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.