Some things are better left unknown

Sometimes, it's better to be a dumbass and not realise ...

1) Nobody washes vegetables before cooking
2) There can be extra sources of protein in your meal

While almost finishing my share of vegetables while having dinner with Jia Lun and Kokkai at a hawker centre, i found ...



Yeah, I continue to finish the rest of the food after casting the bug aside. I hope I didn't eat any of these that I didn't spotted.

Consultants ? Experts ? Outsource ?

For many companies, consultants are frequently used to fill in their ranks when their own staff couldn't perform a particular project or task. The consultants are employed mainly because they are the perceived experts in their fields and the companies they represent. Surely you will not go wrong when you are willing spend a small fortune to outsource your project to a team of people from a well known large local IT company ?

So my customer (i am outsourced to my customer's company as help desk support) bought a contact for a team of consultants, team manager and programmers from the large local IT company to start on a software solution project. We provided them a place in my customer's premises and computers for them, and so my helpdesk team assisted as technical support for them.

It didn't take me very long to find that the people who came on board didn't knew anything except for the software solution itself. That means they didn't know about a lot of other things, and how their software interfaces itself with the rest of the world. In other words, it's like being an expert in cooking steamed rice but know nothing else about cookery. Unfortunately, the rice is only part of a meal, and has to be paired with the appropriate dishes to complete the meal.

In the brief interaction time I have with them, they committed so many deadly sins in IT and uttered so much garbage that I found myself resisting really hard to laugh out loud in their faces and strangle them with mouse cords. So the rant begins here, and it might be quite technical for the layman out there.

Most of the story evolves around the apparent team lead of the software engineers, which I will refer to him as "S".

I wish I could do this to relieve my anger

The forgetful software engineers

Local user accounts were created for each of the computers provided to the team of software engineers. S wasn't happy with our standard default password, so he opted for another password which the software engineers conveniently managed to forget every couple of days, causing an account lockout each time. And so we kept unlocking their account several times a week, until I had to stand next to S, as he key in their passwords right after I had unlocked his account.

Guess what, trying to act impressive and stylish, S keyed in his password really fast and wracked the enter key in less than 2 seconds. Windows rejected his password and prompted him to try again. S did the same thing again, and got exactly the same result. He started to get annoyed and started protesting that the password he had just keyed was correct. I noticed the problem and pointed to the CAPS LOCK indicator. It's on. Passwords are case sensitive. It didn't take a miracle to get him to logon successfully on the 3rd attempt.

It didn't stop here. The software engineers still got themselves locked out because they kept entering the wrong passwords. Finally they relented and pasted the password on the LCD monitors they are working on. But it didn't help. They still get locked out every now and then. Hopeless hopeless hopeless.

Bad migration practices

When they didn't understand the existing customised codes in the system which they were trying to migrate, they simply overwrite the portion with their own code ignoring the much needed customisations without backups of the existing codes ! It didn't take long for the end users to find out that their familiar functions creased to work. The ugly consequences involved angry users hunting down the software engineers who had to work from grounds up because there were no codes to fall back on.

Cannot transfer data

While troubleshooting on a user's computer, they decided to save some log files for further analysis. S claimed that they couldn't do so because their thumbdrive didn't work on the Windows 2000 PC and there was no floppy disk drive. My customer's project supervisor told me about this and I was perplexed by S's unfounded claims. I proceeded to demonstrate Windows 2000 ability to support my thumbdrive and pointed to the floppy disk drive on the computer. I could almost imagine my customer's project supervisor tearing S apart when she confront him.

Remote printing

While troubleshooting a printing problem on the PC mentioned above, they wanted to isolate the problem by asking the user to do a test print on another computer. However, they couldn't see a obvious physical parellel printer cable linking the computer and the printer. In other words, the printer is not shared and thus can only be used with the computer in question. My puzzled user came looking for me and I had to go to tell the noobs that the printer is not shared and this can also be checked in the printer settings. Our dear software engineers are not only blind, they also didn't know how to check the configurations of a Windows printer.

Paper type and paper source

On the same printer problem, I had to demonstrate and explain how Windows printing works when I realised that S and his guys didn't understand the concept at all and thus it's no wonder that they couldn't troubleshoot the problem. Because of their ignorance, they couldn't come up with proper test cases and didn't know how to interpret the results. Despite after a couple of rounds of see and tell, they still didn't get it. I finally gave up and told them that obviously, their print job is using the wrong paper type and source. All they have to do is to modify their print job to do that and yet they refused to do so. I asked him to show me the properties page and S couldn't do it. Now not only he does not understand the Windows print system, he don't know things in his own turf too. At this point, I gave up and left them to rot on their own.

Lack of testing : Phase 1

One of the most glaring mistake they made was to go live without going through proper testing. The only tests they made were apparently on their test servers, and they assumed that their code will work flawlessly in production. The rollout included the automated of configuration files to the over 200 machines which spectacularly failed in most of the cases.

I was summoned to help troubleshoot the problem and it didn't take me more than a moment to point out that they not included a crucial updated configuration file. This could have been caught if they had done a limited rollout on a test group. Initially, the deployment team and the software engineers went through with the process of denial, pointing fingers everywhere except for the missing configuration file, until the truth sets in at the end of day one. The fallout took a whole week to clear, wasting much of the helpdesk resources.

Then the kicker came soon after. The application failed completely under VPN (Virtual Pirvate Network). Clearly they have forgotten what I have brought up a week before the rollout : test the software under VPN.

Lack of testing : Phase 2

Apparently they didn't learn. The second phrase of their implementation also failed completely under VPN. This lead to another round of furious troubleshooting which concluded with the disabling of a portion of the software.

However, they couldn't do it right either. The software engineers gave wrong instructions which resulted in chaos. I had to perform overtime at Jurong island to help troubleshoot the problem with no pay till 8.30pm. I wasn't surprised when we found that they actually didn't know how to disable the portion of the software which we figured how to shortly by trial and error. This just displayed their incompetency in their own product and lousy troubleshooting skills.

Customers troubleshooting your product ??? Give me a break !

... and there are many more incidents like those I mentioned. My impressions is that their IT knowledge is at best, on par with normal end users, and thus I cannot assume their technical expertise is of a high level. Their insane rate of spouting nonsense and vain attempts to act professional is really detestable and terribly annoying. I will not be surprised when the project gets slapped and penalised with liquidated damages.

Oh ya, their project manager bailed out early September by quitting his job. Smart move, I will say.

From the looks of things, this fiasco deserves an entry into http://worsethanfailure.com .

Day 0 - Orientation

I took up a degree course at Bachelor of Science in Business Information System and Computer Science offered by University of Murdoch at Kaplan City campus recently. I went for the orientation today and found to my horror that...

THERE ARE NO FEMALE STUDENTS IN MY COURSE !!!
ALL 12 STUDENTS ARE MALES !!!
ARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH !!!!

No way !!! Dang. Should have sign up for the business courses instead !! I have unknowingly enrolled in 少林寺 !!!

On the bright side, that means that there will be no distractions during the class.

The great Proscar hunt

On Monday night, i popped open my small plastic container holding my Proscar supply and found a grand total of 1 dosage left in it. Yikes ! I am such a lazy ass but I don't want to lose my hair !!! For those who didn't know what's Proscar, read my older post here : When guys go bald.

To summarise the long story ...

Tuesday : I couldn't find my colleague who helped me to buy my last supply at work. So I went to my family clinic at Big Mac Centre to try my luck. It was almost midnight when I reached the clinic, so I couldn't try another clinic when I was told that the last box of Proscar could not be located.

Wednesday : Went to another family clinic near my flat. Still no luck. They don't even sell it.

Thursday : Woke up early and decide to go Johor to buy instead. I haven taken leave today for my sister's doctor appointment, so I could go after the appointment. I set off to JB at 1.30pm from Tan Tock Seng and came back to my flat at 4.30pm. Going to JB on weekday afternoon on public transport is a breeze, no jams, no nothing. Just a smooth smooth trip.



I bought my supply from My Pharmacy near City Square at 86 Jalan Wong Ah Fook. There is a free membership that give 15% discount on prescription drugs and 10% on misc items, so I took it up ASAP since I can immediately use it on my current purchase.

Here is the maths for those interested in treating male hair loss using Proscar :

Propesia (1mg finasteride) 28 pills @ SGD$80 = SGD$2.86 per day
This is what doctors want to sell you because it makes more money.

Proscar (5mg finasteride) 30 pills @ SGD$120 = SGD$0.80 per day
Simply cut the Proscar pill into 5 pieces and you get 150 days supply at SGD$120.

Want to stretch your dollar ? Go Johor Bahru, it's near and cheaper !
Proscar (5mg finasteride) 30 pills @ MYD$195.50 (after 15% discount = SGD $86.50) = SGD$0.56 per day

That's a saving of $45 !! Not bad for 3 hours. I also bought an extra box of Proscar and pill splitter for a close friend who really need them but simply didn't have the motivation to do it. It's so sad to see him losing so much hair right now and I figure this will make a good birthday present.

Back in Singapore, while buying a expensive bottle of Bragg raw unfiltered organic apple cider vinegar at Cold Storage Causeway point, I came across this bloody expensive grape...and I though champagne grapes are expensive, this wins hands down.


Behold ! 300g of Japanese Kyono grape at $16.90 !!! ($5.63 per 100g) Champagne grapes go for $1 per 100g and your typical purple / green grapes a $0.49-$0.69 per 100g. Well they are big and round. It took me sometime to resist the temptation to pluck a grape for "testing".

Death trap

This morning, I went to Ingram Micro Education Centre for a workshop on Brightstor Arcserve Backup for Windows by Computer Associates. While making my way there, my digestion system didn't cooperate and produced a lot of gas. So after arriving at the premises, I raced to the 2nd floor where the reception is, signed in and hunted for the toilet like a madman before I crap in my pants.

I found the toilet sign, navigated a corner at break neck speed and found a door leading to a staircase. I went through the door and saw another opened door...



... which leads to a few compressor on a ledge. So if anyone who is 1/2 asleep and is new here, you could have land yourselves in the hospital cursing and swearing if you are not already dead.

Since I am here complaining about this in my blog, it means I am not dead and yes, unfortunately for you, I am not in the hospital either. The adrenaline rush however, saved me a cup of tea for my morning caffeine boost.

Ladies get your F-Cup here

All the rubbish from the land of the rising sun never failed to amuse me. Now we have the F.Cup cookie !!!

Each box comes with 4 packets of goody goody cookies containing 50mg of fats breast enlarging herb Pueraria Mirifica each. Why insert silicone, dodgy injections or some other weird and dangerous treatment when you can just eat your way to a F cup ?

Edit : Pueraria Mirifica contains phytoestrogens, which is similar to natural estrogen which give women their breasts. Guys, avoid this thing like a plague. Unless you feel like growing your own breasts to molest yourself. Yikes.

Oh did I mention that the fats and calories in the biscuits will not just go to your boobs, it will also balloon your butt, create a large tire around your abdomen and blow up your face as well by the time you get to your desired F cup.

Eh...I pass. I don't need a bigger cup. I need to downsize my spare tire.





Original article from gizomdo.com

And a more scientific view from Plastic Surgery 101

How to die from a heart attack

以型补型，吃脑补脑。(For supplementation, eat food of the same type. Thus to supplement your brain, eat a brain)



However, eating this junk should be classified as attempt suicide. You have to be a real pig to eat this stuff, Pork Brains in milk gravy! (Found on the internet. The Yankees will just eat anything, don't they?)

It's such a no-brainer. Even if you can avoid the fact that mash up brains is so plain gross, you can't missed the nutrition value table labeled on the can.

It screams "Cholesterol 3500mg per serving : 1170% of daily recommended intake"

Kudos to the makers of this suicidal device, they didn't try to hide the fact that it has little nutrition value and is simple a can of salt and cholesterol. By the way, brains are made mostly of cholesterol.

That's the damage for a single serving (per can) ! If you want some blocked arteries really quickly for your insurance claims or wish to go for multiple bypasses for the near-death experience, this is the ticket to do it really fast and furious style.

Any brave soul willing to take a risk and try this yummy looking smudge ?

I am so NOT going to buy this

On 20th July, Friday, I took my sisters for a spin at Vivo city after a hearty meal at Waraku Pasta at Central. What the hell am I doing at Vivo city ?

I am currently working at Harbourfront, so after several months, Vivo city became so damn boring. It didn't help that the fact is, I took leave to go there. To add insult to the injury, I kept getting work related calls in the afternoon. Might as well cancel leave and go back to work. But well, it's a request by my sister, anything goes.

At Giant hypermart, I came across this large water melon that I will not buy for 2 reasons.



1) It's too large (Around 35cm long), I am not going to cart this bad ass home. No way. Too heavy.

2) It cost an amazing $52. I can buy 17 smaller melons with the money. Or better yet, spend it on a nice dinner.

You have to hit me with the water melon till i lose my mind before I buy this monster.

Well Giant have plenty of good deals this week. Large Taiwan mangoes for $2.35 each and Longans at $0.19 per 100 grams.

Quick buy more memory for your computer now !

Enough said. This memory card will turn your computer into a working giant !

These 16Kb RAM card, expandable to 512Kb running at a blazing 4MHz will let you open a tiny text file if you can somehow get it to work for only USD$495 !

For those non-techies, this is a very antiqued advertisement for a memory module for a very old computer, Cromemco Z-1/Z-2.

In comparision against today's computer, 16Kb of memory if an miserable amount. Nowadays, most new computers are equipped with 1GB of memory or more. Just how much is that?

1GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes
16Kb = 16,384 bytes

That's a difference of 65536 times. Woah!

Also it's running at 4MHz. Today's commercially available memory modules runs upwards to 1333MHz. That's 333 times faster !

Why does today's computer uses so much memory? Ask Microsoft !

Boring Singapore MacDonalds ?

While surfing the internet during the wee hours on Saturaday, I came across a site showing some of the special stuff on MacDonald's menu worldwide. Although the Samurai burger and Kiasu burger are not listed, it's still an interesting read.

McDonald's Strange Menu Around The World


India's Big Mac Alternative


Japan's Ebi Fillet-O-Fish ?

And more !! Go read it !