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One cannot run away from understaning infrastructure needs when one is pitching or designing software solutions in the enterprise (which I do a lot of) and it is sometimes strange (in a pleasant way) when the conversation goes like this: Please make sure you have failover expertise in your next meeting. I recommend getting Steve to proxy in for William, even though I dont think anyone can impersonate him. At least, I have been able to ascertain that Steven can mirror William quite well and will be able to backup William in the event of a failure (c) William Tay 2000-2008 | Solution Architect Consultant http://www.softwaremaker.net/blog Read More...
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One cannot run away from understanding infrastructure needs when one is pitching or designing software solutions in the enterprise (which I do a lot of) and it is sometimes strange (in a pleasant way) when the conversation goes like this: Please make sure you have failover expertise in your next meeting. I recommend getting Steve to proxy in for William, even though I dont think anyone can impersonate him. At least, I have been able to ascertain that Steven can mirror William quite well and will be able to backup William in the event of a failure (c) William Tay 2000-2008 | Solution Architect Consultant http://www.softwaremaker.net/blog Read More...
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There are not too many movies that will get me rushing onto the web once I get home to find our more about it and the various viral marketing and spins behind it. Blair Witch project was one. This one , which I just caught, is another. Spoilers here . I am not worthy, JJ Abrams The movie's creepy monster louse is especially my favourite. (c) William Tay 2000-2008 | Solution Architect Consultant http://www.softwaremaker.net/blog Read More...
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So...Let me start off this New Year 2008 with a rant post. I am constantly amazed at the technical knowledge of some of the folks manning the shops selling computer peripherals. I was in the market shopping for an external casing for my SATAII HDD and someone recommended for me to use an USB2.0 external interface because, as he simply puts it confidently and points to the marketing material on the box, "it is faster" I have to correct him that the theoretical speed of USB of 480M b /s is not faster than the theoretical speed of SATAII , which is pegged at 300M B /s. The astute reader will notice the difference in casings. A quick glance at this article will show the usual naming and differering configurations and the huge difference between a B ytes and a b its. To do some simple calculations - The max burst transfer rate of SATAII is 3 billion b its per second, which is equivalent 3 G b /s, via normal conventions not definitions. This is equivalent to 300 million B ytes per second, or 300 M B /s. Some sites like this states 300M b /s, which actually means we are moving backwards in technology. Worst, some people state it as 300 G B /s, which means I can transfer the equivalent data of 31 DVDs in 1 single second and overstating it by about 1000 times faster than it really is. The same applies for USB2.0. Many technical sales people I talked to told me its 480M B /s and I have seen the same marketing collateral on the packaged boxes it comes in. In actual fact, it is 60M B /s. Now, if you compare apples to apples - it is a no-brainer to compare 300M B /s against 60M B /s, isnt it ? Of course, the arguments will always begin when people start arguing whether is it really a 5 time performance difference, taking into account the costs of USB's overheads and the cache memory that some of the higher-end SATAII HDD offers. Well, lets just leave those arguments in those other blogs and forum posts for now. (c) William Tay 2000-2007 | Solution Architect Consultant http://www.softwaremaker.net/blog Read More...
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I have been a SingTel and SingNet customer for the longest time and do recommend friends and family over sometimes. While I have no complains about the service, I do have questions about some of their front-line staff operations and capabilities . Another incident struck today. I decided to sign up for the ADSL upgrade package from the current 3500kbps to the ADSL2 6000kbps after my contract is up for renewal. On the day of service activation, things just weren't going well. To cut a long story short, the downtime and service disruption was almost 3/4 of the day (which meant no www and email access == no work gets done) and my router power-supply cable failed today for some reason (due to age, I believe) and luckily, I had an old power-supply cable lying around which was put to good use. When the ADSL2 modem arrived late, I hooked it up, expecting a simple plug-n-play. I was wrong. The SingNet technical service staff was at a loss to help me. The only thing they could do was tell me that I could hook up my single machine (I have 8 at home) to the modem directly and things work fine. That is not a solution. Solve my problem, SingTel . Dont you know how many people in Singapore uses a Router to share broadband bandwidth amongst the household. If ADSL bandwidth was made for 1 machine and 1 user, we dont need anything more than 256mbps. Their technical staff did 1 step further and said they supported only 2 brands of routers with their modems. Fine - given that there are hundreds of models of routers anyways. I qualify myself as a technical person and asked if I could have the settings of those "supported" routers so I know how to tweak and configure mine to work with the new modem. Me: "Could I have those config settings of those routers so I can see how I can configure mine" SingNet: "Err...We support 2 brands X and Y of routers but I am sorry, the settings are NOT in my knowledge base so I cannot help you there..." Me: "OK. What else can I do ? If it doesnt work with my router, I cannot surf so tell me what I am paying for again ?" SingNet: "I am sorry, Sir but those are the only 2 brands of integrated Router-modem we support" Me: "Huh ? Integrated Router-modem ? Are you asking me to throw away my VPN Firewall router so I can use your modem ? Duh !" So, we have this pipe of 6mpbs of bandwidth flowing through, we share. It makes sense and is cost-effective. So, while looking at the PO of the delivered modem, I saw the vendor who actually was being subcontracted Read More...
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I have been a SingTel and SingNet customer for the longest time and do recommend friends and family over sometimes. While I have no complains about the service, I do have questions about some of their front-line staff operations and capabilities . Another incident struck today. I decided to sign up for the ADSL upgrade package from the current 3500kbps to the ADSL2 6000kbps after my contract is up for renewal. On the day of service activation, things just weren't going well. To cut a long story short, the downtime and service disruption was almost 3/4 of the day (which meant no www and email access == no work gets done) and my router power-supply cable failed today for some reason (due to age, I believe) and luckily, I had an old power-supply cable lying around which was put to good use. When the ADSL2 modem arrived late, I hooked it up, expecting a simple plug-n-play. I was wrong. The SingNet technical service staff was at a loss to help me. The only thing they could do was tell me that I could hook up my single machine (I have 8 at home) to the modem directly and things work fine. That is not a solution. Solve my problem, SingTel . Dont you know how many people in Singapore uses a Router to share broadband bandwidth amongst the household. If ADSL bandwidth was made for 1 machine and 1 user, we dont need anything more than 256mbps. Their technical staff did 1 step further and said they supported only 2 brands of routers with their modems. Fine - given that there are hundreds of models of routers anyways. I qualify myself as a technical person and asked if I could have the settings of those "supported" routers so I know how to tweak and configure mine to work with the new modem. Me: "Could I have those config settings of those routers so I can see how I can configure mine" SingNet: "Err...We support 2 brands X and Y of routers but I am sorry, the settings are NOT in my knowledge base so I cannot help you there..." Me: "OK. What else can I do ? If it doesnt work with my router, I cannot surf so tell me what I am paying for again ?" SingNet: "I am sorry, Sir but those are the only 2 brands of integrated Router-modem we support" Me: "Huh ? Integrated Router-modem ? Are you asking me to throw away my VPN Firewall router so I can use your modem ? Duh !" So, we have this pipe of 6mpbs of bandwidth flowing through, we share. It makes sense and is cost-effective. So, while looking at the PO of the delivered modem, I saw the vendor who actually was being subcontracted Read More...
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My friend, Chester, shared this link with me. I am fully aware of Facebook 's privacy policies and I think that it leaves much more to be desired. This is precisely the reason why I dont share much in Facebook or dont put up incriminating pictures of myself up there. I wonder how many of the millions of people in Facebook knows about this. Come to think of it, who wouldnt do so. I would assume that the Googles, Amazons , LinkedIns would love to have that kind of leverage and power, wouldnt they ? (c) William Tay 2000-2007 | Solution Architect Consultant http://www.softwaremaker.net/blog Read More...
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So, I have 2 bank accounts that I usually do transactions in. One is the Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) and the other is United Overseas Bank (UOB) . I was on an overseas business trip and then I had to check my account balance with DBS online. Then I realized that I cannot because I did not bring the DBS 2-Factor Authentication (2FA) Physical token, also known as hard-token with me. I ended up not doing what I need to do and had to return home to check my account balance. I was initially irked when DBS took matter into their own hands and decided what is good for their customers BUT this incident blew my top. A quick look at their FAQ reveals the below snippets As you can see from here, "DBS decided to go with ...". I am surprised that for a world-class bank that prides itself on customer-standards, they are taking matters into their own hands and deciding for the customer. Shouldnt the customer be able to decide this for themselves ? By the same token (pun intended), let us take a look at UOB's FAQ below: A-HA ! A choice was not made but given. Customers are given the choice to deicde what they want. If they prefer not to carry too many devices with them (God knows how many we have to carry these days - USB Thumb Drives, iPods, mobile phones, keys, etc) and prefer to leverage on what they are already comfortable in carrying, they can choose their mobile phones to receive the One-Time-Passwords (OTP) va a SMS. If they are going to be in a country whereby their auto-roaming GSM doesnt work (such as the different networks in Japan or Korea), they can opt for the hard-token. To cut it short - No decision was made for the customer . Instead, a choice was given to the customer . In other words, UOB empowers their customers, unlike DBS, who thinks they are better themselves by making a decision for the customer. Shame on you. While I have some suspicions that cost (of sending the SMSes) may be a determining factor, I dont see UOB relenting on that point and they dont own a telco either. They have perfected the art of: If you keep your customers first, their money will come in . This issue, by no means, has got anything to do with security. Both banks are practicing it - by making sure there is another authentication factor before logging for banking transactions. This is about choice, empowerment and delegation. In short, it is about being customer-focused, in every sense of the word. UOB's FAQ details very well about the operations of both sets of authentication Read More...
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Over the years, I have seen a lot of FUD regarding technologies, targetting at specific vendors and platforms. I used to be a big fan of the MicrosoftWatch site as it really does a good tell-it-as-is from a very neutral and unbiased point of view, especially from Mary Jo Foley. She does good research and frequently engages my friends and peers from all over the industry to hear stories from all sides before putting the rubber to the road. When she left to join ZiffDavis , the industry was left wondering who would be covering for her and will MicrosoftWatch be the same again. Yes, granted - I am a long-time Microsoft advocate but it is also well-known among my friends that I will also tell-it-as-is as well which is why I am a big fan of Foley at her new place here . Well, MicrosoftWatch is not the same anymore. Joe Wilcox is not really doing too good a job taking over Foley. Granted, it is all his opinion and we should all respect that BUT I have recently found his recent posts doesnt have too much research done behind it. I mean, this is NOT your own personal blogging site, it is MicrosoftWatch. There must be certain responsibilities that one *should* carry. Take this recent post by Joe Wilcox, for exampe. What a whole load of FUD !!! I will just take a comment off from there and post it here: Do you actually take the time to research and understand what you write about? It sure doesn't seem that way, especially when you make comments that imply that .NET developers doing web work don't utilize AJAX or JavaScript and that they are the sole purview of the Adobe/MacroMedia/OpenSource world... Meanwhile, you are aware that Windows Vista is not a prerequisite for applications using WPF? You can run it today, on your Windows XP machine, all it takes is the .NET 3.0 Framework runtime. My thoughts exactly. I have better things to do than spend my breakfast time reading that *crap*. If I wanted crap, I would have gone to buy tabloids. Buck up, Joe and do your homework. It seems that Foley also took all her industry contacts with her to ZDNet as well. If number of comments is anything to go by, MicrosoftWatch is slowly but surely losing its popularity. I am deleting the MicrosoftWatch feed off my RSS reader and just sticking with ZDNet. (c) William Tay 2000-2006 | Solution Architect Consultant http://www.softwaremaker.net/blog Read More...
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This is obviously the buzz that has occupied most the bits on the wire and water-cooler conversations recently. While there have been many opinions about it - for me, it is always functionality over form. The way I dress sums that statement up well. The fact (right now) that is doest support 3G is not important to me (yet) BUT the biggest obstacle is that I cannot believe their batter if NOT removable. Every PDA/phone I buy, the first accessories I buy are the extra cells - and I always asked for the higher capacity ones. I do use my PDA well. Having ONE cell only, since it is not removable, is a NO-NO for me. However, I dont know if all is cast in stone yet. This is the era of Web 2.0 and you, as the Time Magazine Person of the Year 2006 , are very powerful in casting your vote in earth-shattering decisions. That said, I have always said I take my hats off to the marketing geniuses of the iPods. Now, I am hearing the captain over the airwaves: " Please turn off your iPods, mobile phones and personal computers... " 6 months down the road ? " Please turn off your iPods. Period " Nuff said. (c) William Tay 2000-2006 | Solution Architect Consultant http://www.softwaremaker.net/blog Read More...
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This is obviously the buzz that has occupied most the bits on the wire and water-cooler conversations recently. While there have been many opinions about it - for me, it is always functionality over form. The way I dress sums that statement up well. The fact (right now) that is doest support 3G is not important to me (yet) BUT the biggest obstacle is that I cannot believe their batter if NOT removable. Every PDA/phone I buy, the first accessories I buy are the extra cells - and I always asked for the higher capacity ones. I do use my PDA well. Having ONE cell only, since it is not removable, is a NO-NO for me. However, I dont know if all is cast in stone yet. This is the era of Web 2.0 and you, as the Time Magazine Person of the Year 2006 , are very powerful in casting your vote in earth-shattering decisions. That said, I have always said I take my hats off to the marketing geniuses of the iPods. Now, I am hearing the captain over the airwaves: " Please turn off your iPods, mobile phones and personal computers... " 6 months down the road ? " Please turn off your i-stuff. Period " Nuff said. (c) William Tay 2000-2006 | Solution Architect Consultant http://www.softwaremaker.net/blog Read More...
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Almost 2 years after I upgraded the HDD of all my machines in my own internal network (2 Servers, 3 Desktops, 3 Laptops), I decided to do some HDD shopping and do another upgrade exercise at Sim Lim Square (Singapore) to replenish the dwindling space I have been noticing in my network. This time, I came back with: 2 x 500GB/7200 3.5'' 1 x 320GB/7200 3.5'' 1 x 120GB/5400 2.5'' I now have almost 3TB !!! of HDD running supporting all my machines - all run within a one-man-operation. Armed with all my data backup and an amazing Acronis TrueImage Enterprise Server software for cloning all my old partitions for restoring to my brand new shiny disks, I should be able to get all the new data transitions and migrations going in no time. What does all these HDD space support ? Besides the usual VPCs for my cutting-edge demos, disk-images for clones, I have also tons of pictures, videos and music media for my jukeboxes. If I tell you the other operations my HDD is supporting, then I would have to kill you i-wink. Here I am, hearing the hum of all the spinning HDD spindle motors at work. Ah - The sound of geek heaven. (c) William Tay 2000-2006 | Architect Consultant http://www.softwaremaker.net/blog Read More...
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This article may seem to speak of well-intentions at first. But once you sit down and think about it, it is a distortion. The word "Random" plays a stronger role here and the term "Kindness" is just an end-effect of the Flash mob syndrome . Acts of kindness should and must be generated at the people who need it at a particular time and place. While I agree that all parties involved, including the conduits, benefit from the overall act, I believe that the act should be dished out by a party voluntarily via a conduit (or not) to another party in need to be the recipient of that act. The Pay-it-Forward movement can only reach a high maximization point when people give away what they dont need to the ones in need. It doesnt matter whether it is random or intended. I can give it away to an intended charity or the next poor person I see on the street. In other words, I dont want to be paying for Bill Gates' next latte just because he came into the right place at the right time. Hasnt he already been rewarded richly for that ? i-wink. Now - what he is doing - I agree, are acts of kindness and I wish that more of the world's rich can believe and act in the same model too. (c) William Tay 2000-2006 | Solution Architect Consultant http://www.softwaremaker.net/blog Read More...
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Well, the marketing spin doctors are at it again. Besides the renaming of WinFX to .NET Framework 3.0 , Infocards has gotten a new and better name as well. I am just glad that it is not renamed as Windows Card Foundation. And for good reasons ... Actually _Windows Cardspace_ does sound nice. The word "space" is just so much more abstract and encompassing ... (c) William Tay 2000-2006 | Solution Architect Consultant http://www.softwaremaker.net/blog Read More...
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I came across this story: An 80 year old man was sitting on the sofa in his house along with his 45 years old highly educated son. Suddenly a crow perched on their window. The Father asked his Son, "What is this?" The Son replied "It is a crow". After a few minutes, the Father asked his Son the 2nd time, "What is this?" The Son said "Father, I have just now told you "It's a crow". After a little while, the old Father again asked his Son the 3rd time, What is this?" At this time some ex-pression of irritation was felt in the Son's tone when he said to his Father with a rebuff. "It's a crow, a crow". A little after, the Father again asked his Son t he 4th time, "What is this?" This time the Son shouted at his Father, "Why do you keep asking me the same question again and again, although I have told you so many times 'IT IS A CROW'. Are you not able to understand this?" A little later the Father went to his room and came back with an old tattered diary, which he had maintained since his Son was born. On opening a page, he asked his Son to read that page. When the son read it, the following words were written in the diary :- "Today my little son aged three was sitting with me on the sofa, when a crow was sitting on the window. My Son asked me 23 times what it was, and I replied to him all 23 times that it was a Crow. I hugged him lovingly each time h e asked me the same question again and again for 23 times. I did not at all feel irritated I rather felt affection for my innocent child". While the little child asked him 23 times "What is this", the Father had felt no irritation in replying to the same question all 23 times and when today the Father asked his Son the same question just 4 times, the Son felt irritated and annoyed. So.. If your parents attain old age, do not repulse them or look at them as a burden, but speak to them a gracious word, be cool, obedient, humble and kind to them. > While I could be mean and say that the instances and circumstances are different or the moral of the story is to ask your 3-year old son to shuddup as well - that is not the point. I have got to remember this story. Although, I will stop short when my father (or even my son) asked me more than 2 times what are namespaces in XML ... i-wink (c) William Tay 2000-2006 | Solution Architect Consultant http://www.softwaremaker.net/blog Read More...
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