From Nov 2013 to Apr 2014, I am working on my 1st mobile app side project on top of my full-time job. Made Motoqlik with Brandon and friends. It is a motorists social app that we would like to refer to as a revolutionary way for motorists to connect.
If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late. - Reid Hoffman
Fun times. We have to re-shoot our video because the hdd crashed and we lost all the footage. I also did my 1st info-graphic.
Now, I have some plans on stripping the features and design for a new version. However, I am not sure if it will be worth the effort. And I have other priorities…
This place has been neglected, due to a side project which took up the bulk of my spare time. It’s not ready/release yet, so only a small preview of an illustrated car that I drew. It’s one of my 1st few attempts using the pen tool in illustrator. :)
Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time,’ is like saying, ‘I don’t want to’. ― Laozi
A few pics from my 1st off-road attempt with the Yamaha TW200. It’s a simple trail, just to test out the bike. I will attempt again in the day.
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Ever since I have started working, I realise there’s a need for mini escapades to recharge oneself. I don’t mean expensive, long, exotic travels, but escapades that can be close to home, cheap, simple, short and yet very effective.
I decided to document my escapades down in hope of encouraging people to get outside of their comfort zone, go somewhere they’ve never been, go on a mini adventure.
I aim to achieve an escapade once a month. With these escapades build up gradually, I hope inspire more to start on their own mini escapades.
I was helping to populate content, only to realise the system wasn’t smart enough to generate its own thumbnails. Someone told me to screenshot the 1st page of each pdf and then upload the image.
This is an utterly waste of time. Hence, I decided to write something to batch generate thumbnails using Image Magick.
Use the command below to generate 100 pixels wide image from the sample.pdf. the [0] means 1st page. You can select the page you want by inputing the page number - 1.
convert -thumbnail 100x sample.pdf[0] sample.png
You can combine them with any PHP, Django script. I’m lazy so I use my Mac’s Automator to batch execute it. You can also use the bash command below.
for file in *.pdf; do convert $file[0] -thumbnail 100x -quality 85 -background white -flatten $file-tn.jpg; done
I can’t wait to attend the 3 days Scrum Master Certification by ISS. Ever since I was first introduced to SCRUM, I’ve been trying to practice it.
However, I din’t really get the chance to practice it fully as the companies I’ve worked in are very much following the old “Waterfall Model”. And I also believe they are not ready to work with SCRUM yet.
But I have been slowly applying SCRUM principles and techniques into the process, skipping the terminologies and all, hoping to get them comfortable and one day they will realised “Oh, we’re actually using SCRUM.” –if they actually know what it is.
With this certification, I hope to encourage people the best practices of SCRUM and to particpate in a SCRUM team that appreciates it.
It is embarrassing not to know standards, let alone not to use standards. You may be able to fool your way through, but eventually someone will found out, and you’re gonna to appear silly.
So, know your standards. It’s so easy now with Google Search.
You will always be describing a process. Determine the process that is to be automated, and describe it.
You must understand something at one level before you can truly understand it at a lower level. Start your analysis by describing the overall process at a high level of abstraction to form the framework of the rest of your analysis.
You must describe “What” not “How”. The business process should be described independent of how a system would help a user to complete the process.
Follow the “80/20 Rule”. The “80” = the main process flow, when everything goes smoothly. The “20” = the variations from the main flow.
Describe each step and sub-step in a process as “Somebody does something with some information”. This syntax will help describe the process in a way that is understandable by all, and will lead to the simple identification of the true business requirements.
“Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.” ― René Descartes
Isn’t most things in life strikes us as common sense? Or at least, that is what I thought so, same for many others. But common sense is not so common.
“Common sense is seeing things as they are; and doing things as they ought to be.” ― Harriet Beecher Stowe
Common sense “should” be the root of all analysis. However, common sense is highly subjective and requires definition. Many people see things differently, think differently and thus doing things differently with reasons behind it. And I do think it’s rude when one says “Use your common sense”.
