EnWood Office Blogs

Amazing Invention

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 17:24:33 +0800

Today I managed to come across a very interesting tool. It’s called the Gorilla Gripper and it’s probably a gift from the gods for our installers.

What it does is very simple. It allow you to carry heavy sheet object with only one hand. In the video demos, it shows an average-sized person carrying a bulky MDF sheet board with only one hand. This is pretty amazing considering the fact that for something as bulky as a plywood base used for our wood floor installation, it usually takes two people to man-handle the plywood sheet, or one person struggling to drag it around the work site.

I haven’t seen such a tool being used (or even sold!) in Singapore. I guess we are really behind in terms of construction technology as this tool has been around for more than 2 years in the USA already.

Hopefully, we can be the first wood flooring company to use this tool for the benefit of our installers. Innovate or immolate. That’s the slogan for our industry now.

For more information on the Gorilla Gripper, visit www.gorillagripper.com.

malik@gymscms.com

What a week...

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:06:50 +0800

This past week has been quite a long one for me…

Firstly, I had to disinfect the website files from malicious codes. It’s quite a harrowing experience when you think you have found the problem, only to find that there are others lurking in the background. It really takes a hunter’s instinct to root out all these malware scripts, but the thrill in the end is in the hunt itself. I think I learned more about PHP and Javascript (and CSS) than I ever have in my 15 years of self-taught website programming.

I guess there is a bright side to everything… at least I’m more proficient in CSS and PHP now…

On a sadder note, Praise was admitted into hospital 2 days ago because of a lump on her right thigh. The diagnosis is that it was a 2-cm deep abscess caused by a skin infection. But it was 20-cm big! As of yesterday, I heard that she had gone for a minor operation to drain the abscess. I wish her a speedy recovery.

This week has been a busy one so far, and with the website still not up to 100%, it looks like the coming weeks will be busier still. I just hope that I will be able to get the website up and running before the end of the month.

And I apologize in advance for not being very up-to-date with my blog posts… I’ll try to write regularly but I’m quite tied up at the moment.

Please pray for some good news soon….

malik@gymscms.com

Malware detected!

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:12:35 +0800

Today, I squashed the malware issue for good… For days now, the GYMS website had been blocked by Google and StopBadware.org for hosting malware on our site.

What’s worse, it seem that a malicious script was downloaded onto my computer! FML! The site infected the webmaster’s system. Great….

So in the end, I did the equivalent of burning the forest to kill one deer. Took down the site, wiped all the files off, scanned and cleaned all local files before uploading the cleaned files.

So far, it has worked. I just don’t know how long it will be before another script gets uploaded onto the server again.

Let this be a warning to all you computer noobs out there… Do not rely too much on your protection systems… There is always the chance of something nasty slipping through…

Website Woes

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 11:53:25 +0800

I came in today only to find that there is a problem with our web server. Website down, email down, FTP down… ARGH!! How to get anything done like this? FML la…. Now I’m waiting for NewMedia Express (our web-hosting service provider) to get back to me. I wonder just what is the problem. I thought we had licked the malware problem for good. Until recently. Now there is a Google Safe Browsing page that pops up every time our web page is accessed. I wonder what could be causing the problem. What’s worse is that today, the entire site is down and I have no idea what is causing it. I just hope the ISP can sort this out. FML…

That's a wrap!

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 12:10:27 +0800

June is coming to a close…. finally…. The World Cup is in full swing, and there is nary a person who is insane enough not to watch it (like me). Football is fun to watch, but it’s nothing to go crazy about. After all, it’s 22 men deftly manipulating a ball with their feet.

What fun it is to be in Singapore this month! We experienced 2 floods, loud cheers from football-maniac neighbours at 4 in the morning, and of course, vuvuzelas.

If not for the World Cup, I would have thought a vuvuzela is some sort of animal…

To me, the highlight of the month is not the World Cup. I’ll have more fun watching the Rugby World Cup next year.

No, the highlight of this month is the new Subway branch that opened near Bukit Merah Central. Finally, a Subway near the office! What joy! Yummy food close by!

But the powers that be decided to close the McDonald’s at Bukit Merah Central, though. That was the Devil’s work, I tell you….

Anyway, there’s a Subway near the office and I take full advantage of it to have a healthy meal once or twice a week. Which is already a record for me considering I eat nothing but rice and meat on a daily basis. Subway (and other fast-food restaurants) have a way to make veggies taste nice (by slapping on a lot of salad dressing). And the meat they use in Subway is oh-so-fresh….

I shall stop here before you think Subway sponsored this post…

Fine. Then I shall wait for my mind to be in a more coherent state before posting again. Grrr….

malik@gymscms.com

Let's get wet!

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:09:19 +0800

I woke up wet this morning.

No, it’s not what you think it is. I forgot to close the window when it rained at 5am. Result: I got soaked while sleeping peacefully. Nice start to the day…

On the way to the office, I managed to snap a few pictures of flooded areas in the Mountbatten/Tanjong Katong area. I wonder what PUB is doing about this, because it looks as if more places are getting flooded this time.

Poking around the news sites, it seems that every corner of Singapore is being soaked to the skin. Reports are coming in from as far as Yishun and Serangoon that roads are being choked by floodwaters.

What do we expect PUB to say? “We didn’t expect it… again”. To think we pay so much for our utilities. The least we can expect is a good drainage and flood prevention system.

True, the floods aren’t as bad as other countries, and nobody has died (yet). But this is SINGAPORE! The little bastion of perfection! Such things cannot be tolerated because everything has been planned!

If we can be subjected to family planning (remember the Stop at Two campaign?), urban planning (chicken coop BTO projects), behaviour planning (Courtesy campaign) and all sorts of other planning activities, why isn’t this being planned?

Because floods do not occur without warning. That is why NEA has a Meteorological Service. We can see heavy clouds and strong winds coming towards us. Contingency planning fail?

My grandmother has a good reason this is all happening. PUB (read: The Gahmen) is purposely letting Singapore experience flooding for the following reasons:

1. So Singaporeans can experience what other countries with poorer systems of governance are facing. So remember to vote for the PAP in the next GE. This is what will happen more often if you don’t… Beware… you have been warned.

2. PUB will say they need more sophisticated (read: expensive) equipment to prevent floods all over Singapore. This is to justify that PUB needs more taxpayers’ money to buy such equipment (read: higher taxes). It will be called the Floodwater Overflow Open Linkway System (FOOLS). Also to prevent such future occurrence of floods, the civil servants in PUB must be paid larger bonuses at the end of the year to spur on their drive to prevent future calamities.

3. We don’t have enough Foreign Talent to clean our drains. Therefore, we must import more and give the existing ones PR and citizenship to increase their productivity. Cheaper, better, faster!

I’m sure my dear old granny has some valid points…

While drying myself off under the toilet hand-dryer, I wish all of you a safe journey on the roads. Drive slowly, stay safe and pay your road tax on time.

Cheers!

malik@gymscms.com

Quite a lot acheived today....more to come tomorrow...

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 23:15:52 +0800

It had been a pretty hectic day today.

First thing morning was to go office to get myself ready for a meeting at 11am at SOHO Design Partnership Pte Ltd. Praise arranged this meeting, hoping to talk to the boss and their staffs about our EnWood Floors Classique Range, which is our wide board engineered wood floors. Had a pretty good discussion with 2 of their designer. Before we left, we went to the art gallery that was next door and they sell pretty high end paintings by famous artists! Check them out if you are around Amoy street area!

Next thing we did was to go to Millenia Tower to pass an EnWood Floors Carbonized Vertical Bamboo Floors sample to a project manager of Citibank. We might be going to into the branches of Citibank, quite a good feeling about this! We lost their project last year, but this time round, I think we probably nick it. Of course this time round the order will probably be small, but nonetheless, CITIBANK is a great reference isn’t it?

After the short meeting at millenia, we proceed to go Jurong East to pick up a tender document. It was a tender document for a project in…..hmmmm…I think I should not reveal this too openly as it is still in the tendering stage…when we are in I will reveal to you…but it is really an interesting project.

Then I went to Regency @ Tiong Bahru to see the deck we done for a very nice owner. The deck probably have to be sanded 1 more time and paint again. We’ll be going back on Monday to do it.

Lastly, I went to our baby project @ Changi Airport Terminal 1. I am once again amazed at the speed of my installers. 2 installers, complete an estimate of 1400sqft in 3 days with a 12mm plywood base. Fast isn’t it?? I had a word with the main contractor that called me in the afternoon asking me to add more workers to quicken the job, he agreed with me that we are on schedule (think we are faster) and there is nothing absolutely to worry about.

That’s my day for today, but tomorrow is going to be an even busier day! Meeting @ 930am, 11am, 1230pm, 3pm and 4pm. 5 meetings in a day! I think it is a record for me!! But I am not complaining coz I LOVE it!!

Cheers and have a great Friday everyone!!

michaelong@gymscms.com

Oh yah... one more thing

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:33:24 +0800

The @#$@#(*^% printer broke down for 15 minutes due to a !@#$%^&*( paper jam. FML.

Redirection

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:31:27 +0800

Today is a slow day.

Started off by printing the flyers to distribute at the Sri Geylang Serai estate. Sadly, they didn’t turn out that well, because there was a horrible case of toner deposit on the glossy finish of the paper. All this after 200 flyers were printed out using the office laser printer. Sigh, wasted.

Or not really… Maybe I can still distribute it… seems such a waste to throw away 200 flyers whose quality is still a lot better than those by fly-by-night companies and real estate agents.

On a happier note, the EnWood Floors Journal (the company online newsletter) is taking on a new direction with the inclusion of more topics. Also, it’s going to be updated every month instead of coming out bi-monthly.

Which means more work for everyone, but at least writing articles is something we can be proud of.

Which reminds me, there are now 4 of us in the company. (Although it may look like I’m the only one.)

There is Praise, who handles sales. Then there is Hui Mui who handles the admin stuff. And there is of course Michael and me. I’m handling the marketing side which includes all the IT stuff as we’re heavy on leveraging the social media platform to promote awareness of our products.

Trying very hard to reach out to more interior designers and contractors - our traditional target market. But we’re aiming for the nascent DIY market as well. I guess it’s still a long way before we see Singaporeans DIY-ing their own wood flooring, because we’re so used to having other (foreign) people to do the (dirty) work for us.

(Neh’mine lor… ang moh’s money still money what…)

Now trying to do up a sample format for the newsletter on Blogger. Might as well unify everything under one Gmail account. Easier to remember. (Okay, maybe not because I save all the passwords in my Chrome browser…)

Useless bit of information - I had a Zinger burger and chicken drumstick for lunch, while Hui Mui had a OR burger and a chicken drumstick. This is the stuff of boring blogs. I know. But I got limited ideas, so FML can?

Anyway, don’t forget to join our newsletter blog once it’s up. In fact, you can do it now. Just go to http://www.gymscms.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/gymsnews/ and sign up. Don’t be lazy. I even put the hyperlink here. Just click can?

Okay, looks like my favourite part of the day is over. Must get back to more important tasks now. Zzzzz…….. (heavy chicken lunch, expect me to do what, right?)

malik@gymscms.com

Testing again

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:44:43 +0800

Testing for system redundancies…

This is a test

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:39:34 +0800

I’m testing for system redundancies. Please bear with me.

Monday Blues

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 12:00:04 +0800

I still have not learned my lesson… watched the (disappointing) Italy vs NZ match and the (exciting) Brazil vs Cote d’Ivoire match. Did Kaka deserve to get sent off?

Anyway, now I have to live with the effects of reduced sleep.

Today, I’m moving all the gallery photos off-site onto Flickr. That should make categorizing the photos a little bit easier and neater. I swear I’m a sucker for technology. My job profile should read “social media addict”. It would be an apt description.

And today, I discovered TweetDeck! It’s the most useful invention since Facebook! I can now see updates on the company’s Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn and maybe a future Google Buzz account. Those of you who are addicted to social media should download this program as well. I recommend it!

Looks like Flickr is choking on the 2 videos I’m trying to upload. Oh well… I still have to find a suitable platform to transfer the newsletter as well. Which blogging service do you find the best for an online newsletter?

I’m considering Xanga, Blogger and Wordpress… hope to finish the transfer off-site by this week.

Okay, hope to post more coherently after lunch and the obligatory can of Red Bull. For now, my brain is on auto-pilot.

Not good when you have a To-Do list staring at you in the face. FML can?

malik@gymscms.com

How to start work when all is not ready?

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 00:46:17 +0800

We were suppose to start a site today, but when we were there, the place is not ready for installation. Furthermore, there was a landscape company trying to water spray the trees and we were suppose to do up the floors underneath! We had a few detailed discussion before we are able to come to a conclusion to stop work for today and to go in only tomorrow and at the same time, the landscape people will have to stop doing the spray for a week before continuing. Wasted the whole morning trying to settle this issue.

Luckily, we managed to salvage the day by going into another area to work on other things within the site itself.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. So many things to complete within the next week…I am going to try to update this blog as much as I can with our site progress. Watch out for my posts!!

Side track a bit, 2 favourites lost today. Lee Chong Wei, the world number 1 in badminton lost in the Singapore Open to an Indonesian. And Germany apparently lost to Serbia in the FIFA World Cup as well! I hope there will be no surprise winner later in the game England vs Algeria…

michaelong@gymscms.com

We are somewhere in this building… It is a naise office...

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 11:49:19 +0800

We are somewhere in this building… It is a naise office building…

Positive responses

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 11:45:00 +0800

FML… It rained cats and dogs this morning. I hate getting wet in the morning. It’s super irritating can?

Looks like this Tumblr blog was a good idea after all. FYI, this blog was created to be both a marketing tool as well as well as a place to let off a bit of steam.

We’re all human, after all…

Looks like we’re all set to tackle the BTO (Build-To-Order) projects anytime soon. For the uninitiated (or non-Singaporeans), BTO apartments are HDB (aka public housing) flats that get built only when 90% of the allocated space is sold.

They are mainly aimed at first-time buyers such as new couples. (I cannot think of another class of new buyers at this moment.)

For those of you who have never lived in Singapore, our concept of public housing is certainly strange to you. Apparently, there is a social stigma about living in public housing in the West. Public housing is considered a sub-standard living condition and quite frankly, some of the public apartments overseas are of very poor quality.

Not so in Singapore, where almost 80% of the population lives in public housing. It is considered the norm, and a good norm it is too.

Looking at the current clutch of BTO flats coming up in the coming months, these apartments approach condo standards in other countries. You just have to look at the Pinnacle@Duxton project to believe it.

Why are we so interested in these new flats? Well, in Singapore, having a roof over our heads is a given in most cases. What home-owners want is choice, and that is what we are trying to give them.

Many condos have turned to parquet and other types of wood (and sadly fake wood) flooring. So our aim is to provide the same to the typical HDB flat-dweller. After all, who wouldn’t want your run-of-the-mill public flat to look anything but run-of-the-mill?

So (here comes the marketing bit), EnWood Floors has come up with our EnWood Floors Quality and Excelsior range to cater to this category. The flat-dweller. The heartlander. The man-in-the-street. Now even they can afford to make their home look like a million dollars. (Quite frankly, some HDB apartments do fetch close to that amount.)

And looking at the response for our first go at the Sri Geylang Serai project, there seems to be quite a bit of positive response. This is a motivating factor for us here.

(Marketing bit stops here.)

Anyway, it’s coming to the end of the month. Planning Day is over, I have a list of projects to complete, and a whole new set of deadlines to meet.

And I still have time to blog….

Thank Geoffrey It’s Friday… th3n I can go back to sp3aking l33t… L4D2, here I come! Kill the zombies!

malik@gymscms.com

This is a drill... this is a drill...

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 15:42:00 +0800

Just disregard this post, if you can.

Just wanted to see if Tumblr would show up on EnWood Floor’s Twitter account.

If you still want to continue reading, I cannot stop you.

Thank you.

For your information only.

malik@gymscms.com

Planning day

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 15:24:00 +0800

Today is my Planning Day.

Today is the day where I think through all the projects that I want to set for myself to maximize the market exposure of the EnWood Floors brand. That’s why I go crazy over the latest developments on Twitter and Facebook.

That’s also why the news that Twitter is over-crowded is driving me nuts… I cannot live without Twitter! It’s my only reliable source of up-to-date information! *Gasp*

When you embark on a self-determined Planning Day… mental preparation the night before is essential.

That is why….

I swear it was a bad idea to watch the World Cup match between Spain and Switzerland yesterday. How did Spain manage to lose? Sigh… What a huge disappointment! I bet Spain didn’t expect to lose as well, judging by their faces after the final whistle.

Anyway…

I have decided to unofficially call my department (which comprises of me, myself and I) “SkunkWerkz”. Because it sounds kind of cool and it’s a reference to Lockheed-Martin’s secret projects unit. Considering the stuff that I’m doing (the IT stuff at least), it certainly looks to the left of witchcraft.

Makes me sound a bit 007, but yeah… Whatever makes me happy.

So welcome to SkunkWerkz…

Watch this space… We’re gonna rock yer socks off!!

malik@gymscms.com

Changi airport T1

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:35:38 +0800

Changi airport T1

Testing

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:34:05 +0800

Testing testing

Hello World!

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:08:33 +0800

EnWood Floors embraces social media technology with it’s new Tumblr account!

Watch this blog in the coming months!