Project Status Report 1 - (Amber)

Why not, we always do this kind of stuff at work. Status reports and all sorts of meaningless documentation that add's hours upon hours of overhead and thousands upon thousands of meaningless dollars (in some cases)

So how is the development of the software going. If i was going to submit this as a status to the project board i would say amber. Reason being that we have quite a few problems but we know how to address them all, nothing is in an unknown state (which to me is very important), only thing is we are abit behind schedule interms of timeframe and implementation.

Garage Datacenter Mobile Man has taken the iMac to his place to begin development for the iPhone so that we have mobility available for our application. He has begun looking into the web application aspect of it and this is probably the way forward for our application. The decision of native app VS web app was decided in a meeting last week and its going to be moving forward as a web application.

Garage Datacenter Artist has been hacking away at the templates and the Javascript to get the UI frontend working as required. This has been a difficult and tedious task but he has done an extremely supurb job progressing as he has. All the issues and difficulties have all been address and its all down to the implementation and the nitty gritty of the development and implementation of the solved problems.

Garage Datacenter CEO (me). I have been working on a few of the backend algorithms and processes to ensure things are optomized. I have looked at memcaching and various other ways to address better performance. I have also been working heavily on the integration of the templates to the core backend application. Most of the heavily technical problems that where present at the backend have also been addressed and implemented, the main requirement now is to finish all facets of integration.

Garage Datacenter Hitman: Garage datacenter hitman has been working on procurement lately as the core backend hardware has been built. He has managed to source the apple iMac for a whopping $0 for us to develop on. Great job in getting the iMac for the best price possible.

So thats about it for project status 1 for the application build. Things going well and an updated status report will be posted next week friday or thursday reporting on progress.

Till the next post .... enjoy christmas and have a safe holiday to all ... i'll be coding all holiday long (well accept for new years eve where im going to let loooooooossse)

Ciao !

QuANTum mechAnicS ...

Quantum mechanics ... what is it ? Quantum mechanics is the way the world works in the microscopic world beyond the human eye's capability to see, beyond the most powerful microscopes, beyond what we as the human race to date understand even with the most ADVANCED equipment .... alot of the behaviour in the Quantum world is unexplainable. Alot of the properties of this world can be seen and observed from our world but how it actually operates and functions internally is still unknown ...

Quantum mechanics in many cases is just weird ... quantum mechanics predicts alternate universes and different realities (the twilight zone maybe) where things can be very similar to this world only with minor differences or can be very different, where the constructs of nature itself is not that which is similar to nature in this universe we have we are just *beginning* to understand ...

SO ... lets for a moment imagine we are in one of these alternate universes that QuANTum mechAnicS creates ....

Imagine an alternate universe, a universe where people run around mindless and almost drone like, not everyone but a large portion, where people follow orders without thinking, without knowing why they are doing a particular task ... imagine a world where people talk but do not do or a world where a person who has a title such as ENGINEER isnt really an ENGINEER but a COOK even though ENGINEER in this alternate universe actually does mean someone who is technically aware in a particular field, whether it is computing, mechanical or industrial.

Imagine an alternate universes where people run around in circles without reason, similar to that of headless chooks. Imagine an alternate universe such as that which QuANTum mechAnicS creates where the people who are supposed to be leaders act like spinless robots and where manipulation and evil forces are strong and affect the flow of this world, where this evil is old and cunning, where this evil knows no bounds and this evil wishes to destroy everthing that opposes it ...

What would this world be like that QuANTum mechAnicS creates and predicts .. i would be scared to enter a world such as this .. i would pray that if i ever encountered a place like this in my dreams that i would never again be exposed to such stupidty, such evil and such incompetence ....

Lets hope that when quantum mechanics works out a way to open wormholes and portals to other worlds that the technology can also predict places such as this ...

*shivers*

Success driving success ...

So SWA magazine, an indonesian magazine has just listed 50 entreprenerus currently gaining respect and recongnition for their contributions to the indonesian business and economy. Its great to see these indonesians not moving out of indonesia to gain success but looking inside and finding opportunities within.

I am indonesian and i left indonesia to come to australia when i was about 4 years old because parents saw opportunity in australia. They were right and im very happy that they took this step and considered my well being as a major factor to move out from indonesia even though they were well off and were more then comfortable where they were.

Even though i live in australia now, speak with an australian accent and was educated in australia i still speak indonesian *rather* fluently (specially after my stint working in indonesia) still hold an indonesian passport and still feel patriotic about proud to see successful indonesians (expecially our students that won gold, silver and bronze at the world academic olympiades).

I love australia because its the country where i have been educated and were i learnt everything that i know however i also love indonesia because alot of who i am culturally, including my views and preferences is because my parents brought me up in the indonesian way.

I hope that one day if i become a successful entreprener i can contribute to indonesia in whatever way i can and that i can also share alittle corner on the pages of SWA magazine with other successful indonesians who have made a name for themselves through hard work, clever ideas and with the willingness to succeed.

Congratulations to all the guys in the magazine ... you should be proud :)

Hmmm i think i promised to talk about garage datacenter mobile man in this post ... bahhhh he can wait till the next one :)

The Entrepreneurial Spirit ... (Part 2)

So, i'll continue ....

During uni was there any hair brain ideas that i embarked on ... not really, thinking back, during uni i didnt do many startups or try any type of money making scheme, i was mainly concerned with finishing assignments and tryin to get good grades as well as having fun with my uni friends so any ideas of how to make money just wasnt there. Towards the end of my computer science degree i did try to start a web design company but i had gotten a job as a grad working for a big 4 consulting company getting (what i thought at the time was ridiculous money, $48,000 a year, think i was about 21 at the time...) so that idea of a web design company went out the door.

Around age 21-25: During this time all i really did was do assigments and thesis's for people. I was developing code in the office for my 9-5 and did peoples thesis's and assignments during my free time. It generated some good money, around $1000 dollars per thesis and $200-$400 per assignment depending on the assignment. So during this time, along with money from my 9-5 i was getting assignment money from people to lazy to do their assignments and thesis's.








Around age 25 - 27(nowish): So i started to get serious about doing things now ... the first hair brain idea i had when i was working overseas was to setup VSAT satellite systems and use these as the backbone infrastructure for voice over IP to all the remote regions of indonesia ! believe it or not i pulled it off at 2 actual sites and made some money. The investment was about $12,000 AUD of my own money and the return was about $20,000 - $22,000 minus various costs leaving me with about $6000 dollars for about 4 days of work. This worked but since i moved back to australia i couldnt make deals of this kind anymore

Around age 25 - 27(nowish): I came up with this idea to make life easier for certain types of people using a certain type of equipment so i designed this *thing* and put a patent (provisional on it) i just finished the market research and i have 4 retailers and 1 distrubutor interested, from a total of 15 that i interviewd, will be meeting up with the product managers of these retailers in early '09. See how it goes and whether or not it will bear any fruit.

Around age 25 - 27(nowish): In parallel to the above project is this startup im doing, we are about 75% of the way through the code and the infrastructure is about 90% built. I can focus on this because my other project (above) that im running doesnt require my devoted time as i have assigned it to someone who i am paying to complete. To tell you the truth this startup myself, garage datacenter hitman, garage datacenter artist and garage datacenter mobile man (final additon to the team) are working on is the most exciting ... lets hope it can be a major success :)

So there you have it ... my attempts at making money in somewhat unconventional ways, tried many things in the past, some failed some successful and some still in progress. However, any which way you look at it, its always been exciting and always full of twists and turns. Most importantly i learnt alot of things along the way .....

So do i have the Entrepreneurial spirit ... well i think i do, am i a successful Entrepreneur, to date no, but one that is learning alot and hopefully sometime close in future can fall into the successful Entrepreneur's category :)


OK, until next time ... think i will write about garage datacenter mobile man, the final and new additon to the garage datacenter team ....

The Entrepreneurial Spirit ... (Part 1)

So what does it take to be an entrepreneur ? Its really hard to say actually and i dont know any first hand other then myself ... Could i classify myself as an entrepreneur ?!? I dont know, i have tried to setup various businesses from a very young age (startups, small business etc etc), some of them have provided decent returns and some of them a total flop.

As a result of this let me rephrase the question .... what has Garage Datacenter CEO done in his past that could be considered Entrepreneurial .... (its probably better cause i dont know what it takes to be an entrepreneur cause i still read books and various different articles on this topic so that must mean that im also still learning to answer that question)

So lets start at the early years: Age 10-16

Around Age 11: At the age of 11 (from the lunch money and pocket money i had) i bought myself a plastic bucket, some detergent and a window washer. I stood at the corner of the street (where the traffic lights would stay red for a reasonable amount of time) with another mate of mine and we started to wash car windows. Since i was so small i think it shocked some people and they gave me money *possibly* out of pity. Whatever the case this was successful cause by the end of the day i would have $25 or so ... investment was 5 dollars, return was 25 dollars, this totals to a 500% return. SUCCESS in my books ...

I tried this again on the next weekend and was in the middle of washing a ladies window when she screamed out my name *Garage Datacenter CEO !* what are you doing, i was shocked and said, *hi aunty teresa, im just making some money washing windows, (with a smile on my face)* she told me to get into the car and drove my to my mums work. At my mums work she began to explain what i was doing. My mum simply laughed and said, let him know how hard it is to make a buck (my mums cool like that) anyway, aunty teresa (bless her soul she has passed away now) convinced my mum not to let me do it again. My mum had a few words to me and convinced me it was dangerous so i stopped doing it.

Around Age 11-12: At around the same age i tried to have a garage sale. I scowered through the garage to find any items i didnt need. I rounded them all up, put them into a trolley and wheeled it to the main street where i lived. I layed out a towel put all the items on it and sat there with the same mate who had done the window washing gig with me ... i was there for a whole DAY from 10 to 4pm and sold *NOTHING* absolutly nothing. It was terrible, i actually had a lady who was looking closley at the rollerskates i was trying to sell but when i said 5 dollars she walked away .... I have to say this garage sale was a failure. Sold nothing and had to wheel everything back home, then got a scolding cause parents found out i was trying to sell some bed sheets that they actually wanted :(

Around Age 11-13: At around this age i got word that woolworth trollies would return 2 dollars if they where returned ! This was absolute gold, every trolley i found and returned would pop out 2 dollars from the little lock on the trolley handle. Spent almost a month (4 weekends) doing the rounds around my local westfields making money this way. Eventually though these trollies stopped poping out 2 dollars cause they had offical trolley collectors doing the work. This was a major success, over the 4 weeks i made about $120 dollars ! (investment $0, return $120)

Around Age 12-14: Kriss kross will make you jump jump the mac dad will make you jump jump ahuh ahuh ... This was the most popular song of the time ... KRISS KROSS's jump ! So what did i do ... i made 20 pirated copies of these and sold it to people for $4 a pop. I was young and stupid, i was at most 14 at the time ... I had no idea this was an illegal activity. Guess how i found out this was illegal .... my little kriss kross business was picking up soo much i actually recruited someone to help me make the tapes and distribute them (i actually did this little gig with the now current garage datacenter artist !, yes we been friends since primary but kind of lost touch until now). My new recruite began making copies and was doing a great job, then one day he said to me, my grand mother told me not to do it anymore cause its illegal ! I was thinking how could this be, it must be a ploy to take business away from me ... (after much research) ie asking my dad, he did tell me it was illegal ... i was so distraught and saddened by this that i threw away all the cheap 20c tapes i had brought and did away with this business. I invested about 10 dollars ad made back almost $100 in a span of 2 weeks ! (i guess this doesnt count though cause it was kind of illegal) I'd like to take this time to say sorry to kriss kross :)

Around Age 14 - 16: So the basketball card craze hit ! It was all about the basketball cards that you had and i was dead set in the middle of this. I began trading and making money through various deals between people. I used to put a premium on finding particular cards that people needed. For example, if someone was searching for a jordan living legend i would say, i will get you a jordan living legend and you will pay me an extra 5 dollars for being able to get this card for you. This worked for a whole two years until the craze finally died down. There was a time when i got abit sinister and actually created fake (first issue) cards but i felt guilty and stopped this practice immediatly. My returns doing this was great, i made money in the hundreds, both from trading and putting premiums on getting cards people wanted ... i didnt know that what i was doing was charging for a service, all i knew was the money was good !

Around Age 14 - 16: Around the same age i learnt how to work with wood in shop/woodwork class. I also learnt how to manipulate plastic with a fry pan and bend the plastic into shapes that you wanted. What did i do ... i bought some plastic, bought a similar fry pan as we had in shop class, made some bowels and bought some chocolates. I then placed all the chocolates into the bowels wrapped it up in nice selphane plastic and tried to sell it door to door. This was a major failure ... sold nothing, i didnt have a good sales pitch, it wasnt for a charity and quite frankly i had no reason why i was selling it other then to make money for myself .... investment was time + money for the plastic and chocolates (not much money) and return on investment was a big fat $0.

These where my Entrepreneurial activites prior to graduating from highschool .... sometime in future i will put the ideas that i put into action during university and post university ...

Long post .. if your up to here, thanks for reading ...

Taking the day off ....

Usually Satudays are spent in the garagedc (above) coding away integrating the application we are building. Its a full days work and usually the outcome is another module completed or integrated. This saturday however was quite different.

Friday the weather was absolutly terrible, it was raining, it was cold and from my point of view it was a totally undesirable day ! (i love the heat. I am pretty much like superman and all my energy comes from the sun) Thursday was the same, also a terrible cold and damp day...

Saturday however was GREAT, it started out pretty cold but the sun came up and shone brightly in the sky, pushing away all the clouds, the gloom and rejuvinating my energy source.

A mate of mine called up and said he wanted to come over at 3ish. This was was perfect cause garage datacenter artist and i had been working till about 2:30 and he had to leave to do some christmas shopping. When my mate arrived we had a bit of a chat in the garage then headed off to the beach to get some fish and chips and sit under the sun. We literally sat under the sun for 3-4 hours, it was great and its what summer is all about in sydney. It cant be beaten, whether your in any other state in australia or any other country (well the ones i have been to anyway) none of them can compare.

On the sand we talked about the financial crisis, the project we were doing, work and how to get out of being sue'd (more on that later) it was great and my energy source is truelly now replenished. I even managed to save a lady bug that was stuck in the sand and getting washed around in the waves :)

Sunday (ie today) is also nice and sunny, however im getting back to work to do some more integration.

Above are some images from the day off from the garage datacenter ... The truth of the matter is, i work so hard in the garagedc to one day *hopefully* be able to enjoy this kind of atmosphere EVERYDAY .... I could really see myself sitting on a balconey somewhere, outlooking this view and typing away on my laptop *taking care of business* (whatever that business maybe)

Ok ... gonna put in my next entry :)

The Corporate World ...

The "corporate" world ... hmmm, what do i think of it, One Word ... GrrrrRRRrrRRrrrrrr .... yeh, thats about it for now ...

Programming Languages Only ? .... Na ... ;)

Lets take this post to divert alittle away from technology :) Other then technology i love to travel and one of the things that i like to do as a result of this is to learn languages. I spent last year learning mandarin and its still pretty bad but i guess enough to get around and learn much quicker if ever required, i mean i could get around china on my own but it would be pretty funny ;)

If i ever spend time in china im pretty sure with what i know i should be able to get into the language details reasonaly quick, i guess the main thing is that i have the basics and know the basic language constructs, knew how to write but kind of forgotten but its in there somewhere ready to begin again if ever the time came.


This year I spent the last 4 months learning japanese cause Datacenter hitman said ... lets learn japanese, so im like, alright cool ! lets go for it ! I submitted my japanese assignmnent which i thought was pretty fun to do (it was a speech) and have posted it up for you to see below. Its basically just an introduction to who I am :) *pretty basic stuff* but im happy its slowly getting there.




I also have to say that the class was great cause everyone got along really well. We also had a great dinner at the end to celebrate closing of japanese module A & B. Below are my class mates, wonder if you can guess which one is me :)

Dinner Photo's :)

Class Photo with our teach Mayumi Sensei

So yeh, programming languages arnt the only fun things to learn, asian languages or ANY language for that matter is fun too :) 27th of january i'll be signing up for modules C & D, it will be fun ! :)

OK until next time ...

Coding ... Coding ... Coding ...

Coding .... Thats what we spent the whole day doing ... garage datacenter artist arrived at about 11:00am and we got stuck right into it. We began by preparing each of our own modules for integration, then finally putting it all together. We overcame quite a few issues and sorted out all our unknowns. Most of the components have been integrated now - (crewd) but all modules talking, we have been preparing for the last 3 months .... Im also abit tired now cause im not feeling 100% and also quite tired mentally ... 12 hours infront of the computer cant be good .... Yeh i think i'll make this entry quite short ...

My coding Quarters ...

OK ... Night ... going to sleep ...

Baby dont cry... Baby dont get ...

Some people are afraid to ask so they dont, then they complain about not getting ... its an easy concept though lots of people dont understand this ... including me until about a couple of years back.

We are grumbling and disgruntled in the office, unhappy cause we think we are underpaid, we wonder why we are underpaid and usually the answer its pretty easy, its cause we just didnt ask :)

I remember thinking a few years ago (possibly as a result of the dot com bust) that if i was offered a job i should take it and not question the money (yes i know ... i was dumb). The reason why i attribute it to the dot com bust is i graduated from uni around that era (2 years or so after) and the competition for jobs was huge cause no one was hiring. I remember when i was a grad it would be 500 grads to 4 jobs and if you were offered you should just take it.

Times have changed now and i have learnt alot over time. Now not only do i cry .. i also jump up and down, roll on the groud in circles and throw tantrums, so to speak ;) and yes it seems to work :P

At the moment im negotiating a 4 day week (doing infrastructure architect role *thank god*) with good contract rates and a great working environment. I am doing this so that i have time on my hands (albeit abit less) for my startup as time is drawing near. This deal is still under negotiations so lets hope my tantrums are enough to seal the deal ....

Chance Advice ....

Its funny how buddies of yours seem to creep up from nowhere. Guys that you were friends with before even starting highschool. You wonder where they are and all of a sudden you meet them at a the local department store, talk abit and found out that you pretty much are into the same things. Sometimes i ask my self the question. Was this a chance meeting or was it something pre-destined by a higher power. Anyway, whatever the case these chance meetings can end up really changing alot of things.

I had a buddy, lets call him Bedroom CEO. Bedroom CEO is actually doing a startup also, he lives (apparently) 5 minutes away from me (something which i wasnt aware of until a few months back). He is very in tune with the startup and technology scene here in the great land down under. Anyway, by a chance meeting we started talking and at about the same time we decided (in our own time .. not together) to do startups. Difference between Bedroom CEO and Garage CEO (myself) Bedroom CEO took the big step and totally quit his job.

I would like to do that aswell (i guess for a year) to get my startup of the ground but im in a bit of a different situation. If i did that, the repo's from the bank would be banging at my door and fighting hard with me to pry my house keys away as i would be kicking and screaming (yes im one of the sad *young* individuals who has a mortgage thinking property investment is the way to go).

OK since Bedroom CEO is very intouch with the Startup and technology scene here he has introduced me to various different events, various different reading material and various different people that provide information about startups, he is almost like the umbilical cord to silicon valley :P I guess it shows that even though i understand technology to a certain extent in the great scheme of the startup world im not even past the 9-month stage yet ;)

Last week Bedroom CEO scheduled some time with ryan junee from omnisio/youtube and we hungout and had some beers with various other geeky type guys and gal and just chatted away. We first hangout at the shelbourne for some beers, went to this startup/recruitment christmas party where there was some wanna be startup guys (us) and other startup guys later in the game who have been successful.

So here is a photo i took of that night (im not in it *as usual* ;))

So there you have it, i thought there was no startup scene here but apparently there is, i think its time for me to delve deeper into this world as im in the later part of my startup project (couple months to go till launch).

Catch you all in my next post ... (which im about to start in the next 5 mins :P)

Getting into the Software Side of things ....

CentOS

I guess its a legacy thing for me. It may not be the best *nix operating system for some people but i just want the system to work. In the past, both at work and at home i got very accustomed to redhat ... and now since redhat ES and AS are no longer free i had to find an alternative. For me CentOS was the most obvious choice.

I like CentOS because:

• Im pretty accusomed to how the Administor and manage the operating system, how to install the location of the various configuration and system files, startup scripts and standards etc
• It already had LVS and various other clustering software installed - along with its tools already installed
• Worked without any problems on the hardware that i purchased which was a big plus and all round easy to use OS - (for me)

MySQL

I used MySQL because again its something im very much used to. Used it during development at work and also when experimenting on my own and pretty much accustomed with how it works. There are alot of tools and libraries available. I also had very good documentation of the clustering packages that come with MySQL 6.0+ so it was the obvious choice to go.

The MySQL cluster now works over 4 servers and is bound together with a hardware LVS load balancer. Still getting used to operating the cluster commands but all in all its a pretty good tool.

CherryPy + Cheetah

Hmm okie, so why cherrypy .... I tried zope, django, turbo gears and at the end, after looking around and playing with the different technologies i decided to use cherrypy. I think its because things just came together alot easier with cherrypy and i was able to get what i wanted up and running alot quicker. I think its really just me here and possibly my old school way of thinking .... most of the other guys i know who are building sofware have gone down the django route.

Good thing with variety is later once our applications are finished we can share experiences and ideas so for me .. its cherrypy all the way ... :)

Python 2.5

It was easy to get my head around all the different concepts. The language was easy to learn and i could get applications built rapidly. Other then that nothing much else. I am currently using python 2.5 (which i complied specifically for the application). There is also 2.4 installed by default by centOS.

Lighttpd

I went down this path as a result of alot of reading and recommendations. In the past i have used apache (as most people may have) but after alot of reading and various types of experiments i have gone down the lighttpd path. It sets up pretty nicely and is performing well. I have tested its mod_proxy function but will also need to experiment with lighttpd's mod_fastcgi modules as well to see which one is actually better.

SQLObjects

When i was playing around with turbogears SQLObjects was the default ORM. I became accustomed with SQLObjects so at the moment this is what i have used. From a technical point of view im not sure which of the ORM's is best so this may change in future.

Well there you have it ... thats my software stack. I have other software packages installed but they are just tools ... OK more updates on the software build and the integration with the hardware later ...