Thursday 10 November 2011

last blog entry

poster session was fun :) on hindsight, this module doesnt seem as painful as i thought it would be. perhaps its true that one usually looks back on the past in a better light

-- stuff i learnt --

this part is going to be a little incoherent. i picked up random things along the way. from little tidbits to being influenced by my peers. after this module, im convinced that one has to like what you do in order to be happy. im glad that i've cleared almost all my graduating requirements and next semester i'd get to do what i want to do. this module also gave me an opportunity to push myself. and as a result i knew myself a bit better. I think im a bit stronger than i though i was. hmm.

Technical stuff, learnt much. design, practised abit. keeping an open mind was the right decision. other wise i may not have went ahead with programming on ios. while i agree that browser based apps are the future, that makes me a little sad because i enjoy native app development more, because there is just more you can do with a native app. at the moment. then again, who knows. HTML5 is about to get more awesome i hear.

-- Singapore Heritage Mobile --

is not over. we are gonna try and push this through. RAAHH!

-- other stuff --

about how life is going to get tougher with each generation, i'm more inclined to think that it is possible for things to get better for us. no reasons in particular just think that its better to be optimistic about things you have little control over. fate has been kind to me so far anyway. so.

about the doom and gloom of lack of jobs and lack of oil, i think every generation has a huge obstacle of sorts. some faced the great depression and some faced war. I like to think that we are experiencing some kind of a hang over from a century's worth of industrialization and globalization. It'll be over one day. i hope.

good luck for finals everyone. time to re-invent wheels.

Monday 31 October 2011

coming to an end..

--entrepreneurs talk--

good thing i did not skip this lecture. Its good to listen to people whom have really been there and done that. Since this is my 2nd last semester. what to do after graduation has dominated much of my thoughts. its good to be assured that you dont neccessarily have to start young if you want to go into entreprenuership.

on another note, chin leung reccommended some books for us to read. coincidentally, i have read one of the books. Atlas shrugged by Ayn Rand. It's a really good read(chapter 1 was boring though). Its about individualism. I see alot of people using this as an argument for capitalism but i dont think its the same thing nor is there any correlation between the two. Anyways i like the protaganist very much cause she is incredibly outstanding and has never once grumbled in the face of adversity. She also has never given any justification of any sort for achievement nor preached its virtues. She did just because. thinking about getting fountain head now.. hmm..

--final project--

wrapped up some things before the presentation. We've been working really hard at this and I like the product very much. I hope everyone in class likes it too.

Monday 17 October 2011

catching up with blogging

--Zit Seng's lecture--

after Zit Seng's lecture i am better able to appreciate how inefficiencies of the code in the app can impact user experience in terms or loading speed. this is very valuable to me as he was speaking from experience and this will impact how i work in future. Also, i discovered my weakness in my complete lack of knowledge in OS. this explains why im bad at server administration too.

--Security and Privacy--

quite interesting to learn about how people hack hehe. i must confess i did not give security much thought at all during the first 2 assignments. It's not a topic that interests me in particular and it not being part of the milestones was the perfect excuse. Also, another one of my weakness -zero knowledge on security. Maybe taking a module on security would solve the problem. But i'd probably be bored to death. perhaps instead of reading up more about security, i will read up more about hacking.

--final project--

prototype done! by some stroke of madness, all 5 of us iOS noobs decided to build an iOS application instead. we faced many difficulties, mostly logistical :/. But within a week or so, we built a pretty good looking app. im looking forward to building in the extra features :)

I was surprised how difficult it was for sharon to get approval for use of content. Reminds me of the painful red tape i encountered during my internship stint at OCBC. I was also surprised to be kicked out of PL1 when i was trying to quietly mind my own business working on one of the 10 or so unused iMacs. How times have changed. Lab TAs used to be cool.

lesson learnt: never expect anyone to be cooperative with you (unless they are your team-mates)

--other stuff--

3 projects and FYP CA2 within the next few weeks. im ready for the mad dash. RAWR.

Sunday 2 October 2011

taking a break from studying for mid terms

--assignment 2--

This time round, i did not function as a designer. i decided to leave that part of work to zul. i did most of the backend functions and dealt with geolocation and webstorage functions. improved much in javascript. tried to use github but failed. my conclusion, there's much more to learn.

--reflections--

I thank my groupmates for the encouraging comments, as well as the critical ones. strangely i had conflicting comments. some said i was uncompromising and some said i was easy going. i guess everyone has things that they care about more than others. certain things that i think are not important, i will compromise. but if i think they are important then it will be difficult to change my mind. its impossible to please and agree with the whole world so i stand by my views. I never felt that tension or disagreement in a group is necessarily a bad thing. it shows that people care. as long as it doesnt get out of hand of course. what do you think?

but at times, i believe i appear more confrontational than intended. :/

other things, i will pay more attention to coding style. I suppose i neglected this bit in my pursuit to make things work. Leadership, not my cup of tea. My top priority is the team. so i will only step up to be one when the team requires one.

--final project--

decided to work on the singapore heritage trail. i like it because i like history and museums. and i think its important to keep the younger generation engaged. Furthermore, it will be the first time i get to work with external parties like NLB (through sharon). The prospects of augmented reality draws me as well.

On another note, this time round, we will be using github again for version control. and since octocat is cute, i will give it another go.

--other stuff--

read classmates blogs. This is a class full of incredibly motivated people. it seems as though everyone is ready for more. me? looking forward to december. i hope its just a temporary thing that will pass in another day or two.

last week at a presentation for another project, the prof. asked me if i ever attended his classes cause he never saw me before. :/ a very good evidence that i have not been managing my time well. i worry about what i can ever achieve if i cant even handle the workload of this semester (not that its little its actually alot). This also makes me worry about which career path to take, since graduation is coming in another 1 and a half semesters.


ps, im quite dissappointed that the google talk is being cancelled :( but at least now theres more time for my mid terms

Wednesday 14 September 2011

pitching and VeeSee

--pitching--

i did not have much thoughts about pitching really. and i prefer not to critique another person's idea or presentation. It was interesting though, to read my classmates' blogs about it. one note, it takes charisma for one to convince another of their ideas. I dont think its as easy as selling your idea really well. you have to be likable too. maybe prof should provide a workshop on charisma haha.

I also feel compelled to talk about cliquefund. I think we should re-think ROI. ROI does not necessarily have to come in the form of money. To illustrate this abit better i have to digress abit.

have you felt powerless? like a cog in the system and the grand scheme of things seem to be directed by rich magnates and politicians alone. having no resources, the rest of us get by. certain ideas, will never be endorsed by venture capitalists, simply because they are not profitable enough, even if the idea is of great contribution to society.

Cliquefund returns the community autonomy. and by investing, you get a piece of it. you can help make things happen. you can put resources in the right hands to exact changes as you deem fit. how else can you do this without being rich?

personally, i would back indie films and media productions that give the minority a voice or are just much more intelligent. I feel media today is too driven by profit, sensationalism and political correctness. It acts in the interests of the majority and powerful and reports only viewpoints that are popular. Journalism is a very important job and i think few are worth it. ah. i digressed again.

also, i would think that this model of funding would probably not see the rise of vices such as gambling.

--Veesee--

micro learning: really? define micro. and on another note, i think ideas really worth digesting usually take up alot of time.

emails: courtesy via email is important. didnt know about the 24 hour rule though. noted.

breaking patterns: good suggestion. maybe i'll try it out when i actually do remember.

boredom: agreed much. only works for short periods of time though. problem is, its difficult to set time aside to be bored. and when you are stressed, boredom exacerbates this. for me at least.

the love advice: prof. Ben seems to think he's got a good deal. i'd like to hear what his wife has got to say haha.

p.s. i felt very much like reading after the talk. but im the sort who prefers to complete a book in one sitting. so its going to have to wait :( i prefer real books too. they smell good.

Thursday 8 September 2011

Case study 1

when i first saw the screenshot below, i thought it was a tutorial. because the check boxes are customized, it did not occur to me that it was actually a form. it looked nice but it was not conventional. causing the learning curve of the interface to be steeper. In this particular use case, it can be particularly annoying to the first time user once they find out that they had unwittingly allowed the app to post to all their friends if they neglect to uncheck certain check boxes. By the way, having all 3 check boxes checked for who do you want to ask makes no logical sense. Im assuming that they will post to all friends if left as it is. or is this just an image intended to show off the capabilities of the app and not a form u fill while asking for help?! this i will never know until i try clicking on the checkboxes.

on the other hand, they do give a rather wide variety of options. offering to sms even. although in the context of this application, i think a personalized facebook message might be more appropriate.

secondly, the profile tab is 'highlighted'. this must be some mistake because for a page called profile i am expecting information about myself. scrolling through the other screenshots, none of the navigation tabs are highlighted. so what does the highlighted profile tab mean? i have no idea. and theres this overview page. i wonder how we can navigate to it.

thirdly, im guessing the designer is trying to be creative by aligning the navigation tabs diagonally. it makes it hard to read the words on the tabs. this could work if there are no words, utilizing only the symbol. However, i find these sort of tabs unhelpful as well since it makes the learning curve steeper.

about the buttons. i wonder why they used red for all their buttons, bright red even. i would normally associate danger with this color. this is also why many error messages are in red. even the spelling errors i produce as i type this are underlined in red. IMO, the color scheme induces more feelings of anxiety in the users than necessary. if they really liked red, they should have gone for a deeper shade of red. think roses.

I appreciate the sparing use of graphics though, i find them rather engaging. functions wise i think it is smart to allow users to reccommend others. they achieve their goal of helping users reach beyond their own circle of friends for help.

as for elements of gamification(badges), i feel it is rather appropriate in this context. But i think gamification is only powerful when the rewards and benefits are a little more tangible though. perhaps, exclusive functions for users with the most number of badges?

Design issues aside, i think the team probably were a little too short on time. A problem we can all identify with i believe. which accounts for the little bugs in the UI, such as the navigationn tabs being partially blocked and the Overview headers appearing on the statistics page.

Sunday 4 September 2011

Assignment 1

Phew. assignment 1 done. the past week was so painful.. but i had awesome groupmates so thats okay. :)

some learning points:

Designing a UI is so difficult. It much harder than i thought as i got a little too brain-fried to think about details towards the end. good thing ajay helped me out there. and about the bright blue, my group knew about this problem actually. but i couldn't find just-the-right-color as a replacement. I did find a good shade of blue eventually, but it was so much trial and error. -.- (apologies for burning some eyeballs out there) Im also guessing that the bright design will not be very popular. perhaps that is why they are not very common. If i have the chance, i would like to challenge a bright design again.

I was much too naive about jquery plugins. I had problems making afew different plugins work on the same page. My guess is that they made certain common declarations.

I underestimated james and wayne. haha. towards the end i was quite skeptical that we could implement certain functions in time. but they were really good.

social plugins are a pain in the ass to align :(

On another note, i bought some eye serums for my eye bags. @.@ i hope it works. time for assignment 2

Monday 29 August 2011

App Seminar: Pekay's little author

yay~ i was hoping to be assigned this app after the lesson today. it looks cute.

UI:

I do agree that the UI is rather messy due to the inconsistent shapes of the buttons. but its rather engaging due to the animations, which is good for children because of their short attention span.

while building the storybook(on facebook), the app seems rather cluttered as well. but given the number of functionalities it provides, I dont see how that can be avoided. manipulation of the objects are prompted with symbols, which seem rather intuitive. they also support layers. I'm not sure whether really young children can grasp the idea of layers quickly though. I had problems grasping this concept when i first started with photoshop. then again, perhaps its because i am too conditioned by my use of physical media. do kids these days even use coloring books?

Functionality:

I think an app that helps people make a story book is a rather novel idea. I think it would be very attractive to people whom enjoying writing. (be it blogging, fanfic, comic strips) Plus, its very fuss-free, which is great for lazy people. It has lots of books for people to browse through as well. Personally, something like this would be my preferred mode of entertainment online as opposed to games.

Does it really help kids develop their imagination? im not sure. but then again i wouldnt know.

Platform:

I would agree that facebook may not be the best platform to reach out to children. the option to share your work throught social media is attractive though. Perhaps pekay should try targeting adults. i can imagine people using it for politcal satires haha.

Revenue model:

I'm not very business savvy but their revenue model makes sense to me. I can imagine kids bugging their parents to pay so that they can use the bear or the rainbow in their story books. reminds me of toys that come free with mcdonalds happy meals.

I think it would be quite awesome for pekay to have some collaboration with san-x or sanrio. more cute characters. yay.


and Prof. Ben, with regards to my last post, thanks for the kind offer but i think that episode hasn't impacted the project much. so not need for extension. theres assignment 2 anyway.

Thursday 25 August 2011

:(

just got news that my hard disk died today. :(
am trying not to let it impact daily operations ( CS3216 & FYP ) as much as possible by using my brother's comp for the time being. other than that, some ice cream is in order.

Since Im in a class full of IT savvy people, I'm hoping to get some advice here.
the following are my options:

- replace hard disk and reformat at fujitsu service center ( $130 + an afternoon's time )
warranty expired last month.

- new laptop ($2000++)

- borrow an old laptop from a friend (surprisingly, it has very similar specs to my current laptop)

im more inclined to to go for option one. I'm just afraid that once the hard disk is fixed some other problem would pop up and hence further extending this melancholic misadventure. what do you think?

On another note, im thankful for kind and supportive friends offering me help. i didn't even ask to borrow. friends in need are friends indeed.

Monday 22 August 2011

facebook assignment and IE

week 3 now. with regards to the facebook assignment, im pretty glad i have more or less settled on a design. (Im usually not this fickle-minded though) although some changes are still to be made, at least there is a clear goal now. spent too much time dabbling with illustrator and jquery. I think illustrator pretty cool so im looking forward to the upcoming workshop.

about html5 and css3.
the main gist i have been getting about these 2 new technologies seems to mainly be animation and graphics. I think its pretty awesome that stuff can be rendered real time in a canvas. but browsers delivering delivering hardware-accelerated graphics is not something new. Chrome and firefox has been working on WebGL for awhile now. thats hardware-accelerated 3D graphics for you. even flash is moving in that direction with molehill. so. IE is still lagging behind. personally, i will be watching developments in WebGL closely. I think it has alot of potential.

on a random note, when i heard "mango" i kept thinking of the ladies apparel brand MANGO. ha.

Monday 15 August 2011

planning and management

Software Engineering. hm. some parts of the lecture are a no brainer. Things like planning milestones and buffer time. easy peasy.

the difficult bit is sticking to the plan. and not just you but everyone in the team. It takes discipline to follow through, even more so when you are planning for an arduous journey. unfortunately, alot of people i have worked with in the past do not possess such discipline. For the average projects in nus, I have had group mates telling me that it okay to take it slow because there's buffer time to eat into. (thats not what buffer time is for)

As for myself, i find sticking to plans okay as long as im not burning out. I think thats my weakness. fatigue gets to me.

By the way, planning also only works when everyone in the team actually believes that planning helps the teams reach the goal. Some people think of it has just a formality and no amount of nagging will work on them. Not everyone believes in plans unfortunately. I'm still in the midst of figuring out how to work with these kind of people. If anyone knows, please enlighten me. A temple where i can pray for an amulet/talisman to ward them off will also do.

That said, I have no worries of that sort for my projects in CS3216. Everyone is so motivated and on the ball. I even recieved an email from my mobile cloud group today. haha. CS3216 projects may be painful, but i have no complaints as long as the pain does not come from my groupmates. provided i survive.

Monday 8 August 2011

What I hope to Learn in CS3216

Hello World.

I would like to congratulate myself upon securing a place in this module. Although I might need to eat my own words in the next few weeks to come given its reputation. So. What do I hope to get out of this module?

Firstly, to learn the relevant technical skills. While I do have some experience in web programming, the furthest I have ventured is to build a database driven website. I would like to learn how to build apps and Facebook apps is one of them.

Also, to attempt to build something that is sound in terms of design and the technicals. most modules i have done so far focus only on either. Which is great as an academic exercise but clients and bosses usually have much higher expectations. Hence, I believe it will be beneficial to have some experience with slightly loftier expectations before venturing out into the working world.

Furthermore, since the class consists of people from differing disciplines, I suppose I would have the opportunity to hone soft skills.

Lastly, I also hope to learn what I do not expect to learn in this course. Coming from a technical background, I hope others will have a thing or two to teach me. Even if it does not seem applicable to me. Who knows? I intend to keep an open mind. :)

Cheers to a fruitful semester. good luck. god speed. may the force be with you.