Thesis work

I just received my course guide for my masters thesis work. The whole effort is comprised of two parts: the first one, which is what I am taking up this semester, is about the creation of the project proposal and the accompanying deliverables. The next part which should be taking place next (my last!) semester would be the actual execution. The objective would be to create a full blown information system.

I’ve had many candidates in mind back then and the only one that should fit perfectly wit the requirements of the course would be my project with David Haslip, the worldpublic.org site. This site will be a way for people of all walks of life to create and participate on projects of just about any nature. This will serve as a tool for many people to accomplish things, hopefully good ones, by managing the information that are to be handled and passed around as their project ensues. This time, individuals can focus on working out their projects instead of looking for hosting and building their own sites.

David and I had already come up with the initial user stories that I will be following while creating the site. I’m still in the process of development, hacking away PHP codes on top of a MySQL database, learning things here and there. I sometimes feel guilty with the speed of the execution, but as far as I’m concerned this is something big and radical so taking things one step at a time is not that bad of an idea.

I ran across David and his idea on a guru.com posting. It was supposed to be a simple freelance work that would require some PHP codes to begin with. When I read the posting on my email notification I felt something special about the idea. Looking back, I wasn’t really sure that it’d be this exciting, as I thought I would just give away some talent for free for good karma. It turned out that maybe this can be the life work I’m waiting for. The thing that defines my own personal legend and destiny in this life. Might sound a little eerie but things fold out the way they do. David had been a nice person even if we just talk in emails and he seems to be dedicated on making a difference in this world.

Now, it turns out that our site will more or less become an information management system itself. A project management system, to be exact. What I’d like differently to happen with this site (hopefully David can agree with this) is to redefine the way projects are managed, implemented and maintained. I do have a taste for radical ideas and this undertaking should not be an exception. Basically, we’ll follow the original user stories we created and some minor additional features that we concocted up until this time. I do have some ideas in mind on top of those:

1. Inspired by wikinomics.org as David had referred to me, the dynamics of projects and organizations are being changed by technology. We have come to a point where the actual power lies on the people involved and not on the ones that are designated control. Typical hierarchies are now made obsolete with the emergence of undertakings like the Free Software / Open Source movement and the traffic of information like what wikipedia.org has shown the world. Democracy is now gaining foothold on the realms of technology. This means that I’d like to see worldpublic.org to have a way to take advantage of wikis or the wikinomics philosophy for each individual projects. My idea would be to allow each project a wiki subsite to work with.
2. The Blogosphere phenomenon redefined the way on how people express their ideas and reach out to the rest of the wired world. It is a way where individuals are empowered by the freedom of speech it provides. It also helps organizations to reach out to the outside world and solicit opinions that would otherwise be too formal or cumbersome if done the usual way. My idea is to incorporate the blogging capability to each project we will have on worldpublic.org. Like maybe a project blog that can be maintained by the project owner or overseer. Members can also have their blogs but that might not be a good idea because there are already lots of blogging sites and tools available.
3. With the former two items in place, I’d like to see how they help make ideas come into fruition and projects succeed. Normally we have a class of project members called management where subordinates have to report to. This class of project members worked with the tools that have been traditionally available for project management like charters, contracts, work breakdowns, schedules, and the like. These are all good tools but it is my opinion that they were created to benefit the management class – people who have power and say over the project but lack the necessary skills to get things done. These tools provided a way for the experts or subordinates to communicate with the more powerful but less technically adept group. Since the idea is to get rid of the usual hierarchy and take advantage of the wikinomics philosophy, new tools have to be used. The previous two items are what I have in mind as of this time. This third item is about how they should interact in such a way that helps the project complete itself. It seems all to obvious that the current form of these two dynamics are far from the usual methodological practice, but the idea is that chaos and lack of order is just what appears to critics and the untrained eye (check out chaos theory and quantum mechanics).

With these things in place, we’ll have a new and radical way on getting things done, thanks to modern technology. This will serve as a valid information system for my thesis work, all the while breathing life to the communal service idea started by my friend. It may seem to be a fair trade, but I’d like to clear things right now that even if my thesis work didn’t come at this period in time I’d still be drawn into this worthwhile project; it would just seem to be the work of fate that is beyond my control to have my path and that of David’s to cross and give hope to his idea. This is worldpublic.org, a place where ideas are breathed life and tools are available for the advancement and evolution of humanity.
—

My eyes are already failing me due to want of sleep, so I guess I’d have to prematurely end my diatribe right here for the time being. I’d be continuing with perhaps a new entry. I’d have to keep details on how this will come about, for me and for the rest of my species to see. Bye for now.

DB Designer and connecting to databases

I found this very handy tool for viewing my database tables graphically, and it’s called DB Designer. So far, I’m using it for viewing existing MySQL databases and it helps a lot in planning for changes.

To load an existing database model, make sure that the MySQL server is up and running first. Then open up DB Designer and go to Database > Reverse Engineering. Select the database from the list under MySQL. Provide the username and password and then click OK. Make sure all tables are selected, and, voila! Models are now loaded.

One useful tip – be sure to restart the MySQL server before attempting to connect whenever you load a new SQL dump file. If you skip that part, DB Designer won’t be able to load any models.

Another step forward

I received my grades for the last semester under my Masters degree program, and I lack a few points in my GPA to be considered for the final exam. That sounds bad, but I have this semester to cope up. I won’t be needing passing grades – I need very high grades.

With that, I made a prompt decision to file a leave to our business venture XSys. It was a leave of absence, and I gave the end date of November. The is without pay, and can be considered a resignation if I decided not to return at the said end date.

At first I sent an email, then proceeded to talk to Jake and Bhong personally to discuss my decision. I was a bit surprised, because there were no hassle and resistance. In fact, I felt that they were a bit relieved that I left the company. For one, the potential projects including those concerned with RFID had been obscure to say the least. Another plausible reason is that the company has problems maintaining our salaries – one person off would be a big help.

Now, all I’m left is my job in Neocode. I like this job a lot, because it’s teaching me web application development and PHP. Right now, they are giving me lots of task that has something to do with revamping site layouts. To experts, this is a real bore. To a newbie like me, this is heaven. I get to work with nice but blunt and intelligent people. I get to brush up my long gone PHP skills, and I get some money to pay for the bills.

I also entered a couple of alliances to further improve my skills with the LAMP framework. I have:

1. Online survey that I plan to use for my Masters thesis work, if possible.
2. Roommates web service with Warren and Lemuel and the rest of the crew. They are hardcore PHP hackers, and they make the most beautiful codes ever seen in planet Internet LOL. We hope to get money out of this in the long run, but this mostly serves as testing grounds for our team.
3. RaceWarKingdom clone with Wayne. It is a text based game and it is very exciting. Wayne already did a couple of games in PHP before.
4. Online gadget store with Arthur, to which we hope will become a cash cow soon. Arthur to buy the gadgets and provide hosting, me to code the site and maintain it.
5. A projects site with David, which we hope to be like sourceforge.net but not just for software. I am doing this for free and I will make sure the code gets released under GPL. It is my way of pouring beer back to Mother Earth.

These are all exciting projects, and I hope to maintain my focus until they all get completed before moving on. I’m not good with staying focused, but now I’ll write these things off to remind myself to stick to these for now before moving on to bigger stunts.

Also, I need to remind myself of my financial reality (per month) :

• +25,000 = Neocode salary
• – 6,000 = Manulife savings (ends in 2012, the Mayan end of age)
• - 1,500 = PSP installment (ends in October)
• - 1,000 = SmartBro internet fee
• - 800 = Smart Gold cellphone fee

Net = 9, 300 – what is left for me at the EOM

Now, 9k isn’t much, but can sustain me and my computing needs for the coming months. It can also secure my last semester for my Masters. I can get a second telecommuting job but I don’t see the need of it for now. I’ll just focus on my projects and be more familiar on developing for the web using the LAMP stack. I’ll also devote most of my time in my Neocode tasks and my masters degree subjects. I hope to succeed here, and I really want to. I want to see all of them get completed.

To close, I also want to announce that I bought a hardbound copy of the book Free As In Freedom by Sam Williams. It is an autobiography of my idol, Richard Stallman. To him I offer this short verse from a poem by Dan Fogelberg, which reflects how I see him (RMS) and his place in my life:

The leader of the band is tired an his eyes were growing old

But his blood runs through instrument, and his soul is in my song

My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man

I’m just a living legacy to the leader of the band

I am a living legacy to the leader of the band

– Have a nice day.

What ruined Spiderman 3

Glad you asked. It’s all about pacing. Let me explain.

The early parts have been very good in the way the events unfolded, especially in pace. The  changes in the scenes and the development of the characters had been slow and deliberate. This led to an experience where one can see how close to reality such events can be. Take for example the first fight between Harry and Peter. It was a long chase, and we got Harry bumping his head as he fell. Eventually Peter rushes him to the hospital and Harry gets the nice old short term memory loss. That kind of pace, up to the point where MJ visits Harry to the hospital, is something that is very much possible in real life, if not f0r the web slinging and the flying board.

So, what about the out-of-pace storytelling events? One is when Venom approaches Sandman for his help, which is a lot like the way Spiderman approached Harry to help rescue MJ. Those events happened in just one stop. Turning point in the whole movie that was rendered in no more than 2 minutes.  That raises the question, “did the produces rush the last part?”. I would understand if that was the same pace that was going on in the early part of the movie, though that would really suck. Another example is when Harry ambushed MJ to make her break up with Peter. All in less than 20 minutes, and it is a huge turnaround for an event.

I would recommend that movie makers be sensitive and maintain adequate pacing in the way the story unfolds. Not rush things just to get to the climax of prepare for it. I am not saying that this can never happen in real life, but god this was a movie – at least they should have done it for aesthetic appeal.

Oh, I forgot to warn about spoilers.

Narrowing the obssession

The past year had been quite a discovery for me. Not a discovery of a place nor of a thing – it was a discovery of self. Know thyself, said the Greeks. Now I think I have made considerable steps to follow that advice.

I had once turned to many different interests as a way to get my mind to relax from my previous day job. The work was heavy and the schedule hectic, so a good friend suggested on looking for a hobby. A good hobby, he says, is one where you can excel and enjoy. It will make great advances in your quest to alleviate stress and maintain sanity and still maintain a balanced lifestyle. Like many other endeavors I have gone to, I went far.

Now, the quest for the ultimate hobby was not an easy one. It takes time to sort out those that will help and those that will only bring in more stress. It also requires money, although there are certainly hobbies that can be done for free. Most of all, it takes an awful lot of knowledge about yourself and what you really want in life. You can fool yourself into an interest just to be cool or comfortable but deep inside you know you are not happy with it.

I tried a couple of things. Guitars, coffee, self-improvement, charcoal painting, Muay Thai, basketball, occult literature. I even tried to fancy myself as a bookworm whose real aim is to realize the renaissance man in me. I even tried math – simply because I have difficulties with it in my early days and I though that it is a good time to deal with my inner demons. I also tried being a gadget fanatic, which is just another form of a compulsive buying, only more expensive. The main reasons why I dropped these is because of either lack of real interest, money, or just plain old laziness.

It was a challenging time for me. I see many cool things to do in life but I have to settle down to something that really makes me happy. What hit me in the head is a saying of an old master: Confucius. He said, “Work for the job you love, and you don’t have to really work a day in your life”. I then figured out that the reason why I chose my day job in Accenture as a Software Engineer is because I love programming and building software systems. I also loved playing games with it as well as surfing the net. Without the documentation and other administrative tasks that I have to do with my job, I was almost living my dream lifestyle and getting paid for it.

Also, the mere fact that I am currently taking my masters degree for Information Systems tells me something about what I really want to become in life. It was almost a liberating experience to realize that most of my existing efforts, even if they were unconsciously chosen, were all directed to a common activity – hacking. From my college degree, to my masters, to my day job, even to my PSP. Everything suddenly fell into place. And it felt good.

The rest, as they have said, is history. Although that history is no more than a year in length, I have made several huge life-changing choices to align my activities to hacking and programming. As with most of my undertakings, I am planning to take it to the edge and dedicate my life to it. It wasn’t a hard choice, because by then I realized that I am already doing related stuff and all I had to do is to have the resolve to identify it and stick with it. It was really a liberating experience and it really brought me much happiness and contentment.

It wasn’t a happy ending right away, though. The mere fact that you now know what you want in life means that you have to confront those that are hindering you from enjoying it. There are many things that are associated with me that is really not supporting my interest and, for the most part, are distracting me from the more important things. Those things are worthy of a blog entry of their own, so I won’t tackle them for now. What is important is that I have identified most of them, and even disassociated with some.

All in all, my short quest in discovering my real interest and knowing what I really want gave me a freedom as well as happiness that just cannot be described by the English language. The wisdom of the Greeks, and their advice to know oneself, is still relevant to this day, if not more so. To know who you are and what you stand for gives an undeniable clarity of focus as well as peace of mind. Challenges began surfacing, but I am confident and ready for them.

The quest to know oneself is an old adage to the question of existence. It purportedly leads to gnosis or enlightenment. For me, the quest never ends. What is above, so is below, said the great adepts. If there is no limit to the knowledge universe, then there is no limit in knowing one’s soul.

The first step

[This is originally the first post for this blog... somehow got lost in the archives so it is now posted at a later date]

The journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.

I already did some of the journey this past 3 years, but the new frontier is more dangerous and unpredictable. Normally, the next step should be on a Monday. Ideally, it should have been a Saturday. We started on a Sunday evening.

I never knew reflection would work flawlessly in Java – must be beginner’s luck. I was also surprised to see Snoopy automatically log in to a site as long as I mention the action aside from the username and password. I never knew our $5,000 RFID reader would read tags perfectly in the office only to breakdown in production. I never knew we can always do secret things even in not-so secret places.

I already missed Accenture. Good thing I had to start in an unconventional schedule. I missed my mushy ex-team, my pwnage group as well as my drink mates. I miss them all.

I am now wasting productive time by kickstarting this blog while at my business partner’s house. I’m more comfortable thinking of him as a college friend than a business partner – I’m not a businessman by heart. I just want the programming challenge, and the fact that I’ll be having my neck in line for the cutting from this day forward. Clients are a lot like women – unreasonable, but they make life colorful, if not worth living.

My goal for going into business is plain and simple – to be filthy rich. It could’ve happened in my previous work, but there are key differences. One is that I can work with other projects without the fear of corporate copyright balderdash – my partners knew full well that I have problems focusing on a single task. I’m a multitasking machine, and I can never focus unless I have the alt-tab ready.

Another stark difference is that I can wear my natural self. I don’t have to shave. I hate shaving. Although I shaved just yesterday as a symbolic ritual for a new beginning. I am also thinking of having a slight body modification to top it off – a piercing.

The real difference is in the methodology. I have no problems with processes, but I do have problems with frameworks. I just don’t like CMMi. I don’t like pretending to myself that things will not go wrong as long as I can document it, and that predictable events actually help my life. If only I had wished a boring monotonous life, that would be perfect. But like my idol, 2pac, I’m a bit addicted to the fast life. CMMi makes software development a lot like a manufacturing process – rows of machines we call programmers mass producing spare parts that constitute a huge application. A residue of the industrial age.

Programmers are thinking machines, yes, but boredom and durdgery to us is like old age to a whore. Predictability is the enemy of creativity, which leans more to spontaneity. Documentation is boring enough, and CMMi tells me to document my documentation.

I do believe that a streamlined process can offer success, but the big ones never really succumbed into that idea. Cowboy programmers will always be the most skilled coders in the world, and CMMi is the managerial attempt to turn them into a herd. That may not produce the intended results.

I would like to think that software houses should be run like recording companies. Both are dealing with creative people capable of producing works of art that are readily distributable. People may need music more than they need software, but the times are changing. The stars had them narrated already.

My family had been very supportive in my decision. Same as true with my girl. Props to them.

If you haden’t notice, I don’t like sticking to a single topic. I just write what pops out of my head.

It’s a Monday morning, with 2 hours worth of sleep. Ran Asikawa is almost done. We had one more requirement left, and we plan to be in the client site at 9am. I am in perfect control. I am not excited, nor nervous. I am above what is happening. Zazen. Just like my first amateur Muay Thai fight.

Fortune favors the bold. History taught me that.

Ten things I hate about you

Dear Chobho,

These are the ten things that is creating a gap between us:

1. You worship the ten toAdS

2. You want me at your side the whole day, away from my home

3. You don’t like sharing your recipes

4. You associate yourself with charlatans and mongrels

5. You drool for the paper

6. You mislead me when we first met – talking about freedom when you just gave slavery a face lift

7. You see me more as a cash cow than as your friend

8. You have limited vision where there is more stress than gain

9. You idolize fat bureaucratic capitalists

10. You ignoring your roots, the free sharing community

I’m not sure how long will I hold up, but this is definitely not a long term relationship, unlike the one I’m having with my girl as well as my parents. Pretty soon I will have to corner you and bring this topic upfront. I will give you an ultimatum and you will succumb to it, but maybe not. Nonetheless, I will soon break my ties with you.

Pretty soon I will say goodbye.

Psalm 10111

The Computer is my taskmaster; I need not think.
He maketh me to write flawless reports
He leadeth me with Computer-Aided Instruction
He restoreth my jumbled files
He guideth me through the program with menus.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of
the endless GOTO,
I will fear no error messages;
For thy User’s Manual is with me.

Thy disk drive and thy Pac-Man-they comfort me.
Thou displayest a spreadsheet program before me
in the presence of my supervisor.

Thou enableth the printout;
the floor runneth over (with paper).
Surely good jobs and good pay shall follow me
All the days of my life;

And I shall access your CPUs, forever.

Revised by CHARLES P. RUBENSTEIN, with apologies to King David

I got another one

And so it begins. I got another affiliation, and its online. I’m supposed to work at their time zone, which is 16 hours behind mine. That means their morning is midnight here in my country. I hope I can pull this off – I like PHP a lot.

First office day

Second day at the company, first real at the office. I mean real in the sense that I’ll be staying here for the rest of the day, doing nothing but programming work for our client. Well, almost.

I was happy with our meeting yesterday in that our big brother Bong Ricafort realized that RFID was the way to go. Bong was the Vince McMahon of our company, having started it by himself last year and calling out my friend Jake to join in in mid-2006. I just joined recently, and after fixing some technical problems in out client we went back to the office for some informal orientation and welcome. It is evident that my peers recognized the future in RFID, and that this could be the much awaited opportunity to grab a market niche and make name for ourselves. I was happy to hear that, simply because I am puzzled with the possible applications of RFID systems. I was too amazed that I think I’ll have that as my masteral thesis.

Now, good day to me, and I had work to do. I need to setup my laptop with Micro$oft products that we use, and at the same time furnish our code since we promised to return to the client site tommorrow.