Farewell to Yaakub

Yeah, I agreed with my sister-in-Christ, Su Chee...where she says that - everyday for us is just like chapters of a book which keep flipping when we get started to read. The first chapter began when we were given life by our heavenly father and here we are today. So, do you ever wonder - currently you are at which chapter ?

My brother-in-Christ, yaakub had finished his Study's chapter or rather Student's chapter. He is going back to Pontianak(one of the town from Indonesia) today. He had finished his study @ Inti Sarawak Swinburne. Congratulations to you, yaakub. You've made it ! Last night, all of the cell group member from tree cell 1 and tree cell 3 went to celebrate(actually we were all very sad, but to bless him for his future) for his farewell. We choose to use BBQ style. So, as usual - we have chicken wings, sausages, beef petties, Chicken thigh in stick, char kueh tiaw, fried rice, curry lamb(yummy !) and homecook mixed fruit juice ! All for free~ cool~!!

At the same time, we celebrated Samuel's birthday. I don't really know we were celebrating his number what birthday - Sorry samuel, I should be asking what is your age..but :( We played games, chit-chatting, sang songs, group prayers, and tv. games ! Yeay~ sorry ben..I really never played the tv. game before. What ? still don't believe me is it ? haaiizz...I never knew I were so good. :D geeezzz...Awesome ! this is really awesome...

I really enjoy myself last night. So, yaakub...really hope that you will continue to grow in Christ for you are HIS good servant all the while. I should learn more from you. I will miss your laughter and I mean it. Please forgive me for not spending more time to talk to you last night. I were being attracted by the tv.games and the thing is, I keep winning over and over again. Hahahaha~!! that's why I can't give away my controller. LOL~!! Anyway, keep in touch and may God blessed you wherever you go. Amen !

Some pictures to share after the jump...

From left to right, Yakub and Anthony

Birthday Boy !

So happy meh ?

Group photo of Tree Cell 1 and Tree Cell 3

System.exit(1);

Should I buy or not to buy

My colleague just received his Hewlett Packard iPaq rw6828 pda phone this afternoon. He showed it to me and I was so excited to know how far can this iPaq goes actually. Well, I planned to buy one - but afraid I buy the wrong stuff with such a high cost. This iPaq is actually bundled together with 3 big "components" - which are phone, pda, and camera and a bit pricy ! The camera comes with 2 Mega pixel resolution only, quite low though. There are a lot of forums saying it's battery's life sux. Which means I need to charge every day - for heavy usage. Ok, it looks something like this ...picture after the jump

Cool, right ? It really caught my eye from my first sight. But never judge a book by it's cover - remember ? When I try to browse through this gadget, the response is quite unbearable. Though, one thing that we should consider is...this pda phone is bundled with so much software or "components" - so, can't expect much from it.

Ok, I will speculate some questions that are bothering your mind :-

1) Why you need this pda phone ?

• Well, I might need this to do my daily planning, to-do list and so on. Somemore it's mobile !
  
• I want to have a digicam for years.
  
• Check email while I am away from office. My new company's job nature might need this - especially when i am at church !
• Three combined together ? pda, phone and camera. So that I don't need to carry so many things(gadgets) when I am on travelling.

2) What's your budget ?

• Not more than RM2.3K ? (actually it's quite jia lat)
  
• Not less than...(errr...can I keep this to myself - silly question, though)
  

3) What's your concern over pda phone ?

• I don't know. All in all I want to check email when I am not at office !
  

So, What do you think ? I need more beef. Please help to give comments ! Thanks !

System.exit(1);

Time to go

I think it's about time for me to announce to you all that I will be resigning from my current job as an I/S Executive @ SAINS by 15th of September, 2006. Yeap, there is time for us to switch and there is time for us to go.

I had emailed my superior, Grant Than(Section Head of SDI) on 21st of August 2006 regarding my resignation. Well, he didn't reply me at all. Maybe email is quite expensive nowadays, that's why he don't reply. So, I wait until afternoon where Grant check-in to the JKO(Jalan Keretapi Office) office after lunch hour. I gather my guts and walked to him with my hard copy of resignation letter on my hand. Hold my breathe and walked to his place. He saw me and smiled at me. He said "Hi, Roland...I read your email this morning. Have a sit.". So, I passed him my hard copy resignation letter and sat down.

We had a good chat that afternoon. Well, I would not reveal what we were saying...hehehe. All in all, my superior didn't really want to offer me to stay since he knows that SAINS can't offer better salary compared to my new company. I mean he has no authority to offer as well. So, he blessed me and wish me good luck.

Ok, this is my resignation letter.

Roland Yau Ling Siang
31, Three Hills Park
Foochow Road No. 1
93350 Kuching, Sarawak

21^st August 2006

Teo Tien Hiong (Chief Executive Officer)
Sains Headquarters,
3^rd Floor, Wisma Bapa Malaysia,
Petra Jaya, 93502 Kuching,
Sarawak

Dear Mr. Teo:

Please accept this as formal notice of my resignation from the position of I/S Executive, with effect from 21^st August 2006.

I have decided to take this time to evaluate my current goals and investigate new opportunities. This decision was not an easy one and took a lot of consideration.

My last date of employment will be on 14^th September 2006. Please be assured that I will do all I can to assist in the smooth handover of my responsibilities before leaving.

It has been a pleasure working for Sarawak Information System Sdn Bhd. I wish Sarawak Information System Sdn Bhd continued success in all your endeavors and I would like to thank you for having me as part of your team.

Yours sincerely,

___________________________
(Roland Yau Ling Siang, I/S Executive)

Cc: Grant Than Sau Bui (SDI Section Head), Lee Siew Kang (Human Resource Manager)

Good bye SAINS...for those who still work in SAINS, I wish you all the best and hope one day you will get out from SAINS also promoted as soon as possible lah..since I quit already, less competitors already, right ? ;p


Over the pass few years (actually only 2 years 2 months lar..as if work for 5~6 years..hehehe) I have worked with SAINS, only two product-based project I had completed. One is MyDesktop and the other one is Simple Database Engine a.k.a Unibase. Currently doing minor support for PaybillsMalaysia. You might be surprised that I had only completed 2 products after working for 2 years. Well, most of the time I would be doing R&D by my own. The following are the R&Ds that I had done :-

1. DocSearcher - This is an Open Source Java Application where it helps to index and search documents on your desktop.
   
2. DHTML - Dynamic HTML, especially dealing with DOM object.
   
3. Struts - Open Source MVC Framework(still in research).
   
4. Hibernate - Open Source Object/Relational Persistence and query services.
   
5. Ajax (Asynchronous Javascript and XML).
6. Spring - Another Open Source MVC Framework(still in research).
7. Sun Solaris Administrator
8. and so on...
   

Anyway, really felt honored and glad that SAINS gives me this opportunity to learn so much things. But, it's time for me to go for a better opportunity and to achieve my goal. Ok, I think that's all for now. I will share more about my new company in my next post. So, stay tuned dude !

p/s: for those who are interested to resign, you can make a copy of mine ;p cheers !

System.exit(1);

Time to switch

Did you realise that Blogger has actually came out with their new feature of managing your blogs ? Too bad I can't capture the part where it brings me to the switching page. Once I switched, the old Blogger page doesn't seems to be shown anymore. I try using IE but no luck at all. Hhhmmm...from what I observed so far, I think they some how hand-shaked with Google. Obviously you can see a lot of Google's logo, Google-kind of layout and some of Gmail's effects. Check it out !

This is the result page after my switch.


Ok, let's see what we have for the newly revamped blogger.

1) Change of the login panel. You can see the Google logo there.

2) Change of some layout on creating a new blog. Basically you can see that the "View Blog" is no longer a tab. It's just a link. Then button they changed it to image-based button.

3) Change of layout for listing of your blogs.

4) Gmail's effect - you can see this same effect when you read your gmail message(during multiple replies of messages).

5) They claimed that you can customized your template more easily (drag drop). But I don't really know how true it is. I don't dare to try it coz scared that my currently sweat-customized template gone with the wind ;p It says that "By upgrading, you will lose many of the changes you previously made to your template." Wuah~!! better becareful.

...and a lot more. Try to find out yourself ! ;p


System.exit(1);

Thanksgiving Sunday

Today is our Thanksgiving Sunday Service @ Trinity Methodist Church. Today's sermon is quite different where it touches a lot on how we as a Christian should live in a thankful heart. Pastor teaches us to give thanks in whatever circumstances. As you all know, we normally only knows how to complain this and that. But we never know how to give thanks when we received blessings; either from God or any other sources that you can think of.

I felt thankful that I am still staying in Malaysia here(at least for now). Let's close our eyes and think properly what is happening around the world. Hezbollah and Israel's war ? Volcano eruptions ? Earthquake ? September 11th (aka 911) ? Racism(though it happends in Malaysia but not as obvious as foreign countries) ?

Aren't those not enough for us to give thanks to our Merciful Lord ? So, pinkcotton...stop complaining that the weather is so hot lar! Just turn on your air-cond lor... iisshhhh~

So, today's lesson is always "Remember to give thanks to HIM"

System.exit(1);

Sate Celup @ Kuching

We all know Sate Celup was born in Malacca but some claims that it was first born in Singapore. Whatever it is, Sate Celup has reached Sarawak Kuching ! It is located at Jalan Song new township of Kuching. The shop's name is called Heights Bistro. Anyone has any idea why the hack they gave such a name ? I have no idea either (lame joke, though). Ok, let's have a look at the picture where my colleague, wendy has took during her last visit to Malacca's origin Sate Celup.

Malacca's version

Yeap, I still can recall how they scooped the groundnuts into this hot pot and keep stiring, looks skillful though. Did I bring back some memory to you ? ;p

Kuching's version

...and yeah, this is kuching's version. Doesn't looks so happening and "exciting" as what I saw during the time I visit Malacca's Sate Celup. Maybe this is due to the culture, I guess. Don't get yourself fooled by those people sitting there. They are just waiting for the rain to stop ! When I took this picture, it started to rain. So, actually there is nobody eating there ! Oh no...I was suggesting this business to my parents a few months back. Luckily they didn't really carry out this business, else really "sit tai" (not earning). *phew*...Thanks God for revealing this. I heard my colleague (Mr. Lao Chai) says that their food is not as attractive as the picture he saw above.

So, the conclusion here is... The mission of Sate Celup at Kuching here is totally failed ! Ooppss.. Anyone still want to support them ? :(

System.exit(1);

Let's chew

You must be wondering why the hack I say so. I was so sleepy after my lunch at 1:00pm. So, I was thinking of a way to make myself awake. Something suddenly strike my mind and that reminds me of chewing gums that can actually improve ones brain's performance. So, I get myself into googles and type "chew brain working" and it gives me the following results (of course there are a lot more results).

"Chew your way to a better brain" and "Chewing gum improve memory"

I told you! I told you! Do you believe me now ? There are so many advantages when you chew gums during your work. Let's see what's are the advantages. From this article, it says that :-

1. It can make people smarter (wow!!)
2. It can improve brain performance
3. Ability to recall remembered words improved by 35%

So, for those who really need to use a lot brain during your work (ermm..programmer ?), let's chew ! I believe this will be a replacement to coffee. But too much of chewing gums would cause high sugar level. So, bear in mind not to over dose it. Just get a sugar-free type instead (see below for example).


Disclaimer : No intention to do any advertising act here. Just for the sack of example.

System.exit(1);

TREK - End of Life

It's a sad day for me. My beloved TREK ThumbDrive had come to the end of life. I tried to plugin into my pc but it says that it's malfunctioning. I tried at my colleague's pc but no luck at all. It was handicapped before it came to end of life. I accidentally dropped it and it broke its arm :-( You can see the broken arm at the third pic.

This TREK is really cool and smart when the first day I bought it. I didn't lie as you can see the word "SMART" written on its body ! What makes this TREK so adorable is its shape. It was built in such a way that it can be easily plugin into the USB port without interrupting other USB devices. I was talking about the shape - it is so slim and thin.

It goes, where I go. It always stay with me in my pocket - well-pampered. I don't know whether I will be bringing it along though it's not functioning. But hey, don't you think it's as cool as its owner ? Ooppss..I didn't say anything.

Good bye TREK, I promised to treat your replacement as good as how I treat you. I promised not to break its arm anymore ! R.I.P, Amen.

System.exit(1);