The Diarrhoea Continues

After 2 very experienced people left my company in July, a department head starts a 6-month leave tomorrow.

In my opinion, he's as good as gone.

Try Solving This Without Algebra!

This is a P5 problem. Try it!

Juliet, Ken and Jamal shared a bunch of bananas.
Juliet took 2 more than 2/5 of the bananas.
Ken took 4 more than 1/4 of the remaining bananas.
Jamal took the last 8 bananas.
How many bananas were there at first?

The Improved (Or so they thought) UI - Part III

Sometimes, I needed to select files, often from the same directory (this is called organized! Doing related tasks!). After clicking on the Browse button to open the file browser dialog, I had to click on the + and - buttons to expand and collapse the directories accordingly. I cannot click on the directory name, like in windows explorer.


But this stupid Sequel CANNOT remember where I last visited! So when I click on the Browse button to open the file browser, I had to click those + all over again. So difficult when I'm tired man, so many levels to go down, and must aim to click on that small small +. And each click takes 1s to load.

GRRR.

The Improved (Or so they thought) UI - Part II

For my current project, we have drawn up a workflow for our customer, Mama, to create and update their portal.

small fry creates page and submits to superior for verification

->

superior reviews and submits to super-superior for verification

->

super-superior approves and publishes the page

The Inbox is where Mama will receive and process workflow tasks.

While testing the workflow, I took on the role of a small fry and clicked on the Inbox for the first time, wanting to send a page to my superior to verify.

At the first glance, the 2 green arrows pointing left and right reminded me of back and forward arrows in browsers. Very similar in colour to firefox and IE hor? But of course Sequel is not for surfing, so the next logical use is the page scrolling arrows as discussed in Part I. But cannot be ley, it's there even though there's only 1 item in the Inbox. I mouseovered the 2 icons:
   

Not bad, still got description. So it's not this one.

Hmm... could it be the icon with a tick? Tick means ok, can send to next stage, right? I mouseovered it.

Dehhh.

Huh this thing is details ah? 哪里像?

How about the icon with the accusing finger?

Dehhh.


Then which one??

The sotong has learnt her lesson. Referring to Sotong@Work, ya, it's the arrows. They actually mean "Next (stage)" and "Previous (stage)".

-_-;;

But not to discredit the UI totally, it's standard to place the basic function at the top left corner. So it's not THAT hard.

The Improved (Or so they thought) UI - Part I

The software Sequel (the name has been changed to protect my identity) that my company bought to create customers' portals with, has pretty but un-intuitive and sometimes frustrating user interface (UI) after the latest major version release¹.

There is a file browser for well, browsing directories and the files in the directories. The idea is similar to the window's file explorer. File structure on the LHS, file list on the RHS.


So what happens when you have too many files to be displayed in one glance? Being used to the IE explorer, I naturally expected a scroll bar to appear on the RHS. But when I couldn't find my newly created files, I assumed the creation failed and repeated the creation. This happened a few times before I noticed something new on top:

Before

After

My file list has spilt to the next page. This UI is not very successful in my opinion because I did not notice at first glance that they use pages instead of scrollbar. I had to delete the extras. Extra work *grumbles*

I need to click the arrow button to scroll to the next page. It wouldn't be a problem if the screen doesn't take at least 3s to refresh, like it does now. You think 3s is not too long to wait? How irritating is it when, after you have created the new page, the screen refreshes and always display page one when my new pages are always appended at the end of page 2? The same happens when I refresh the screen when I'm at page 2, and it displays page 1 instead of 2 when it's done.

In other words, Sequel cannot remember where I am and it HAS to display page 1 first. I have to scroll back and forth repeatedly. I like my things instant.

Hey, there's the "Display all" button! With a click, a scroll bar appears by the side and displays everything in the same screen like magic! *muek*

But when I change directory by clicking on the LHS, it's back to square one. Sequel doesn't remember your setting/preference. *sad*

If you think I'm making a mountain out of a mole, you don't understand lazy sotongs.

¹major version release: v1.1 -> v2.0 is a major release. v1.1 -> v1.2 is a minor release

Lazy But Blur Sotong in Action

I was given the task of editing a document. I had to draw up a table and 1 column is for urls. The urls were similar, just different at the last bit: http://mama.com.sg/level1/level2/level3/variable.html

The Meaning of LAZY
After typing the 2nd url, I realised that I should have copied and pasted the url in all the necessary places, then manually highlight the last bit and type in. Faster right? Why didn't I think of it earlier!

The Meaning of BLUR
After I had finished pasting the url all over, I realised that I had chosen the longer of the 2 urls to copy. This meant I had to highlight more characters to get the job done.
url1: http://mama.com.sg/level1/level2/level3/home.html --> highlight 4 chars
url2: http://mama.com.sg/level1/level2/level3/ 1234567_12345678_123456.html --> highlight 23 chars, of which 2 are underscores!!

*cold wind blows, sotong freezes and cracks*

Why Oh Why...

Do some bitches use the sitting toilet when they really want to squat?
May they slip and get their foot into their own pools.

Powerful Password Authentication!

My company purchased this system for developing portals. Recently, due to a copy and paste error, I stumbled across this bug in the login mechanism of the administration module.

If your password is "mypassword", as long as you enter "mypassword" at the beginning, it doesn't matter if there's rubbish characters behind it.

"mypassword" will be accepted.
"mypasswordHAHA" will be accepted.
"HAHAmypassword" will be rejected.

WOW.

What If 龙虎门 Doesn't Have ISO Certification...

My company is into ISO certification, resulting in lots of documentation to create/update all the time. It's quite a pain in the ass, when I feel that nobody ever reads it. I won't. Playing around with the application is faster.

But after watching 龙虎门, the typical 江湖 story where there's this orthodox martial arts school with:

• just 1 single master
• 1 young adult who cannot make it
• the brother of the young adult who left 龙虎门 from young, and hence I assumed he has limited knowledge of those skills
  
• plenty of ginnas who can lie on a needle bed

An evil guy killed the master and the rest of the cast seeked revenge, emerging victorious of course. At the end of the day, we have:


Not sure if those ginnas were still alive.

But I worry for the young leaders. With nobody to pass down the skills and the most senior person totally cannot make it, how were they going to continue? Has 龙虎门 achieved ISO certification, documenting their skills in a 武林秘籍?

If not, here's the conclusion:

Meet the Retro Juicer

Hi! I'm slow and proud of it

Talk about standing out from the crowd. While the world is competing to be the fastest, here is one that takes pride in being the slowest in the market, thus warranting a premium.

Some highlights

Locks in natural flavours and nutritional value because of its low-speed technology (80rpm)
(You mean retro-technology? But it's still technology hor, fine. My finger can spin faster than that, WTH.)

"NewLife™ Alpha Juicer" has a built in devise which prevents it from over heating. You don't have to worry about how long it is used because it shuts itself off when overheated and starts running again when cooled down. Thus, it is also suitable for commercial use.
(慢功出细货. Have to grind for so long that it can overheat! Still have to wait for it to cool down! Take forever to get your juice man! You dare to use at your juice stall or not? Can it be commercially-viable?)

The "NewLife™ Alpha juicer" is also very quiet.
(Of course what, so slow.)

Yup, 100X the cost of an ordinary food blender, for -100X speed. (See here for the price of this juicer. Scroll to the bottom.)
I've seen another model that requires the user to cut the food into very small pieces before the juicer can process it.

If you really want that speed, how about this, for 100X less than that Alpha Juicer?

Or how about this? It's free.

Just use your mouth lah.

Enjoy!

@Toa Payoh only. Dun try to use it at other outlets. That will be so 丢脸.

Ma, I Think I Had Seen A UFO When I Was a Baby

On 12th Aug, I reached Esplanade at 5.30pm to chop a prime spot to watch the final fireworks display by Team France. The area in front of the firing point was already full, but the opportunist in me did not fret. Upon seeing an Indian lady turn to talk to her friend, I pounced on the empty area created after she lifted one butt. *V*

I only had a copy of 8 Days and a nail clipper to keep me occupied. 7pm onwards was spent looking around as it was getting dark.

Some flashing light caught my attention. It was a battery-operated fan perched on top of a baby stroller. The centre of the fan was designed to resemble a UFO, flashing red light, bright, dim, bright, dim at the sleeping baby.

Wa so irritating can? I wondered if the parents have any brains. Sure, it looks fun, having a UFO-like fan, but did they think about how they would feel if someone were to flash light at them while they were sleeping? Luckily babies can sleep anywhere, anytime.

Or maybe they are trying to train the baby to be resistant to Photosensitive epilepsy from young, so he/she won't get fits should he/she get addicted to the computer in future.

Talking about light, I'm glad my handphone has a light feature, so I could still read 8 Days at 8pm.

Sotong Takes Advantage of People's Kindness

I was given time off in the afternoon for a medical appointment. Although I was done at 2.10pm, I went home instead of back to office. So happy to nuah!

But tomorrow cham liao lah, work accumulating from National Day and this afternoon ^_^;;

People With Chinese Nicks Like to Befriend a Sotong

These days, I've been swamped¹ by requests to add me in MSN. Those requests has some similarities:

• The nicks are in Chinese.


• The nicks try to sound poetic.


• They use hotmail.


• The email address has an underscore.


• The front part of the email address is in letters, and the part after the underscore has string of digits, making it resemble a serial number.

Aiyah anyway, I don't recognize the email and I can't think of anyone who might want to add me. But the first time, to give the benefit of doubt, I added the person.

Sotong: who is this?
远方不是终点，风景在路上: 很高兴认识你~：）
Sotong: do i noe u?
远方不是终点，风景在路上: 有事，回头聊
(Sets to Away)
Walau you dare to set Away! I want my answer now! Threaten him/her first
Sotong: i'm blocking u
Waited 10s for an answer, in vain
Ask you question you don't reply! 好大的胆子！ I block you!

I still get requests from dubious people that fit the above description. Block all lor. The reason behind the surge in popularity? Dunno ley, my email probably got discovered by some Chinese spammer?

¹swamped: 1 request every 2 or 3 days

Sotong@Work

Sotongs are not meticulous
First thing in the morning, I was tasked with comparing the settings of 2 servers for a discrepancy. It is not know what or where it could be. As there was no way I could do it the lazy way by letting a program do the work, I could only use my eyes. It's not difficult, just tedious and boring.

So I spent the whole morning combing through each and every option page, tabs within the option pages, links with the tabs... until I ran out of places to find, but still cannot find! Cannot be! The only way was to search all over again.

And I found the discrepancy, tucked away in an innocent-looking link at the very first place I looked.

Moral of the story: If you have looked everywhere for something and yet still can't find it, it's probably at the first place you looked

It doesn't pay to be lazy
Weeks ago, I coded menu generation function for a portal. After confirming that the file structure for the portal is only 3 levels deep and being assured that there would be no more changes as it has been signed off by the user, I figured that it should be sufficient for my function to handle up to 3 levels instead of wasting braincells to produce something that can handle an infinite number of levels.

Yesterday, my leader pointed out a "bug", that the menu doesn't display properly after the 3rd level.

DOT DOT DOT.

Moral of the story: Always follow good programming practices.

958 DJs Like to Bullshit Song Titles

I can't remember the number of times those 958 DJs (yes, not just 1 culprit) who like to blatantly cook up their own title for the song they have just played.

"幸福，我要的幸福，渐渐清楚..."
DJ: 刚刚那首歌是孙燕姿的。。。“幸福”。

O_O

Byebye Bad Neighbour!

The person sitting behind me at work has moved to another desk! Yay!

I remembered that when he first moved over, he had this box that's big enough for me to sit in, full of his stuff. It was placed between our chairs, with part of it blocking my drawer such that I couldn't open it. But since I needed my drawer rarely and I thought he needed time to put all that stuff into his cabinets, I let it be.

But 1+ weeks later, that hazardous roadblock was still there. It dawned upon me that he had no intention of removing the box, so I asked him gently to "move his box a bit" because I couldn't open my drawer. Luckily he moved it under his table instead of moving it aside temporarily for me to open my drawer and back after I was done. Ok I should have asked earlier, but he should have realised too!

After the box stopped blocking me, stuff from his side, like his chair and dustbin blocked me from time to time. Many times, I had to shift his dustbin back because it crossed the line and became mine. He don't need dustbin one meh! Cannot put under his table meh! And why must he push his chair so far out when he gets up? Very hazardous for me ok!

The MOST irritating thing was that he likes to play a few songs on loop on his speakers softly, but I still can hear. If he has a huge collection, I won't mind, but not when it's the same album!! I know he's often away from his desk, so he would like to listen whenever he's around, but I'm listening too much! Can't he pause the player when he's away?! Imagine subjecting me to the same 10 or so songs from 9am-7pm! I wasn't spared during lunch either. Why can't he use a earphone like the rest of us -_-

First, he looped Coldplay's A Rush of Blood to the Head. By the end of the week, I was totally sian of Coldplay. From then on, I skipped all songs from that album because I've had enough of them.

Then, he finally changed his music. But my joy was not for long, because he looped that too! This time, it's Norah Jones. Her songs damn sleepy man! CAN'T STAND IT ARGHHH. I countered with Linkin Park louder in my ears.

After another 1+ week, he changed his music again, to Faye Wong's <<只爱陌生人>> album. This time, I wasn't happy because this meant I might actually grow to hate a singer I like. Hate did grow, but only for songs from that album. I never want to hear songs from that album again. I do hope it's temporary though.

At this rate, I think I will have many songs on my hatelist.

Fortunately, he only let these 3 albums take turns to loop for a few days. Phew. And now he's moved!

Talking about looping songs and neighbours, I have a neighbour from above my house who likes to REPEAT 王力宏's Kiss Goodbye ad infinitum and SING ALONG. On the repeat list are 王力宏's Forever Love and also a certain Japanese song that I don't know of. This kid ah, I think should still be in primary school ba, judging from the voice, also like to play ancient stuff like Dr Bombay, Leon Lai's Happy 2000, 梁婆婆 videos (and sing along HOOHOOHOOHOO!), Power Ranger videos (and sing along GO GO POWER RANGERS!)... More recent songs will be 王心凌 and a remix album that has 陈伟联's 童话.

It's so bad that Kiss Goodbye has been banished to my hatelist for eternity. GRRRRRR~~

Sotong the Valued Employee

I'm finally worth as much as a lowly-paid fresh graduate.

Come August, my payslip will reflect a new figure that is 4.56521739130434782060869565217391% higher than what I'm currently drawing. What a surprise, as I thought there wouldn't be any this year. But not overjoyed, because I feel it's 理所当然 and I'm still underpaid.

All good things must come with a price. To lay my hands on my incr*m*nt letter, I had to undergo a ~30min discussion-turned-lecture (because I didn't talk much) by my boss. He came to catch me to his room after office hours. Once I was seated, he handed it to me. I must confess I was already expecting it because my friend spotted a huge stack of letters last week and he got his, like last week too? But must say thank you also lah, like a true blue Singaporean, once you get something, say thank you first before realising you shouldn't have. Remember in Singapore Idol, got people say thank you after being told to leave?

O back to story. He asked me how's work.

I replied that's it's ok now, but if this session took place last week, I would have said something quite different.

He was surprised to hear that. I explained that I was having indigestion of information, but was much better with a lot of help.

He said my PMs are happy with my work...

Sure or not... I was a disaster the past 1mth ley... Giving black face when being told to do something for baby #1 I was babysitting, needing people to help me complete my work, putting the needs of baby #2 I was babysitting on the backburner...and more.

He said that this year's incr*m*nt is good, even better than last year's.

So what? Still underpaid ley.

The people up above fought hard to get us this sum from the board, for it was important to retain people.

OMG so it actually was more pathetic than this, or worse still, none?

Then I was treated to a story of 3 men playing with stone where the 3rd man wanted to build a cathedral with them. And the company suffered from diarrhoea because people were looking for money or didn't share the company's vision. People who stayed either just wanted a job, or they wanted to help the company grow. He asked me why I stayed.

!!!

I said I'm open to anything right now, so I accepted anything that came along. Then he concluded that I'm the kind that just wanted a job.

What! No lah! Got many reasons, but cannot let you know only!

He said it's fortunate that the company has a friendly culture. He asked me what I thought.

I praised everybody of course. There were things I'm not happy with, but it's also my fault for not attempting to change them. Generally, good.

I think that's about all. Can't quite remember because I had kinda stopped listening. It's just weird when someone who doesn't really talk to you, suddenly has so much to say. All the time, the @$)U*@ aircon vent was blowing straight at me. Walau!

After I was let out, I used the remaining 10min I had to wrap up my work for the day before leaving for tuition. Ya this is why I'm still around after office hours lah, waiting for tuition lor.

The Sotong Goes Vegetarian (temporarily) and etc

Celebrated my mum's birthday today!

A few weeks ago, mum said the temple she frequents could whip up a meal specially for us, for $60, and we had to book at least 1 day in advance. I almost agreed to have that on my birthday, but from past experience, temple food isn't fantastic, plus sotongs are carnivorous. This time, since it's her birthday, why not let her try? So yesterday, she happily made a booking for 11am the next day. I wake up later than that on weekend ley... T_T

But we ended up leaving home at 11am. With my mum, what's new?

The temple was surprisingly empty. Good! Can have the whole place to ourselves! This also meant that it's ok to be late! :P We announced our arrival and waited a while for the food to be served.

• 1 BIG plate of fried beehoon, that not too oily or salty. Good!


• 1 plate of fried wanton-look-alike. Very crispy! But it's not the same kind of crisp as those outside, dunno how to say lah. If I like it, it must be really good. According to my mum, people travel all the way here specially for that.


• 1 bowl of soup. Very thick, not the thin, salty cheat money kind.


• Sweet and sour tofu, with the narcissus mushroom. Mmmm~


• Stir-fried cauliflower, carrots, and others. Dun really like cauliflower.


• Mushroom and chestnut. :D~~


• Mock meat. I didn't touch that.

All these are meant for 10 people but there's only 5 of us. But since we all didn't have breakfast, 5x2=10! Can lah!

We ended up with 1/2 the beehoon left, which we dapao back. Stuffed!

Next stop was a haircut at EC House, because my mum is their supportor after 1 good experience for her and 1 good experience for me, and pretending the subsequent bad encounters were anomalies -_-

When my cutter asked if I was ok with the cut, I pointed out that the sides weren't quite symmetrical.

She answered, "有 meh?"

DUH! When a person who usually has no comments, actually has comments, it must be very bad! I think she cmi!!

The only good thing about that haircut trip was the Mc milkshake after that.

Mum trimmed my hair when we got home.

O then I watched Tokyo Drift, at home of course. So-so.

Then I waited for Monday to arrive >.<

I'm don't understand children

My students' birthday is coming. Nope, no typo here. 2 students and 1 birthday, because they are twins.

I realised I have no idea what 11-year-old girls like. I used to think why parents don't understand their children when they have been children, but now I'm in this situation when:
1) I'm not yet a parent
2) I'm only 13 x years older than them

SIGH

Mouth itchy lor, go and ask when their birthday is. Can I pretend I've never asked? -____-