Advice for tough times
1.) Life is not about being liked. It is about being effective.
2.) Dont speak about who you are, but what you have can do and what you have achieved. Remember this when creating your resume...
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Late night thought of the day: Shipping inconveniences
Ordering stuff from the US used to be such a pain. No longer with on-demand movies and the Kindle...
PS: I don't have a kindle.. But just expanding the possibilities
More PS: KPMG/PWC are going to grow in all markets by examining cross-border taxation issues...
RAM as the new disk
I have been reading on some extreme scaling solutions being used by FriendFeed, LinkedIn etc... Some links to share for your reading pleasure (though I doubt how many of the readers to this site actually are in hardcore tech anymore...)
At the heart of all this is a concept of using in-memory caches as the primary data retrieval layer instead of just being a cache. This is a big shift in thinking about application server tier design.
"The more things change.. the more they remain the same". In 2003, when I started my first job, we used to make fun of former C++ devs coming to Java server design and caching the entire database into memory on Weblogic startup so that they could write familar code. Indeed my 2nd project was undoing all this to make a system scalable. Now the clock is back to 12.
AND
IBM Websphere Extreme Scale!! [Good luck with the licensing]
Singapore tax: Some interesting credit
If you are filing tax in Singapore, then here is an interesting factoid - Any money/prize that you receive for innovation is non-taxable.
See http://www.iras.gov.sg/irasHome/page03_ektid1818.aspx [Point 3]. This has been a concession for a few years already. Also referred in this KPMG newsletter (Page 2).
Yours truly will be saving some 3k in tax due to this :-) Interestingly I was not even aware of this. Was browsing thru their site in Feb to research some withholding tax issues for a huge contract we signed at work and bitching as to why I was the one to do this work. A 3k payday is not bad.
Now all I need to do is get HR to correct the figures they submitted to IRAS regarding my income..
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Adobe AIR's fatal flaw
If Adobe AIR is to gain traction in the "Enterprise", AIR applications should not require admin rights to install. In this day and age when Google Chrome can be completely installed into user space, this is a gaping major flaw.
This is what happens when people who have used Macs and Solaris all their life write installers for Windows...
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Starhub home zone using femtocell
Interesting technology being marketed by Starhub in Singapore.
To follow the McK model of presentation (heh)...
What you get: For 16$ a month, free local calls and SMS for 4 mobile phone lines when you are physically in your house
Who might benefit the most:
- Those who use their mobile phones a lot at home paying 15cents/min
- Those who take a lot of conf. calls from home on their mobile
- Families who always cannot share the single fixed-line with the teen yakking away all the time on it
Basically a femtocell is a 3G to internet gateway. You will need a starhub mobile line and broadbank internet connection
Mobile phone<---3G--->Femotcell<---tcp/ip--->Broadband router<---tcp/ip--->cable modem
This basically ties into my >earlier post on Skype on iPhone... Mobile carriers are slowly becoming funnelers of internet protocol data over their network protocol (3G/4G).
Monday, March 30, 2009
This is huge.. Mobile carriers become just data pipe companies
Skype will be launching the app on the Apple appstore tomorrow.
"Are you prepared to have your mind blown? As expected, Skype for iPhone will appear “sometime Tuesday” and allow you to make VoIP calls to friends and family all over the world, a move that at once blows a great waft of flatulence in the face of the carriers and, in one smooth motion, high fives the international community of Skype users.
It should be available from the App Store for free.
You obviously cannot make a Skype call over 3G or EDGE but you can make VoIP calls over Wi-Fi. The system also meshes with your iPhone contacts and allows you to filter and search based on users who already have Skype accounts and even make SkypeOut calls, again under Wi-Fi."
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Sunday morning rant
Called delifrance home delivery in the morn, and was greeted by a clammy "Bonjour Monsieur".
I hate this foreign love. You are in Singapore.. Speak in English motherf...
Same goes to Audi. When selling overpriced cars in Singapore don't end your commercials with "Vorsprung durch Technik"
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Ramblings for 2009-02-23
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Ramblings for 2009-02-15
