Is Trust Built, Earned Or Given?

Often, we hear the phrase, "you have to earn my trust" when establishing any relationship but in reality, what people tend to do is to give it away blindly.

Personally, i believe trust is neither earned SMS certainly not given, it is built.

You may ask, doesn't earned and built actually the same thing? It is not. Earned imply the concept of doing something and getting something, in this case, trust in return. So can we spend trust? No!

That's the difference between building trust and earning trust. Building trust as with earning trust takes time, but the quality of the trust varies and it is put entirely at stake every time. You can't spend a bit of trust, you either build more of it or lose it all in a collapse.

Giving trust blindly is even worse, because this is an open invitation to disaster. I am pessimistic to human behaviour, and if left alone, self interest will rule their actions. When you give away trust freely, and you have a resource in demand, you will probably get abused because you are not protecting it.

So this is what i mean whenever i says, "trust is built, not given".

Post mortem of an epic disaster that almost happened

Seldom do I blog about work but I can't really resist doing an entry on the most miserable failures I have seen in my career.

All names are falsified to protect to guilty and innocent alike.

Ahem. Here I go.

People who know me will find me pretty confrontational at times, because of my stance at drilling down to the most painful spot to address problems at it's root, while people prefer to sweep the dirt under the carpet to maintain the status quo. I learn that from history that it is a timeless truth that ignoring a problem or pretending that it doesn't exist will never solve a problem. But instead, when left unchecked, the problem will snowball into a hollywood-class disaster that will make Fukushima seems like paradise.

Although some short term pain may be unpleasant and unavoidable, it is my prerogative to steamroll over the problem as long as it in my interest to do so. At work, I do somewhat run a team of contractors and vendors as part of my job in IT infrastructure department. Learning from a couple of negative examples, I knew that it is important to keep morale high and the way I do so is to let my team know that their contribution is important and recognised, never to be taken for granted. The team needs to be properly protected from external parties from abuse and misuse. This will give me a reliable team which will be willing to go for the extra miles whenever needed.

This is somewhat lacking within my organisation. We engage many contractors and vendors to support our operations but they were often treated unfairly as outsiders and the bias is obvious throughout. However this is not the topic of this blog entry and the spotlight is on what happens when you blindly treat them as resources and not your arms and legs.

The star in this story is one of the developer in the application support team who is in charge of several key systems, which are crucial to the operation of the organisation. Let's just call him developer X, who is supplied by a vendor for close to a year by the time of writing.

Over the course of the year, there were a number of incidents on one of the key systems. As I dug deeper, the investigation showed that there were multiple errors generated by the application and the IT infrastructure systems are working perfectly. Developer X took a short little peep at the errors and did not proceed to investigate further, saying that the errors did not cause the failures so far. Troubled by the lack of evidence that the troubleshooting was done properly, and more importantly, being sick of wasting my valuable resources on handling application failures, my patience finally ran out. Instead of treating the failures as isolated incidents, they are properly grouped a chain of incidents and brought to the attention of Developer X's manager, the business owner and the VP. Even so, the glacial progress was miserable at best, with the case running into triple digits in downtime. I don't understand why did the business owner didn't tighten the screw on Developer X when they are paying for the application.

Unfortunately, the fun had just begun. Due to a company restructuring exercise, changes are required for two of the key systems. The deadline was to be two months before the deployment to the production environment. Towards the last few weeks of the deadline, it became apparent that Developer X did not understand the requirements of the exercise. There were so many missing and incomplete deliverable that it would have be a complete disaster if not that the restructuring exercise deadline was extended by another month due to other reasons.

Getting really worried and convinced that we were going to have a couple of major deployment failures and serious data integrity issues in the production environment,  I decided that hopium wasn't in my diet and the stakes were too great. Despite that it is not my job to meddle with application development, I had to divert attention to this exercise to prevent a perfectly preventable catastrophe on multiple key systems.

It turned out to be a case of a bad apple, with the manager unaware of the situation and a tub of worms to be sorted out. Things got more and more amazing as we went go. The developer didn't understand how the applications functioned and didn't know what was needed to complete the project. It got even better when Developer X wanted to deploy the solution into the UAT environment when the solution was not approved by his manager nor the business owner. Further more, the deployment process was not followed, without proper documentations and testing.

It didn't help when we have a problem understanding Developer X because of conversation problems and Developer X's comprehension skills is blindly poor.

This was a major red flag as this is a recipe for disaster. At this point, it was obvious that we have a severe competency issue and the problem had to be escalated all the way to the VP. I could see that there was a high risk of data corruption due to the design of the solution and deployment failure due to poor documentation.

The vendor has to send in

The deployment plan turned out to be problematic as well, with important activities being overlooked.

Things wa

3G Sucks In Singapore

Perhaps the most common complain that you can hear these days is the woeful state of the mobile 3G service in Singapore. No service provider is spared from the scorching comments from their customers.

So what had happened? Simply look at your favourite Telco's mobile phone offerings. Almost every phone offered these days are smart phones. The explosive popularity of smart phones in Singapore has completely outstrip the telco's ability to provide 3G data to then. Remember, Smart phones in Singapore uses the 3G service to quench their ever growing thirst for more data bandwidth.

For every user checking out their Facebook walls, whatsapp messages, words with friends, draw something, and twitter feeds, the more data bandwidth is required to connect to the internet.

Now the interesting part is that i suspect that the telco are using the same base stations that they has already previously installed all over Singapore for GSM service, for the 3G service. For each base station, it has an independent link to the internet. This link is shared among all the users in the area connected to the base station.

This means if there are too many smart phones users in the area, the base station will simply run out of data bandwidth while still showing full bars for 3G. Remember the bars are meant to show signal strength, not speed.

This is based on something that i am observing almost everyday. During peak hours, every time a fully packed train pulls into the station, internet days traffic went from ok to totally dead. As soon as the train pulls away, my internet connection confess back to life. Also every time I stray near AMK hub, my data connection drops dead as well. In both scenarios, the 3G bars are at a healthy max level.

So the i hope this explains why your mobile device simply don't hook up to the internet during peak hour in the train or stall in a busy shopping centre.

This might also be the reason why i never came close to busting the 12gb data limit imposed by my data plan from Stinktel.

As every telco had the same issue, the only solution is to move on to 4G as Laghub and M1 fare no better either. Or maybe we can force the telco to stop charging us a premium for 3G when they cannot provide sufficient data bandwidth at their end of the bargain.

Will you trust your wealth to financial advisers?

It's a straight up "No" for me.

I got a general distrust of the financial advisers and planners I have met so far. Generally, they claim to be able to help with your financial but end up trying to sell a load of financial products to me. This is the hallmark of the typical salesman.

Let's apply some common sense and see why I don't think all these add up at all.

1. Qualification and experience
   Slapping a CFA (Chartered financial analyst) certification on top of a salesman doesn't make things better. A CFA certificate is valuable in basic understanding of the financial markets but doesn't not mean that the CFA holder is able to help you to manage wealth.
   
   Things are worse when the financial planners are fresh graduates with little wealth management skills to speak of. Reciting lines from seminars and presentations does not imply true understanding of the subject.
   
   Further more, I find it hard to accept advice from someone without actual experience in managing wealth successfully.
   
2. Conflict of interest
   Having little true financial analysis skills, many of these people claim to have an army of researchers performing all forms of analysis to find the best product to ... help you instead of maximising profits for their company and to get a larger commission in returns.
   
   However the problem is that the advisers and planners is not independent and is inclined to sell products offered by their employer. With the majority of the financial advisers and planners coming from the insurance and funds brokerage and their resellers, it makes sense that they will be interested in selling various forms of their primary products to you.
   
   Think about it, the more risky or lousier the product, more commission is needed as an incentive to promote and push the hot potato to the customers. A good product needs little promotion. Do you need a salesman to tell you that the iPhone is a great product?
   
3. DiversificationOn the topic of investment, whenever some adviser or planner tried to discourage me from going into stocks and instead, diversify my risks my buying mutual funds, I always have this urge to ask them what is their understanding of diversification. In a nut shell, buying a couple of funds is not diversification, even it's across industries and countries.
   
   True diversification requires investment in difference asset classes, which are the following: equities (stocks), fixed-income (bonds) and cash equivalents (money market instruments), commodities and real estate.
   
   
   Putting all your money in mutual funds as your "investment" is generally a bad idea because the money is heavily vested in the equities and bonds market. Any shock to the economy typically sinks both of them together, albeit at different rates of decline. Any actual gains will be subjected to a million management fees conjured by the funds management. I got enough of the bullshit and took out every cent from these vampires.
   
   A FX coach, Thomas said this: "There is nothing mutual about mutual funds. They don't make losses when you do."
   
4. Making the sales pitch
   The financial planners and advisers I had met so far are quite a disappointment in this expect. The usual approach will be a courtesy call to arrange for a catch up session in an attempt to find out your current ability to purchase more of their products.
   
   Usually they will have this new great product(s) that they are offering and you should sign up immediately. It can be a insurance policy that you do not really need, an upgrade to your policy, a new fund etc.
   
   The data presented will almost try to put the product is a positive light but a fair comparison with a similar competing product will never be provided.
   
   The sales pitch for funds can be really bad too. There is no market timing involved. Market timing, an important and key factor in any profitable trade is played down as not important or hard to do. Instead, dollar cost averaging is advocated instead. This completely goes against the common sense of buying low and selling high. Why will anyone buy something close to the historical high? The risk of going down is so much higher and typically not worth the possible drawn down ahead to realise a possible tiny gain. Using a chart without showing 2008 data is as good as lying.
   
   Oh wait, does these guys actually know how to read a chart? We go into that next.
   
5. Charting
   I learnt that when dealing with anything to do with the financial world, charting is the number one skill required. For most of the general public, a chart with a positive trend line is all you need to know that the product is going to make you millions. Didn't everyone said that the trend is your friend? Unfortunately, that's also why so many people are losing money in the financial markets.
   
   Without going into details, let's stick to buying low and selling high. You need to know where was the historical low and high, and where you are now. If you are not sure where the market is now, get your favorite chart showing 5 years of data and get a 5 years old to answer you.

That sums it up my rumblings.

Disclosure: I had exited all my investments in mutual funds a couple of years back. Too much drawn down and a little net gain is not something I am interested in. I am a speculator in the spot FX and spot precious metal markets.

I want to save $10,000 a year.

I have this conversation with my Mother last night which makes me wonder whether personal finance should be taught to everyone.

It started with my Mother coming into my room, pondering aloud whether it is worthwhile for her to continue working at her job while complaining about the high cost of public transport in Singapore. I walked her through the maths and came into conclusions that transportation cost does not eat up her whole salary.

Knowing that my Mother isn't financially savvy, I continued to probe further on what is her expectations and learn that she is trying to save $10,000 a year when her basic annual take home salary is $9600.

From there, I tried explaining that in order to see an increase in personal wealth, you need to do the following:

1. Cut expenses.
   Going on 2 overseas holidays a year is not exactly the best way to do so.
   
2. Increase gross salary.
   Not possible for an uneducated worker near retirement age.
   
3. Alternative income.
   Frankly, investment is not for everyone and speculation is even worse. Another part time job will kill her. The best I can do for her is to convince her not to put $50,000 in a fixed deposit for a measly $900 bucks. That's 1.8% interest in an environment that is expecting 2.5%-3.5% inflation rate in 2012.

I went on to say that going by the advice by financial planners is good but typically useless. You can find out your income and your expenses, but the will power to perform the 3 items above is all she needs. As long as she is proactively doing the 3 items, her bank balance will grow.

As expected, she ended up walking out of the room looking confused. This reenforce my conviction to teach my kids if any in the future the importance of financial education.

The non-IT guide to buying a home wireless router

How do you know which home wireless router to buy? It's easy! Just follow the 8 golden rules below.

Honey, this is what we want.

1. The bigger the size of the retail box, the better it is!
2. The retail box must be attractive, preferably with a gloss shine. It looks more impressive and turns head.
3. If the retail box is heavy, it means it has quality components and thick manuals. Good quality components are heavy and good products have thick manuals.
4. It must have a foreign sounding name. Home grown companies is a no-no.
5. Big numbers and the number of features matters. Plug and pray is a must. 
6. The more wireless antenna it has, the better it is. Wireless radiation may cause brain cancer though.
7. It is the cheapest router on the shelf. This has the highest priority among all the rules. Remember your home financial controller will not increase your IT budget.
8. Refer to rule #7.

Reality sucks though.

Misadventures in audio land

The prelude
After waiting a decade for my Altec Lansing XA3021 to die a natural death, I woke up to the fact that it had simply refused to do so and may never do. I had bought the bombastic looking speakers during the period when I was dead broke. At $129, the sound quality was pretty decent but still falling behind the Altec Lansing ACS48 that I had passed to my sister.

  

Altec Lansing XA3021 aka Da bomb. Stripped off it's position and now sits in an environment friendly (body) bag.
0.5 / 5star for serving me for a decade.

And so dissatisfied with the poor quality of the sound I am getting, I decided to shop for a better pair of speakers and sound card.

The sound card

It wasn't so long ago when I scornfully questioned everyone who asked whether they should buy a sound card. Who the hell will pay for a sound card nowadays when it is provided free on every computer. AC97 is good right? My last sound card was the Creative Vibra and Creative Live Value, which was like an era 15 years ago.

After doing some research, I had to eat my words when I realise that the truth is, I didn't have the speakers to tell the difference between on-board sound and a good sound card. The difference lies mainly in the DAC which is important as I had opted for an RCA connection over a SPDIF connection to the speakers. And so I ended up buying a Asus Xonar Essence STX.

Asus Xonar Essence STX. $235. 

Speakers galore

After consulting Ronald, the guru on the subject, I arrived to the conclusion that I will need to acquire a pair of active speakers. An active speaker setup helped to rein cost in while providing the best bang for the buck.. A set of high fidelity audio setup will cost an arm and leg, and have an insane learning curve before it can be tuned correctly.

To be fair, the best bang for the buck should go to a good pair of headset. But as I find them to be uncomfortable over a prolong period of usage, I decided to get a bookshelf type speaker as all I need is a compact near field speaker.

I had also stopped craving for the deep bass from a sub woofer as I found that the cheap ones that comes with the sub $500 2.1 speakers usually just make a flat tone and make everything sound bad. As most of my media is in stereo format, there is also no need to get surround speakers.

With the era of CRT monitors long gone, there is no longer any more need for a magnetically shielded speaker, and I had also included non-PC speakers for evaluation.

Next, I went to The Adephi with Ronald to look for a pair of speakers. Ronald has a better set of pampered years than I do, and his experience with audio equipment helped me greatly.

 

Audio Engine A2. $199.Verdict. 1 / 5 star for making some noise.

Kelvin recommended that I should check out the Audio Engine series. I started out with the A2 which was underwhelming. In a nutshell, it has poor sound reproduction and no sound clarity. I lost interest in about 10 seconds into the demo track.

Audio Engine A5. $449.Verdict. 1.5 / 5 star for making better noise.

Next, I tried the A5 which was an improvement over the A2 but still lacking in the same department. I spent more time evaluating this unit compared to the A5. At lower volume, the sound reproduction quickly deteriorated to unbearable levels.

 

Epoz Aktimate Maxi. $1480.

Verdict. 5 / 5 star for being the best but still it cost too much.

On the urging of another customer in the shop, I went on to check out the Epoz Aktimate Maxi. This baby is above my budget as I was actually interested in the Epoz Aktimate Mini. However it was out of stock and the shop owner insisted that I should try the Maxi instead.

This unit is quite impressive. It scored a full points in all departments except for the price tag. For an active speaker, this is the best speaker I had heard so far. While I had little use for the I-everything dock as I run Android based devices exclusively, it has an array of computer friendly features such as DLNA, Internet radio and FM radio functionality. If you want a great pair of book shelf plug and play dummy proof speakers, you should seriously consider this baby. 

I had to take a sanity check via a lunch break to think over whether I should be getting this baby back home.

  

Elac AM 150. $960.

Verdict. 4.5 / 5 star for being the best bang for the buck.

The dark horse of the day was the Elac AM 150. Unlikely the other speakers, this was meant to for home entertainment system, not the PC. It has two class A/B amp per cabinet, one for the tweeter, and the mid/woofer. As each cabinet is independently powered, this meant the Elac AM 150 has no trouble dishing out serious power. It also has cross over controls at the back of each cabinet, which according to Ronald, is a welcome but uncommon feature.

I couldn't actually nail it but somehow the sound reproduction wasn't as impressive as the Epoz Aktimate Maxi. There was something different it wasn't bad either. I wasn't using the same disc for testing but I could tell that the Elac AM 150 is slightly behind the Maxi.

However at 2/3 the price of the Maxi, it is definitely the best bang for the buck. Even at low volume, sound reproduction is crisp and pleasant. In the end, I decided that this will be the work horse I am looking for.

The horrors of high(er) fidelity

After the setup of the new rig, I tried a couple of MP3s and quickly found that...

1. Good singers sound better. Their vocal range is now expressed properly.
2. Bad singers sound worse. Their vocal range is so flat that a plane can land on it. Seems like nothing can save a bad singer.
3. The difference between bit rates used to encode the MP3s is now apparent. I tried 128 to 320 KBPS MP3s, 900 KBPS FLACs and the few audio CDs that I own. Anything below 256 KBPS sounded terrible now and there is no way to upgrade my MP3 collection. At lower bit rates, the higher and lower frequencies got cut off.
4. Because of point 3, you can actually hear more instruments and tones in the same music. Listening to old tunes is actually refreshing now.
5. It doesn't seem to help make Team Fortress 2 any more fun than it already is.
6. My mom still treat my music as loud noise.

Conclusion
I have no regrets with this rig as it had vastly out performed the Altec Lansing XA3021 and completed all my objectives that I had initially set out to achieve.

However, I doubt that anyone will be interested in burning up cash for audio equipment for the PC even after reading this blog article especially you can buy a computer with it.

Update 20 Feb 2012
I switched the setup to digital mode and it seems that the output sounds better. In digital mode, instead of using the RCA cable for analogue output, they are used for digital SPDIF. This effectively bypass the internal Asus Xonar's DAC which is based on the Texas instruments pcm1792 chip. This leaves the important job to the Elac AM 150 which has an internal DAC.