Bouncing Tyres Video

I'm revamping the look of most of my blogs that I've created. I also created a new blog which I'll reveal later. So, it is time to take a break for a while. The video below is quite interesting. I don't understand what is the message but it's fun to watch:

Microsoft Mobile & Embedded Devcon 2006 Event

Last year, I went to the MEDC 2005 where I blogged about it (click here if you are interested to read all about last year's event). This year, I went to the event again but in a different location. To be honest, I like last year's event better than this year one. Also, how time flies, it's been a year already? Damn...

As usual, I took shots of the event and tell you reviews of what I thought. Here's the first shot:

Probably because of the venue, there seem to be less people than last year. By the way, I got my new laptop bag from the event. It's only a matter of time before my last year's laptop bag shoulder strap snapped. The bag is bigger than last year's though.

I paid an early bird price of RM50 which was the same amount I paid last year. If not, I had to pay RM80. That's not a good sign, soon they'll probably increase the price the following years which I hope would not.

The montage of the stage is blue. I like blue. The music is nice too, some techno music they put on.

They have these nice plasma displays. I wonder how much does it cost to buy one.

One of the speakers is a big guy, his name is Tan Loke Uei. I like his presentation, he emphasized on the difference between a designer and a developer. As for him, he is a developer so he's not really particular with the design, as long as it can work, it is fine with him. Hmm..let me think, I'm also a developer but I like to do design too. So which part am I? Most probably developer because my design sucks..haha..

Last year, I tried the Hands-on lab they provide. This year, I was relunctant to try because my company doesn't focus on mobile application yet. If so, I had to juggle with all the time consuming paperworks and office management apart from managing the company's website. Oh well, I should learn to delegate now. The booths at the conference is not as many as last year's.

So, the conclusion. I went home early and didn't stay until the end of the event. If only some companies can pay me a full time job developing mobile application alone and not doing unnecessary other stuff that I'm doing right now. I got another another seminar to go tomorrow about affiliate marketing. Hope it could give me a few ideas to execute the plans I have in my head.

Career Change? Maybe..Maybe Not?

Yesterday, I went to one of the most busiest shopping complex in Kuala Lumpur. As usual, during the weekend, the Midvalley Megamall is packed with thousands of people. Some went there for shopping, some for dating and some to window shopping. I went there for a Career and Job Fair at the Midvalley Exhibition Center, located at the upper most floor, the same level as the GSC Cinema.

With the increase of business activities, the human capital is a huge industry and involves big money. No wonder how jobs portal keep springing up these days. I can even buy and customize my own job portal using open source web software available on the internet, of course I need someone to help me as I'm only good at installing and changing the usability and appearance. I'm not good on PR, seeking sponsors and most importantly, finding new clients. Anyway, JobsDB.com has done a good job expanding their business, so kudos to them.

Let me walk you through my entire experience attending this Career & Education Fair 2006. To get into the exhibition hall, you need to become a registered member of JobsDB.com first. If you are not a member, you can register using the computers available:

There was one chinese lady who got fed up with the online registration (I must say that it's quite tedious), she just left the place with her mouth complaining about the form. I know in today's ultra competitive world, list building is the most profitable thing to do these days. However, I think it should be made easier or else it will turn off a lot of people.

After the registration, you'll received this:

Now this is the first time ever I had to wear a wristband in an exhibition, I wore a waterproof wristband before but for an amusement park. It feels strange but I then forgot that I'm wearing one.

Here's a few more shots inside the exhibition halls:

An online multi-purpose portal, I could build one myself but it's too much work plus I have to do too much work promoting it to get traffic there. By thw way, the portal uses ASP programming language which is Microsoft's programming language. I would prefer a more cost saving open source PHP+My SQL database. Oh well, these companies have loads of money.

The main organizer's booth. I think DB stands for 'Database'. Database is a crucial stuff for a company, if the database is corrupted, they are screwed. I wish I had the money to get a professional certificate in database administration. Huge salary would have been waiting for me then..haha..

Another high salary job is to become a SAP consultant. If you don't know what SAP is, according to wikipedia, "SAP is the third-largest software company in the world. It ranks after Microsoft and Oracle in terms of market capitalization. SAP is the largest business application and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution software provider in terms of revenue." So if you are an IT graduate and you can understand big systems with higher level of jargons (like I do..hehe), this is a great option to consider. If I'm not mistaken, the salary would be no less than RM4,000. A basic course to get a certificate with SAP is RM25,000. That would make a return on investment (ROI) in no more than 7 months, that is less than a year. Oh god, why did I took mechanical engineering before. I'm so lack of exposure during my course selection.

Anyway, because the life of a business is determine by cashflow, most of the companies are looking for people to do sales for them. It's not uncommon to see sales position everywhere, if you can do sales, then you are employable almost everywhere regardless of your qualification. Well for me, I have an interest in doing sales but it depends of what company,product or services I represent. If I'm sold to it, then it should be fine, but most of the time I feel like I'm forced to promote so it is a battle within myself to become a sales driven person.

This exhibitionis more preferable to me than the one I attended earlier. It's more focused, more hungry looking companies and there's little free giveaways. I don't really like bringing back loads of free stuff, brochures only to put it away in the trash bin. This event really inspired me to change my career that I spent a couple of hours last night drafting my cover letter and resume to be submitted to a company who has my interest right now. I think I have to deal with my fear of change first before I can proceed. I'm so comfortable yet I'm not satisfied with my life yet.

Through this blog, do you think I did a good job selling my blog to you? If so, do comment about it. I'm thinking of shifting to do corporate sales. I did the resume and cover letter, however I'm still not so sure whether to submit it or not. I have so many fears to overcome. So, should I switch career or not? A question only myself could decide. All the best to myself and to all job seekers out there!!

An Inspiring Video To Watch

Have you ever watched 'Forrest Gump'? I like that movie, it has been played twice on my local television. It's a story about a straightforward kind of guy who just do what his mama says. Maybe it sounds like stupid to most of you but it's okay. Forrest Gump is one of a kind and I'm not sure if the man really exist or not.

I love YouTube. I can spend countless of hours looking at the videos there. I subscribe to a few other blog that catches my interest on my RSS Reader and I couldn't help but to blog about this amazing video I found:

Now here is a real life example of a guy who just do whatever he likes doing. Although he is not wealthy, I like that he just did whatever he wanted. It's sort of like fulfilling your dream. I think I need to plan something like he does but of course not exactly what he did. He also produced this amazing video which thousands of people are already watching. Guess what, he was sponsored by a corporate body. Take your time to watch this, it will worth it.

Annoying Customer Service Agent

Earlier this month, I wrote about TMNet Did It Again. A collegue/best friend of mine subscribed to TMNet Streamyx a few months ago, little that he knew the service that he subscribed gave up on him and it has been nearly 2 months of back and forth calling the TMNet customer service. He finally made the decision to cancel his account, unfortunately there is an uninformed or could probably be unwritten policy that those who applied and used any Telekom Malaysia services must use their services for at least one year before you can finally terminate it. So, if you have a phone line and you wanted to switch or terminate it, your account must be more than a year. If you are planning to have an account, think carefully before applying eventhough there are special offers being offered to you which is hard to resist.

I found this conversation on the internet about a customer of (America Online) AOL (a once internet mega company in the US) and one of their customer service. Since I was a tele-marketer, I know what it is like to confront customer over the phone. Of course the tagline 'The customer is always right' is valid to all businesses but from a different perspective, the customer service agent is just an employee and a normal person. However, the top management needs to respond to the numbers of declining call from their customers. It is sometimes not the fault of the customer service agent. To listen to the call, right click on this link and 'save as' the file in your pc.

Going back to TMNet Streamyx stuff, I was a bit surprised to know that the broadband penetration in Malaysia is 1.9% only. Studies shown that with the type of internet growth the country have, by 2010, the penetration would only be 13%. 1.9% is so small, now wonder TMNet streamyx is actively promoting their services everywhere. Interesting to know is that, 20% from the 1.9% of broadband user in the country is using 80% of the bandwitdh already. No wonder my broadband services kept interrupted. I think this all because of the peer to peer software that is congesting the bandwitdh. People are sharing videos, big files and stuff online. TMNet should invest on a bigger infrastructure than spending their money on flashy advertisements.

If you like to read more about this, you can go to strange symphonies blog.

Conclusion, I hope the internet would be used by more people everywhere. ;-)