Ruminating Muse

Nobody's Friend

2010-07-25T18:24:00.000+08:00

Its been ages since I wrote a poem. Sitting here in this exceedingly noisy and crowded starbucks, thought I'd write a few lines.

Nobody's Friend

I died today. Finally I am dead.
T'was a relief. I'm nobody's friend.
Nobody misses me. Nobody cries.
Nobody whispers a few parting sighs.

Amongst all that rabble and all that noise,
I am so invisible, I cannot deny.
Youth and age all around,
but not a soul I could found.

Was I truly once alive?
I do not know, was it really a life.
But its done, I am dead.
Mercifully there are no regrets.

One, two, three, four, breathe dammit, breathe.
Blue sky, floating clouds, a white light, and open eyes.
She's alive, she's alive he cried.
Or maybe it was a smile.

Past, Present, Future

2010-07-11T12:39:00.000+08:00

The Present is such a funny thing. We rarely live in it. More often than not, we think of changing the past, and dream of building the future.

But the Present, the Present is uncontrollable. We live through it, but hardly ever live it.

The past is gone and the future will come, I wish I had the power to change the Present. But here's the conundrum, if I try to change the Present, am I not trying to change the future? And if I did change it, is it not the past that I have changed.
Somehow through all my efforts, the Present still escaped. It can never change.

I guess I need to forget the past and not think of the future and just live the Present, but then I am only human.

Coffee shop chronicles - Habitu, Ocean Center, Ground Floor, Hong Kong

2010-06-19T17:34:00.001+08:00

Rich, creamy coffee with excellent latte art. The Habitu cafe is adjacent to the Habitu ristorante in Ocean Center on Canton Road.

Nothing much to say about the cafe, there are only 5 to 6 tables, with no great atmosphere. But the coffee is good and the delicate cakes and pastries on display look extremely enticing.

Being in one of the largest shopping malls in Hong Kong and probably South-East Asia, its quite crowded, and the location is good. I guess the Habitu Ristorante adjacent has a better ambience and much better fare.
If you have been busy walking around this vast mall, then chancing upon this little cafe is a welcome relief.

Coffee shop chronicles - Toast Box, Silver cord plaza, Wanton Road, Hong Kong

2010-06-18T20:57:00.001+08:00

Step in for old time's sake.
Toast Box, a chain cafe with Malaysian style food, cafe and teh.

The place is quaint, with wooden stools and tables reminiscent of old Malaysian coffee shops.
The food is straight out of roadside food stalls in Malaysia, things like Kaya with butter, a thick, toasted slice of bread. Kopi O - nanyang black coffee, Teh - Nanyang milk tea.
The food and drinks are okay. Coffee not really upto standard, atleast not as thick as what you get in Malaysia.
People who are not from the Indian Peninsula or from Malaysia are left fascinated by the chef's tea swirling acrobatics, where he pours tea from a large cup high up in the air, and catches it as it pours into another cup.

After a hard day of shopping at Louis Vuitton and Chanel, a nice place to pop in for your afternoon cuppa. ;)

Coffee Shop Chronicles - Steinburg Corner, Guangzhou

2010-04-05T20:44:00.001+08:00

After a hectic day running around Guangzhou for visas, I went to the Jusco supermarket near the Guangzhou East Station with my family.

There nestled behind the bakery, is this small coffee shop, Steinburg Corner. Its not great coffee or anything, but it was nice.
Nice music, nice atmosphere, and the best part, a coffee shop not crowded in Guangzhou.

I guess that's what I liked about it the most, it wasn't noisy. In a city overflowing with humans, a bit of breathing space where you can have coffee.
I don't know much about Guangzhou, I am sure there must be lots of other places that are more peaceful, but this is the first place I found in my 4-5 trips to Guangzhou, where I could sip my coffee peacefully.
Hmm, I just changed my seat and moved to one closer to the entrance. A definite no-no. There are some very cosy sofas at the end of the cafe, and that's definitely the place to sit at.
I better get a move on, got a train to catch, and my daughter's sleepy.
So until next time.

A visit to a Sushi Bar in Shilong - Dongguan, China

2010-03-06T19:04:00.000+08:00

I've always wanted to try these sushi bars, where you sit around a table and pick up food as it passes by you on a carousel.

So finally this weekend as we were strolling around the streets, wondering where to eat, I pulled my family in to one of these places.

Its real fun. Food in different coloured plates passes by in front of you and you pick up whatever you fancy to eat. The colour of the plate indicates how much it costs.

So we started off with some sushi - small mounds of steamed rice topped with thinly sliced raw fish meat, like salmon, followed with some tempura - deep fried shrimps, sweet potatoes, and fish in a mild batter, all dipped in some wasabi covered with soy sauce.

When you start off with wasabi, it doesn't look spicy, and I guess you can't really describe it as spicy. You know exactly when you have too much wasabi on your sushi, there is a burning sensation from your nose down to your throat.

I know some people who enjoy eating Sashimi - thin slices of raw fish meat, without wasabi, but I am not one for all this natural food. I need my spices and sauces.

The restaurant had private rooms as well, so after sometime we decided to move into one of them to enjoy our meal in a bit more privacy.

You have these little rooms made completely of wood. You remove your footwear before entering the room and sit on the wooden floor to eat. Unfortunately the Chinese are not used to eating sitting on the floor, so instead there is a cavity in the middle of the floor, making the entire floor into a sort of wooden bench wrapped around a table.

The food was nice, ambience even better. I especially enjoyed sitting in the room and eating. It has quite a unique feeling. A few steps away are the madding crowd in the restaurant, while you cosily sit in your own private room.

Filthy Rich Beggars

2010-02-21T17:21:00.002+08:00

My dear Grand Uncle hated buffets. He called people eating at buffets, 'Rich Beggars'. And so, no feast that he ever gave had a buffet. There always used to be complete service.

Standing here in Hong Kong, outside the Louis Vuitton store, I am missing him. I am sure he would agree in me calling Louis Vuitton's patrons 'Filthy Rich Beggars'.

You can see from the snaps the long queue of people waiting to enter the store. Louis Vuitton doesn't like a crowd in its store, or to sell too much to any single customer. That's right, from what I have heard a single person can buy not more than 3 handbags at a given time, and apparently Louis Vuitton doesn't allow more than 50 patrons in its store at any given time.

Imagine standing in a queue for at least 45 minutes, to enter a loud and obnoxious brand store, only to be allowed to buy not more than 3 handbags, with each bag costing nothing less than US$5,000.

What deplorable conditions these Rich Beggars live in. Can there be an equal to their suffering!

But you have got to hand it to Louis Vuitton. Its taken one design for the past how many years, and hashed it and rehashed and sold it to thousands of the poor, gullible millionaires who throng to its stores.

As I stand outside the store on this cold winter day, I hope Louis Vuitton will take into consideration the sufferings of its patrons, who wait outside in the freezing cold for a chance to open their wallets and burn their money in a desperate offering to appease the brand Gods.

Coffee shop chronicles - Crema Coffee Hong Kong, near East Tsim Sha Tsui

2010-02-19T17:23:00.002+08:00

Ok, this is by far the best coffee i have had till date.

Crema Coffee is a little known coffee shop nestled in a narrow lane between two buildings in East Tsim Sha Tsui, behind the Regal Kowloon Hotel, off Mody Road.

This is the original coffee. They roast their own beans, grind them and them make you that cup of coffee. Ofcourse they obviously do most of the roasting and grinding beforehand. :D

They are well known for their coffee art, and if you google for Crema coffee, hong kong you are bound to find websites with loads of photos.

The atmosphere is really cosy and the staff is extremely attentive. Its a nice change from all those chain coffee shops with their mannequins.

Its definitely worth a visit, though the smell of roasting beans can be a bit strong for some people.
Its best to come here on an off time like before mid-day or after 8 pm, cause otherwise its tough getting a seat.

All in all it gets 5 stars from me.

Willy the Wizard author's estate suing JK Rowling.

2010-02-19T12:10:00.000+08:00

This is ridiculous. Author Adrian Jacob had written a story of a wizard back in 1987, which was published. The author is dead now, but his estate is suing JK Rowling for plagiarism suing JK Rowling for plagiarism

I thought let me check it out. So i found the website for this book Willy the Wizard.

They have excerpts from his book on the site and to highlight similarities they have titled these excerpts (based on the theme of the excerpt) so that you can seek similarities between Harry Potter and this book.

But that is as far as the similarities go.

The concepts of flying wizards and wizard tournaments. There is nothing new in it. Several writers have written books on similar themes.

This is not plagiarism. All you need to do is take one look at the excerpts to realize that those sort of lines don't ever appear in any Harry Potter book. The author Adrian Jacob's themes and concepts were good, but he clearly lacked writing skills.

Here is a sample of an extract titled "Apparently Headless Aristocrat in Great Hall" which is aimed at us seeking similarities with "Nearly Headless Nick" i suppose.

‘Silence, mes amis! For his excellency Duke Wizard Louis Dix-Sept.’ On to the large stage there came a magnificent carriage drawn by two large green panthers. They were awesome. Silence echoed around the hall. The carriage had been built with huge nugget diamonds……..
………... Wizard Duke Louis emerged from the carriage. On each shoulder there perched a magnificent cockatoo. The colour impact was startling. One was a brilliant orange and the other was a shining black. But Willy was amazed. Where was his highness’s head! He could see the cockatoos but no head. …………………..

I rest my case.

As for the rest, this case clearly looks like a publicity gimmick to get people to buy this book.
I wonder, by writing this post am I actually helping these guys sell that book? I hope not.
Before considering anything, I guess people should read the excerpts listed on the site. I know its made sure that I would never buy that book.

Coffee Shop Chronicles - Starbucks, i-Square, Nathan Road, TST, Hong Kong

2010-02-11T19:27:00.001+08:00

I know, I know, its been nearly 4 months since my last post. I have only been back in HK this month, and Blogger does'nt work in China.
I had almost lost interest in blogging, but sine I started using Google Buzz today, I thought why not restart blogging.
This time too I am writing about Starbucks. Nothing about the coffee. Actually I didn't even drink a cup here. This post is all about the place.
What a location. Situated on I don't know which floor of i-Square in Tsim Sha Tsui, you sit facing a huge glass wall, and you are sitting bang opposite Holiday Inn.
Seating is a bit unusual, with some real retro seats that are placed for you to look out unto this human river, raging through Nathan Road.
What can I say. I wish I'd drunk the coffee to comment on it, but then Starbucks coffee is Starbucks coffee, pretty much the same everywhere.
But this one is definitely a Starbucks worth visiting.

Coffee shop chronicles - Hong Kong : Starbucks, Hankow Road

2009-10-17T19:19:00.001+08:00

I love coffee! Nothing fancy. Just plain old coffee, which in most of today's coffee shops would be a cafe latte.

For me drinking coffee at a coffee shop is like how it is with people who go for a pint at the pub. But unlike Frasier Crane and his brother Niles, I know nothing about different types of coffees, their beans, their roasts. For me Columbia is a South American country, and Java is in Indonesia.

My love for coffee drinking in coffee shops led me to think, why don't I chronicle it. The thought has been there for ages, but this would be my first attempt at writing it down. Its not nearly as much about the coffee or the coffee shop, but rather about how I feel, while I sit and sip.

Its my second day in Hong Kong after nearly a year's break, and its my second cup of coffee. The first was at a Mc Cafe, and the one I have had just now was at the Starbucks on Hankow Rd., towards the back of the Peninsula hotel and the YMCA.

Its a Saturday afternoon and crowds are expected, but then it doesn't matter which day of the week it is, Starbucks in Hong Kong are always full. Its no wonder that Starbucks Profits are better here than in the US, and they are spending so much in Asia.

The crowd in this Starbucks looked more like the one at a fish market. A constantly moving crowd. All the tables are full, and those who can't get a seat, don't bother waiting more than a few minutes, before they decide to walk out with their cups of manna from Starbucks.

This being Tsim Sha Tsui , the crowd is a mix of locals, with a huge helping of foreign tourists. It sounds like a silly term 'foreign tourists', but then the largest group of tourists in HK are from the Mainland, and you don't find too many of them spending time at a coffee shop, when its the sights and shopping they are after. The coffee shop culture is gradually permeating into China, but it will take time to be in the lines of HK.

Its very tough to distinguish between two Starbucks. They all look and feel so similar that to have a single memory that points to one particular is difficult. The difference more often than not, are the people. The ones who work there, and those that are its patrons.

I know, most Starbucks employees look and behave the same across different outlets, like they have been programmed. But every now and then, you will see a genuine smile, a grateful acknowledgement of a patron's thanks, a helping hand holding open the door for you.

This particular Starbuck's employees look a harried lot. Way too many customers to support with just two counters. But ever now and then across those programmed hellos and smiles, a genuine regard for the customer's well being is visible.

This cafe is in an interesting location. With two of its walls being complete floor-to-ceiling glass walls, you look out on to an ever changing scene of people from all walks of life passing by.

If you have some time to laze in the afternoon during weekdays, its a nice place to hangout, take a break and smell the roses as you watch Hong Kong life walk by in a frenzy.

So until next time, have some more coffee :)

Hercule Poirot Vs. Sherlock Holmes

2009-07-17T22:37:00.002+08:00

Ok, this really isn't a comparison. Poirot for me will always be the best detective in fiction, period. Holmes is good, but he lacks certain of Poirot's skills.

Holmes is more like Giraud who is the French police officer in some of Poirot's books. In Murder on the Links, Agatha Christie has created a character very similar to Holmes. This book gives a great point of reference to understand the characters of Holmes and Poirot.

With Poirot, it is always about the gray cells. C'est magnifique, le gray cells. His power of deduction doesn't require him to run helter skelter. He doesn't need to know the thousand different types of cigarette ashes that are there in the world. He doesn't tell you that the murderer was 6 ft 2 inches tall by looking at the spacing between footprints.

What it is with Poirot, is psychology. He was ahead of his times. If there existed a real detective who was like Hercule Poirot during the time that Poirot the character existed, then he would have been laughed at by his peers.
But enfin, it is psychology which plays a crucial role in detection.

What is amazing about Hercule Poirot is that, his understanding (Agatha Christie's understanding of course) of the human mind is so apt. When you sit down and read any of those books, each of those characters could have been someone real. It sometimes gives you a chill.

Poirot demonstrates that anybody given the right circumstance, the right situation, the need, has the ability to murder. However it boils down to the individual choosing the path.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is one of those Poirot books which leaves you with mixed feelings. You wish both that you hadn't read it, and glad that you did.

Another point of why Poirot is the one for me, is the genuine affection he has for Captain Hastings. He may pull Hastings leg, and scold him sometimes, but it doesn't make you feel bad for Hastings. With Holmes and Watson, sometimes you felt like Watson was being ridiculed. Ofcourse when it comes to affection, Holmes doesn't portray as much a love for his friend as Poirot does for Hastings. But then again Holmes was English, whereas Poirot was from Belgium.

I know, the above sounds like a stereotype, but I have seen the English to be much aloof in comparison to other Europeans in fiction. However from personal experience, the Englishmen that I know have been great fun, generous, open hearted and the exact opposite of aloof. Pete, that's you mate. You changed my entire impression of what an Englishman is. :)

Back to Poirot, on a concluding point, the glint in his green eyes takes the cake, cause you know that he has figured it all out when those green eyes shine.

Agatha Christie

2009-07-17T22:12:00.002+08:00

When I think of the word mystery, the first name that comes to my mind is Agatha Christie.
There is no equal. I know there are a lot of Conan Doyle fans, but for me its Agatha Christie any day.

Of all her characters, my favorite has always been Hercule Poirot. Its all about the gray cells with him and that's what makes him different. I believe I have finally managed to read each and every one of Agatha Christie's books and stories that have Poirot in them. That was very satisfying, though a bit sad as well.
My collection of Hercule Poirot books is quite large, and I hope one day I can possess each of those books.

Leaving aside Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie's other books and short stories make sure that you don't put the book down till you finish reading till the end.

The Three Blind Mice is one of my favorite short stories. The atmosphere that Agatha Christie created in that short story is simply fascinating. That snowed up house, the individual characters, its a simply fascinating read. She has the ability of taking you there. You can actually visualize the entire setting, and in some scenes you feel you are actually there.
That's the beauty of Agatha Christie. :)

Dead Man Talking

2009-06-12T01:59:00.001+08:00

I wrote this poem over 12 years ago,back when I was starting college.
Its the only poem of mine that I remember, others are lost from my memory, and I doubt I can find the books or pieces of paper I wrote them on. So here goes.

-----------------------------------------------
Dead Man Talking
***************

I am a dead Man.
I speak from my grave.
If you are there, then listen very well.
I shall speak but once and not any more.
This message I want you to give to the world.

I lie here rotting for no reason good,
For I had committed the sin of writing the truth.
I wrote well but was known to none.
But when they saw it, they knew pretty well,
What I had written was nothing to what I could tell.

So they came and called me here,
And when I came they said but this,
"We bid you farewell!"
That was the last, the last words I heard,
And now I hear nothing more, but the sounds of Hell!

-----------------------------------------------

Feels good to have put it down. :)

Moodle - an open source LMS

2009-06-04T14:29:00.000+08:00

Of late I have been fiddling around with a lot of open source software. Trying to set up my own business, I thought why not work with open source software instead of proprietary ones.

My friend, Narsi sir had been thinking of setting up a Learning Management System (LMS) for ages for his company. That led me to come across Moodle (www.Moodle.org).

Its a power packed application which is great to setup a distance learning program. It can be used by pretty much any organization to set up a training program. A wealth of features and user contributed modules easily makes it better than any paid software.

That's the beauty of open source. Someone has an idea, a group gets together and discusses it, they implement it.
No in depth product plan meetings, budget approvals, marketing department requirements, just a dream and finding a way to fulfill it.

By the people, of the people, for the people.
I think this is the reason why open source tends to be so much better.

Anyways back to Moodle. Its got a steep learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, creating training material is easy, but setting it up and configuring it is not for the layman.
You can control what a student can access, create multiple level of course categories and courses, create lessons, quizzes, forums, blogs, chat sessions. An interactive platform that if used wisely can make learning and teaching easier.

If you want to setup Moodle then I suggest getting the help of someone with some knowledge and experience in it. If you don't have an IT background, then trying to do everything on your own, is going to leave you disappointed and frustrated, and more than likely lead you to give up Moodle.

Moodle has a great user community, but most of them are developers and technical guys who sometimes speak a language of their own, but most of them are a patient lot and will try to help out if they can. :)

Is IT dying!

2009-05-25T20:46:00.001+08:00

The world sure has changed. There was a time when someone asked you what you are doing and you said you were in software, people gave this look like you are probably earning by the millions. Anyone outside this industry felt that if you were in software, you were an upcoming Bill Gates.

Since last year, if you say you are in software, the first thing people ask is, 'so is the software market dying?'

It takes me quite some time to explain to them that it is not the case. I point out to them how software is entering more and more into our lives. Just look around you, and you are bound to find something or the other running on some well developed code. Your TV, your iPod, your car, you'll find software everywhere. Heck, if you have those smart switches in your house, then even your lights run on software.

But few if any of these people believe my explanation. You can't blame them. Not when the software industry's behaviour is the real culprit.

Microsoft, Yahoo, IBM, Infosys, even Google, and a host of other software companies all of them have been firing hundred's and thousand's of people. What impression does it give to the world? That the software industry is dying! But that is'nt the case.

A large number of people being fired are the excess staff that these companies have. Most of these companies keep such bloated figures so that it reflects in the company's growth.

When times were good, profit margins were high, and the companies could afford staff on bench. Now its not the case.
From personal experience, I would say an 80:20 ratio exists. 80% of the work is done by 20% of the employees.

Most software companies have a large pool of resources who don't have enough training or skills, so as not to be expendable in a recession world. They are the first in line when it comes to layoffs.

Just like software keeps getting updated from one version to the next, we need to update our skills. Or else we will be obsolete. It reminds me of the story of the grasshopper and the ants. If in the good times we don't work hard, then when the time's bad, we would be down for the count.

Though a large part of the blame on layoffs lie with companies, there are some who still care about their employees. I worked for a Chinese company with over 4000 staff, which last year decided that all staff at a managerial grade or above will forego 1 months salary and their pay raise would be frozen for a year. I did'nt hear of a single layoff in this company, though I bet it had a lot of employees whose skills were obsolete. Just that the company gave them a chance to update themselves.

Back to the main point, 'Is software dying?'
Not a chance. The software market is going to continue growing, perhaps at a little slower pace for sometime, but this growth is long term.

What I do hope is that the industry learns from its mistakes. Cause a hell of a lot of them could have been avoided even this time.

Open Source - Its greatest flaw

2009-05-17T15:15:00.004+08:00

There are going to be people who agree and disagree with this point, but for me, Open Source is a great boon for people. Especially for entrepreneurs who try to start out with limited capital, Open Source gives them a lot of tools to grow.

But the greatest hindrance to using Open Source is Documentation. The best way to describe it is that, it Sucks.
Having been a technical writer, I know how software developers write. They may write beautiful code, but a vast majority of them think documenting the software and writing code are one and the same. Some of them forget to realize that one is for an inanimate object and the other is for humans.

I love Open Source and the community that drives it. OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, Moodle, Drupal, Filezilla, Paint.Net, great products each of them. The community that has developed these needs to be thanked and praised. But this community has a serious need for some technical writers to join it and for the development community to accept technical writers.

It may sound silly, but a great number of developers have no respect for technical writers and vice versa. We need to break down this barrier.
From a developer's point of view, they see the tech writer as the guy who criticizes their work and then writes about it.
The tech writer on the other hand doesn't understand why the software is so user unfriendly.
Bad documentation is a problem for all software companies.

Anyways I am moving off topic.
I have criticized a lot of people here, but someone I've missed out is me. Heck I know tech writing and I haven't contributed anything as yet to the open source community. Its time I pulled up my socks and put in some effort in help making open source more usable. So that's my goal for now. :)

Its not the Software silly its the People

2009-05-17T14:57:00.003+08:00

I have been thinking of writing this for ages, but never came around.
Having been in the software industry for the past several years I've learned something very simple, but yet very important.

Its not the software that changes how you work, its the people.

Working for an Enterprise software company, I came across several customers who were busy comparing the functionalities, between an SAP and a Microsoft, between analysis systems and reports. The same case was with the salesmen. Each promoting their software's greater strength.
But then, they are all the same. All of these software are similar and they do the same job, perhaps slightly differently. The key difference is the people.

From the people who implement the software to those who use it. If there is any flaw in how these people do their job, then no matter how good the software is, it wouldn't add any benefit to any company.

Often though, this key point is overlooked by a lot of companies.
I remember meeting this prospective customer in Indonesia, who kept demanding all kinds of functions to be implemented in the software. But when it came to setting up a team from his side who would be part of the implementation, who would tell the implementation team what they need and how they need it done, and who would learn how to use the software and to get the best out of it, the chap simply said, 'I can spare my people for a week'.

A perfect example of being penny wise and pound foolish.

More and more these days, people are not willing to put in the long miles. They think money can buy them anything. Money can only take you so far if people are not willing.
So what do we do? We end up wasting time, effort, resources and money, that could have been better spent.

Hmm.. the more I write this entry, I feel there are going to be a lot more entries on software that I am going to end up writing.

For whom the blogs toll

2009-05-15T02:09:00.000+08:00

I have been thinking about this for some time now, why do most of us blog? Do we blog for ourselves or for others?

I have been trying to write my 3rd entry and each time I begin I stop myself, cause I feel it is'nt interesting. I know there are several people like me, probably most of us are the same. Hardly anyone has read my previous two entries cause I have'nt told a lot of people that I have a blog. Even then I wanted to write something interesting.

Every writer wants his work to be read. No one writes for his own pleasure. Hmm... back when a lot more people kept diaries they did'nt want what they wrote to be read. But in the world of Blogging the temptation for wanting people to read is far too great.

When was the last time I wrote something just for myself? Probably back in college, when I used to write a bit of poetry. I think the seeds of desire to be read were sowed back then itself.

Its difficult, but I am going to try to write this blog for myself. Lets see if I can succeed.

2nd Entry

2009-05-06T03:23:00.000+08:00

My second entry. Whew! I was afraid I wouldn't get to it. Now that I am here what do I write?

I've been reading a lot of blogs by a lot of different people and I noticed that a lot of them are about absolutely nothing. It makes me wonder why do we read these blogs. If you are reading this, then the same applies to my blog as well.

Some blogs I liked the writing style. Some people have that gift. Its like some people who are good at talking, and you just want to listen. Its not what they talk but how they talk.

There are people whose writing takes you on a journey. I guess that's why we read books as well. One of my favorite bits of fiction is '3 Blind Mice' by Agatha Christie, also known as 'The Mousetrap'.

Its a simple story, but as you read you know you are there. You can see the white snow blanketing the ground, feel the warmth of the big kitchen, and though the characters are generations away from you, you sense that you know them.

Hmm I like this. This writing about nothing. It makes me feel really free. :) until next time then. Au revoir!

Random Thoughts

2009-05-04T08:29:00.000+08:00

My second attempt at Blogging. The first one was no good. Whenever I sat in front of a computer I always felt like there was something more important to do.

Well, not anymore. I finally decided the only way I am gonna blog for sure, is if I did over my phone.

So I've got my phone, a pretty good one, Nokia E71. Great phone. Easy to use with tons of features. Its got the Symbian S60 OS 3rd edition and that's cool. I dig open source. The OS on my laptop is still Windows, but other than that, I try my best to use open source for everything else.

Firefox for my browser, Thunderbird for email, OpenOffice for documents, spreadsheets, presentations and I love its basic database solution. Any layman can use it and its much better than using a spreadsheet to maintain data.

Hmm, random thoughts indeed! From nowhere I ended up talking about software. But its a start, and I hope its a good one.

Hope my next post is'nt too far away.