Hashing...

How to hash a burger?
Eat it.
Note: Time taken to hash varies from person to person.

Burger + male cow hash algorithm = ?

Burn Videos to play on your DVD player

It took me 1 full day to try and burn a DVD video disc. Something, somehow, was wrong. My favourite resource came into play and everything came to light.

Here's my self-compiled dummy's guide

DVD video file extension - .vob

Video conversion guide - http://www.dvd-guides.com/content/view/58/59/

The purpose of conversion is to make your videos DVD video format (.vob), thus permitting you to create a DVD video disc from there.

Next, the DVD burning guide will guide you through the steps of burning your videos into a DVD player compatible disc.

DVD burning guide - http://www.dvd-guides.com/content/view/40/59/

Stringtokenizer on .NET --> Regex.Split

I have been looking at java throughout my academic days and the switch to .NET at work somehow cripples my programming skills. Different syntax, takes some time getting used to.

I was looking to ‘tokenize’ a string with a whole word as delimiter but could find almost zero resolution after google-ing for half a day. Finally, I found the answer, an amazing one as well, here. Amazing Splits. Have a read and you will find out almost everything about splitting strings in VB and VB.NET.

The answer to my problem was to use the Split method from System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex
Regex is like the Scanner of java.

Here’s some sample coding which saved my day.
Note that I intentionally put ‘br’ into the string as well to test if it would extract ‘br’ as well like the VB Split method.

Here’s the result of my test. Rejoice~! Problem solved!

firstbrString-----secondbrString-----

You can be sure I will only be using this splitter from this day on!

My Resume [17th Apr 2006]

Here's a stripped down version of my resume. Not that impressive yet, but I'll work on it.
Click here

My Duties as a Newbie

After a week at work, I have realised most of my duties.

• Take over projects from consultant who left the company
  
• Support my seniors on maintenance of current projects
• Engage in meetings to discuss upcoming projects that I would be engaged in

Taking over projects is definitely not an easy task, especially if you are working with unfamiliar technologies and on a tight schedule. Windows Service. C# .NET. 2 weeks to go live. Fortunately, brief and sufficient documentation was left behind and best of all, the project was 99% complete. The remaining 1% was just UAT.

Supporting my seniors would mean familiarizing myself with ASP .NET and the working processes of the company. Every little procedure is a learning process and learning more would only benefit myself. Being in the IT line is all about keeping yourself up to date whilst being backward compatible. This is tougher than being in the fashion industry!

I learnt during the meetings that being a consultant, you need diverse knowledge. IT knowledge will get you a IT related job, e.g. programmer, IT support, network engineer. But IT knowledge does not equip you with the skills of an IT consultant. An IT consultant should not only have sound IT knowledge, but more importantly the soft skills. The ability to connect with clients, to understand what they want and to deliver what they need. The clients don't want to hear how you code the database, but they want to hear how your program can solve their problem and/or bring them business.

I spent 3 days of my free time reading So you want to be a consultant...? from Steve Friedl's Unixwiz.net Tech Tips I regard this as a must-read for all IT consultants or IT consultant wannabes. Not an official guide to be an IT consultant, but a guide to be one with integrity, leading to success. Respect for wonderful article he wrote.


*UAT - user acceptance testing, typically the final phase in a software development process in which the software is given to the intended audience to be tested for functionality. UAT is either done by making the software available for a free trial, typically over the Internet, or by using an in-house testing panel comprised of users who would be using the product in real-world applications. UAT is done in order to get feedback from users to make any final adjustments to the programming before releasing the product to the general public.

UAT also is called beta testing, end-user testing or application testing.

(Source: Webopedia)

Employment and History

March 30, 2006. The day that I am officially known as an IT Consultant by employment. If you ask me, I have been giving consultations to friends and relatives on an ad-hoc basis for most of my IT life. It all started due to my failure as an O level student as I just can't get the physics and chemistry right. Maybe I just don't see the logic in doing so much of science... Where will it bring me anyway?

Next thing I know, I was left with the choice of enrolling into an ITE. Talk to another adult and they will say "ITE, not bad what". At the back of their mind, they know you won't be getting far with an ITE certificate. I breezed through ITE education like any one would. I must say, I don't remember a tenee wenee bit of the classes I attended there, just that I had alot of fun with the crazy guys there. Well, I learnt how to fix up my own computer though, not that it is too difficult for anyone.

At 23, I enrolled for a diploma in IT. I knew that I had to get as much insurance as possible before stepping into the working world, and a diploma in IT was all I could pursue with my qualifications. All went well as I unleashed the perfectionist in me and worked my way into the academic charts. Quite impressive, I found myself to be, as I was ranked No.2 in academic year one and No.3 in academic year two. I'm still waiting for my academic year three ranking, and I only know of one person who fared better than me. The No.1 title holder of both academic year one and two. She's incredible!

How did I land this job? From the day I finished I have been sending out resumes to various MNCs. A friend of mine gave the advice that MNCs will give better experience than SMCs. A week later, I received a call to arrange for an interview. This eventually lead to my employment. It was a minimal diploma wage, but money wasn't the main factor now. This is my first IT related job(aside from some IT sales during computer fairs), and money is not the major concern. It was the experience which would carry me forward to my next job which would bring me real money. And the fact that I am employed as an IT Consultant definitely beats being a programmer. The minimum requirements for employing a programmer is a diploma and the minimum requirements for employing a IT consultant is a degree(except for this company). This, hopefully, means that I would carry on being a consultant on my next job, or some higher level position if possible of course.

With anxiety, I begin my IT career.