Secrets Revealed

I attended Dr Mel Gill’s NLP seminar yesterday and got an opportunity to meet a different spectrum of people. I have always found it hard to open up especially even when there’s a small group of people and coming to such a seminar, I learnt ways, techniques that can be so easily adopted in my life. 

He shared with us his new project, The Meta Secret which is a sequel to The Secret. The Secret is a book and a movie basically talking about the laws of attraction. Click on the link on “The Secret” to watch a 20 minute video clip oposted by aSecretAgent. Oprah herself talked about it on Larry King (posted by adriancel) here where I agree with her that,

“It’s not the answer to all questions. The law of attraction is only one law there are many laws working in the world. It is very true that the way you think creates reality for yourself. There are other factors going on so it’s not everything but you can change your own reality on the way you think.”

Dr Mel Gill mentioned how we all have 5 senses: to feel, smell, see, hear and taste. Not everyone uses all these senses the way we should and often people find themselves having certain preferences. They could be more visual, auditorial, kinesthetic and so on. He told us we needed to pay attention on the things around us. To communicate with someone effectively we had to understand the person and be like them to create a connection. Knowing how they are as a person, one can derive how to speak so that the person would understand. All patterns that one should adopt of the type of person they are trying to connect with so that there is common ground.

I definitely had a good time and it was a great experience. Funny how the mind can be so powerful and the brain so complex…

Profiling of Users on Twitter

Yesterday I attended my Professional Seminar and my group prepared for the presentation on “Ethics in Information Professions”. The group that we were in discussed a case study that was brought up about a Casino having a loyalty membership program which basically did data mining. Based on the data presented, the Casino then strategically targeted their consumers to spend more money. In a way profiling their customers. What was said though was if it targeted an 86 year woman who was spending her life savings then this would be ethically wrong, but if it was a 25 year old guy then it was ethically right.

So today, I came across the TweetPsych Beta from Pat Law which is created by Dan Zarrella who is a “social, search, and viral marketing scientist”. It profiled Twitter users. The more you twittered the more accurate it would be. As I find  myself going back to studying for my Masters course, I can’t help but find an interest in the area of the cognitive side of things, whether by understanding the mental models of people whether we can create more human like thinking which truthfully I do not believe that computers will out smart humans anytime soon even though it may one day do more computations than one human.

The world is changing so fast because of the Internet. Social media is growing and whether Corporate companies will take advantage of the situation and future interviews could be considering what you have on your facebook account.

I will leave you a video of “Did you Know”. There is a shift happening due to the Internet whether they like it or not. I believe it is a shift to the people. 

My Journey Through Masters

I just started classes and I feel so estatic about it. I have made a separate blog to form my own set of notes about concepts, methods, techniques, etc. Mostly done to motivate me to constantly read and post my questions and thoughts. Don’t expect all entries to make sense.

DIY Installing RAM for the Acer One

My friend just got herself the Acer Aspire One that runs an Atom Intel Chip and knowing me loving new gadgets I started to surf youtube looking at people’s reviews. Like always I like to explore the opportunity of upgrading RAM DIY style since it costs probably $50 (approximate figure) in service fees in Singapore to get it installed for me while I could probably do it on my own and save the $50.

The Acer Aspire One like all mini laptops is rather small. It looks pretty good for a lightweight highly portable work laptop when you are on the go. I won’t go on to list the disadvantages of big versus small laptops but of course if you have big fingers and don’t like small screens you shouldn’t complain. 

Any person who deals or who dealt with electronic goods can tell you that the smaller the equipment is, the more fragile the parts can be. The Acer Aspire One runs on Linux and the interface that comes along with it is open source and it boots up fairly quickly compared to the competitors. Of course the interface can be altered and changed but those that are not computer literate be warned that this could void the warranty of the equipment if you decide to make changes to it. Just check it out first before you go modifying anything.

I will be comparing installing of RAM to the EEE PC. Usually with any bigger type of laptop and EEE PC, you can upgrade the RAM by opening a back slot at the back of the laptop and just inputting the new RAM from there. Usually takes about 4 screws out at most just to get it done (Macbook is different and requires to go through removing the battery first). As for the Acer Aspire One, it’s a mission to actually get it upgraded and requires delicate fingers not to short circuit or ruin any of the hardware parts. There’s alot of removing including the keyboard as such. Below zaperbaby from youtube was kind enough to post his mission in installing of the RAM. Truthfully just watching the clip made me think whether it was worth getting this laptop even though the specs of it is good enough as a mini laptop. However, I guess if you do consider buying this gadget, please do consider for a requested upgrade of RAM rather than you decide to do a DIY. Again I totally agree with zaperbaby, how come they never thought of cutting a slot at the back of the laptop for easy access? What happens if the RAM is fried and I need to replace it? I guess it would just a necessary procedure if that is the case.

Declaration

As a undergraduate student programmer to a blue collared worker trying to write an asp.net using c# for an automated online booking system for the logistics department, I need to declare something and throw it out there - The coding is never completely all me. Object orientation design allows reusing of code so by right I am reusing someone’s code that worked on some other system which works with my system! But that doesn’t totally mean that I need to copy the entire code. It’s like art… you cut and paste some of the pieces of the code and rename the variables to make it applicable to your own application. Is that not what programming is? I was googling (searching using http://www.google.com) about the topic of trying to redirect an asp.net page without using javascript and I came across an interesting blog owned and written by Anders Noras. Please excuse my stupidity in not knowing how to put the accents on the letters of the a to spell his name correctly. Quite an interesting read if you are in software design and like to read some of his work. The web link can be found on the right hand side … should be a whole section for computing soon if I haven’t gotten around doing it just yet :D. Those that don’t want to look through the mass … well then here is the website: http://andersnoras.com/blogs/anoras/

Headcount Process Continued

I actually blogged about the headcount process at work but me being the smarty pants went and deleted the post by mistake *hangs my head in shame*. I just wanted to update it and not delete it because I discovered new findings.

After having drafted out the data flow of the processes, I thought maybe rather than looking at that for the headcount process of new foreign workers coming into the company, I should look at the work flow and looked at all stakeholders/departments that would be involved. As I stated before I couldn’t see how automation of the system would assist in the long term from the manual work that is being done when I looked at the data flow. Due to the system being so manual, even if it got automated it would only assist in the calculation part which would go directly to accounts and finance side. So, I ended up getting a bigger picture of how things worked with the work flow diagram. I am still looking at how the work flow can be improved and deligated so it would be more effective and efficient in producing reports on time.

The goal of the whole headcount process is to achieve the most accurate estimation of headcounts for each site location everyday so we could provide better dispatching of transport without wasting our resources. As part of the logistics team, one would understand as this team that we provide services to all site locations and it could be quite a headache. As I see it though, if we provide the service we have to charge for it and if costs are not covered by revenue, we would make a loss financially as a department which is undesirable (basic accounting 101).

Since there is so much back log of charges still pending, there must be a better way to assist in the flow of how operations should be run. Previewing the Equipment Booking System (in-house software) they have at the company, I do feel there is a limitation to what the prototype can do. It is the daily bookings of vehicles that is not accurately placed onto paper that is causing human error. Then the question in my head at the moment is, should they split the two systems apart whereby Equipment Booking System is for equipment only and Transport Booking System is for booking of the transport? Just thinking about it makes me head hurt.

Connect PC Desktop to TV: Investigation Part 1

No it isn’t really that hard right? Just need the right cable and plug it in from the CPU to the TV monitor… The problem is (wait for it…) what is the right cable? *gives the shock face look* This is what really is funny, because I am from Commerce IT, people expect me to know about these things. Truth be told, I am a newbie in hardware as well! Wouldn’t have a clue and manufacturers now a days make everything dummy proof right so they have cable colors so the user can match that. But after reading two articles about it, you apparently need to read your motherboard’s manual!

Ok for those that don’t know what your motherboard is… it’s this electrical piece that is in your CPU that connects to all these components so that the power supply can give it power to run all these hardware attached to it (hardware is like your CD/DVD Rom/Drive, hard disk (where you save all your files, etc).

So in my case after reading the manual, I find out my MSI board (MSI is a type of brand like Intel) has a VGA (Video Graphics Array) port. But I need to know if my VGA card supports TV out directly through this VGA port function. VGA is a standard for graphics display system so that is why the monitor cable is connected to the VGA port. So my next step is to find about this cable… I thought it was suppose to be really simple?

Macro Commands

In excel I guess it would be like a set of instructions that will be executed and is usually used to program repeated activities. So I thought hey I got to learn this Macro thing for Excel so I don’t keep typing the same old things over and over again thus now I will probably share with you what I learnt from Ted French at: http://spreadsheets.about.com/od/advancedexcel/ss/excel_macro.htm

The following is based from what I learnt on that particular website. Take note there are print screens from the website. You know what they say, a picture paints a thousand words so go check it out to have a better comprehension of where to find the buttons.

Macro for Excel 2003 uses the VBA editor and the macro recorder. As for the macro recorder, it can be found when you do following:
(Tools>Macros>Record New Macro)

You get this pop up box where you can fill in details so you have the “Macro name:” and then you have a drop down list for “Store macro in” and then a “Description:” box. Take note there are 3 choices one can choose for “Store macro in”.

1) New Workbook -> only accessible in the new excel file.
2) This Workbook -> only accessible in this file.
3) Personal Macro Workbook -> creates hidden file that stores the macros and accessible to ALL excel files.

So apparently as you click “Ok” it starts recording all the clicks and selections that you do and to stop you click on the blue filled square that pops up in a small window or you do the following:
(Tools>Macros>Stop Recording)

To run the saved macro that you just did you do the following:
(Tools>Macros>Macro)
Then select the one you want and click “Run”.

Ethnicity

It includes aspects of race, origin, ancestry, identity, language and religion. Also includes culture, arts, customs, beliefs and practices such as dress and food preparations.

Measuring ethnicity can be done so via origin or ancestry, race and identity.

Roots / Ethnic background is determined by looking at their origin or ancestry however the problem with this is the complexity of multiple background groups involved.

Race looks at the genetic and physiognomical (outward) features (ie skin color).

Identity would be about the perception of how a person sees themselves.

My Paper

Every morning as we collect “My Paper” from our door step, those that live in Singapore know this is a free edition paper that is in Chinese. For the past 2 days however, there has been a huge English section and seriously, I am estactic about this. As a Chinese reader dummy (I hate to admit this because I am Chinese), I don’t seem to panick and demand a translation article from my little sister every 3 minutes.

In the Tuesday paper yesterday 8th January 2007, an article on page A24 caught my eye by Lee Seok Hwai. The title of the article was “Blaming China for many ills smacks of hypocrisy”. She discusses the accusations against China’s activities and I can’t help but agree with her views of how the world has started to bash the image of China and conveniently blame them. But the reason why people send it to China for manufacturing is for greater profits and cheap labour yet you slap the people doing this for you?

Maybe we humans have to think twice now of blaming China for so many things and help to work with them instead. Maybe those that do change will be more productive and successful.