Friday, December 30, 2011

should I buy a branded or non branded product?

what is a branded product? and what is a non-branded product?

Why do we buy branded products?

When I was small, I was taught that buying branded should be frown upon. Because essentially buying something that overpriced but little value.

But as I grew older, it's entirely a different case. Every brand has a vision.Some chose to be only luxury products. Some chose to be available for all price range.

The reason these companies priced their products are also what drives the brand the company. If everyone owned a Ferrari, the car would probably lose it's exclusive touch. If Ferrari made their cars in mass amounts such as of the Proton, it probably won't be attractive as it is now.

But, on the other hand, certain brands do carry models for different price range. For example, Logitech.
Logitech is computer peripheral company. They sells speakers, mouse, keyboard, steering wheels, and etc.
Some of these models prices start from RM30 and above.

The reason we buy a certain brand, because we know and we trust this brand will give us the quality that we want. For example, I paid RM30 for a pair of speakers which will work for as much as I paid it, that it won't break down easily but just sufficient to fulfil my audio enjoyment.

My point is, the view was I taught when I was young is totally invalid.

:D

Thursday, December 29, 2011

of Relationships

Oh Me Goodness , it's been a month that I haven't been blogging.

Today, my superior treated all our team members lunch. I being the greedy, took a little too much. Well, let's just it's not a good experience. I'll make sure I'll take just the right amount next time.

_________________________________________________________________________________

On another note, 

Just roughly 48 hours till the end of 2011, for some of my friends, it's probably a new beginning to look forward to. A few of my gal friends have broken up, some had a long distance relationship , some only lasted for a few months, sone had it for long time.Regardless of what type or period of the relationship, nevertheless, the break up still hurt their feelings and they will need to recover from this pain.

During college, we had this couple who were together before college till the end of college.Unfortunately, it couldn't last long after college. They broke up from a few years after college. Sometimes what seemed so right from outside, doesn't really reflect they are right for each other in the inside.

People change. Coupleship during studies is different from coupleship during work. The needs and wants of a couple during studies is different from a couple who are in their working age.


I find that coupleship during your working age is the most mature relationship that you can have. But the lack of experience of coupleship of earlier age (during studies) does prove to be an disadvantage.

But, that's just my opinion. Being in relationship is always a learning process.

It's really easy to start a relationhip , and it's also easy to end one. How we keep it going , it's entirely up to both of you / us.

In the meantime, for those gal friends who have broken up, here's a song from Michael Bublé  for you to cheer you all up.



If you have any comments / stories to share, please post them below.

Thank you.






Thursday, October 27, 2011

Conspiracy

According to Dictionary.com,

are as below:

1. the act of conspiring.
2. an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot.
3. a combination of persons for a secret, unlawful, or evil purpose: He joined the conspiracy to overthrow the government.
4.Law. an agreement by two or more persons to commit a crime, fraud, or other wrongful act.
5.any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result.
 
The most common definition should be No. 2. A plot by 2 or more person to do something illegal / evil / unlawful and etc.
 
You can read the short or long version. :P . Long version starts first.
 
##LONG version #
Why am I talking about conspiracy? Well, let's just say I have some first hand experience about it. I don't say I'm a saint, but I would be guilty as charged by conspiring with these people. Imagine you're part of a group,  where most of them like to have McDonald's for lunch, naturally even you're not really a fan of McDonald's, you would still join them. So, naturally when you go out with them, you try to have a good time with them while they enjoying your lunch. Hopefully, the next time they have lunch with you, they would go for something that you desire. If not, you could always voice out your opinion.
As a tightly-knit group, they would try to accommodate you as well.
But, if when you're going out lunch with them to McDonald's , you decide to show your sour face,  cause a commotion when everyone is having their lunch; you probably can stop thinking people joining you for lunch on something you like.


Being in a group, you probably need to respect the rules or do's and don'ts of the group. If you decide to do something else in the norm, you can expect yourself to be condemned by the group. This , however , applies only if you're in a social circle. Meaning, if the group you're with , are fans of that basketball team/soccer/football team that you're NOT interested, you could  always keep quiet when they are talking about the their favorite team. You could always do a pissing match just to spite each other out of the name of fun as well. But, that might get old after a while. However, if you just can't find a way to have fun with this group, you could always opt to join another group of people who have the same interests as you.

 Humans, after all are social species. But, if every group you joined, you made a ruckus , causing everyone in the group to dislike you in one way or another, all the groups will one way or another decide to conspire to go against you. Certainly, when you're in that kind of condition, it's not an easy feat to survive. Let's assume you're a student, studying in an environment where your classmates don't want to join you for lunch, OR your fellow classmates just feel uncomfortable by your mere presence ("helped" by people who conspire against because of you wronged them way too many times), OR they ignore your presence when you talk to them.
Then, it's probably a good idea to
a) look for another place to study.
b) behave like their part of a group.

Option (b) might still work, but it's going to take a long time for people to change their mind since your image/reputation was tainted by people that conspire against you.

Option (a) would be the easiest, where you start anew and this time you should at least try to make it right.

But, not everyone has the luxury of option (a). (That would a be a different story at work.) So, before you want to say / do something that might cause the group of people to dislike / hate you, think about how would you feel if they did to you?
##LONG version # 

#SHORT version#
If you're in a group, make sure you understand the terms / habits of the group. If you decide to do something else out of the groups' norm, you could always ask the group members whether something is OKAY or otherwise. If you decide to live as a lonely human being for your entire life, always cause a commotion wherever you go.


#SHORT version#

If you have real life examples about this, do share in the comments section. :D
















Thursday, October 06, 2011

I must absolutely blog about this. (Steve Jobs passed away)

2 events / things inspired me to blog about this:
1) The passing of Apple co/founder , Steve Jobs.
2) The reality tv show, The Buried Life.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine introduced this youtube video to me.



Steve Jobs , never completed college. Yet, he was able to start up a company that was able to change the world. But, I'm not saying tertiary education is useless. It takes guts and "street-sense" to take risks and do things right. There was something that he said was very inspiring to me
"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."

If you can't find something you love, don't settle. keep looking.

For myself that means a lot to me. I've worked for around 9 years, I've changed from tech support to a programmer job. From AREV to ASP, ASP to ASP.NET and now PHP and soon ActionScript. I think I'll be learning a lot more. But I think I should change my mindset now.
I shouldn't be just looking for a day-in-day-out job as a Flash developer. I should looking much much further a career in IT job, probably a job that allows me to manage a team of people.

That is what I should be looking forward. But in order to do that, I have to very good in what I do. I was quite interested in watching animation (never doing one :P), but Flash is good for doing both (animation and coding) .

This is my 3rd job now, I think I seen my fair share of people who are good managers, good coders, but rarely both in one person. But if there is one, I really have tremendous respect for these people. Each of these people have their pros and cons. It's up to on how to work things out.

okay. seems like a bit out of topic here.


About Buried Life. It's basically a tv show that inspires me people to do great things by asking this question "What are things that you want to do before you die?"

In Steve Jobs commencement speech, he mentioned a similar question / issue. "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure -- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

When we think about today or tomorrow is the last day we're going to die, we will feel we achieved so little, we would've done more. We will work harder to achieve that target.

On Buried Life,


In this specific episode, Ben wanted date Megan Fox and during the process of finding a way to date Megan Fox , met a girl who was scared of roller coaster known as Silver Bullet. What inspired me is that since this girl was so scared of roller coaster, The Buried Life crew(??, sorry I don't have a better term for that), decided to take this girl to the roller coaster help her conquer her fear of roller coaster.

She conquered her fear with their help. That has inpsired me to think about what good things I can do before I die.

So, when we go to work tomorrow, when we go to class tomorrow, think about this, "if tomorrow is the day we're going to die, what are things that you want to do before you die?"








Sunday, September 11, 2011

9


hello你是不是很快乐

Sunday, September 04, 2011

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

我回来了!!

瓦靠,今天病倒了。很久都没生病了。

真的很不好受。昨晚,做了刮痧后。脚部就好像软掉了。

过后,就睡着了。

今天起来,全身痛、发烧。但是,还是照样上班。到了公司,真的不能顶。坐立不安。冷气又冷到要命。

没办法了,就去拿个MC。回家休息。

吃了药后,发烧也退了。没有下次了。真的要好好保养身体。

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Hug a Developer, End users could a bunch of jackasses.


when you're a developer, sometimes end-users will just not respect you. Sometimes they assumed something could be easily done.

oohh.. can you add a new row here? how about an extra page? can it make it look prettier?
all that BS.


Anyway, here is a youtube video of the ups and downs of being a software programmer.

Well, i'm a programmer , sometimes it just pisses me off that end users can be a "unsympathetic" about us , programmers / developers.







Monday, February 07, 2011

What would you do?

what would you do? If your colleague is the type that doesn't want to cooperate till the day that he/she is going to resign?

refuse to cooperate. meaning,
1) refuse to submit any of their jobscope documentation
2) refuse to cooperate with you
a) not giving clear guidelines to work things out, then blame you
when you did something wrong
b) purposely letting take a long way for a solution
c) simply ignoring you and etc.
3) refuse to attend a meeting (even under the advise of the highest management)
eg. no respect for authority

Tell me, what would you do?


Friday, January 28, 2011

KL cafe / kopitiams to FORCED to install Wi-Fi?

According to KL mayor , installing Wi-Fi at kopitiams will be boost investments and economic activities and all that. He claims that all these chain operators have Wi-fi installed and it is cheap. Hence, every of these kopitiam and cafeteria should have them. Those who refuse to do so, will have their licenses revoke? (Smart eh?, KL mayor idea is the best? you no follow, you no do business.)

hello, .mr. Mayor.... can you be more... *ahem*... down to the earth??? *points at ground*, stop flapping your wings in the sky...


Item

Description

Costs (MYR)

Streamyx 1.0Mbps package

(Business)

RM148 (with modem) / month

12 months (minimum subscription)

RM1776

Workers' Salary

RM1800 / pax

5 pax

RM10800

Electricity bill

Nil

RM150

Water bill

Nil

RM150

Rental

Nil

RM4000

Raw Materials

Coffee powder, Milo powder, Tea, cooking oil, rice,
Meat, vegetables,etc.

RM600

Monthly income

Let's say per meal is charged (RM10)

probably 80 pax customers / day

opens 6 days per week

that'll be 24 days per month

RM19200

Profit (before streamyx)

RM19200 - RM10800- RM150- RM150 RM4000 - RM600 = RM3500

Profit (after streamyx)

RM19200 - RM10800- RM150- RM150 RM4000 - RM600 - 1776 = RM1724


I might've slightly exaggerated a bit. RM1776 isn't exactly cheap either. It's like RM200++ shy of RM2000. If you're franchise operator, which one drink costs average RM10, a meal might costs RM30 (drinks+meal) altogether, yes , it's feasible to do so.

Please Mr. Mayor , if you're seriously provided Wireless access to KL visitors or businessmen, DO-IT-YOURSELF. Tender these projects openly, make these wireless Internet accessible from people who frequent these kopitiams. After all, you collect taxes from them right? Why not use the tax money to do maintain these Wireless Access Points? or you might has *other* uses for these tax money?