

After having attended the google hackathon last month and witnessing how patrick got it the two of them to work it got me experimenting with bringing facebook connect and google friends connect to work together for a while now. The site I am working on is Thing To Do Singapore.

Last night I was finally successful at getting the two of them to work together in a somewhat weird kind of way.

Bascially Pages with GFC elements should not be introduced with FBML elements and vice a vice. Such a way would cause it to clash. However since authentication for facebook results in a session storing on the server, one possible method for implementing the two on the same system could be via ajax.

On Things to Do Singapore the default log in is Google Friends Connect. On another page http://thingstodosingapore.com/facebook/ user can log into their facebook accounts using facebook connect.

So once both of these are done, in the event the user generates some contents on the default page, 3 things will happen.

  • their facebook status will be updated
  • their google friend’s connect activity will be updated
  • the twitter main account ThingsToDoSg will be updated.

Additional events that might happen. Suppose the user declares that this entry has more details in a specific blog. The server will automatically do a ping back once the on the server with the blog entry.

In short I am attempting to position Things To Do Singapore as both and aggregator and a disseminator.

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Parting with a comrade

I finally managed to obtain for Alena her the tourist visa to get into Singapore early this week. She happily booked her air ticket this time around.

And then we had our quarrels again two days ago, as usual… This time I was too tired to call her up. I guess we both went missing for the whole of yesterday. I thought she wouldn’t even bother calling me back again. Guess she did, she texted me today while I was working in the office. I was mentally prepared to just let her go her way after that prior quarrel actually. I was feeling so drained after all these days, somethings got to give. And she seemed the heaviest load I had to deal with at the moment. The temptation to chuck her out like a jettison is there all the time and she really isn’t helping out.

Reading her mind, it seems her first two messages were once again attempts meant to provoke me to anger. I answered indifferently. There were more important things at hand to settle, like my clients! She said she cancelled her air tickets to Singapore with both her parents’ approval.

And thus we went through the process of going down and up the J curve again. This time round due to her lack of control over her emotions she messed up in the most terrible way possible. Firstly, she got angry and made a rash decision, then she was unsure where she should go should we really part,thereafter she was starting to feel lost, she has no idea anymore what to do with her life, finally the doubts creeped in and she got her funds with the air line office making the booking of another airline ticket to Singapore very unlikely even if she decided to change her mind.

“What do you want me to do?” I texted exasperated, not really looking forward to part with my hard earned cash from my previous few projects just to amend another one of her stupid mistakes. These cash could be used for better things.

“Well, I don’t know but never mind.” she replied.

I could imagine the look of being totally lost on her face at the moment we spoke. I saw that countless times, I absolutely hate that look, spending all my effort to just guide her along, protecting her from herself, most especially her stupidity.

I sat then on the sofa looking out the window, I was utterly upset. All would have been fined had she not attempted to contact me again after our quarrel. I would have moved double speed ahead with my life with just the right level of buoyancy and flexibility to keep me afloat for a long long time. Now once again I am stuck with this situation with her.

Anabel my friend from Shanghai, having seen Alena once during our dinner event together, has been warning me all along to dump her. Alena would only be a load in the long run and not a contribution to any of my endeavours. In fact it would have been hard if not impossible for her to find a mate of good calibre for herself with criterias such as hers back in China.

“She makes a bad choice for a mate, even if you don’t think for yourself. Think for your parents and future kids” those were her exact words. Though the words sounded harsh, Anabel’s intent was kind. She came from a back ground that was almost like Alena’s but the difference was Anabel was 3 years younger, with pure perservrance she managed to establish a career for herself and is comfortably married with into a well to do family.

But each time I thought about doing that, I could not help but recall that utterly lost and hopeless look on Alena’s face that I chanced to observe the one fateful day when she walked alone in the streets unaware of my presence. She tries hard in life but had no idea what the hell she was doing wrong no matter the amount of teaching she received. The recollection of that scene still pains me and brings me close to tears just thinking of it. I never ever want that look on her face ever again if I ever could help it.

So many girls I have dated, and so many of them I have parted without worries, they were strong smart and intelligent. Alena oh Alena, I find it hard to ever part with her without the assurance that she is in the safe hands of another. Failing to do so, it would have felt as though I have abandoned a comrade in the battle field just to save my own skin. How dishonourable is that. Such a thought just leaves a foul taste in my mouth.

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PHP set to be the disruptive innovation in the ERP arena

Cited from WikiPedia ;

“A disruptive technology or disruptive innovation is an innovation that improves a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically by being lower priced or designed for a different set of consumers.

Disruptive innovations can be broadly classified into low-end and new-market disruptive innovations. A new-market disruptive innovation is often aimed at non-consumption (i.e., consumers who would not have used the products already on the market), whereas a lower-end disruptive innovation is aimed at mainstream customers for whom price is more important than quality.

Disruptive technologies are particularly threatening to the leaders of an existing market, because they are competition coming from an unexpected direction. A disruptive technology can come to dominate an existing market by either filling a role in a new market that the older technology could not fill (as cheaper, lower capacity but smaller-sized flash memory is doing for personal data storage in the 2000s) or by successively moving up-market through performance improvements until finally displacing the market incumbents (as digital photography has largely replaced film photography).”

Currently when talking about large scale corporate used systems in the commercial arena, the first thing that comes to mind is either Java Enterprise Systems from Sun MicroSystems or Share Point from Microsoft Systems.

While the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySql, Php) has been the main market technology used by SMEs and web hosting server, no big firms thus far has yet been braved enough to take the next big step into to the new frontier which is often the large scale extensive use of this open source technology.

Cited from my interview session with a developer from National Computer Systems the number biggest IT company in Singapore

“Yes it is the truth, no big companies has yet attempted to launch PHP as a platform for large scale enterprise use. However as soon as one of the big boys in the market does so the rest will soon follow.”

What he says can indeed be explained via the use of institutional theory. Assume a big company after going through a normative processes decides to adopt PHP on a large scale basis and successfully does so, others companies compelled by mimetic processes will follow along too.

Also due to the fact that this company might be a dominant supplier or client of other companies, they might via coercive forces be forced to adopt the same technology.

Another company CBS an MNC advertising firm which I went for interview the yesterday does has indeed developed a large scale system based on PHP with built in extensive workflow controls.

As commented by Senior Manager e-marketing for Sanofi Aventis Mr Bernard Grellier

“We are now looking at building sites that can be rapid, easily deployable, with low investment cost and discardable. That is why PHP might be a viable solution for this arena as compared to solutions from other vendors.”

So what is it that is preventing from big companies from hoping on to the PHP bandwagon?

Accountability is Key!

Big firms have a need for stability more so than small firms. They require that a party be accountable for technical support should an adopted technology malfunction during operations.

This is not simply possible when dealing with open source technology. What revolves around PHP is a community of people and not a single firm. In the event of a malfunction problem, the adoptee has no one to turn to for the solution.

However the day might not be long before big firms has a finger to point to.

Microsoft seeing the potential of tapping on the PHP community is already in the process of adopting it as a viable technology and attempting to scale it up. The day might not be long before big firms start seeing PHP as a viable technology for their operations as well thereby displacing mainstream technologies used in large scale corporate environments.

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Haka (KA MATE! KA MATE! KA ORA! KA ORA! …)

Seems like a tough year, this one.

Things were pretty messy for me this year. I don’t know whether it is good or whether it is bad.

I managed to get myself involved in a good paying IT project at the beginning of the year for two months for a pharmaceutical firm. The pay I ‘ve got would have been enough to get me to Europe and start the next leg of my journey downwards to Africa.

However, I got myself involved with a girl the second day I got back to Singapore. Ouch! I was having a lot of dilemma deciding between her and my dreams all these while. I couldn’t just leave her and pursue dreams of my own, it would have been too selfish. But having her around requires that I provide a certain level of security and comfort, which she wouldn’t have been able to provide herself in this city. She is from the rural areas. It was pretty stressful financially for me. We sometimes quarrel over these things as well, when her wants are too much for me to provide.

So what happened next was that I got myself involved with another project which was even more lucrative but involved a certain amount of risk.

That one blew up in my face. My client became illiquid and I had no choice but to pay up the team of staffs I hired for the project from my own pocket which pretty much amounts to what I have earned from my previous one.

So basically it got me nicely back to square one all over again. Now I am half decided between looking for a full time job which would be highly torturous or hanging on with my existing group of clients. The income I get is about the same either way.

However considering the fact that my girlfriend would be getting back to Singapore soon and I would need to rent a house, pay for both our daily expense until she gets work(if she does), plus giving allowances to my parents, it is a lot of stress for some one who is incomes is irregular.

Then again if I do indeed get myself a full time job, the salary I do get would be just enough for all these expenses I I listed above, nothing more to finance my dreams. It is really like becoming a wage slave.

My heart is divided. I am still stuck with this question everyday. Having sleepless nights still. Constantly I pray for a possible path to open up before me or for death to come swiftly…

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Google wave, the stanford model works, Serendipity

Seems like Google is coming up with a new web 2.0 platform again, this time specifically targeted at communications online.

It works pretty much like the winword document in the gmail except that this time you could also rewind time and see what was actually being written or edited at specific time intervals.

A video goes on to show that this algorithm has been originally been an area of academic research for the past 10 years before finally being commercialized in the form of Google Wave recently.

Seems like the Stanford model is working very nicely over in the States. What started as research in academies upon maturity gets rolled out commercially as spin offs.

The advantage that Google has is that fact that the whole company started out via this model as well. They are experienced in this.

In Singapore we do have something like this, but it seems owing to the general risk aversive culture of the place, this model is not taking off as well. Hey look, even my dad and mom has been nagging at me to get a stable job instead of constantly going through this process of trail and error that is inherent in technological ventures.

But hey no way am I going to call it quits that easily. I am still surviving so far am I not?

The other thing also is the lack of funding for start ups. Ironically, while lots of funds have been put in place to support start ups, fund managers are not really willing to seed start ups unless they are really confidant that their business model will be commercially viable.

Who’s to be sure anyway? Half of the really cool technologies around that were thought to have the potential to make a big bang when they hit the market never really did when they finally did arrive. Others that were thought to be flops magically succeeded at becoming dominant features on the internet without much explanation.

It is like choosing to play safe in an arena where the way to success contradicts the idea of playing safe. Hence most of these public funds get squandered off by companies who are good with paperwork to do stuff that is not aligned with the main objectives for the existence of these funds. The model is just not working.

Face it, success usually requires a certain amount of serendipity and the thing is such a thing is usually hard to predict. Mostly we are in the hands of God. It is like a leap of faith.

Kudos to that.

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Jump!

Seriously I am feeling so stuck recently. I am neither advance nor retreat. Advancing in the path ahead means betraying my own beliefs about the way, retreating backwards means betraying my own integrity.

I am stuck so badly stuck. If there were an enemy without I would have been able to easily solve this problem by conquering him. However the enemy seems to be no where and everywhere at the sametime. How does one attempt at fighting such an enemy like this?

I need to find him. That is what I will need to do. There is nothing like being stuck helplessly unable to identify the enemy while taing continous onslaughts from god knows where.

I finally arrive along East Coast Beach. I dumped my bag and jumped right into the sea. I couldn’t take it anymore.

There I stayed alone, floating in the sea, bobbing along with the tide, staring out at the vast open waters. Evening was coming. The sun was setting. There were no other sounds except the occasional crashing of waves on the white sandy beach. I felt so free all of a sudden. Life is supposed to be like this. Then I suddenly recalled!

My greatest love mother nature, I have neglected you for so long being distracted with all these meaningless urban life. Please forgive me.

Slowly I crawled back to shore, all wet. Now I have to think of a way to dry myself with neither towel nor a change of clothes.

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Cold reading

Recently having gotten interested with astrology services on the internet, I decided to put my particulars into one particular site. The message I received was so convincing that I wandered the truth behind it.

Then again I recalled the fact that given a statement without anything to disprove it, the brain will automatically search for evidences to villify the truth of this statement.

Deciding to see how the actual system works on the internet I proceeded to the site of the fortune teller and started messing around with the site.

Pretty smart actually, the message, the only thing though is that it is a standard message for all to read except you are the one reading it and being convinced by it.

Click the refresh button or change the query string alittle and you will have either a different message from the whole collection of them or the same message again but with no name. Try it out yourself.

https://secure-astro.com/cgi-bin/request.cgi?p=request.cgi&r=2b&c=uht0s&f=tnel