RedAsh's Blog

A pretty good day. Turned up early for work - although there are little things on my way that seems to spell bad omen.

My relation with Jack seems to have improved today. Casual Jokes aside, I had help to rectify some other issues. Like sorting of the controlled items (the certs). Oh and I am allowed to continue my service till 3rd Aug. Aye, Captain Jack Sparrow, heh heh.

I also had a long talk with Andrea, a SCS trainer. He had a rich training history with Informatics, and other insitutes. We chatted about the past, mostly his early involvement with Tradenet, (and how it develops into Starnet, Portnet etc), evolvement of Microsoft, Cisco, Apple, IBM, Unix and Linix. All in all, its an open box discussion that seems to lead to nowhere. Haha.

Oh, and Prem, the wonderfully-voiced Security Officer hurt her hand as so prominent of the bandage. Hope she recover well.

Mum, all is fine today, till Gek Tiang brought some Housing Agent to our home. Funnily, this helps me to know our house estimates (~250k). I had taught May, our maid, the proper procedures - no more allowance of "non=family" personnel to enter without my or Ken's consent. Hope all well this Sunday, when the photographers come to take pics...

Its my honour to meet this guy call Sunny, he is cheerful and humble. Honest and malleable. In short, he feels like a pure soul. Its great to have him as a friend. He is the kind of guy to back you up at all times...

Still, one should caution as always, since, people do change with time... as time always do...

Suddenly feel like a reject. Somehow, my past glory and popularity drop and rise dramatically for different individuals.I do have to admit that I do did some silly things that taint my image... like smiling silly in front of Jack aftering announcing to him that my contract ended... or showing my ugly front teeth in a wide smile up close... taking off my socks in front of others (Qi Jia seems to depise such "lowly" act)... All in all, I fail to keep my body language and reaction in check, resulting in lots of backfire reaction...

However, I do notice that Xiang Ming, a 1987, seems to be pretty frictious. He likes to cover up his mistakes, never admit his carelessness (like the pre-Black Friday, 12th July, Thursday), taking back his words (like in the "candy distribution" where he mentioned he wanted to place the candies in his folder, then he said I am silly to suggest as such, or the MRT where he is the one who challenge me that it is possible to travel from Changi to Boon Lay, while I mentioned it only last 3 stations, then after thinking a while, he said "Yea, I think it is 3 stations only, I dont know who say 1-way de, I think is you right? Marcus.") I think the CIRIS team, who got wind of me "pushing" the verification of CIRIS check to SCS team, is also an undoing of him...

This means ONE thing. Never ever reveal too much to a guy whose personalities are questionable. A person like Xiang Ming is a good example and he had helped me learnt my lesson. For my impatience and desire to "spread" my "new" improved plan... Still, there is this nice guy, Sunny, whom I must say is humble and at the very least, is trustable.

At the end of the day, and this very short 1 month CIRIS had taught me a lot about myself and the community of IT in Singapore.

1> There are lots of Jealousy (I do know I had gain alot from my peers and somehow my superiors) around and these breeds into political issues.

2> I do had lots of charm in me and many MANY females are attracted to me by my looks alone, even on MRT - this motivated me alot, and I want to have a backing and status that match my looks - a financially and socially equilevant to the attraction of my outlook (I do not want to be just a nice "wrapping").

3> I do react like a clown and this is a HUGE issue, for it can easily lose respect.

4> I need to learn to turn on my charm at the appropriate times and yet to NOT to react like a monkey (overdoing it). Afterall, I am not an entertainer. This is something I MUST learn from Alvin, NCO of ICA, and Daryl and Jack, my Bosses.

5> Something I know in the past is that "work is important, but standard procedure must be adhere to" (that is, the latter has a higher priority). This is something I saw it implemented by Terrance - to comply with the current instructions, and to NOT to do more if no less than instructed. Brillant way to work, and I must thanked him for his smart way of working. (This made me realised the Singaporean "Code of Obedience" in work, which matters more than anything else)

6> Positive attitude helps alot. I get to know lots of people in ICA, SCS and many more. It helps with getting cooperation work done easier and faster - and more importantly, more friends and less enemies.

Thanks for the excellant experience I learnt from this quick 1 month contract, Mother. It has set me up positively for my future endeavour. I do and can socialise afterall =D Hopefully, I can clinch the contract for MINDEF and experience more of such.

Somehow I feel I had screw up BIG time. Jack seems to think I am trying to "sell" myself, all thanks to my silly smile. All cos he said "You can go you know, I can still manage without you." Funny, I was expecting something like "Good Luck"...

Whatever, I cannot blame him, since this is the image I protray at that time. Or there is something else I do not know? - whatever, one can NEVER figures what another is thinking...

Still, I hope that there can be a way for this to be resolve.

All fine and good today and everything seems so quiet.

Had my first lecture on Neural Network, And hell, made me wanna open up my brain and examine it. Had hardly any idea whats going on, except on the terms and formula... its more of a headache than anything else... haha. This simply means, TIME FOR REVISION!!!

Over active, hyber active ... whatever the word is used to describe me for today doesnt matter, receiving negative reactivity is just bad.

It seems to me that sense of pride (of merely a insignificant contribution) and happiness, together with some dashes of illusion of "popularity", got ahead of me and I started to react beyond the limit... and get the blunted side of an edge...

I think I still lack a self-indentity, such that people around me do not understand me, even to the point where there are times I do not even understand myself... and what cannot be understood cannot be accepted...

Mum, I was hurted, but this setback is good, and I thanked for its arrival. For it set the constraints I should be aware of, and prepare for the greater future.

Nothing much at work today, pretty much nothing much... keke...

Spend the entire day reading up stuffs over the WWW to equip myself with more knowledge so that I can market myself to the market better.

Learnt alot from the WW today, esp. about disk formatting
1> low-level formatting - a physical level where the formating take place down to the disk sectors,
2> reinitiation - a disk-formatting where even the unreadable sectors are analyse and identified (i.e back to factory setting)
3> Zero-fill utility - a process where all readable sectors are fill in with zero per byte
4> high-level formatting - an OS File System level formatting where the index Table is "resetted" (for Win NT) or the data files sectors are set to "Available" status where it is ready to be overwritten. This is also known as "quick formatting" (but scanning the disk for error bytes or sectors can take up to hours).

I am also expose to Gorton, a data recovery agency. And I also got to know, the difference between disk formatting, disk destruction and data recovery. A whole nice new information set.

The day at ICA is over all too soon, and this evening is my first day of lecture CIS 316 for my degree final term. The lecturer is an interesting guy and is very passiionate as well. The class is highly interactive and learning is fast. Learnt a new term from him, "Sitting on the fence" = in the middle of nowhere.

Also got to know that in our course, there is this girl who works in Neopets as a Flash Game Programmer. Oh my Holy Cow, that is my dream post, a Gaming Programmer. Argh, I do envy her, she is heading the direction I been dreaming of but yet still nowhere in sight. She is pretty quick with Mathematical operations, and I was FULL of mistake and was pretty lost, she makes it as if it is SOoooo obvious.

BRILLANT, finally someone where I can look forward to complete with. This feeling has been so long last felt since my secondary days... days that seem to so distant ever since the disaster strikes... I miss you Mum...

A story about Seeds,

Have you ever wonder that, there are so many seeds in an apple and so many apples in one apple tree, yet still everytime, there can only have so much fewer seeds that manage to grow into a Tree.

There is something about this simple Nature Law, the Law of the Seed.

Each seed represents an opportunity that you must first seek out yourself (the seed must be FIRST scatter). And of all the SO many attempts, only few will return you some results.

This simply means,
You may have to sit for 10 interviews to find a job.
You may have to sit for 50 interviews to land a job you want.
You may have to meet hundreds of people to find a true friend.
You may have to meet thousands of people to find a special someone.

In a nutshell,
Successful people had much more failures.
AND they learn from their failures and mistakes,
By first accepting and admitting the failure,
Learning the cause of it, And finally,
NEVER to repeat the same mistake.

Hence, never stop trying, but never blindly try

13 -07 -07 = 1377... whatever the number is arranged, it is Friday and it is 13th, it is the infamous "Black Friday". The same day where the "D-Day" testing for CIRIS is carried out, brillant choice of auspicious date, isnt it?

As a continual from Thursday (yesterday), we are supposed to meet at the Control Station before Sunny and I made the grand entry to the 5th storey of ICA building to troubleshoot the remaining PCs.

I end up being the later party and Sunny was called personally by Terrance to help out at the 3rd Storey instead... I was also called up by Terrance much later and was deployed at 5th Storey. Our boss Jack and the many others, Xuan Ming, Andre, Rugen, and Qi Jia are being recalled back to ICA for the emergency issue ~ 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th storeies have PCs that need to be addressed. Only my 6th storey is save, barred the 3 ROC PCs that require "cloning" (a term used by the FM team to "ghost" the disk to default setting and software - back to a clean baby disk). And this "clone" is the ultimate solution to all disks installation problem.

I learnt alot about Security in computers. (AND so do Sunny). The most important lesson learnt today is the illusion of how Security in Computer is MANDATORY to keep our computers save. This illusion, that somehow I burpted out without much thought "If there are no security and what-so-ever restriction, all software can run on any computer" BINGO, my bulb lighted up, so do Sunny's.

I also discovered that IE 6.0 is defaulted at medium~low setting while IE 7.0 is defaulted at medium-high setting (Thx to Sunny, since I only know IE 7.2). And the IE internet setting will also affect Intranet applications (which I think due to similar technology and protocol used). And CIRIS cannot run in IE 7.0 due to much higher Security setting - CIRIS specs is IE 6.0.

Somehow, I feel like a Star today, everyone is calling for me and everyone wants me to resolve their issue at hand first - especially at the 5th storey where that "Da Ren" hears that I was going to be deployed at lv.2 and 3 to help out, he wants me to finish up 5th storey finish ~cos I was capable of multi-task up to 5 PCs at one go (in between the loading screen). It feels GREAT.

It seems that Daryl isnt too familiar with Java tools as he uninstall Java SE 1.4.2 without trying to disable it first at the Java Console. And he also proceed to uninstall Java JDK... it is therefore obvious he is used to C/C++ programming environment. or else, he is specialised in networking and project management.

Jack is also surprised with my bold "change of plan". The original plan was that after we, the "NCS FM Team" had finished the setting, we are supposed to verify using our admin account (since only admin account can update registry in NT) first then verify again using a given user account. And finally to verify with the user. This is a SLOW process and it takes 30~45 minutes to finish one set of computer.

After much "digging" around since last "Verification and Validation Day" at 6th storey, I realised that the SCS CIRIS Team, has not much idea their work scope, other than to verify and to test the CIRIS ~ this is the same situation for the SCS staff at 5th storey. And they have much MORE manpower than we do. Since we have to verify and so do they, why no merge the verification process together, do away with the RE-verification process, and make the whole thing an integrated process? It worked.

It speeds up the whole thing much much faster. And even Jack call up the others stationed at 2nd, 3rd and 4th storey to implement my working system due to efficiency issue. And many others also sing praises to my way of working, and Terrance also call me a "PRO" when I met him at 4th storey for the final touchup.

Still, I must say I do not have all the credits, if not for the previous SCS Test Day, where I call up Andrew and he told one of the CIRIS team leader Kim/Anneus who inturn tell Mrs.Yong to push down all CIRIS settings for all PCs, except for those with HP printers and ROC coms; I believe there will be many other extra work done today and it will not even finish (since I will not beable to reuse and carry out my "change of plan" - since it will not be discovered to be implemented).

It seems my image, communication and socialising skills are still quite acceptable to the females. I had a great time with the SCS 5th and 6th girls, and even the ICA staffs. However, the more egoistic males seems to distance themselves from me... looks like there are some improvements to be done... still, I would like to thank Mum for giving me this look and personality, and the chance to prove my worth.

Today doesnt start too well and doesnt end better...

I went to the office late and was trying to tease my lead, Terrance, with a "Morning Boss", without noticing Jack (the REAL boss) was just beside him (I sneak up from behind). It was kinda of an arkward situation when Jack turned around to face me while I was facing (and obviously directing at) Terrance... anyway I throw a lousy and lame finisher, "Bosses"

Whatever, the day continues as usual and Sunny was back to help me out at ICA. All was peaceful and calm, and we are discussing if we will be knocking off early like yesterday (where we are offsite) after setting a network Printer for some laptops.

Then situation arise when it is almost time for punch out. We were called to 5th story of the building to install CIRIS for an officer's laptop (Angela) and the proper setup. It all sounds SOOOOO simple... till we reached the site and received a big news with a BIG BANG...

It seems that last week, when we, the FM team, were assigned to a particular level, the one at 5th storey did not quite do his job... all except one PC was setup properly that allows proper online MS WORD display with the new barcode encoding; the rest are semi-done and not properly setup.

Sounds bad? Things are worst then we thought. There are a total of 107 PCs and some 40 of them requires fresh installation of CIRIS... setting adjustment took me ard 5 mins while a fresh installation takes 15~25 mins. And some PC settings are inconsistent, some do not have Certificate import, some has no ActiveX, some has no Icon shortcuts, and even the most basic setting of assigning Rights to domain users are missing for 1 of the PC (and I had to spend some 30 minutes to figure out the cause).

Time running out, so I taught Sunny the way I did my OM (output management - display MS WORD on the intranet webpage) on the 6th storey. I simple do the setting but only verify the first 3 PC with both the admin and user account, if all pass, I will assume all PC will work with admin verification. I then leave the PC on with CIRIS login page in my admin account, and request the SCS guys to do the verification (for me ~ but I think its their software side issue anyway), then bluff them that a restart or shut down is necessary to "capture" the settings (hence logging off my admin account for me). Sunny was amaze =D since it speed things up 10 times faster (from 12 mins to less than 1 min per PC).

Then I receive a call from Terrance that he is calling it a day to prepare for the BIG day tomorrow. Now this sets me thinking. I decided to play a small drama since there seems to have some other 20+ staffs (from SCS and ICA) at the office awaiting our setting, and a sudden declaration of "byebye" will definately set me ablaze with their focus anger...

Hence, I call up Sunny and told him that Terrance had gone home and (here where the drama started) we had been instructed to only finish up the backend PC, and leaving those that require fresh installation for tomorrow. (THERE ARE NO WAY TO FINISH ALL in a single night with only 2 poor chaps). I added that tomorrow our management will deploy a full team to work on the remaining PCs - I decided to call up Jack for reinforcement later... with the clock at 9.30pm, I only focus on getting home and have my bath and dinner. This assurance worked as Angela then promptly brief her staff that there may be some adjustment to be made for tomorrow operations for CIRIS installation. Thank You Mum. ~it seems to me Angela is also dying to return home after I told her a single fresh installation will take around 15~25 minutes.

After finally finishing the "priority" PCs, we call Jack up for reinforcement and tomorrow directions. LOL, it seems Jack is abit pissed off since he seems to be in red with his NPP, NPC and hospital CIRIS setups. Anyway, he also instructed (directly) me to report directly to Terrance because he is not within ICA boundary.

Both of us worked till 2200 before we grab our long deserved dinner (or supper) at nearby coffeeshop. (My stomach has been grumbing for the past 2 hours)... we had a good talk about tomorrow "happenings" and had lots of laugh, and Sunny even suspect Terrance will be "smoke out" tomorrow since he earlier mentioned he had too many days of leave and MC not yet cleared... whatever, we also discuss the preparation work, for the war to be fought tomorrow, on Friday, the 13th July 2007 (auspicious date huh).

I had a dream, a truely unique dream, as if I had entered her subconsicious. Or as if as though Mum had enlightened me like last time... last time where she visited me for the first time and also the last time, where she appeared normal initially, appeared healthy. Then she rapidly and gradually frails into the form that Her illness had taken the toll on my dear mother. I simply hug around her devastated body and said to her "Welcome back" from the deepest and warmest from the bottom of my heart... now its the same once again; I dream about Karen...

The dream took place where she was somehow crying and I carried her up a staircase (unfamiliar to me) she was crying and wepting, and she asked me "Am I a burden?" I hugged her tighter and said "What a silly thing to ask." Then I continue to climb while our hearts met soul to soul. Then I suddenly asked her "What had fucked you before? Can you tell me?" She hestitiated, before saying "Daniel fucked me twice... and also "name", "name"... (I cannot recall all, but it seems "Christopher" is not in the list). I kept silence, and continue climbing the stairs... then I reached some sort of flat platform where I let her down, and she happily hop away like a little girl and I closely follow behind...

Mum, thanks for the dream, I know you are somewhere besowing this dream to me. Thanks, from the deepest of my heart... for this has helped me a lot and MOST importantly, Karen...
Oh and its 5am as of this writing, and I am glad I did.

Learnt something new today - and I was beginning to think all this CIRIS is getting dull.

Learnt more about Norton Ghost. And how a Win 98 is used for "cloning" with Norton Ghost "ghost" command with "-forceusb" command. Also figured out "mstsc" for data center access. And also figured out how BIOS can affect a PC bootup, like accessing the USB drive first instead of the default floppy Disk with priority adjustment with CIMOS settings.

Had a great time working with Daryl too, and he is one of my "Boss".

Daryl is soft-talking and he seems to be good in Snooker. He also helped out in manual labour and talked about his past about how he start off as a Desktop staff years back.

Over the lunch, he also mentioned how he views part-time studying when Terrance ask him about "upgrading". He mentioned he cant cope with extended length of concentration, and the books after work is nothing more of a sleeping pillow. I nod in agreement.

He then invited Terrance and the other Temp staffs outside for a snooker clash night. But only Terrance, Sunny and I turned up. Somehow, this seems to be my first outdoor social entertainment.

Daryl went off for a meeting while Terrance, Sunny and I hit off the table first. Its was nothing more but some balling around, till Daryl joined in. It was a total swish. I mean it was amazing. Daryl's skills with the stick that it. I try to snook him but to no valid, since he can always use path I least though of for entry... Its just amazing...

Somehow, I feel that snooker seems to be a chess playing, where you need to "SEE" more than the opponent and on top of that, to actually control the situation (with stick and ball) to what you see.

Its just practice. Anyway at the end of the day, I felt nothing more but an urge to play more snooker... Looks like I found some weekend activities with Jeffery already Mum.

Triple 7 day. Should be special.

I got up early and had some basic workout, its been so long since I last do so. I then set off for the Project Workshop in the noon.

I was thinking about implementing QMIS where a SMS would replace a physical ticket, however, it was commented to be built on existing technology, with a "What the difference about your QMIS with the other QMIS in the market?" However, I do see a strong market for this (thx to recent alert to Global Warming) even it may not have much project value... (a proper degree project should be something that will be added to the "World Knowledge")

Anyway, after the workshop, I understood that what I should focus on are the Project Investigation and measuring the breath of the potential projects; not jumping into a certain project and self-justify that it works...

This evening had some interesting issue, 2nd Aunt's Husband rang me up and complained a whole lot deal of how Karen is disrupting his family. While I do explain the situations to him that I have limited capabilities since Karen is not under my direct care and 2nd Aunt is now Karen proper guardian... he then stated "does this means the end?" He mentioned he quarrelled alot with 2nd Aunt over Karen.

Whatever the case, 2nd Aunt's Husband does sound unreasonable at times. He claims that we are happy to see that his family broke up, and how 2nd Aunt is showering all her attention towards Karen that she had neglected her own daughter, my cousin, Wan Ning.

All the while I explained to him that I understood and will try to help, only to get replies such as what can I do with ONLY understand. I did lose a bit of my cool after his irrenlentless unbased attacks, and told him directly what does he expects of me RIGHT NOW, over the phone...

He kept silence... then I proceed to ask him politely what the issue of Karen that he and 2nd Aunt quarrelled about and I also requested for some instances so that I can better analysis the situation and come up with a more concrete solution (as I told him...), however he kept silence and after awhile he requested me to discuss Karen problems with my Gugu's (my father's sisters) and not to disrupt his family anymore. Then he hang up abruptly with a quick "never mind, thanks"

Sad thing, I must say. He did not realise the common sense of married couple and he is dealing with a full grown up. From the short (or long rather) conversation we had, I do sense he had a rather large ego and he like to exercise his "authority and power" and expects all to listen to him. Husband and wife should be understanding and forgiving. For me, I would try to do things for my wife just to relief her of what she desires to do, instead of going in opposite directions and creating more issues... but that just me, a typical Scorpio stereotype I suppose...

Funnily, I felt striking a home run for my late mother and 2nd Aunt for help them to relief source of noise... In the past my late mum helped to convince my 2nd Aunt to marry him after 8 years of courtship (my 2nd Aunt did not want to marry him then), but when my late mum is seriously ill, he only goes as far as to pay a simple visit and that it, full stop. (as quoted from him in the telephone conversation, ironic huh)

Still, he mentioned that Wan Ning medication was missed, which I personally felt is indeed wrong... I think I need to talk to Er Yi (2nd Aunt) regarding this issue mum... not for Karen, not for him, but for Er Yi and Wan Ning...

Today is a busy day. CIRIS is on trial test. SCS and NCS are both actively engaged. I was leave in charge of the entire 6th floor computers.

I was instructed to set up all computers for the SCS team to ensure all computers are working fine. As usual, lots of issues pop up and there are many delays - mostly due to "chunky" instructions and therefore resulting into "chunky" work done.

Anyway involving in this CIRIS closed beta test (internal of ICA) is interesting and I can see the importance of facilitating proper instructions and immediate actions. This requires lots of cooperation and collaboration work - something that I may be thinking of working towards.

Anyway, I got know that CIRIS had already started work since last quater of 2003 and it only finished recently. The analysis and design took 1 year + and the user specs and sign off delayed for another year, before the final coding begins that lasted 2 years +. A multi-million project and I am honored to be one of the participants.

Its surprising that the tasks today are not just test trial but also of training too and minor implementation. There are many things that seems to run in parallel. Anyway I also got to know that the CIRIS will serve to integrate the several smaller applications currently in use with ICA. Like Biopass, NRIC, WISE, CCRS (payment) and many others..

Interesting I say interesting...

I had a blast of work today. With merely 4 personnel, we update each and every computer manually for the entire ICA building. Something that is so unexpected for a day that is predicted as "the calm before the storm"; the storm is on Monday where the system will go open beta (inhouse).

So this means that thus far, we are still in the testing phrase, for verification and validation of the system. This new Ciris system aims to replace the old MHA system used for RBD.

There are definately lots of delay here and there. Obvious lack of collaboration. Anyway, the whole picture seems to be that ICA employed SCS to develop CIRIS, and approached NCS for testing. The issue seems to be rather than direct SCS communicating with NCS, ICA is involved as a wall between the 2 entities. This may be due to fear that SCS and NCS may collaborate on the testing for "pre-defined" test cases.

Irregardless, lots of time are spent on waiting. FOr instance the software requirement is not even properly and completely handled over to NCS, where no one knows that SP2 is needed for CIRIS.

Anyway, after way. I went to watch "Transformer" with my cousin. IT is a fantastic actionmovie, with more eye candy than Mission Impossible 3. However, it is somehow lackluster since the movie is trying to stay in the rating for children, hence there are hardly much hardcore bloodspills like a thriller movie... and there seems to be some inconsistency with the movie too. The initial copter'bot has ionic shield that made him oblivious to all weaponary... however, somehow, that kind of protection disappears and both the tank'bot and copter'bot fell to human guns... still, the kid lead in the show is highly charismatic and there are lots of funny quotes and scenes... maybe too many such that the ending is somehow ended too fast... still as the movie goes...

NO SACRIFICE NO VICTORY