Two weeks into 2014

Wow. Time flies ridiculously fast. 

Still got a ton of things to do. Liking the steady pace of stuff I had been itching to do but didn't materialize last year. The family settling in the new place is helping a lot to make schedule for some things.

Finished my first book for 2014. Still a lot on my reading list. Not to mention my impossible long Pocket list and the a dozen or so Safari reading list. 

On the personal side of things, managed to run consistently at a 7/kph pace for 30 mins in recent attempts. 

All in all a good start. A good start indeed.

Happy New Year! Welcome 2014!

2013 has been pretty tough. Relocating from one country to another is never easy. The kids had to take a break for 6 months since they came in after the middle of the school year coming from an international school.

Malaysia had been our home for the past 6 years. Lots of fond memories. The laid back way of life specially on the weekends. It was harder for the kids who had already develop long term friends among school mates. But alas, life is a journey. 

Singapore is now our new home. The past 8 months just went by pretty quick. We had to adapt quickly and scramble to gear up the kids for getting into a local school. The first thing my wife did was find a good tuition teacher to adjust the kids level to the intended year (P4 and S1 respectively). We were quite relieved when the results came in! My boy got into a mainstream school and my elder girl managed to get into the express stream. Huge sigh of relief. Official school days start tomorrow. Let the adventure begin.

On a professional level, I have to adapt managing teams remotely and really switch gear from getting things done hands-on style to a more coaching style to spread the technical leadership to varying teams. Pretty challenging no doubt to be thrown far out of your comfort zone. But change is always an opportunity to take things to a different level. So bring it on.

2013 also opened our eyes to the wonders of travel. We realized the kids are in an age where they could really appreciate traveling. Its a way for them to see portions of the world and be exposed to other cultures. This is far better than buying them toys. The memories of traveling with family has more deeper staying power than material things we provide. Those memories will last their lifetimes. Added bonus, each can now carry their own carry on baggage. Gone are the days we have to haul the baby bottles and diapers and have one bag just full of stuff toys. We can travel light and that makes traveling with the family more enjoyable. :)

I have rekindled my love for photography as well. And had taken quite a few images that am pretty proud of. Its a great way to exercise the creative part of the brain and a welcome respite from the hard hitting and fast paced technology world at work. 

All in all, am thankful to God for 2013. While you learn from mistakes, its always important to count your blessing and be grateful. Everyday is a gift. Don't take it for granted. 

So I guess thats it for a new year blog post. Again happy new year! Looking towards 2014 and all the challenges and excitements it may bring! :)

Long time no post again.

Its been eons again since I have written a blog post. Even 140 character updates are rarer nowadays.

It could either mean too busy at work or more interested in real life (IRL) activities or both.

For some reason, I do like to write. Its just I find it hard still to write cohesive sentences. Explaining /dev/brain contents that mildly conforms to the rules of proper grammar. I always admired people who have that gift. The gift of writing.

Its not hard to find where the weakness lies. Its the inability to focus on writing one topic from start to end. The mind wanders off too frequently in the blink of an eye. Hyper active mind leads to fractured blog posts 99.999% of the time.

But as always, optimism is always there. Will never get tired of trying. :)

N95 and Garmin Mobile XT

On a quick note, N95 + Garmin Mobile XT loaded with Malaysia and Singapore maps really rocks! Even better than the bundled GPS on our Persona. All searches by default is based on your location. For example searching for a Shell station, you would see it searching within 5km, 10km, 20km... radius. That said it makes a two year old phone an extremely practical all in one mobile device.

When will Google maps make its data available offline? An off-line version would make LBS dreamers/developers extremely happy.

Malaysia is more travel-able with a GPS device. Makes you more confident to drive to places you had never been to. We went to Blue Lagoon in Port Dickson without getting lost. If you are a foreigner in Malaysia, a GPS device is one of those must have gadgets to enjoy travelling the country. Like the Philippines, lots of tourist spots to visits. Its ironic actually that we haven't explored home as much as we have here in Malaysia.

HP Mini and Nasi Kandar

Saturday morning with a mini and maggi goreng.

Surprisingly wifi is available as auto detected by the mini. For the first time am blogging in this indoor Nasi Kandar.

Anyway, its been a while since we have the mini, my daughter uses it regularly at home for school homework and general surfing. It seems to hold up to the task. Was keen on trying it outside and see how long the battery holds up and see how suitable it is for occasional blogging and surfing un-tethered.

Performance is not that bad. The only bummer is the glass covered screen. While it makes pictures pop indoors, it reminds you how impractical it is to use under direct sunlight. Even using it under the shade makes it hard to read things due to the screen reflection.

Planning to test it also for mild Java happy coding sessions. Installed trial version of Idea and Glassfish Prelude v3 and see if the atom processor bundled with 2GB RAM is up to these tasks.

Aside from these, you got to love the keyboard. Its a joy to use. Not too cramped as the other netbook these days. Pretty much comfortable to touch type.

Oh, we also remove the thin plastic film covering the webcam. Now the video sessions with Skype doesn't look too dark and crappy. Bluetooth works without a hitch with our Nokia phones. Audio is better than expected. The weird trackpad takes a bit getting used to, but since am not a mouse person, am not that bothered.

On the Nasi Kandar side of things, the daging goreng is not so good as it once was. New cook perhaps? The one we got today is a bit hard to chew. Hmmnnn... Maybe time to try out other menus.

Note to self, teach the kids to touch type. An invaluable skill when using glass covered screens. :)

Live long and prosper, as Dr. Spock would say. The new Star Trek movie rocks!

Is this thing on?

Mic test...

1, 2, tres...

Drive, drive, drive, drive with me...

Yesterday night was rather a frightening experience. On an intersection, I signaled going to the right, an I thought the car behind was smart enough to see that as well. But no! the asshole rather decided to also make a right turn in the same two way lane together with me. Worse, he was the one so frackin' irritated and even tried to drive so close to my car while blasting his horns as if it wasn't his fault. Good thing I was able to brake in time. Oh well, assholes will be assholes not matter which place on earth you are in. You really need some patience when you are on the street.

Aside from that, am getting the hang of it. Getting out of the parking lot is the most challenging part of all time. My sense of size needs some practice.

Discovered that I have to get home by 10pm, otherwise I have to go all around the condo to the other gate since the side gates are closed at that time.

As for the GPS, don't have much use for it for daily office travel but it seems decent enough to re-calculate the routing if I go to alternate routes after the software update.

Just look to left and just look to right...

31 years of walking thru the earth and enduring public transport, for the first time ever, I can now go to places on my own set of wheels. Driving really is both terrifying and an exhilarating experience! Just a while ago in the parking lot I forgot to look to the right and thankfully the car on the right was able to break in time. My brain is still uselessly wired with left hand driven instincts. The notion of right hand driven streets is still rather hard to get used to. Driving around KL is really nice, as most of the streets here are wide and well maintained.

For the price of the car, one could get a nice consumer Honda or Toyota back there in the Philippines. Albeit, for a newbie car owner like me the Proton Persona SE is more than enough to satisfy my driving needs. The leather interior is really comfy, and as far as my limited experience can tell, the handling is really top notch. After all, after a hard day at work, a man deserves a nice ride home. :)

As an added bonus, the petrol price in KL is really affordable compared to what we have back home (4-5x less expensive), rumors from my local colleagues that there will be another price rollback coming up. That would be awesome news for every car owner in this region.

Speaking of which, I was able to play around with iTunes latest feature, the Genius playlist. In an attempt to create a morning drive CD, I started with my favorite Eraserhead songs "Ha ha ha" and let Genius figure out what songs in my collection would go well with it. The results are not too shabby at all:

Name / Artist

Ha ha ha / Eraserheads
Shirley / Eraserheads
Yakap sa Dilim / Orange and Lemons
Back to You / John Mayer
Under the Bridge / RHCP
Sexyback / Justin Timberlake
Anything for You / Nina
The Winner Takes it All /ABBA
Mahirap Magmahal ng Syota ng Iba / Hilera
Minsan / Eraserheads
Creep / Radiohead
Cocaine / Eric Clapton
Come as You Are / Nirvana
True Colors / MYMP
Ewan / Imago
Vertigo / U2
Like a Rolling Stone / Bob Dylan
Love Song for No One / John Mayer
Big Girls Don't Cry / Fergie
Basket Case / Greenday


Only Apple can actively innovate on this things. This small small features capture those things makes your digital life a little bit easier.

On another note, I miss my lovey and my kids who are currently enjoying a vacation back in the Philippines. Can't wait to drive them around our new family car.

UsingMac - Leopard - Story of Icons

While looking for some free Pages templates I stumbled upon this site. I particularly liked the TextEdit Icon. It rocks and exactly the same sentiments I feel at the moment.



It reads:

Dear Kate,

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels.
The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square
holes. The ones who see things differently. They're
not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the
status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them,
quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because the change things.

Take Care,
John Appleseed


Think Different! Apple Rocks!

Threebies!

Yesterday, after Tenby, kids in tow we went to our favorite hangout place "The Curve" in Kota Damansara. One of the reasons why we like this place is because of Borders bookstore which aside from offering a huge selection of books (and accepts book orders if its not in stock!), allows you to open any book you like and provides cushy reading corners without somebody giving you the I-think-you-are-not-frackin-buying look. MPH bookstore also has the same store policy by the way, although a bit smaller compared to Borders.

Anyway I asked around if there's a copy of Domain-Driven Design by Eric Evans but unfortunately there is no copy left, the only option is to order which would take around 4 weeks. I saw on the counter a revised edition of Friedman's "The World is Flat" and noticed it is now update and has two additional chapters to boot. I grabbed a copy since the I liked the first edition (which I read in digital form) and it would be nice to add to my growing book collection. Was pleasantly surprised when my lovey pointed me to this set in the counter:



Yep. Thats correct. Threebies! Simply cannot resist as both "Freakonomics" and "Blink" are both good reads. Not really bad for MYR 83.00. Buying them individually would set you back around MYR 120.00, I suppose.

My lovey also wants to read the "Harry Potter" series, so we wandered around the bookstore looking for boxed sets. To our dismay, the prices for the boxed sets ranged from MYR 550.00 to MYR 800.00, (softbound, hardbound). A bit expensive for our budget. So we started looking at individual book prices and discovered it would only set us back MYR 240.00 for the same collection! There was one minor problem, "The Goblet of Fire" was not available in Borders so the gentlemen at the counter suggested we look at the nearby MPH bookstore and see if we could find one. So off we went to check, and luckily one more copy is there so we are all glad we could go home with a complete collection:



One more thing, we were also able to use four discount vouchers (MYR 10.00) each from the last time we bought some books here, so we were able to get an MYR 40.00 discount. It pays to keep those paper things they put into your basket. :)

The kids also got a Spongebob activity book, complete with brush and water based paint. Here is the end result of the first rock.

School bukol...

A while ago we visited Tenby International School, it seems to be a nice learning environment. About 20 minutes away via the NKVE from our condo which probably means less traffic, but at the price of RM 1.40 toll fee. Hope we get a car before school starts in January.

The fees are almost the same as MAZ International School, but this one really has nice facilities in comparison and as a result has a more campus feel into it. It was actually recommended to us by another international school (ELC). Looking forward to getting all the finance requirements settled as soon as possible.

All in all it looks promising, after spending the past few months looking for options, hopefully this is the one. Otherwise, there is no other option but send them to school in the Philippines. Sigh, the thought alone makes me sad already. Nothing beats staying together in a foreign country even if that means a huge sacrifice in terms of savings. But life is short and money can't buy you the happiness of seeing and being with your kids everyday.

More on this as we go along. I think its time to post some tidbits on OFW life in Malaysia for the benefit of those thinking of working here. Its actually a nice country to live in with a comparatively lower cost of living than its neighbor Singapore.

daddy nox
- blue jeans, blue jeans, blue jeans...

31 and counting...

Life as we know it, quickly goes by...

Fortunately, am lucky to have two adorable kids and a loving wife (Oh, and a really stubborn pekingese dog). As life is short and it doesn't make sense to go on its journey alone. Birthdays for me means taking stock of all the good things you have so far and be really thankful to the Lord for all the blessings.

Yeah, life ,with all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, its still a beautiful world (Ehrmmmm!). Now time to eat some pancit and drink some red wine.

Of frameworks and fanworks

Oh yes, reality is these two words gets mixed up and has the tendency to end into the latter. People become avid fans of what-somewhat-works-already-in-production-thou-shall-not-touch syndrome.

Been really grappling for the past 1 year how to convince people the values of unit testing and loosely coupled frameworks. How do you convince dinosaurs without hurting their feelings? How do you invite change from a software development perspective? I need to learn more about how to evangelize. How does one become good at that anyway? Really curious. How do you do that without spending 100% of your time doing the proof of concept yourself? How do you get support? Will training your team help?

And yes, EJB's are for sissies and this is my 1000th blogger post! Hooray!

Life Updates

Obviously not updating the blog on a regular basis, life goes on on the other side of cyberspace.

Currently hooked on reading again! Now halfway thru "The Anatomy of Peace", I loved the first book, and this one really drives the point home.

On the other side, my daughter is still not in school, which is getting me worried shince she is turning seven next month, hope everything goes smoothly so she can start by January. Otherwise, my family has to go back, just to ensure they don't miss the school year. :(

We are also trying to get a car, since we plan to stay here for at least a few years. Already got my driving license so hopefully car arrives next month also.

Work, hmmmmnnn, is still work, hopefully this week a new set of geeks from the Philippines we recruited could strengthen our team, its always nice to hire people who are smarter than yourself, so that I can have more time for other things.

cheers!

nox

Lucky to be A Programmer

Not sure how true this still is back home. I feel extremely happy to be there back in the day when programming was in its early stages in the Philippines. When Linux was still diskette based affair, and FreeBSD was still in is 2.x version. Dual 64kb lines was enough inspiration to burn the midnight oil. C/C++ was there to expose us to the funky world of OOP.

Nowadays, we eat Swing memory leaks for breakfast and try to make hibernate decently behave in the afternoon. I have to admit this doesn't even come close to 10% of the fun of making quick pointer drills in manually driven C/C++ applications. We do get a few exciting moments thinking about cloud computing but typical corporate projects are not likely to embrace that in the near future.

That said, this is the 998th post. Hehehehe.

devnox
- send in the clouds.

New Addition to the family!

11/05/2008
Originally uploaded by nocs

On mother's day, I gave the lab op may layf a puppy!

Cuddly and cute! 7 weeks old Pekingnese? The vet adviced at least 5 days rest and to be familiar with the surroundings. After that we can let it loose around the house. Only after a month we are supposed to take out and start its poo training.

I've had a dog till I was college, I can still remember the names: Judge, Smart, Brookeshields, and Leila. I actually like the "Askal" breed, low maintanance type, but here we don't have the luxury of having a normal sized dog, so we have to settle for small cuddly ones.

After much deliberation, we four finally agreed on a name. I wanted "Atom" or "Dracula", my daugther wanted "Maxie", my wife wanted "Alvin" and my little boy wanted "Ben". In the end we settled for "Scope".

Post 995

995th post. Thats all...

All I can say is it pays to share. Everybody starts with somewhere. Been organizing technical sessions for the team. For the time being nothing more than introductions, just to get into the groove of things. Baby steps, but steps nevertheless. Looking forward to technical sessions with more depth. Lets see where this goes.

Aside from that started strumming the guitar again. But I think the cable wasn't shielded enough, distracting buzz during clean leads. Need tons of practice to get my fingers back into shape. Its been ages since my fingers danced on the fret board. The picking and the fret movements is shameless out of sync. I sincerely hope the neighbor can bear the notes even my ear can't sustain. :)

Round me up Scottie...

Stumbled upon ugly code...

Financial application using double everywhere and using DecimalFormat for rounding. It boggles the wet corners of the mind.

Java DecimalFormat uses ROUND_HALF_EVEN and financial applications more often than not requires ROUND_HALF_UP or the way we are tought in grade school.

The coming week is gonna be a long week if we are to clean it up. And I had already communicated to use BigDecimal for amount since day 1, but nobody is listening. Not so shiny...

Am technically a code janitor nowadays.

The fool on the hill.

April 1, fools day.

Its also marks my first year here in the land of chicken and curry.

I decided to stick around, lets see, life is a journey anyway...

On to the next April fools day...

Back to Work

Been nursing a badly sprained right ankle for the past three days. X-ray results fortunately show no fracture or mis-alignment. Could walk decently now, just need to keep the ankle guard on for a few more days.

At least the downtime provided space for reading. Currently re-visiting Doug's articles and find out more about fork-join. Been there in my read-list for some time now. Got reminded when I read migs post on the matter.

Fork-Join should be interesting to try out with the batch process we had. Since most the tasks can be split and re-joined for results.

Back to the sprained ankle, the lesson is helping your daughter with Ballet lessons while your son is scattering his toys on the floor is not a very good idea. Otherwise, you need to be in decent weight to minimize the impact.

Oh well...