Yo! I’m using GPRS with Bluetooth connection to my cellphone to connect to the interenet from the MRT train! w00t! Technology rocks. Improving my productivity by the double, or maybe eventually triple. Who knows… Weeeeeee!!!
Being connected every second and minute feels good.
Cheerios.
No technical stuff today. It’s rest day for me. w33t.
I was thinking just now about business and how it runs. Basically, a business simply contains 3 things.
1 – Providing (a) service(s)
Be it a product, a way to do things, creating applications, and so on, everything is based on providing a service. That’s what the main business runs on, and depends on.
2 – Creating Awareness
You have to make known of what your business does, and let people know it’s benefits and how it is different from others and so on. This in it’s way is to create awareness, or advertising, or social networking, or whatever you call it. It basically boils down to creating awareness for your business.
3 – Innovation
As mentioned above, you need to let people know how your service is different from others. Therefore you’ll need to innovate, and come out with something unique for your “service”. Why I put this last is because innovation in itself is quite difficult to achieve, and it requires someone of certain calibre to handle it. Most businesses do not have that calibre. But they still fulfill the first 2 criterias on business.
These are just my thoughts on business, as I was talking to a friend. I don’t study business or marketing or what have you, so I might be wrong, or this might be extremely obvious to everyone, but I just find it quite interesting that every business must at least fulfill 2 of the criterias.
Do you guys have any thoughts on this? Feel free to comment.
I think this might be my first non-technical post. I’m desperate to find scholarships or someone to sponsor me to go University, if I get into the University I want.
For those who already know, I’ve applied for University of Toronto and University of Waterloo, to the Computer Science program. Apparently, one of my family member is having an operation today, and that operation costs quite a far bit of money. Therefore, as you should already guess, my funds for university is much diminished.
I’ve looked at quite a few scholarships, and most of them require 3 A level distinctions, or S-Papers, which is quite apparent that I don’t have those. I’m currently holding a Diploma in Computer Engineering from Ngee Ann Polytechnic, and it’s only a B average (or so my counselor at the Canadian Education Centre says). Furthermore, for those who doesn’t know, I’m very active in SgDotNet and currently am an MVP – Visual Developer C#.
So, now the big thing. Where do I find scholarships? I’ve checked up BrightSparks but like I said, most of them require quite exceptional results.
Oh well. Anyway, enough of lamenting. Here’s something I’d like to share with you guys who’s playing around with Community Server 1.0. The conversion tool from Asp.net forums 2.0.1 to CS 1.0 is released by external sources. Here’s the link.
http://www.communityserver.org/forums/475923/ShowPost.aspx
There’s a fix for the Anonymous users here.
http://www.communityserver.org/forums/476239/ShowPost.aspx
Links for converting from nGallery to CS 1.0.
http://www.communityserver.org/forums/2/476157/ShowPost.aspx
Community Server has also released their “documentation” which is a wiki. Check it out here.
http://docs.communityserver.org
Oh yes, did I mention SgDotNet is going to do migration? 
Yes that’s right. That’s why I posted all these links here. And you think it’s for you. Haha! This blog is for me to remember things, not for you! Just joking. *wink*
Other cool stuff is this very cool Content Management System (CMS) that is actually quite good. It’s XHTML and CSS compliant. It’s called WordPress. And it’s totally done in PHP. Very good stuff. I’m wondering if CS 1.0 and DNN 3.0 is XHTML and CSS compliant. Even if it’s XHTML 1.0 Transitional, that’s pretty good already, in my opinion. Check WordPress out. They have a demo site setup here. http://www.opensourcecms.com/
Is that enough information? Or is it not enough?
Interesting news. It seems that MVPs are going on revolt because Microsoft is stopping development on VB6.
http://rblevin.blogspot.com/2005/03/microsoft-mvps-revolt.html
That’s all folks for today.
For those who have sent me emails since 05/03/2005 onwards, please re-send. My emails all went down the /dev/null.
Apparently the problem was this.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/842293
Fixed it. Now everything works. But I lost 2 days worth of emails. Sorry to everyone. Please resend emails to me. Thanks. That includes Jason, Ken, Kitkai, Howard.
Thanks alot for the inconvenience. I’ll be sending you guys emails to request you guys to resend to me.
I’ve been playing around with both applications, and been thinking about how to merge these 2 wonderful applications together.
There are a few ways of doing it.
1. Rewriting the Membership/Role/etc providers and having both applications use the same providers. Then merging of the memberships would be needed, into 1 table. But I’m pondering how can it be done.
2. Writing a DNN module that interfaces with CS 1.0, stripping CS apart into different modules, i.e. Forums module, Blog module, Gallery module and so on. But CS dependencies on HttpContext is alot.
3. Stripping DNN apart and make it part of CS 1.0. I think that’s the intention of CS, since I saw an empty web dll, which means the intention of having a Community Server – Web.
4. Quick hack. Sync between the databases and cookies. Which is what most people are doing now.
Personally, I think point 3 would be wonderful to try it out. What do you guys think? Which way is better?
I got them from a newsgroup. Hope you enjoy.
This is official. I’ll be working on my very own OS. I’m drawing up the plans with my friend soon enough. Anyone can suggest what they want in their OS?
Stupid blogger destroyed my writing on it. And I’m too lazy to write again. So I’m just going to sum everything up.
Analysing how a successful product/solution become successful is basically what I’ve been thinking about the last few days.
To have a successful product/solution, you’ll need to have a solid Vision for it. Vision to bring the product/solution far and wide. That means you’ll have to promote, advertise, and get people to listen to you.
Next. You need to have Passion to drive the product/solution. With passion, you can bring the product to higher reaches. With Passion, you can imagine the possibilities out there.
Next. Cooperation VS Competition. For me, I’d rather choose Cooperation. Cooperation yields almost the same result as Competition. You further your product/solution to become better, you strive to be better than your competitor. But Cooperation really brings about a whole new meaning to everything. Let me explain. Cooperating will give your users/clients a better and smoother ride along your product/solution.
Next. Don’t think of possibilities. Try out unknown possibilities and see how it can start something new. What I mean is, instead of pondering how we can work together, why don’t you think, we CAN work together, let’s discuss further how we can work together even more. During this discussion or whatever, you’ll start seeing MORE possibilities coming out than you thinking of it by yourself without the other party.
Next. Possibilities are the Key to Innovation. Don’t turn away any idea or possibility that might come into your mind. Keep it. Archive it. Store it for later use. Don’t let your mind be restricted by what you can do. Possibilities are limitless, it is you who set the limit.
Next. And I think it’s the most important point. User Experience. It’s really how your user/client enjoy using your product/solution and how easy it is to use it. Don’t restraint yourself to within the box. Think and innovate outside, and new possibilities on new ways you can create your user experience. I’m not talking about fanciful graphics and such. I’m talking about a totally new concept that’s natural, easy to pick up, and it’s just simply fun to do.
That’s about all I want to say. Summed up from my previous attempt to post. I’m going to copy this post just in case. I hope someone reads this and actually finds this useful.
Disclaimer. These are my own thoughts. And some discussion points I might like to bring up. I might be wrong.
What makes a good product or solution? It’s not your idea, it’s your vision for the product or solution. Here’s what I’ve been thinking lately.
There are alot of very wonderful and fantastic products, solutions, applications out there that alot of people do not know of. Why is that so? Because they lack the vision to promote, advertise and gain the public’s interest. Vision is very important and you have to get that straight down way before you get anything done. What do I want this product or solution to achieve? How am I going to achieve it? Not only that, which I’m going to go on to my next point here.
The next question you should ask yourself. Who and How can I cooperate with other people, companies, organisations, government? This will expand your horizons and discover new ways to improve your product/solution, and to find new ways to collaborate with your partners.
Yet another question you must ask yourself, do you have the drive to carry this out? You must foremost have the passion and the belief to carry all these out. You also need to have to come up with more plans, more ideas constantly to improve your product/solution. You will also need to think outside your box. For example, how would a totally unrelated subject/thing can help with my product/solution, or how can my product/solution help it/them/her/his?
It’s quite vague right now as it’s an idea that’s been swarming around my head. Because what I realise with Asians is that they are quite closed-minded, living in the box, and very competitive.
Another point I want to bring up also. Cooperation VS Competition. I see more sense in finding ways to cooperate than to compete. With cooperation, you co-exist and work together, helping each other in some ways or another, to improve each other’s solution/product. One must start the initiative to give first, and the other must also have the initiative to return in favour. In this aspect, each can grow in its own ways. Why compete, when you can cooperate to make something even better together? Or make the customer’s lives better by having our products/solution work together?
I’d like to bring up is to try out new ideas. Always try it. Don’t be afraid to carry it out. Don’t keep thinking of how you’re going to do it. You’ll have to solve it some day. JUST DO IT (NIKE Trademark).
Lastly, it’s to engage in new possibilities even when THERE AREN’T ANY POSSIBILITIES YET. It’s always good to sit down and discuss informally, and somewhere somehow something might come up, and we go back to the Cooperation point. Cooperate.
What I can say now is.
Possibilities are Limitless, It is Only YOU Setting The Limit.
Possibilities are the key to Innovation.
Always concentrate on the Solution, and not think about the problem.
Cheers. I hope to read this blog one day and realise what I think now is true and can apply everywhere.
I just met up with a very business-like client who’s the total non-technology savvy person, and I must say it has been a very fruitful experience to understand the thinking of how non-techno people think.
Basically just drawing back on my previous blog, the idea of a User-Role-Centric Solution and Approach to the problem. Apparently it came to very good use as I subtlely veered her into that thinking, or maybe she already is thinking using that approach. Anyway, that’s really besides the point. But that approach actually made her able to come up with fantastic ideas for what she actually wants in her business or logic-wise. Note that we were actually talking quite non-technical here and more of what she wants to do, or what service she wants to provide the user. By thinking along that terms, she could come up with quite alot of business processes that she wants implemented, like her Invoice process, her Customer process, and so on.
From my point of view, this is actually quite a good way to draw out what your client actually wants for the solution, and how she wants it done. In my case, I would have never thought about enabling the invoice to be output into an excel file then making it available for printing, nor would I have known about how she wants herself to view the payment reports, nor would I have thought about how she wants to keep her customers by adding some added-value/services to her business, and so on. And she also has a better understanding and quite a clear understanding of how the solution works by us listing down the functionalities of what each type of person can do, without alot of the techy details. The most techy thing would be to describe the process of how the system works. As in, the user enters something, and the information is submitted into the system, and thus the system will inform the admin staff and send back a confirmation email to the user. Something along that lines. Very basic techy stuff. Nothing on like how it actually works.
Of course, the document must have these things available, in a bit more details, but that’s for another section. I actually have a Project Guidelines document which I’ll put up some time this week for you guys to look at. It’s quite interesting. But some things I might want to emphasize. Know your clients, and write your document accordingly. Safest way to do it, think in a business sense.
Till next time,
Cheerios.
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