Things to know before 30

How to be a rich graduate after university?

2010-03-30T00:57:00.004+01:00

After several long hard years of studying, being in debt, living on beans n' toast; things have finally paid off by securing yourself a good job. With the 8 till 5 job, making enough to get a nice car, nice clothes and travel foreign countries, doesn't make you any richer than a student.

Many graduate still struggle financially after securing a good job and others start early savings at the very start of their career. For this article, these two graduate shall be name as 'Credit-Card Bob' and 'Stingy Simon'.

'Credit Card Bob'
When Bob finished his university, he earn himself a good job at a top employer firm for his field of work. Since his graduation, banks have offered him loans and credit cards. Thinking he can repay the bank in a couple of months time, Bob gave his signature and agrees to the terms and condition.

Bob's lifestyle change drastically. New clothes, expensive restaurants, fancy laptop are few of many things Bob have signed for. Payments through his credit cards/loans comes promptly on time and Bob's happy making the payments.

The company bonus was released after Christmas. It was a good year for the company and Bob's hard work in the office have been paid with a handsome bonus. The money was later use to clear his credit card debts. I asked Bob how much savings does he have and Bob replied:-

Amex credit limit = £4000
Citibank Visa credit limit = £5000
Money available to spent = £9000
Savings = £0

'I have £9000 to spent for the next few months!' I feel so rich that I will fly to South Africa and watch the World Cup with my girlfriend.

'Stingy Simon'
Stingy Simon had his fair share of parties and Epic nights during his university years. Same as Bob, Simon joined the same company after graduation. At work both Simon and Bob excel in their field of work and always praised by higher management.

Simon still shops at Asda for his groceries and daily need for the house. Occasionally Simon drops by Mark and Spencer for a nice bottle of wine on special occasions. Simon claims Boots, Tesco, Nectar store points whenever he can during shopping. Bob laughs at Simon at times because Simon is trying to save a couple of pennies. However Simon honestly enjoys his shopping for a good bargain on his weekend routes to the shop.

Credit card and loan company have also approached Simon. Being cautious of the interest rates and his unfinished student loans he refuses the offer and just stuck to a strict budget regime. The company bonus came as well for Simon. I ask Simon how much savings do you have and he replied:-

Credit Card = NONE
Student loan = £2000
Bonus = £9000 (same as Bob)

Paid off student loan and savings = £7000

'I have £7000.00 only, considering investments for the future'

Bob Claims he has £9000
Simon Claims he has £7000

By comparison Bob seems to be £2000 richer than Simon.
Bob is spending money which he doesn't own and Simon is saving money which he rightfully own.

Two people can have entirely different perception and neither of them are wrong. These are real-life examples which are common across the younger generations today. Bob will always be working in the same rat race day in day out trying to pay his debts off. While Simon is saving his hard earn cash and spending wisely; eventually earn enough for a capital return investment such as house, bonds and shares.

It all comes down to strict budgeting and discipline of money spending. Saving pound a day can help you save £365.00 a year. What can saving a couple of hundred pounds a month enable us to do?

A wise man once said:-

A Student is someone who can make £10.00 each day

A Master is someone who can save £10.00 each day

Reasons to do a PHD and Reasons NOT to do a PHD

2010-03-30T00:17:00.002+01:00

If you have stumble into this blog from a search engine such as google, yahoo or bing, it means you are in Dilemma. You are either in the following situations:-

1. Nearing graduation with good marks, considering getting a job or continue with a PhD

2. Have been offered a scholarship/grant/place in a good University and not sure to take it or not.

3. Unsure if getting a PhD means more MONEY for your future dream job

PhD is definitely a prestigious degree to obtain and an achievement to be proud of. Not everyone can be accepted to do a PhD in university, and not everyone can finish a PhD.

As a PhD graduate myself from an engineering background and currently working in the industry straight after. I have met numerous people from both the academia and industry and shared their views about being a PhD student as well as employing or working with a PhD student.

There are many reasons to do a PhD:-

1. Research Interest

Many people gain research interest mostly during their final year project. Excelling and enjoyed the thrill of researching work from previous candidate in the same field. Having vision and ideas for improvement. Remember PhD is not a final year project; it is a three year programme minimal and can even last up to seven years in some cases. During this period great discoveries can be made which can be very rewarding, through minimal guidance.

2. Industrial PhD

Industrial PhD are very common nowadays and still hard to obtained. There are no fixed numbers of industrial PhD positions published/available each year in any university. It entirely depends on the funds from government body or industrial interest. If an industrial PhD is offered, it is difficult to refuse. It would help open up either an industrial career opportunity or long-term academia with potential funds boost.

In this situation its common to have 2 supervisor to report to, an industrial and an academia. Its always a challenge trying to please both, as vision of research expansion and work ethics can potentially contradict.

3. Moving along the academia route

Do you see yourself teaching the younger generations, inspire them about your field of work and be the brains of tomorrow? No doubt you should strongly consider research and teaching if this is what you like. Having good interest in the field is important as well. Please be advise to do a research which will potentially generate interest in industrial sector or certain funding bodies. No use working on a field which interest you and inability to gain funds to support a research group after. After all you need to pay your bills. Its not just a 3-5 years plan but potentially a 25 years plan.

4. Role Model

It is very common PhD students join very charismatic lecturer's journey in discovering the wonders of the world. It is not easy to inspire young people, if one can he will tend to have followers. Remember end of the day you will have to spent alot of time working with/for that person.

5. Interest of Location

Some subjects like biology, archaeology, marine science etc, may potentially have research outings expeditions in foreign lands. This beat sitting at your own desk the whole day. Its always advisable to move around different countries to do you PhD and learn culture and preception from different countries. Remember not to sit in a room with 4 walls doing your PhD ALONE. Issac Newton didn't discover the three laws of motion sitting in his lab or workshop!

Reasons not to do a PhD

1. Because your mother told you so

Honestly don't do a phd cause someone told you so, cause when you hit a brick wall in your research. You will play the blame game. Remember its your own responsibility for your chosen career path.

2. You want a DR in your title

Same as the first reason, You shouldn't do a PhD cause you want a fancy title. It doesn't help with the women cause you are not a real doctor and you cannot save life. It doesn't get you first class airline upgrade. It doesn't get you a better job either.

3. No Funding No PhD

Its quite common that I've come across PhD students working on a 4 year project with their parents paying for everything including accommodation and expenses. Very common among Asian students. Seriously it cost easily £40-£50k and does not include your first degree. Why pay the Uni or the Professor money to do work for them??? Think about it!

4. If you expect to finsh in 3 years

Its very unlikely students finished their PhD in three years; inclusive of research, write up, viva and final correction. 3 years is minimal and expect lot of time investment. Not only that, it involves lots of mental stress and strain. Many people give up half way through and many lose confident along the way. Be very prepared for one. Being top of the class doesn't mean you can finish a PhD easily.

5. One man team

Some people are solitary worker. They love to work alone at their own pace. PhD nowadays require alot of collaborations and team working environment. We do no roam the jungle alone like Bengal tigers. Having someone to speak to and discuss work helps progress alot. Hence the need of conference and technical paper presentation to gather feedback on your work progress

Feel free to drop me email for any personal questions you may have. I am always more than happy to help

How to be a Photographer on a Shoestring Budget (£304.00 for me).

2010-03-22T23:56:00.004+00:00

Digital Photography have revolution how the world captures an image in a static form. Mobile phones, mp3/ipod and camera are the top 3 most important things in a women's handbag, teenager's baggy trouser and any travel suitcase.

However taking a nice good picture ,to post up on a blog or a nice poster print, can be a difficult task. Every mobile phone now has a built in camera, but still not great enough to capture amazing shots. Pictures outcome are commonly blurry, too dark or even too slow to capture the best moments.

I would highly recommend anyone investing on a DSLR today. Its cheap, affordable and very easy to use. Its a long term investment as well as a tool to help capture moments which would never be seen again. Have you walked down a beach and enjoyed the view so much hoping you can see it once more when the winter snow comes in? Have you ever walked on the great wall of china and wish to share your experience with your mates back home? Have you ever seen your baby daughter smiled during her 3rd birthday party and wished you could have shown her the very moment with her wedding night?

Investing on a good camera (yet cheap) will help you do all these possibilities. It does help me touch on my artistic and creativity side as well, since i am a a boring engineer.

Since DSLR have become very very cheap indeed from various inter-competing companies like Canon, Nikon and Sony. I will spare the details on technological advancement and the economy of these companies and just get straight to the point on how we can be a good photographer on a shoestring budget.

Firstly I would like to share some of my favourite pictures with everyone.

Macro shot with kit lens on a Bioshock Model

Tim Burton Theme shot of a town called Aberdeen in Scotland

Opening of a new cake shop in town.

My Wedding Venue!

A night in Florence Italy

A local night event in Brunei on Chinese New Year 2010

Lion Dance in Brunei during Chinese New Year 2010

All I used in all these pictures displayed are:-

1. Nikon D40 with Kit Lens (£250 after cash back rebate from Nikon)

I own a Nikon D40, which i bought just for £250 (in 2007) with a 18-55mm kit lens included. Taking the advise from Mr Ken Rockwell (www.kenrockwell.com), we don't need a $5000 camera to take nice pictures. All we need is a basic 30 buck camera we can do the very same. But I am not as an expert as Mr Ken Rockwell himself, I have invested my good £250 for a longer term. Basically it increases my probability of taking better pictures as well.

2. Editing Tool - Picasa 3 (Free from Google)

I don't use any expensive photo shop programme at all. All the picture shown are basic edditing from these programmes. Except for theme burton above where i use Photomatix for a very cheap fee.

3. Additional items

A nice looking crumpler bag if i am doing urban photography. I have too look cool as well if i am taking pictures with women around. (£25)

A 8G memory card which i got from play.com which can allow me about a thousand pictures on 6meg. (£12)

4. Things i Don't even own yet!!

-TRIPOD - important for night photography, dont need one cause i can find things which my camera can sit on for stability

-flashgun - i dont even have these yet. I just try multiple times till i get a good shot, or just a pair of steady hands will do.

5. Macro Lens

My first picture macro shot only cost me additonal £17.00. Its just a macro lens convertor which i got from amazon.co.uk. DOnt need a £700 lens as this one will do just fine! Just need the patience to do so!

6. Other items you might need.

-Patience - your first 10 good pictures may come from a batch of 1000 pictures. take your time cause its a learning curve on creativity and the physics of light.

-Sharing information - a good photographer does not work alone in isolation. feedback and reviews are important for others to comment. Its a good feeling sometimes when someone thinks your picture is excellent and give their views about it. I do mine alot on facebook.

-Observationary - Yes i came up with that word. Its being observant with great vision. Just imagine looking at something and hoping to capture it with a basic pin-hole camera and make it last a long time. No...er...wait, u can do the same with a DSLR at a shorter time span.

-Other people's work and vision - many can be learned from others. keep your eyes open on other people's work as well.

What you dont need!

- A $5k budget on your camera and kits

-50megapixle camera

- biggest lens available

- travel the world - you may even capture an award winning picture from your own garden.

Last piece of advise! Get out there and start snapping pictures. No one learns photography from classes alone, listening to blogs alone or buying the top end product. All you need is passion to go out there and capture the moments!

5 Tips On How to Get a Job Quickly After Graduation

2010-02-04T23:10:00.001+00:00

Our modern world recession began in the late 2008, where many all over the world have lost jobs, homes and businesses. Christmas sales began soaring in 2010, people felt confident to break their piggy banks and shop for the stuff they've always wanted. Does that mean that we can leave our couch and get our dream jobs back again. Well I guess not.....

University has always been the tradition of quantifying someone's ability and make a person more employable. In August 2009 an american college student sued her university cause she can find a job. All those years of education, education, education and then they graduate around £20,000 in debt into a world where there are precious few opportunities for them.

University may teach us how the gravitational forces pulls all the planet together, advance medicine for new virus, how to transmit data wirelessly....HOWEVER, they forgot to teach us how we can get jobs after we graduate. Every univeristy and colleges around the world have dedicated career center: application forms, brochure, flyers, career fairs. That does not get us the job. Students now just expect to sit behind the screen and wait for the phone call or that email on interview invites (only 5% of applicates). That does not secure us a job in the end!

I am going to show you readers 5 vital tips which can secure you that very job, which my University never told me!

1. Call up the company HR
At least 9 in 10 students or graduates have mobile phones, but only 4 in 10 may have sufficient credits. Well that does not mean you can't make a phone call which may potentially change your lives. Companies expect you to fill applications forms, questionnaire and CV and then sit and wait after.

Do you know?:-
a. Companies do not pay their HR staff to update website every hour. Therefore some information might be irrelevant. e.g jobs no longer available for past 3 weeks.
b. The advertised job may not be available any more. Or there may be unpublished opening for new positions.
c. HR are not engineers, doctors, accountants, lawyers. Sometimes they don't know what skills is required for job. You may be rejected wrongly! e.g Who shall we employ? an Electrical Engineer and Electronics Engineer? How about Electrical and Electronics Engineer?

What to do?
a. call the company switch board and ask for the HR responsible for graduates intake
b. email them if you cannot get them and express interest

What to say and ask?
a. Be polite and ask if there are any graduate openings?
b. If not, are there any other openings? When? What type of jobs available?
c. Nothing available, then move on to next company!

That will only take a good 3-5 minutes of your time rather than filling a perfect job applications for 3 days!!

2. Attend Job and Career Fairs

The next job fair is 100 miles away, you have a night out on the same day, dilemma? Well haven't you spend the last 3-4 years having nights out already? Don't you want to have nights out in beautiful cities like Venice, New York, Japan, South Africa instead? Well you need a job first!

What not to do at job fair.
a. Take the brochure and freebies and just walk off. Take your time and learned about the company.
b. Don't just walk to the big boys, e.g Google, Microsoft, Shell, and PWC.
c. Don't ask how much the company is paying. Its just a guideline
d. Don't be shy. You can say hi first!
e. Don't come in shorts and hawaiin shirts. Make some effort in dressing and not cocktail suits too (unless MI5 is recruting for 008)
f. Don't just drop your CV and leave.

What to ask? What to do? Who to ask?
   1. What's the company goal and ambition for 2011-2012? Companies rivals? Company various sector/departments?
   2. What does the job role X require? How many team members? What training is required?
   3. Tell what skills you can offer to the company, your ambitions, your dreams in the next 10 years.
   4. Always ask who is the main HR personal on stand who is doing the recruiting and speak to him/her.
   5. Get their name card or contact and possible contacts. They may have lost your cv and couldnt contact you after.
   6. No harm distributing own home made name cards. It will make yourself unique.
   7. Make sure you leave the stand, and the HR personnel remembers your key skills, points, manner.

Remember the HR team in a company does not only employ people base on available positions that particular month, week or year. If they think you hold a significant skill, they will always try to readjust. It is not easy to find a superstar everyday. You may be a superstar yourself and you don't know about it. Remember always make an impression.

Don't just walk away because they said no openings. Always be polite, stay and chat awhile. You may learn something new or advice about another company. Networking is always good. It helps to build confident and maybe improve your language skills.

3. Attend Evening Lectures or Professional event.

This may be more applicable for certain profession like engineers, accountancy, law. Like I said previously, it is very important to socialise and make contact with others. One skill which university may have taught you the most and you may not realise it at all! Talking is the best form of communication. Going to a specific field evenings lectures or events make help you increase your chance of meeting someone in a same field.

Let me share with you what you can earn from this:-

a. A name card/phone number of someone whom may help
b. Find out about someone else's job career, experience and even advise.
c. An old mate whom you have not seen in a long time and may help you get a job.
d. Other personnel from large companies: Managers, Senior Engineers, Retired employees

Most importantly you can help improve your social skills. Talking, presenting, confidence is not a skill we are born with. Its all about our exposure and experience. Remember Arnold wasn't keen at presentation and now he is the governor of California!!

You need to learn how to approach someone and say hello.
You need to make small chats. E.g hows the weather? Football scores? Paris Hilton's new bf?
You need to develop confident!
You need to make mistakes and learn not repeat them again. E.g Spill your drinks while chatting.

Its not simple, but once you've done it, you can tell the next person how simple it is!!

4. Recruiting Agents

Recruiting agency are widely available nowadays. Just because google and internet knows everything doesn't mean we don't need recruitment agency any more.

Large companies may have HR recruitment team doesn't mean they don't employ outside agency to get talents. Remember HR team is always one of the smallest team in a large company. Their job roles are managing their own hundreds and thousands of staffs; payrolls, promotion, department movements etc. You may be surprise only 1-3 people may be assign for external recruitment. How can a large company of 1-3 people manage hundreds and thousands of applications. Answer, external agency or recruitment.

Most, about 85%, agency in UK for example do not charge you a single pence for getting you a job. They earn a certain percentage of your salary when you get employed. This may not sound very satisfying, but please remember, they do all the handwork by helping you contacting the companies whilst you just wait at home for your next interview.

Approach several recruitment companies to broaden your option. You can even approach on line agency for international jobs in a different country. Please do consider, cause you may not know what other opportunities are available else where.

5. Student Placement

Student placements are not just for pre-final year students. If you have your degree its no harm trying a non-graduate role. Student placement can help you set your foot in the door. Even if you decide not to stay the several months you stay with them you can take credit for the experience. Do not spent months trying to find the perfect job. GO out there and get some experience.

Yes the pay may not be brilliant for the first 6 months or one year. However you still are gaining experience and expanding your network. Sometimes being on a student placement may potential lead up to a possibility of probation period with the company for a permanent start.

In some cases, you may even find the field of work is not what you were expecting and move on to a different field. E.g. Electrical in an Design Engineering firm is preferred over field support Electrical engineering.

These are the 5 tips which are provided in this blog today. Hopefully some of this information may be applicable to your specific career or location. These information are not based on books or references, but experiences of many. Its maybe a tough world out there, you need to walk out there and experience it yourself. This information is a guideline, however the effort is still yours! GOOD LUCK and BE YOURSELF!!

AK

IPAD Competition - Another start of a Technological revolution.

2010-02-04T09:37:00.000+00:00

Dyson, Vitamix, Iphone are some examples of gadgets and technology which blew its competitors away and dominated the market with their excellent design and engineering product. It comes to a point where product is all about quality & reputation and not just about their sales figure anymore.

It is not easy for a company with such reputation to release a different product each time. Expectations are high from your fans and consumers, also you make more enemies and more hates sites with every penny you make. Dyson are always recognised as the people who make hovers. Even if they made a new wahsing machine with their technology, they will always be recognised as the hover guys.

Vitamix is the same. But i guess they are whole lot more comfortable with what they have, not being greedy and sticking to what they are good at and selling it to not only consumers but for industrial purpose etc. Macdonalds, Starbucks and the list goes.....

Apple on the otherhand have an entirely different goal. Yes they want to dominate the world. How different are they? Their finished product have always been very well polish. Price dont fluctuate much so consumers who buy their product now and 12 months later will still pay the same price. They believe in change, revolution, all in one package. With ever more hate sites about apple product there are always a multiple of 10 fans around. Are they trying to conqure the world now with their new revolutionary IPAD?

Can you clearly define what an IPAD is? E-Book or Kindle Killer? Netbook Killer? PSP/DS Killer? Or Simply Iphone for the Old Age People?

Well i guess with their excellent marketting experience and large pools of fans and believers they are doing very well for the start of the 2010 millenia.

Please remember, Apple have been sucessful in the past 10-20 years is because they study how other company make mistake and correct them. E.G

1. Classic microsoft for releasing products not up to expectation. Too many blue screen crashes. Apple brought in beautiful nearly non-crashes and nealry virus free.

2. Creative not doing well with portable music. Again apple step in with Ipod to show what needs to be done with wheel scroller. Since there are a few thousand songs altogether

3. Nokia enjoying their domination till apple step in to show the true hybrid between a smart phone and a conventional phone with the Iphone.

Apple have a really good track record so far and will they take it up another notch with the Ipad?

This is Apple's first attempt to release something before anyone else. Tablet in the 2000's doesnt count :P.

Everyone is watching apple, ASUS, MSI, GOOGLE, MICROSOFT. Everyone is waiting for apple to inform the fellow gadget hungry society what we need. Define it very well that we need a touch screen table and BAM!

After Stev Jobs' announcement everyone is deliberately leaking their own's stuff with minimal effort.

Lets see the list................................

1. JOO WHO?

A table couch, High Definition and everything else But who is JuJu?

Price = N/A

Hype = 3/10

Looks = 5/10

2.Archovs

currently out already and not much has been said about this. everyone still thinks this is a hard drive with a better touchscreen.

Price = £500

Hype = 2/10 - no one cares

Looks = 6/10

3. ASUS

Asus have been quite a strong contendor in the netbook market and have been driving the quality aspects so far. Shaping what should be done in temrs of battery life, design and price competition

Price = £550

Hype = 6/10

Looks = 6/10 if the screenshots are accurate

3. Mr Dell Himself

Mr dell himseld got spotted with one of these bad boys before anyone knew about it. Youtube reviews can be found. Need slick and its a Dell.

Price = $1000

Hype = 7/10

Looks = 8/10

4. MSI

Another Netbook experience contendor moving in. Using the android software this time for MSI

Cost = £499

Hype = 7/10

Looks = 7/10

5. Google

Finally Google's own android. Not windows 7 but goolge's own from scratch OS. With heaps of free software like the picasa, youtube all bound to google. Will they dominate? i think this is my favourite one of all and many anti-apple people would agree with me strongly

Cost = $699

Hype = 9/10

Looks = 9/10

The year of the PS3 [2010] - 1st Quarter Review

2010-02-03T23:34:00.000+00:00

If you've dropped into my eBLOG, i am confident to say you may be the 45% X360 owner who have lost his Microsoft console due to bad engineering design. In my situation my X360 died when I purchase the new Fifa 2010 on the day of release after 1 hour of queuing at Asda.

Being an engineer myself i spent a whole week trying to fix it but no luck and taking out the hammer was the solution. However i didn't in the end cause my X360 is now a deco on my billy bookcase.

I wasn't ready to part with my hard earn cash for the exact same console again. In my 20 years of gaming i have never bought the same console twice at all. Even my Sega 16bit still work as of today!

Well i had to put my tail between my legs and apologies to good 'old Sony and hope she'll let me back in the door since i smell of the 'Gates'.

Yes, I've lost all my xbox live membership, save games and 20+ games on the shelves, also not played mass effect yet!

NO Regret ever since! Unchartered 2 was my first game and my my my. I have never seen a game so beautiful ever in my life. My heart dropped every time drake made a jump, got scared when the yeti came jumping out, story simply amazing.................i can go on forever. All i want to say is congrates to Naughty Dog for Game of the Year 2010. You guys did well and deserved it so much!

Alright 2009 move along now! 2010 is going to be a huge year for PS3. Everyone is sick of the wii. X360 is breaking everywhere. I rather use the X360 as my foot warmer rather than using my heater to save the heating bills now.......

The three most exciting games everyone (my own count down in fact) is waiting for now...................

AT NUMBER 3..................................................many flying ships, preety girls and bad american voice actors!!

AT NUMBER 2..................................................He likes to rip people apart, mean machine, his last chapter

AT NUMBER 1..................................................My potentially predicted 2010 Game of the YEAR!

Honourably Mention....

1. Yakuza 3

2. Red Dead Redemption

3. BioShock 2

4. Dante

5. Mass Effect 2..........um..........ar..........i am still dreaming for this day it comes out on PS3!!