I believe you should’ve known who is Susan Boyle by now, unless you’ve been living in another world. She is the 47-year-old lady from Scotland who is jobless, single, and has a worse luck than many of us. And yet, she has a big dream – to perform in front of a lot of people. Try Google for her name. I bet you can come out with thousands of search results. Or try to look for her Youtube video too. She can really sing!

The reason Susan Boyle has become one of the most popular names in the whole world just after 1 performance is because many people see themselves in her – undiscovered, hopeful, and with a big dream. They put all their hope on her shoulders – if she can win this, why not everyone else?

But she didn’t win the competition. It’s not that she did not perform well during the final. She did. But the thing is, people got tired of her.

And that is the sad thing about our society. When we see ourselves in someone or something, we praise the person and lift him/her up into the sky…and some even pray the person like a god or savior. But once things turn sour or boring, we kick the same “savior” aside and leave him to rot by the roadside. Why? Because we’re tired of the person and he has nothing else to give us. Nothing interesting anymore. Just like an old toy which has become boring.

This kind of thing might not happen to Susan Boyle alone. In fact, it can happen to anyone or anything that is popular. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about it because that is the power of the society (and in some cases, the media). What we can do though, is for ourselves – to face the challenges, taunts, burdens, etc bravely. Face them head on. Because it is OUR dream that we are chasing, not other people’s dream.

To Susan Boyle and everyone else who is in her situation – be brave. Know the reason why you are being so brave for, the reason why you step out from your shell and into the limelight, the reason why you are willing to work day and night, and the reason why you should ignore the rest of the world with their negative comments. Nobody can stop you from calling your journey “end of dream” except for yourselves.

And for those people and the media who love to make people’s life a big mess……go find other better things to do.

p/s…Do read this article from one of the judges of GBT. Piers Morgan: Final blog

I had this dream of 2 Singapore celebrities, who were trying to ask me out. (ok ok, I know this will never ever happen in real life). Let’s call them A and B. However, I’m more interested in A because B is just too “manja” for me.

So B tried to ask me out for a number of times but I rejected. She then turned to my parents and tried to make them like her.

A on the other hand, made a move as well. She asked me to go her house and have dinner with her family. I agreed.

When I reached her house, I was asked the wait at the living room with her. She then asked “Alvin, do you notice any difference in my living room?”

I looked around – from the window, to the TV set, to the aquarium, and then the altar. And I stopped. On the altar, there were statues of several deities but there was something else. A and her family were praying something else with joss sticks.

It was a …..a can of luncheon meat. =_=

And yeah, I woke up 30 minutes before my alarm clock rang and said “What the heck was that?!”

Guess I must be feeling too excited for my new job next week.

p/s…. my blog was attacked by Wordpress’ famous white screen of death due to a plugin upgrade. I’ve fixed it for now…and hopefully it won’t come back to haunt me.

Just few days ago, as I was reading John Bogle’s Enough, I came across this simple story which sounds a bit like this:

Long time ago, there was this rich farmer who wanted to be richer. He has heard stories about diamond mines in a land far far away and due to his greed for more money, he went on a journey searching for these diamonds. He tried and tried…and tried… but after years of searching, he could not find a single diamond. He was getting very old and very tired. And he decided to end it once and for all – he jumped into the deep ocean and committed suicide.

Not long after that, another person took over his house and farm. One day, as this new owner was walking along the river behind his house, he saw this shiny object in the river – this shiny object was a huge diamond. And that area then became a very famous mine for diamonds.

After reading this short story, I feel it further strengthens 2 of my beliefs – opportunities are abundant irregardless of where you are and best things in life could be something you have been experiencing all this while.

All you need to do is to pay more attention to your surroundings, to your life, to your job, to the people around you. What most people don’t do is that they focus more on something they don’t have….other countries, other jobs, what other people have, etc. That is why to them, grass is always greener on the other side.

So for a change, try focus more on your own life, yourselves, your family, and what is available to you now – and then try to make the best out of them.

Hope it helps.

For example, just a few days ago, I posted my artwork in a local forum. I was looking for tips and guidelines as to how I can improve my art. I know it’s bad. After all, it’s been a while since the last time I used my cheap drawing tablet. But the reply I got was very demotivating – “Seriously, for your age, your art is very very bad”.

Actually, the person didn’t mean any harm but when you first read the message, you’ll have the idea that he is saying “you are too old to do this”.

It was very demotivating at first. But after a while, I cleared it off my mind because I feel that one is never too old to pursue one’s dreams. We see this in a lot of people, people who are very frustrated with their boring 9-5 jobs that they quit, and move on to pursue their dreams. And I’m not talking about people in their 20s or 30s, I’m talking about people in their 40s or more. Some people do that while in their retirement age.

Perhaps that explains the recent success of Susan Boyle, who at 40+, finally manages to achieve one of her lifelong dreams. A lot of people see themselves in her – people who have this unfulfilled lifelong dreams, hidden inside their heart for years. And she just shows everyone that it is still possible to do that no matter how bad things are (jobless, etc) as long as she believes in it.

So to those who are already not very young, but still have their lifelong dreams hidden somewhere within them…..don’t feel bad. You’re not alone. And the good news is, you can pursue those dreams of yours no matter how old you are. Remember that it is not age that matters, but your will to achieve what you want to achieve in life.

As for me, I have many dreams to pursue (ok, I’m greedy when it comes to this) and I will not give up no matter how old I am. After all, I only live once.

We don't need new hand-free accessory every few months, do we?

But look at now. Nokia comes out with a new model every 3 months, and there are different ranges of mobile phones – the N series, the E series, the normal 6000s series, etc. If you take into consideration the models from other companies such as LG, Samsung, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson, there are easily more than 10 models for a particular price range. Consumers are simply spoilt for choice – which, is creating a new market for the reviewers since they are helping people to test our stuff and help consumers make their decisions.

This is not really a bad thing for the consumer. Problem is, with a new model every 3 months, the value of the current model will drop and drop FAST. It’s as if the attention span or life span of the model has becoming shorter, unlike many years ago where there will only be a new model every 6 to 9 months. Buying a N85 soon? Expect the price to drop for at least 30-50% 1 year later.

And with the attention span of products getting shorter, the money spent in the R & D and development of the new models will increase – thus, cutting down the profit margin. To me, this kind of market is becoming a bloody red ocean where competitors are fighting with each other in terms of price and technology. There will never be a big winner in such a situation.

But maybe, just maybe, companies involved in this kind of war should stop and look at what consumers really want. Why do I say this? Well, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and other phone companies have been fighting for so many years………but when the newbie Apple came in with their IPhone, they managed to dominate a large chunk of the market share.

Why? Because Apple realizes a few things when it comes to catching the consumers’ heart.

• Consumers don’t need, and most don’t want to change the item to a newer version every 3 months unless it’s free.
• Consumers hate seeing the value of their item drop so much within a short period of time.
• Consumers want items which have longer attention span and not some items which are bought and forgotten within a month’s time.
• Consumers want good quality stuff.

Maybe companies should start realizing the above points and give the consumers something SPECIAL. No point fighting with each other and neglect what the consumers really want. Because in the end, people will just ignore you and your war, and go to the one which gives them the best.

P/S…. i will be away to Bangkok for project deployment (finally!!) from Sunday until Wednesday. Thus, I might not be able to update the blog regularly at that time.

Anyway, I’ve some good n bad news for you all.

The good news first.

• I’m back! Okay, I’ve said that already.
• I’ll resume blogging from Monday onwards.
• The number of RSS subscribers of this blog have achieved 20 mark for the first time! Yeah yeah, I know it’s a small number but it’s quite a record for this blog. If you haven’t subscribe to this blog’s RSS, you can do so HERE.

and the bad news….

• I will not be blogging actively during the next 2 weeks as I’ll still be rushing my project. I was rushing the project during CNY as well. I’ll still try my best to blog as much as possible, but work comes first and the project does need my help (which is actually a good news since I’m not a liability).
• I lost quite most of my “ang pow” money to those “sports” during CNY. LOL. Well, not all of the money anyway…not the big ones. Lesson of the day – Alvin should not be greedy in this “cow” year. =_=

Besides the good and bad news about my life, there are some observations I’ve made during CNY period which I want to share with you all. See, this blog is not all about me.

• The economy is really bad, even in Malaysia. A lot of factories are closing down, and many more are retrenching workers.
  

  More people are getting married this year...even though it's recession period

• In fact, I do believe Malaysia will be very badly hit by recession and the signs will become obvious in May or June 2009.
• Crime rate is going up because those foreigners are the first to be retrenched. And when they’re desperate, where can they turn to?
• Dengue cases are on the rise in Malaysia. So kill all the mosquitoes you see and check if your house have any stagnant water. Do it weekly or 3 times a week, if possible.
• A lot of people are getting married this year! Be prepared for lots of red bombs.
• I expect to see a lot of sales and promotions as businesses try to improve consumer spending. So if you are looking to buy some stuff, try to be patient and choose only the best deals. Sales will not be something rare this year.
• Besides sales & promotions, I also expect to see more options for consumers since businesses will be competing with each others to get the bigger piece of the market – price war…technology war…etc.
• The food & beverages business is affected by the recession as well. More people are eating @ home, and they are switching to vege n chicken diet…less seafood. My father’s friend who sells fresh seafood complained to us the other day that business is really becoming from bad to worse.
• Cosmetics business is going to get more popular…since I noticed that more young girls in my hometown (which is quite a small place) are using make-ups nowadays, as compared to few years ago.

Hmm can’t think of anything now. I think I better sleep. Seriously lacking sleep. =_=

Last but not least, thanks for all those who visited and commented on this blog while I was away.

This explains why it's important to check and read your emails

I’m not talking about people from the older generation who are relatively new to such technology (well, my father who is in his 60s knows how to use an email properly). I’m talking about the professionals (even IT professionals) and executives in large corporations. You will be surprised that there are still some of them who do not know how to use their email properly. Here are some of the things I’ve observed.

• You’ve sent out an email containing information about the company’s annual dinner including time, location (with a map), etc. You even highlighted the important things with bold, red color and underlined them. And yet, there are still a lot of people who are asking you for details – details on the time, location, and other things which have been mentioned.
• You sent out an email to a group of employees to inform them of about an event. You’ve put a “voting” option at the top of the email in order to allow them to reply a “Yes, I’m attending”  or “No, I’m not attending”. However, 80% of the responses are coming in the form of email reply. And the replies are being sent to everyone in the list. So the whole list of employees (can be more than 10, or more than 100), will be receiving tonnes of emails saying “Yes, count me in” or “No, I have a dinner appointment with my fiance’s family”.
• People forwarding chain mails to you because of 2 things – your email is in his address book, and he is afraid to get cursed if he doesn’t forward the chain/curse mail.
• Your friends/colleagues sending invitations to some unknown competitions without your permission, just so that they stand a better chance of winning the competition themselves.
• Team members or colleagues sending HIGH PRIORITY emails to you even though the contents are not really that important. Their HIGH PRIORITY might not be your HIGH PRIORITY.
• People sending emails to you in difficult to read font (too small, too big, too fancy font type, etc) because they want to be artistic or creative.
• Your team member uses your name in an email to the client just to cover his own ass. “According to Alvin, this is something which should not be done.”
• You figure that it’s good to go straight to the point in an email. In fact, it IS good. But the next thing you know, your colleagues from another country started to complain to your bosses that you are very rude in the email. Different culture, different mindset and different way to communicate. An email way of communication should not be associated to a normal form of communication.
• And the worst one of them all. You sent out an email to inform some of your colleagues about the new changes made by the income tax department. Some idiots started to give their personal opinions and chat happily in the email….sending those nonsense emails to everyone in the list.

I can really go on and on and on about such incidents. It’s funny how such common mistakes can be made by people who have been using emails for many many years – and some of the people who I’ve met are from IT industry. Remember that having my email address does not give you the permission to spam me or to send nonsense stuff to me.

Do it more often, and your emails will end up in my junk folder.

P/S….. Maybe someone should really come out with some online guides to teach people (especially professionals and executives), on how to use email properly, though I doubt any of them will be willing to put down their ego and read such guides.

One of my 2009 plans - keep fit !

Here are some of my plans for 2009:

1. Have an emergency fund (I don’t have one yet ).
2. Improves my financial net worth by 5% to 10% (the higher the better of course).
3. Spend more time with my family members and be a good son and brother.
4. Stay healthy and fit by going to the gym more regularly (which I’ve failed due to the project urgency =_=).
5. Start developing some useful IT products and share them with other people.
6. Contribute more to charity such as blood donation.
7. Earn more from online. Currently not earning much =_=.
8. Improve my creative skills – drawing, designing, creative writing, etc.
9. Learn more about other investment types in Malaysia.
10. Have an idea (or more) on the type of business I plan to start in a few years time.
11. Read more and more non-fiction books!

As you can see, some of those plans are pretty challenging but I don’t see them as impossible. In 2008, I’ve set some ridiculously difficult goals and ended up not achieving any of them. This year, I’m more realistic and I do believe all the above can be achieved. Just need to be more hardworking.

Actually, I intend to write my predictions for 2009 but….I ended up writing too much!! So I’m going to put it into another separate post.

Source : http://earthguide.blogspot.com/2008/06/angry-customers.html

That’s why if your business is not helping the customers to fix their problems…then you should really start to be afraid of losing them. And if your business is actually giving customers more problems than they already have, then forget about “you should really start now”…instead, it should be “you MUST change your business now”. Otherwise, you will lose your customers. No doubt about that.

***** Beginning of rant *****

And this was what happened to me the other day. I went to Best Denki @ KLCC to shop for my company’s annual dinner lucky draw prizes. I was there for 10 minutes, and nobody actually came forward to ask me whether I need any help. I then approached one of the employees there after running out of patience.

Me : Hi, I actually need some help here.

Employee : Yes sir, how can I help you?

Me : I need someone to serve me. I’ve been waiting here for 10 minutes.

Employee : Sorry sir. What do you need? Maybe I can help.

Me : Ok, I have RM xxxx budget for my company’s annual dinner. I need like 25-30 items, and here’s the breakdown of the estimation.

Employee : Hmmmm.

Me : So for one of the prizes, I need a 32 inch LCD TV. Also, if there’s any other item which can give me more free stuff, even better.

Employee : Okay…I will have to look around. Not very sure.

Me : Also, I will need a digital camera. Do you have any camera to suggest?

Employee : Oh, I’m not in-charged of camera. I’m only in-charged of the TV and the theater system. I can direct you to the person in-charged in the camera department.

…… he then showed me to the camera guy, and disappeared….forever. The same thing happened few times, I was being passed from one person-in-charged to another… and from what I heard from them, all the departments are independent from one another and there’s no cooperation whatsoever. If I were to buy a camera, and a TV, I will have to list down the items by myself and get the best price by myself, and finally, get the final list of items to try and get for more discounts from the store manager.

What’s the difference then, if I were to just go to Low Yat and buy the items separately, rather than buying everything under one shop? The purpose of shops such as Best Denki is to make it convenient for customers to get everything in a single place. I think they got their direction and objective completely wrong.

Of course, I became quite pissed off with the service (and near to 0% discount) and left the store. Today, I went to Harvey Norman to look for the sales guy I know and he settled everything for me. I just told him, I’ve shortlisted few items and I need a camera, an IPOD, this n that, and total up to so and so many items, and I only have this budget. Suggest to me what can I get and which one is actually better than the other. And also give me the best price possible. When I’ve shortlisted everything, I told him to try to discount a bit further so that I can fit few more items in. And he did it after a quick check with the system.

The entire ordeal lasted only for around 2 hours. And the discount was very good.

***** End of rant *****

I settled all my needs in a single place, without any fuss. Problem solved, no hassle and convenient for me. This is how such businesses should be run.

So the next time you want to start a business (or planning what to do with your business), think for the customers. Does your business exist to help them fix problems, or to give them more problems? Erm…if it is latter, then you better close down your business. If it is the former, then you should ensure your business IS practicing the right model – the model which will make your customers happy (fix their problems using hassle-free methods).

Anyway, have you ever come across MSN messages with funny looking links? Have you ever clicked on those links? If yes, then good luck. You can now go search for the solution in Google. If not, then thankfully you are one of the smarter and not-so-blur people.

Source: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/other/

Recently, I realized that these virus-related MSN messages are becoming more and more active. I received more than 7 today and my record was more than 10 in a single day. It’s very irritating because you’re busy doing something, and these messages keep appearing. I’ve told those friends of mine but the problem did not go away. My next step? Remove those friends from my MSN list and put them into my ignore list.

This kind of virus attack is pretty common since few years ago. And it’s amazing how many people have become their victims…. some of them IT people. I still remember there was this incident in my ex-company where my colleague actually called me to his place while I was busy doing something (I’m a good employee). I obliged and went to his place…well, he was sitting next to me anyway.

Friend : Alvin, got good stuff to show you?

Alvin : Har? What good stuff?

Friend : This leng lui (pretty girl in Cantonese) friend of mine is sending me this link to her photos!

Alvin : Aiks. Better don’t simply click ler. A lot of virus attacks nowadays.

Friend : Aiya, won’t get attacked one. We got firewall and antivirus in the PC what. What can a link possibly do?

… and he clicked. What happened after that was that his desktop became immediately cluttered with Internet Explorer browsers… some 30 to 40 of them. It kept opening until his Windows crashed. 5 minutes later, our ever friendly IT support friend called.

IT : Oi, who brought in virus ?!

Alvin : Er…I think XXX accidentally clicked on something.

IT : Why he so stupid 1? IT people should know better what? Gosh, now the entire network is affected!

…. and my friend was trying to find a hole to hide at that time. The IT support guy ended up lecturer him for more than 10 minutes.

I really wonder why are such people so stubborn? Don’t they know that their curiosity might actually affect everyone else in the company, not just themselves? Being an IT professional for so many years, one should know better never to click on such unknown links but due to their curiosity, most of them would not bother. And perhaps, that is the reason why 5 out of the 7 people who have sent me to virus related MSN messages today are my IT friends. =_=

Seriously…no comment.

My advice to you is never to take that high a risk if it is going to involve other people. If it’s just you, then by all means, go ahead. Otherwise, best to keep those itchy fingers of yours in your pockets. Don’t create more problems for other people especially when you are supposed to be the one fixing those problems up. A doctor who injects himself with the wrong jab does not fit to be a doctor. Similarly, an IT guy who gets himself attacked by computer virus even though all the signs are telling him it is a virus, does not fit to be an IT guy….at least not a useful one.

p/s…. if you are IT folks and have been attacked by “high quality” viruses, then it’s still not that bad. After all, those viruses are pretty hard to track down.