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Are you struggling with your e-commerce venture?

Most probably you have heard about Pexda if you are in e-commerce business such as you are having your online store on Shopify, Amazon or eBay or any of the other online marketplace. In order to sell products online all we need to find a winning product that helps you in getting the most profit.

But really finding potential products a hectic task and somehow, at last, we ended up with ordinary products that may not help in making a good amount of sales and profit, and we start to lose morale.

So what should we do now? Should we hire a professional in order to get the potential products? What should we do to stop wasting time and money on bad products?

No! Things ain't that bad, there's will, there's a way! So what will be a solution to this most common problem, the answer is Pexda. Let's invest some time in understanding the fundamental of this amazing platform so-called Pexda.

Click Here to Check Out Pexda Now

What is Pexda?

Hunt new winning products in matter of a few clicks.

Increase profits by stop wasting money on bad products.

Use now: Pexda

No doubt, Pexda is No. 1 product hunt tool and they have an eye-catching tagline “Stop Wasting Your Money on Bad Products”.Basically, Pexda is a new way to look for the products you want to sell on your Shopify store or on Amazon.

You easily hunt winning products simply by using Pexda and earn good revenue form that products easily along with rocking in the market. Pexda is a spy tool in order to find winning products for drop shipping off Aliexpress.

No doubt starting you own dropshipping store and still don’t know what to sell is really a haunting dream! So with this platform, Pexda they will provide you products that might be the winning products. And the best thing is that they also have the product that has already tested and is also getting engagement.

How to use Pexda?

Pexda, is all about providing the best winning product for you to promote that product on your shopify store. As we have already used this tool and we get a good response from it and the best part is that it helped us in earning good amount of money as it provides us the potential products.

But, what I think is, in order to get most out of this Pexda we should know how to use it efficiently so that we can get the products early easily. So here is the way you can apply to find the products.

When you will be in Pexda, in the right-hand corner you find a field called Niches. And in niches, you can see many various products niches list and the best part is that they are also updating it regularly. Like you can see some of the niches like the family, sports, vehicles, consumer electronics and many more.

And here the best part is that you can also sort the products by the newest, the number of order, FB Ad (Date Newest), FB Ad-Likes, FB Ad- Reactions, Fb Ad- Share and more.

It will really help you in finding the best products possible and while sorting these products categories you can easily find the products on the left-hand side. If you are just using its free version then you will see that some of the products are being locked by them as these are the special products and they only provide access to its premium and ultimate members only.

Here in this screenshot you can see that the products are having all the information like how many orders are being placed by the customers, how many like and comment it get along with the product upload history and many more things. As these details will really help in finding the potential products.

So if your budget is allowing you to choose the premium or the ultimate plan then you can go that as that works best for us and we would like to recommend the premium plan for you. If you are not sure about the pricing here then you can just check the pricing below.

Pricing: Cost of Joining Pexda

Basically, there are three plans and these plans are listed below:

Standard: ($1.95/14 days), then $14.85/month

Great for new business.

• 3 days delay on new winning products
• Unlimited products per day
• Facebook Ad report
• Targeting Suggestion
• Ad Copy – Fresh Videos
• Geography & Device
• AliExpress report
• Amazon report
• eBay report
• Store Selling report
• Auto Hunt Tool
• 24/7 support

Premium ($24.95/month)

Everything you will get that you need for a growing business.

• Unlimited products per day
• Facebook Ad report
• Targeting Suggestion
• Ad Copy – Fresh Videos
• Geography & Device
• AliExpress report
• Amazon report
• eBay report
• Store Selling report
• Auto Hunt Tool
• 24/7 support

Ultimate ($99.95/month)

The best plan for scaling new products.

• Access to special products
• Unlimited products per day
• Facebook Ad report
• Targeting Suggestion
• Ad Copy – Fresh Videos
• Geography & Device
• AliExpress report
• Amazon report
• eBay report
• Store Selling report
• Auto Hunt Tool
• 24/7 support

                      Click Here to Check Out Pexda Now

Single Tasking or Multi-tasking

Most people, if given one task they will do it very well. There are some, who thought that they are so good at doing a single task for months and years, they tend to boast about it. They will start to look for ways to criticize others of not doing their job well.

But, well if you notice, most of the those who appeared to be struggling with their stuffs, are usually multi-tasking! The fact is, not everyone is able to multi-tasks, really. You can try to give someone who has been doing a single job or task well more tasks, and different ones, I can assure you, he or she will start crying for help after awhile.

So, how do you identify someone who is good at multi-tasking? Give him/her more tasks and see whether you hear any help call!

 

SYMC, FEYE, FTNT, CYBR and AKAM

Those stocks that I mentioned last month are still going strong, especially FTNT and AKAM. The CyberSecurity business is still growing bigger and bigger. With the recently security issues of espionage and  hacks, etc. any company that runs IT systems will definitely need to enhance their CyberSecurity postures. Anyone if don't even bother about it is going to regret!

So, on long term, I would say, CyberSecurity companies are still worth to invest in, I meant their stocks, really.

Best US Stocks to invest now

I did mentioned in my previous post, some of the stocks that are worth to invest in now. One such type of stocks is in CyberSecurity business, such as SYMC, FEYE, FTNT, CYBR and AKAM. As the world's companies are pretty much focused on CyberSecurity, heaps of money are spent on this area to secure their businesses. So, I think it's really worthwhile to invest in them, buy and hold on a long term basis.

The other types would be the Social Media companies such as TWTR, SNAP and FB. Generally, TWTR and FB are still doing well, but the latter is doing better. With close to 2-billion users, FB is simply the link to almost everyone connected in the digital space, except in China, and it will continue to grow in strength. Again, I think holding these stocks for long term is a good investment.

If you have the money, buy some BRK.A or BRK.B, Warren Buffett's company stocks. It has been consistent growing over the years as the company's business moves up, so long term holding is recommended.

Another type of stock recommended to invest in are businesses in the disk storage field, like for STX and WDC. So, go for them if you have spare cash, for long term holding only.

Volatile Stock Market

Beware, and be warned, the US stock market is getting more volatile. The last 2 weeks of stocks' price movement had frightened many away, dropped by a lot, and then up a bit, and then last week, it went up again. Other markets like in Asia, were also affected by the US stock market movement. Is that a sign that the 'Big Drop' is coming? A premonition perhaps?

Nobody really understands Mr Market well, even Mr Warren Buffet had his fair share of loss making, but he is still vested in the market. I have known friends who had cashed out of the market, holding cash now seems to be the norm, waiting for the 'Big Drop' to come, and then go into the market again to sweep up cheap deals.

so, are you holding cash now or still in the market?

Results for SYMC, FEYE, CDLR, CHKP and PANW

If you had bought shares in SYMC, FEYE, CDLR and PANW sometime in last Nov 2017, you would have at least gain 10-15%. CHKP is not doing well, but if you are still holding to it, I think it should recover in the next 2 months.

The market is still in a bullish state, some say this is due to the TRUMP effect and the tax cut that came into action, other countries are worrying that US companies are starting to pull back their revenues and earnings which previously parked in their overseas subsidiaries back to the States. Some of the money could jolly well be pour into the stock market, US employees would probably get more bonuses and this could lead to people spending more. So, does it mean that consumer products sales will rise?

Brick and mortar stores are no long business viable with the increased activity in eCommerce. The growing online purchases are the new living trend, people buying habits are changing. So, if these stores and companies do not embrace eCommerce, it could spell the end of their businesses.

What to invest in US stocks

Probably, this is the time of the year where most people are thinking where to go for holiday, but the next thing you would think about is how much money or budget do you want to spend on this holiday, right?

Think about money all the time can make you feel sad, even if you are not thinking about it, you know that when you are working, you are actually try to earn some money for a living. :(

So, how about doing some investment? What industries are booming now? Two that I think of are Cyber Security and Big data analytic, so which are the companies that can do well? Guess...

Well, how about FEYE, SYMC and CLDR? If you want to put in money in these companies, it's really going to be a long term investment, patience is gold. Just be patience.

Countdown to year end

Oh yes, it's November! Less than 2 months to go to a fresh new year. Hey, it's the time of the year when you want to spend more time with your family. Starts planning, MAN!!!

I have go through the last 10 months with ups and downs, so eventful, issues at work, personal problems, etc. Not all problems were easy to resolve, especially if it involves people. Human relationships are the most difficult to understand, you have to understand that people can forgive, but they never forget. As someone who leads, you are on the stage every day, people are looking at you, so watch how you behave and what you say, one wrong move...

As a leader, it's important to show empathy, be yourself, listen and focus on what others have to say. People will then began to trust your, eventually leading to emotional connections, they will be more ready to trust you and follow you.

Remember that you are paid because of what your people do, so without them, you wouldn't be able to accomplish anything!
 

Kensington's cable lock

One of our colleagues left the company last month, and he handled over a laptop to another guy. When that guy who took over tried to remove the laptop elsewhere, he found that the laptop was 'tied' to a cubicle using a Kensington's cable lock (or whatever you call it). Then he asked for help, before our ex-colleague left, he left a 4-digit pin for us to unlock the cable lock.

I tried the 4-digit combination, but the the lock refused to open. My the other colleague tried to pry it open with a screwdriver  but was unsuccessful. We spent almost 2 hours searching for methods to open the lock via internet and Youtube, but still didn't work. I was almost going to give up, when I just tried randomly set the numbers, and what luck I have, I managed to open it!

I was lucky, really lucky, but sadly, I learnt a lesson, that is, never fully trust someone who is unsure himself/herself. And, luck really exists!

CyberSecurity brings big gain

Remember last month when I said that I had wanted to sell off my interests in SYMC. I didn't, luckily.

Just last week, there was serious security hack at a credit reporting agency EFX, resulting in a massive data breach of more than 143 millions U.S. customers. Due to that, Cybersecurity companies like SYMC, FEYE, CHKP and PANW shares rose.

After seeing some gain, I decided to sell off my SYMC stocks. Not much profit though, but good enough to exist from the company, which I had want to do so since last month.

Now, let's move on to other stocks. Will I look at Cybersecurity stocks again? Yes, definitely!

How good are SYMC & UA/UAA?

Let's talk a bit about the 2 companies, Symantec and UnderArmor.

Few days back, Symantec announced that they will be selling their website security business, in exact, their PKI and SSL/TLS certificate business to another competitor, DigiCert. This is sad, I think, seems they are selling all their prized businesses, previously, Veritas solutions, e.g. storage HA products and Netbackup products, which are one of the most important products required by any company. What's next? I don't know, perhaps selling their endpoint solutions? Sooner or later, they could even break up the company and sell them in pieces to investors. Seriously, I no longer see values in this company, time to offload my interest.

How about UnderArmor? I have vested in it for few months now, but on paper I'm still losing money, very badly. Few days back with the results released, not good, share price dropped. The management is looking to do a company re-org, maybe it's good, but hopefully, it will turn around the company which in the early part of this year those shares went over $30++, and currently less than $20.

How good are pay increments?

Few days back, one of the IT security guys quitted, right in the middle of a meeting, he announced it. Usually, people who had submitted their resignation would quietly lay low of one to two weeks, before letting the cat out of the bag.

When asked why he resigned, he said that he was not happy with his recent yearly pay increment. Not sure how much was it, but I think it probably low enough for him to make a decision to resignation.
We have always thought that the security people make the most money, with long hours work and all the trashing from customers and peers, they do deserve the higher pay. But, for a family person, it really tough, having to juggle between family and work.

Anyway, he said that he had been approach by other companies, hope he can find a better paid job. he is from a rich family, he will survive.

The new norm?

Recently, at least for the last 3 weeks, the weather was really hot and humid. The rain didn't come, and when it came, it was only for a short while, so once it stopped, the hot spell came back!

In some parts of the States, the temperature went as high as 49 degree celsius, and in Europe, over 35 degree celsius. The ices on the Poles are melting fast, sea water is rising, destructive typhoons and unpredictable temperature swings are getting worst and people are getting unbearable. Let's hope that the high temperature will go soon at the end of June, and come the cooler weather.

Sleep in peace

In this age of digital life, you can't trust anyone. Today, our IT team was urgently being called to check on the systems due to this -> https://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/what-you-need-know-about-wannacry-ransomware.

All systems, yes, all of them, check to ensure that we had applied the patch MS17-010 for all the Windows Servers. Some projects were just using WSUS, so it was quite a tedious effort to check as the report from it isn't that user friendly, and not to mention that Microsoft changed the way their patches are release, now as rollups, not more using bulletin IDs.

Not to mention that another weekend was burnt due to this, whatever plan you have, had to be scraped, postponed or re-scheduled, much to the disappointment of your family and kids. In IT, at least in this part of the world, you are basically on 24/7 standby, even after office hours. Many years back, we were using pagers, you get paged, you can call back a little later, but now, there's handphone with IM like WhatsApp, Line, WeChat, etc. You get disturbed almost every day and night.

I just want to have a peaceful sleep every night, and spend more time with my family.

Notti little one

It's April month, made a change for the little one to attend another school. On the first day, the teacher called her name, and she started crying, even though I was just standing besides her. After that, things went fine.

Just this morning, she did not want to get out of bed, I had no choice but to carry her up and get her to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She cried again for a whole full 10 mins, really know how to attract attention. After awhile, she stopped and I asked her to get on with what she had to do, and she did.

Clean her up and then brought her to school, she looks fine, but had already missed her school's breakfast, but good before that, she did had her milk.

Profit and Lost

I had written about my investment in the last few posts. So far the journey has been filled with sometimes happiness, pains and heartaches. On paper, I'm still on loss, although the market is moving up since Trump took over as President. No one for sure how long this bull will run, but if the bear really comes, stocks prices may tumble, it will not be good.

Some of the stocks that I took interest in were AAPL, KMI, WU, WDC, SKX and UA/UAA.

The worst performer is UA/UAA, the stock price had dropped more that 30% since Jan 17, it's a company that mirrors Nike, except that it has a shorter history and smaller international market present. Due to the fact that most of their sales and focuses were in the US, so they has been paying tons of taxes to the IRS. The company was hoping that Trump would lower the tax rate for US businesses, so that they can translate the taxes to income to their advantage, but so far, it has not been happening, maybe not yet. I'm currently seeing loss for this stock.

AAPL's share price is high, more than $130/share this month, with the anticipation of the new iphone coming to the market, the price would sure go higher. So maybe a good time to take a small bite if interested. I'm not vested in this because of my capital limit.

KMI, for the oil and gas industry, the share hasn't move up much, but, some analysts were saying oil price may pick up soon, so perhaps, good to pick up some shares.

SKX is quite a stable stock, can buy some to keep. Likewise for WU, if it drops less than $20, and especially with strong moat of having presence in many countries, lots of people use it to send money, can buy.

Well, lastly WDC, a harddisk company, like STX, the two of the biggest hard disk storage companies in the world. The last I heard, they are venturing into SSD, good for them! If they are successful and able to gain a large portion of the storage market share, their stock prices are going to balloon beyond $100.

Value investing opportunities

I talked about value investing in my last post. Finally, I decided to jump in to kick start my investing journey. I looked at a couple of recommendations from my investing friends, and also read up other websites on investing. Basically, the US stock market is the main playground to invest.

The US markets has more than 8000 stocks, it's huge, but if you are looking to invest in low priced stocks, you got to work harder and do your homework, because most stocks, e.g. APPLE, IBM, NIKE, FACEBOOK are not cheap stocks to buy for a beginner like me!

Value investing is all about investing in good companies that you believe may be undervalued. The companies must have something unique that they can sell in the market that not many can compete, be profitable, with a growing earnings, low debt with cash and be able to raise price without risk.

So far, really, I'm still not making money yet, on paper, still lose a couple, but I do hope that I can do better.

Value investing

What is value investing?

One definition you can read is from http://www.investopedia.com/university/value-investing/value-investing1.asp

If this applies to businesses or stocks, it's about buying businesses or stocks (or shares) at a sensible price or when they are undervalued.

"Price is what you pay, value is what you get." - Warren Buffet

Mr Warren is one of the present day value investors, making tons of money investing in good, unvalued business. In the 80s, he did lose a significant amount of money on airlines' stocks. Only recently, he started buying them again, this led to airlines stocks going up and up, and others are following him.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2016/11/14/warren-buffett-comes-around-on-airlines-after-calling-them-a-death-trap-for-investors/#14f5d7f569d7

Recently, I read a book by Joe Geenblatt, it's called 'The little book that still beats the market'. it's a good read for anyone interested in hassle free investing into good US stocks. The book is really about using his magic formula (https://www.magicformulainvesting.com/Screening/StockScreening) to automatically select 30 to 50 stocks, depending on the market capitalisation, and then you invest in them. Caveat though, it's not meant for short term investing, but for at least 5 to 10 years or even longer. Joe claimed that by the end of the term, the returns would be more than what you get if you invest in S&P 500. If you are interested, read the book first, understand how the stocks are being chosen, then go to his magic formula site, register an ID, login and MAGIC!

Status update on Mons training

As you might have guessed it, I have got the 146 Mons in my Dex, including the recent elusive Ditto. I was lucky, it took me to roam around for about 1 hour to catch a Magicarp and yup, it changed into a Ditto! I have heard others walk around many hours but still couldn't catch one.

Well, now need to take a break from Mons training, waiting for the next new things to come, not sure what, Niantic is not telling.

Back to work, I still have many leaves days to clear, hope that I will find time to clear, been working hard lately, I need a break and spend more time with my family.

Pokemon part 2

It has been a hectic life for the last 3 months since the release the game. Finally, after spending substantial time after work at night, and sometimes during work hours,  I have got all the 141 Pokemons.

It was really tiring, sometimes playing it way past midnight, waking in the morning still craving for sleep. I don't know about other people, but I think it is really experience that I don't really want to go through again. At my age, I get tired easily, especially, at work, I have got some many things to do, even to help out other to finish their work or chasing people to report their progress.

In IT, there are so many kind of people, at times, you can delegate things for them to do, but at the end of the day, you have to chase them for it, or even do it yourself.

Life goes on with Pokemon Go

Since released months ago, it's still not the end yet, yes, it's starting to cool down, with lesser people playing the game, but things are still happening, life goes on. I was in WA few weeks ago, on holiday, saw how much this game is still popular among the city folks.

And, there were the Pokémon Radar Apps and websites that could help trainers search and find Mons, but as of last weekend, they had stopped working. It seems that, Niantic, the company which came out with this game has effectively blocked the third party's API from these websites from polling their servers for Mons locations. So, it's harder to find Mons now.

Good luck to all of you, continue to hunt for Mons please.

Holiday mood

Another 2 more days, and I will be going for my holiday!

Last 2 months has been hectic, helping out with the solutions team to work on new customers' requirements, preparation for the new systems hosting, day to day support work. There are still a couple of things to settle, hope that I can get them done on time.

Last night while working on a new requirement, suddenly, I felt giddy, had an headache and vomited out. Maybe I didn't have enough sleep last night, and was too stressed. This was a last minute job, I don't like it, but can't help it when it came from someone asking for help. Yes, I have soft heart, so not easy to say no.

10 years of blogging, can you believe it?

Oh yes, it has been a long 10 years since I started to blog in 2006. I remember coming back from an Australia trip, I started my first post. At that time, I told myself that I will write on my blog every day, but later on, I realized that it was just not possible as I got busier with work and my real life.

While Friendster is gone, Facebook is still around, so is BlogSpot. You must have to be amazed with how innovative people out there are always thinking of making use of technology to improve the life of people. A couple of months back, I managed to link up with my Secondary school friends via Facebook, we met for the first time after more than 20 years! So glad to see that most of my old school mates are still well and good, but sad that one of our friends had left us. Hope to meet them up again soon.

First review of LG G5

Remember last month I talked about my new LG G5? That was while I had just got it, and did not managed to use it much yet. So far the phone has basically been "functioning well", why I said that? Well, after using it for about a month, it's true of my believe that the technology in G5 is not as advanced as Samsung, not really on par with S7.

Although it came with the AOD, but I don't really find it useful, especially at night, when it's dark and you are trying to sleep, there you go, some faint light coming from the phone. So, it's good to use it as a night light for you to find the phone in the dark. If you want to sleep, turn the phone upside down or turn off AOD. One more thing, although it was advertised to use little battery power, but I think it's really not so. I found that if you switch it off, the phone's battery can last longer, hey, that's me saying, you don't have to agree, do you own experiment!

It's much easier to do screen captures, instead of pressing both phone rear's power button and volume down button together for G2, you use the Capture button on the top menu.

Yes, the camera is good, take good picture, the wide angle camera is very useful for capturing more. Do you notice that there's a flashlight icon on the 'top menu' (tell me the name if you know this)? Hit it to enable the flashlight. Cool! Now I don't have to install 3rd part apps to have that.

Now, one thing I don't like, they took away the 'Smart Stay' and 'Smart Pause' functions! I have it in my old G2. It was such a good functions, now I have to place my finger on the screen just to stop the screen from turning off when I'm reading something on the phone! Unless, I try to find another app to have these functions. LG, please bring the functions back!!!

My new LG G5

After months of thinking and considering whether to get a Note5, S7 or G5, it finally came the time to make a decision. Yes, it's official! LG G5, that is.

There are a couple of reasons why I got the G5. One reason was that it was cheaper, and got cheaper after the Corporate discount sets in, and cost less than the other two. The second reason was because I'm used to the G series, my previous was a G2, so is the previous, previous one, though, its 3 generations apart, I still went for it.

True enough, LG has been lagging behind Samsung in terms of technology and offering surprising phone features, well, they still have followers like me. From what I know, the G5 don't come with wireless charging, with not so incredible screen or features and the battery capacity was pathetic at 2800mAh, not huge like its cousins, I just hope that I can last long. But, the one thing I'm used is the Knock-knock to bring up the screen. I hope that the newer phone's knock code is still working flawless, plus, it came with Always-On, so it would save some battery power, don't have to keep knocking on it to activate the full screen to check SMS, WhatsApp message or time.

The G5 camera came with 2 back cameras, one for near shots, and other with the wide angle, looks good, but well, nothing really special. Camera settings and features are bare basic, like what other camera phones offer too!

Back from a trip

Been out of action from work since last Friday till today, I had taken time-off from work on a trip up north to visit some relatives and going on a R&R. The weather had been hot lately, same goes when we were driving hundreds of KM up north. However, it rained when we were on our way there, it was raining so heavily that we had to slow down driving and switched on the hazard lights just so that cars behind can see us.

After settled at our relatives house, we went on to stay at a retreat called Valley Agro Park (http://www.valleyagropark.com/about.html). Things there were quite basic, no phone (and no mobile signals sometimes), no TV and aircon. Water wise is straight from the tapes, and no heater. Food wise consist of Chinese style cooking, with no pork. A simple dinner of 3 veges and 2 meat cost around RM250. Accommodation wise are wooden floored houses, some over a pond. It would be good for city people who wants get away from the hectic city life and to stay in kampung style place for a while to relax.

Next, we went off to Genting Highlands! The highlight of our trip. It was really a contrast living there at 6000ft in the hotel resort. The amenities are better of course. The weather is also cooler. Too bad the theme park was not ready yet, so it was still very much a casino place.The last time I was there was more than 20 years ago, things looked different.

Tomorrow is back to work day, holiday is over, but I'm look forward to the next one...

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

This is the "in" thing these days in the Net. Someone wanting to start an online ebiz or companies trying to increase their Net presence could spend couple of hundreds or thousands to raise their websites to the top of search websites like Google by apply SEO concepts.

There are even courses in Youtube teaching people how to do SEO. I have even heard about companies training people to be SEO gurus. Why haven't I thought of doing it on my blog site? Maybe I should read up on SEO, and improve on my site search, so that more people can find it. 

I wish to have more time

I wish to have more time for many things. More time to spend with my little one, more time to read, more time to sleep...

Everyone gets the same amount of time everyday, but if you are working, there's a general feeling that time is not enough! How many of us spend time reading and replying emails everyday? Work emails, private emails? Let's not forget Whatsapp and other messaging. Virtually, we could be spending 24x7 waiting for something. Quality of life is lost.

I wish it was like many years ago, no hp, no messaging, no emails, no internet. At most, a pager, I just want to rest more, I need more time for my family, really that simple.

To do list for Feb 2016

Now in the mid of February, there are already tons of things waiting to be done. My team To Do list is almost 50 nos. long, and there are still many tasks coming up.

Having to spend hours and hours in meeting, it took away my time to do useful things. Getting calls during the meetings are common, that simply means I shouldn't be in the meeting! Yes, get out and do something else more fruitful.

Nowadays, security is the main focus, day in, day out, almost 60-70% of the time we are dealing with security audit RFIs, interviews, fixes, implementation, patching, etc. No longer are IDS good enough, now we have IPS (HIPS, NIPS), ArcSight Logger, syslog servers, Web defacement monitor and restorer appliances, SIEMS, WAF, Tripwire, the list goes one. The interesting thing is that the customers wants what others have, and yet, they didn't realised all these things cost heaps!

Happy 2016!

Another year has passed, that reminds me that I have grown another year older! I'm no longer that young kid with full of energy, working 7 days a week, more that 15hours a day.

Just a few years ago, I was still able to clock a decent timing for 10KM, 21KM or Marathon, but now having stopped for a while, don't think I can even complete one without having to walk most of the time. The other significant thing is that my weight has gone up! I hate it, but ever since the little one came, I haven't been able to go on a regular exercise routine. Well, cannot blame anyone, maybe I was too lazy, HA!

This new year started off with more work to be done, in fact, there are two concurrent audits going on, and internally, there are VA and PT on systems those results that we have to follow-up. So few people in the team has the bandwidth to do the follow-up, because they are already so tied to the day to day work.

How's the robotic vacuum cleaner doing?

Remember I bought that Robotic vacuum cleaner last month?

Fantastic! Although it can only manage to clean up about 80% of the area, it is good, really. Well, since it's round, it is not good at cleaning corners, a minus point. One thing that it does well is to clean up all the hair on the floor in its path. It does make noise due to the brushes and motor, but it is still acceptable.

It only vacuum, but not mop. The power of the vacuum is not that strong, but imagine once it completes a full charged vacuum cycle (~90mins), the dust collector bin were full of dust and hair to be cleared.

It's also smart, once it almost run out of battery power, yes, it's on chargeable batteries, it automatically navigate back to the base station to re-charge. So far, it has been able to "go home" itself, even if it's in the bedroom, out of sight of the base station!

The other thing is that it talks too, e.g. greets you before it starts work, inform you when it's running out of power, tell you when it's stuck, or the best one, when you pick it up, it will tell you to put it down!

Robotic Vacuum Cleaner

I have been looking around for a good robotic vacuum cleaner. Can't really find it in electric or electronics stores, it seems that it's still not a popular item in households here. But, when I tried to search for them in the Net or from online shops like Qoo10, there are plenty of models to choose from. There are brands such as LG and Samsung to those from China and Hong Kong. The Korean brands are more expensive, some could cost more that $1K. For those not so well known brands, they are in the range of $100 to $400.

I'm still looking for one that can suck up hairs and dust, with battery lasting many hours, auto-homing to charging base and has the capability to run on scheduled times. If you find one, do let me know.

My lovely one

Oh my, how the little one has grown. Although still not able to say a proper sentence, I can tell that she trying. 'Da..da...", she called. I think she's calling for me.

From a small baby to a toddler, seeing her learning to turn over, crawl, stand-up, walk and run, it's an experience as a parent goes through and it's always so joyful one.

Soon, she will learn how to say a sentence. She knows what we are trying to say, obviously, we need to give her the encouragement to speak up. Time will come.

Haze and F1

So, here comes the haze, at times climbing beyond PSI 200, pretty bad with that burning smell lingering in the air. People here are snatching masks till they are sold out. Haze is something that came from our neighbour and we have no control over.

So, will the F1 be cancelled or postponed due to the haze? Some F1 drivers said they are staying indoors most of the time, yes, it's a serious health hazard. Billions of dollars are at stake. There is nothing much that we can do. It's annoying and hurting, but life still have to go on.

How are you today?

I'm fine, thank you.

A simple good question to ask when you meet someone be it in the office or on the go. The weather is getting hotter, and the haze seems to be back, although not as serious compared to years ago.

Few days back something bad happened in Bangkok, a disaster struck, some people were hurt. This is not good. Why would there people who wants to hurt other people? There are many questions that need to be answered. Life is short, we must learn to treasure it, especially if you have your own family with children. Nothing is more important than caring for your loved ones.

The sign

There seems to have some tell-tale signs that something is coming, the ministers are coming out talking, the opposition are talking. The MPs are getting busier. There are also new faces visiting the neighbourhoods. There's rumour saying the GE is coming on 12 or 19 Sept. I'm not sure about that, unless it's confirm by the ACE of SPADE.

Somewhere up north, things are not doing well for the top ACE, too many bad rumours and stories spreading around, are they true or not, no one dare to confirm. Hopefully one day, things will be clear.

Politics are complex, involved many people, no one can totally trust anyone, not even if he or she is close to you. In a work office, it's not uncommon to hear about people back stabbing each other. Everyone knows about office politics, but most are just playing along, no big deal. Keeping an open eye, be vigilant, remain focus with your job, that's the key to survive in the hectic and sometimes chaotic and cruel corporate world.

Try to bake something

Recently, I tried to bake some bread and cheesecake, well how difficult can it be? just follow the manuals and instructions, and then do it.

Ha ha...it's not easy, really. My first 2 tries on making baguette didn't work as expected, they look like one, but they are just too hard to be eaten. I also tried to make cheesecakes, just the normal ones, nothing fanciful. The first one tasted more like baked cheese, the second one, which I tried last night, look more like one, but it was flatten out, it didn't "rise" up like that kind of cheesecake you get from a bakery.

Something just seems to be not right, is it the flour that I'm using? The temperature? The Oven? I don't understand. I just hope that someone can enlighten me on this.

Expect heavier workload

Coming to the end of June, almost half year 2015 gone. This Sunday, there will be 2 major upgrade activities, one would be front by another of our senior Unix admin, and the other by me. Interestingly, the overall OIC is staying home, waiting for our updates, while we are working hard over the midnight and afternoon.

This month was also quite disappointing, while we got our bonus, but one thing I had expected didn't come, a promotion which would have uplifted my moral. Sadly, after so many years, it seems the bosses don't see me fit for one. It's ok, life moves on. Maybe if there's a better opportunity, I will grab it.

David Letterman's late night show

It has been quite sometime since I last watched the Late show with David Letterman. I remember many, many years ago, it was one of the rare late night American shows that I used to watch, so do my friends, when we were much younger. Sometimes, I may not understand American's humour well, but, it was still funny, you know? It finally ended, David will no longer appeared on his show anymore, he will be missed, definitely.

http://www.thewrap.com/david-letterman-last-show-social-media/

If time can roll-back

If ever time can roll-back, I wish I had got married earlier and live happily in a family with many kids. Most of my friends and peers were married younger than me, and their kids were already older.

Work had always been my priority when I started working. I was ambitious and don't care less about my other well-being, but not to the point of bulldozing my way out of any situations and hurt people. I have always been nice, I guess too nice, trying to help people when they come to me.

Time passes fast, I remember the time on 11/9/2001, I was in the office's pantry checking at the CNA TV news telecast on the Sep-11's WTC strike. Then it was in 26/12/2004, the Indian Ocean Earth quake and Tsunami that destroyed lives of many people. The SARS from 2003 to 2004. The global economy crisis of year 2008, pay freeze,...and may other things happened in the last 15 or so years.

Recently, a news article touched many people's heart, including me, it's about a young toddler becoming the youngest person to be cryogenically frozen - http://yourhealth.asiaone.com/content/thai-toddler-becomes-youngest-person-be-cryogenically-frozen

As human, we always try to look at the bright side of things, hearing nice things, eating good food  and wear pretty clothes, but we know the world is not perfect. Sometimes, there are sad and unhappy things that we have to live with. Remember this, if you are still alone now, go get yourself a partner fast, don't wait till you are old and rotten, lonely gets lonely, and when you start to regret, it may be too late.

Let's live life to the fullest!

Don't look back

The whole city was sadden by the loss of the founding Father. A week of mourning attracted millions of people here to pay their last respect to Him either at the Parliament House, where a queue could last 10 hours, or at the other tribute sites located around the neighbourhoods centres.

Rain or shine, hungry or thirsty, it doesn't matter, the important things in the mind of people was that everyone gathered as a united nation, you help me, I help you, that was the time when you truly see the spirits of the one people, one nation, one Singapore.

While the founding Father had left, there is no looking back, we will survive, so let's move on...

Growing up

Able to see the LO growing day by day is an experience someone who is not a parent would not go through. Watching the LO taking the first step, fall and come back up again, and continue to walk, the determination to do better every time can be felt.

Now, LO has so many things to do and to play, so busy walking and running around the house. LO is now able to slowly climb down from the bed, clap hands, fingers pointing and smile at people, these make my day! Especially, after a day of hectic, tiring work, priceless, nothing to compare!

The little one's first step

I wasn't home early yesterday, worked late as usual. Then I saw this video of the LO walking without any assist for the first time. Yes, I got very emotional and excited at the same time. By the time I got home, the LO had already gone to bed. I hardly slept for the night, and on the next morning, I went to LO's bed and gave hugs. This is the time in life where you will get so uplifted, I have waited long for this to happen. So happy...

My regret or is it?

At work, having been with the same company for more than 10 years, almost doing the same thing day by day, never really get to move on to other branches of the work field is one big regret. Some of my friends said that I'm crazy working for the same company for so many years.

All these years, I have seen fellow colleagues come and go, yes, I do feel a sense of sadness and loneliness. Some of them moved on to other companies and now they are doing better, advanced up! Some quitted to go back to their home town or even migrate out of this country. Right now, most of who I work with or met in the company are young, I just feel that it's kind-of hard to work close to them like I used to with my ex-colleagues, maybe their thinking is different or they are better trained to do the stuff, so they don't need someone like me to nag or teach them.

 Looking at the photo of my ID card which was taking more than 10 years ago, I know I'm no longer young, but I do believe that my attitude of endorsing changes and hardwork, I'm still relevant and can still do better, these should be my strong points.

Beginning of a new year 2015

Our team has finally migrated the 2 remaining systems. The best part is that we didn't delay or postpone any roll-out dates. I heard that we will get praised for the efforts our team put in in this exercise. This is good thing.


Up coming, there will be another huge migration exercise, much bigger that the 3 systems migrated earlier, and most probably, I will need to play a bigger role, although I will not be the main person fronting it.


Separately, I'm glad that, now, the playful little One is learning to walk with assist, hopefully, by the end of the month, the One will be able to walk and run without any help!

This is it! One down, two more to go

As promised, we managed to complete the migration of 2 big web systems from another service provider to our Data centre on the 30-Nov! It was on schedule, not later by even a day.

Come next Saturday, 13-Dec, there will be another 3 web systems to cut-over, then follow by 31-Dec, the last 3. Hopefully, we would be able to roll-out the rest of the systems on time.

The last ones were difficult, because the out-going vendor was not easy to work with, some of the information was not even given to us, lucky enough, we have a group of competent people, that's the reason how we managed to roll-out the systems on time.

Maybe will be delayed

The project to migrate systems from another site to our data centre seems to be doing fine at one look. Over the course of 3 weeks, our team can finally get the UAT environment ready to be handled over to the application team tomorrow for they web applications deployment, but for the production environment, things hit some obstacles.

Firstly, for production environment, we haven't got the budget approved to purchase a no. of software and hardware, resulting in having to share, e.g. firewalls and network switches. Secondly, even with the hardware delivered, there are just sitting in the staging room, not able to be deployed, due to the fact that because there wasn't a budget to engage the vendor for professional services, we had to source in-house, and you know what? The in-house people (not from our team!) are not familiar with implementing them, so, the project got delayed.

I don't mean to be crapehanger person, but it seems that things aren't progressing as expected, there are just similar too many show stoppers. It's so discouraging sometimes, even if you want to be a good engineer or PM, there are things that you can't control, nothing works perfect.

I will be going on leaves next week, there's not much time for me with so much work to do, and with a team that heavily rely on me to carry out the work, I'm really worried.

Shellshock Bash vulnerability

For the last one week, life wasn't good, with the announcement of the Bash's flaws, everybody was busying checking their equipment whether they are subjected to the weakness. For the Unix folks, CVE-2014-6271 was the very first that they were told to apply the fix, but after the weekends, it was another one, CVE-2014-7169.

More vulnerabilities were detected, and more CVEs were released, it was really bad. Some vendors didn't even have the patch to address the issue yet for this >20 year old Bash thing.

http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/news/2240231709/Vendors-push-new-Bash-patches-as-more-flaws-emerge?track=NL-1820&ad=896324&asrc=EM_NLN_34719724&uid=976171&utm_medium=EM&utm_source=NLN&utm_campaign=20141001_Shellshock+alert%3A+Vendors+push+patches+as+more+Bash+flaws+emerge_mbacon

Project Win

Recently, the team just got another project. It's for a migration and new systems setup for a virtualised solution using MS Hyper-V. Servers will be windows 2012 Server R2. There will be a new network infrastructure, with F5 LTM2000S, MFE Firewall Ent S4016, Check Point SG4600 Appliance, IPS/IDS, etc.  It's going to be very interesting.

I reckon for the next 1 month, I will be busy with the project. Hopefully, I still can find time to attend some courses, to build up my knowledge. I wanted to sign-up for a network course, but it's kind of too expensive, so for now, not possible, maybe next time.

Outlook 2010 cache

I always have this slowness problem when opening my Outlook. So, a bit frustrated, I seek Mr Google for advice, the greatest "know-all" consultant immediate told me the answer.

What I did was to close Outlook, then delete the OST files from hard drive, C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook. This is for windows 7.

Re-launch Outlook, wow...not only it open fast after the one-time sync to local cache, it cleared away the space used by the old cache, thus, saved me disk space.

What's up?

I have signed up for two running events, one for a 16KM road run, and the other is a 12KM night trail run.

To prepare for both runs, I have actually embarked on a 12-week Marathon training program for beginners, www.medibank.com.au/bemagazine/post/marathon-12-week-beginner-running-guide . I have just completed the week 1 of the program, it has been tough, having clocked almost 25KM in all. Other than that, I have also bought a new pair of Solomon's XR Mission trail shoes and a pair of socks for trail run. I have only completed a 10.5KM trail run about 3 months back, it was raining on that day, the ground condition was muddy and bad, but it was a good experience.

Week 2 ahead, let's hope I can stick though the program and never give up!

Time to relax!

After the completion of the two projects, it's now time to relax a bit. But hey, wait, there's the audit! Although, for this time round I'm not the main OIC to follow up with things, it's still quite a tedious work for me, as I will still need to support the OIC to furnish information required by the auditor. There are plans for another system upgrade and one system migration project to do, but the dates are yet to be confirmed.

Meanwhile, I will plan for some short away from office trips. This Friday, I'm going to the Zoo, and end of the month, I'm planning for a staycation on a outer island. Cheers...

May Day!

It's May Day today, not May's Day, but 1st of May, aka  Labour Day.

People in this part of the world are worrying about their jobs and salaries, some say it's because of the local government's lenient immigration policy to allow inflow of foreign talents into the country, leading to locals not able to get jobs or even secure their jobs.

It was said that the recent years of higher than expected inflation and rising standard of living was due to the presence of many foreigners. Housing costs, necessities cost, cars prices increases, etc. are making locals becoming more pessimistic.

Are foreigners competing with locals on jobs and cause so much unhappiness? Or rather, will their presence make locals work harder and smarter, I don't know, really.

Time for break

Finally, both the newly upgraded systems have 'go-live'. But, its still not yet time to celebrate as there are issues pending to be resolved.

At least for now, there isn't need for us to stay over the night to watch over things. Now, to prepare documentations and take over stuffs.

We have done this many times, taking over the support of the systems from other teams, it would take at least 3 months. Meanwhile, time for me to relax after almost a year of high tension work, perhaps going on a short trip soon.

So many things to do till I forget...

I have been busy, super busy lately, till I have got no time to blog last month. Come next month, there are 3 newly upgraded systems to be rolled out to users.

App people are busying doing UAT and troubleshooting issues now, and at times when there's a problem, they will finger pointing at us. A couple of times, we had to defend ourselves, fighting back their claims. Welcome to the real IT world! It will be getting worst, more sleepless nights, many weekends to burn, schedules that looks fine on paper, but just isn't making sense to follow and frequently had to be amended. Projects timelines and milestones are always delayed.

The important thing now is to keep the team intact, make sure everyone is not over worked, over agitated, over de-moralised, and always in a uplifted spirit!

Fight on, guys and gals. 20 more days to go! Endure!

Happy new year 2014!

Happy new year!

It has been a quite a hectic last one year, so many things to do.

This month, and likely for the next 3-5 months, it's going to be the busiest time of the year.

Already in progress are 3 security audits, 3 system upgrade projects, 2 DR testing and endless ad-hoc support. Our engineers are basically the victims of cost cutting, 1 engineer got to do the work of 3, and that's not all, he has to be at 3 different places at the same time! How is it possible?

Sometimes, I think some of those directors and PMs do not have the visibility of the ground situation, they are just not aware that the engineers are working so hard, and tiring out too. When the bosses don't get what they want, they will just complain to the engineers' superior, this is causing so much unhappiness.

I don't want to do that kind of thing to my fellow peers and staff, you can really tell from their faces that they have lots of resentment against you, I hate seeing it, but what can I do? There's really this much of things I can help and feedback to management, but it's just not working.

It's year end time!

Oh yes, it's already into December, the last month of 2013! Just image that in less than 20 days time, it's Christmas, and in 25 days time, it's a new year. hehe hoho...

Hey, back to the real world, there are tons of work to do now, people are on leaves and you have to cover their duties. Some more, there are new project implementations to follow-up, how sad, this year end, most probably I will not get much rest. Even if I have to apply for leaves, I still have to work from home.

Never mind, for now, just enjoy any free time I have, hope that next year would be better one. Cheers...

Trust no one

Over the past months, I learnt something that is so valuable, and so important that I will always keep reminding myself again and again, never to forget!

I have always been the trusting kind, that means I trust almost anyone, especially, people close to me, e.g. my colleagues, friends. At times, I need to entrust someone to do something, well, you may think that it's easy, because they will know what to do, not quite.

Let me share one of the many bad experiences about work delegation. I have this SA that I'm always proud of, but now, I just don't feel comfortable with the ways he does things. There was once, I told him to do up a documentation, he confidently said he will finish it by Friday (that day was Wednesday). When Friday came, nothing happens! And till now, still no results. Hey, that Friday was more than a month ago! This was not the first case.

I told him that if you cannot do something right, don't promise. Don't say "sorry" once, twice, third time, it wouldn't work anymore. I even have to watch his back, so, whenever he finished doing something, or should I say when he told me he had completed something, I got to secretly double-check just to make sure things are really done proper!

I thought I can go back early

I packed my bag, I thought I could go home early today, but, OH NO...

One of our Sys Admins said he needed to go for RT, so he had to leave office early. The worst thing that could happen is that I have to do a last min. follow-up task for him. He is supposed to install the Symantec netbackup client on one of the development WIN2008R2 server, but maybe he forgot, now, I have to stay back in the data centre and do it, so that the backup guy can run the backup tonight. It's so cold in the DC, and I don't have my warm jacket with me. I'm having a headache too!

Problem now, I inserted the CD, it just won't install, then after trying for more that an hour, then I realised that the CD had bad blocks! The Windows event log says so. I'm waiting for my client installer download from Symantec, 300+MB, hopefully, it works later.

Yet another chance wasted!

Last week, I thought I will get a chance to go Sydney for a business trip, but again, a dream that didn't come true.

There's already a group of people there, and I'm supposed to be on standby to assist from remote if they need help. There's also a guy who was HPUX-trained, and supposed to go there too, but again, didn't happen.

I know that a DBA colleague of mine is having a lot of fun there, other than work, he get to visit places too. How nice, isn't it?

What can I do about it?

The other day, I was asked whether I'm interested to go for a overseas working trip for 2-3 months, best of all, it was to Sydney! I was elated, I remembered I said 'yes'.

But, later in the week, I saw any email forwarded to me, it said that my boss was against it, because I'm much needed in the project, I'm too important to leave the team at this time. I know then, my boss' boss tried to persuade him, so that I can move on and go on the trip, after that, there was no news. So disappointed!

I have always wanted to go overseas to work on sometime different from what I'm doing now, but when the opportunity comes knocking, I just don't have the luck to get it!

MSCA 2012 finally!

Oh yes! I have cleared my third and last paper for the MCSA 2012 exams.

I'm so relief now after months and months of hard work studying for the exams. I have cleared this target just as I predicted. Next, I'm going to prepare for the Solaris 11 exams, 2 papers to take, hope to clear it by September.

Wish me luck...all...the...way!!! ;)

Late night, can't sleep

It's already way past midnight, and I'm still awake.

For the past week, the haze was unbearable, my eyes was watering, my nose was sniffing and my throat was crying in pain. Earlier in the week, I was feeling so giddy and almost couldn't get up to work.

Lucky it rained and the haze was clear, cooler weather came back for awhile. It rained hailstones in some part of this region, I saw some trees were fallen, one driver even claimed that his car windscreen was smashed by the hailstones. I have never seen hailstones before, too bad I missed it, but I was sure glad that I wasn't standing out in the open when the hailstones came.

I have completed 2 out of the 3 papers for the Windows 2012 Server admin certification, now, I have to study hard for the last one, hope that I can clear it soon.

The change

Recently, the company roll-out a no. of new systems, a vendor quotation system that tracks emails of how you get the quotes from external parties, they claimed this is for governance. There's another system that is supposed to help people raise purchases, but, we already have a SAP finance system, I don't quite understand why there's a need for another one...oh, for governance! With so many systems, it lengthens the process flow, and make it more difficult for people to work efficiently. I found that I'm actually spending more time doing all these "paper work".

Finally, my boss told me that I will have to report to another boss. I guess it's time for me to re-look at my career path, whether what I have done is worth it. One thing I found was that my ex-bosses don't really appreciate my help. Those bosses that I helped before had move up, and I don't get even a pat on the back or promotion for my good work. I just hope that, under the new boss, he's going to treat me better, and really appreciate my efforts spent, perhaps, put me up for a promotion soon.