The trend of chasing paper

These few days, there has been many reports on people getting cheated when enrolling in institutions to get a degree, be it a normal one, or Masters/PHD. Recently there has also been reports of someone getting a PHD in an unaccredited university.

I believe the mindset of the generation nowadays is to get a paper no matter what. My advice to them is to look at the big picture. Why?

Many of the papers out there are just "stepping-stones". It's the knowledge of where these stones are that counts. That means the knowledge that you gain from these courses.

You have to look carefully at the structure of the courses, and see whether do you learn anything out of it. I've interviewed people who studied a particular language for 1 year (degree), but when I ask questions regarding that area, they could not even answer a simple question that can be easily answered by a diploma holder. Worst still, they are learning things that are outdated.

I've also realised that many nowadays just study for the sake of studying. At the moment before the exam, they might know everything about the topic. But after coming out of the exam hall, it's like a system crashing. All data lost. Re-format.

In the end, the degree name may sounds fancy, sounds like its an overseas degree, but it boils down to what you know.

Likewise, I've also known people who are knowledgeable about their area even though the institution might not have a good name, but mainly because they take the extra effort to learn more about it in their own time. They do complain to me endlessly about their lecturers though.

There's a reason why some particular institutions are popular. That's because the bare minimum you learn there is more than what you could have learned elsewhere. If you find that what you're learning is simple, basic stuff, beware. Something is wrong...

Remember the basic rule of thumb. Quality beats quantity anytime. The paper is useless if there isn't any knowledge backing it. That's reality.

Blog seems to be loading slower

Since I've made some changes to the template, my blog has been loading slower than normal during peak hours. It seems that it pauses at a few particular locations while it's loading. I've already fired off some emails to the relevant people.

I don't understand how could they ask me to shift my content when their servers cannot take the load of all the hits. I'm now closely monitoring the speed of the loading and will make further changes to my template in a week or two if I do not see any improvement.

It's quite simple to allow other portions of the site to continue loading while some portions of the site is still processing. I've done this many times before. Yet, this happens. Grrrrrr...

Let the big banks fail?? Madness

This week, I've read with interest on some comments made by the Republicans. One comment stood out to me. Let the big banks fail.

This comment really stood out to me. I thought that politicians should be more far-sighted than this. Even if they have no background in economics, I'm sure they know history. How big was Lehman Brothers before it failed? What happened after Lehman Brothers failed? How big are Citibank and Bank of American in comparison with Lehman Brothers? What do they think will happen if any of the big banks failed? And since they are so concerned about taxpayers, how will this failure impact all the taxpayers and America?

I mean this is just simple data gathering from recent history. Based on this alone, they should know that the big banks must not be allowed to fail in any circumstances.

And guess what is most amusing? Right after the comment, Citigroup mentioned that they made more profits compared to 2007 for the first 2 months of the year, and Bank of America is also making profits for this year. Both have also stood out to say that they are stable now, and do not require any injection of funds. Even the big giant GM has refused some of the funds.

Politics really do hinder recovery... No wonder Obama now has gray hairs even before the first 100 days in office.

Building a reputation

I quote from Warren Buffett:

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.


Personally, if I think everyone follow this rule, the world will become a better place. Things will get done. People will start to take notice of more things.

This is similar to what I used to tell friends too. Trust once lost, is difficult to get back. Make your choices carefully.

Government to look at cloud computing? Beware.

Today I just read an article that encourages cloud computing for the government due to the savings in consolidation of IT equipment and cost, etc. Before we go into all these thing about cost, I think the one point the article failed to address is the cost of security. One thing that is most important for the government.

The reason is very simple. All you need is to ask yourself a very simple question. Would you trust the cloud computing enough to store all your important tax documents, bank account information, passwords to the "cloud"? I won't, and I know that many people do store these kind of information in their personal computers. Yes... Passwords included.

If you can't trust the cloud, what makes you think the government should trust the cloud, unless they own the cloud? Cloud computing is a great concept of consolidation of services and hardware, but it is not meant for every solution, unless you own the cloud. There are many horror stories on the net where cloud computing goes wrong. Users seeing what they are not suppose to see, etc.

Some areas which I find that is quite safe will be the government's reach to the citizens for example. Forums, blogs, etc. All these may be deemed not too high in the security aspect, and can be put in a generic cloud to save costs.

However, how many such applications you have in the government sector? Most of the applications in the government sector would be more like tax portal, licence portal, identity/password application, etc. These are deem too important to be put into a cloud, unless the cloud is created by the government, for the government only. This would require huge investment in infrastructure costs and know-how to host this cloud, something that the government may not have the time to do.

One thing the governments may want to take note is that not to take all these conslidation of services too overboard. Governments might want to conslidate all their hardware and software to efficiently run your own personal cloud, but there are some platforms that are best suited for certain areas. For example, one of the most popular blog software is Wordpress and it runs on PHP, and MySQL. Try benchmarking Oracle that runs in Linux and one that runs in Windows and you'll know which operating system is faster and more efficient, etc. This might not be a big problem though since the current trend now is on virtualization. Virtual machines can run practically any operating system, and they can be clustered.

Cloud computing is a great concept, but like all other solutions, it's not a cure-all for all types of problems. IT is to enable business processes. Beware of crippling your processes because of the cloud restrictions.

VirtualBox 2.1.4 fixed 1 problem

I've used VirtualBox latest v2.1.4 for sometime now. To a Mac user, there isn't much difference in it. There was only one difference that I spotted that is different from the previous version. My snapshots can now be restored after a VirtualBox upgrade. Before that, my snapshot must always be discarded after an upgrade.

It did seems that the performance is relatively better. I detect a lesser lag when I switch between spaces on my Leopard, and I have enabled the VT-x/AMD-V setting for my Virtual Machine.

My problems still remain though.

• I've sort of given up hope on VHD. I do not think it's VirtualBox's fault that it doesn't work though. I know what is it like. :)
  
  
• Somehow if I have setup 2 network adapters, 1 virtual, and 1 host interface, there will be a problem with WinXP as it detects that the 2 network adapters are enabled, even though only one adapter is enabled at any one time.
  
  So I will get an annoyance where the other network adapter keeps trying to get connected and it will always fail.
  
  
• To fix my problem above, I've tried to disable my second network adapter from WinXP. However, that crashes my snapshot. If I take away the second network adapter entirely from the VirtualBox settings (un-check), it will be ok.
  
  
• My snapshot still crashes if I setup a transient read-only folder. Oh well...

But still, I'm not complaining that much. I'm still using it. :) It's great for quick reference to a Windows (especially IE) machine in my work.

Expose @ NLB aftermath

It has been some time since Expose's Valentine's day performance at NLB. I was surprised that someone actually uploaded some clips to Youtube on the performance. It's not hard to guess what pieces they are. They are Super Mario Brothers, Vamo' alla Flamenco, and Tifa's theme from FFVII Advent Children.

Pop/anime pieces are always the most popular pieces. My friends also agree that they like those pieces. In fact, they were only talking about those pieces and nothing else. :) Someone also did comment to me previously that if we had an anime concert, she would attend the concert without even me asking. :p

It's weird that classical pieces are so much harder, and yet majority prefer the easier to play pop/anime peices. :)

Anyway, these are the Youtube videos I've found:

No wonder I feel so tired

Just today, my mum made an interesting comment when I reached home. As I was eating my dinner at around 8.30pm, she actually asked me why was I so early. I was momentarily stunned when I heard that. I think I did not reply her.

This explains why I was so tired for the past half a year, and especially so these past few weeks. I can practically just fall on the bed once I'm back, and sleep right through to the next morning. I think I've been eating my dinner at 9+pm to close to 10pm for quite some time. Otherwise, my mum won't be making such a comment. Just last year, 8.30pm would be the "normal" time I have my dinner.

Come to think of it, my dinner has progressively been getting later and later. This also explains why I think I'm getting gastric. Oh well... Hopefully things will change for the better soon. I can't maintain this lifestyle for long. My "battery" is going to be spoilt soon.

Who is connecting to my Shared Folders

Sometimes, my computer/laptop starts to slow down for no apparent reason. Usually when this happens, I tend to look at my Shared Folders. The following is a way to find out who has been connecting to my shared folders, and see if it is the cause of the slowness:

1. Goto Start > Control Panel > Administration Tools > Computer Management
2. On the left hand side, look under System Tools > Shared Folders > Sessions

That's it. The right hand panel is the place where you can find all the users who are connecting to your Shared folders. There are basically 2 ways to disconnect them from Computer Management:

1. Right-click on Sessions on the left hand side, and click on Disconnect all sessions
   
2. Right-click on the user on the right hand side, and click on Close Session
   

Of course there is one other way to disconnect them. That is to unshare your files. :)

Are politicians suppose to have a basic understanding of economics?

Just today I was reading about the upcoming "battle" between President Obama and the Republicans with regards to the budget. I wasn't really interested in the details but one comment by a Republican stood out to me. Ths gist of what he said was that if everyone is tightening their belts, why the US government is spending like there is no tomorrow. This was used to "slam" President Obama's budget plan.

I was seriously amazed by this statement. How could a politician uttered such a remark? First, the basic definition of an economy by Wikipedia:

The economy is the realized social system of production, exchange, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of a country or other area.


In this economic crisis, the production and the consumption portion is severely affected due to the lack of credit, high levels of risks, and loss of jobs. If consumption is down, deflation and more loss of jobs are expected. A vicious cycle will spiral endlessly. The only way out of this cycle is to boost up the consumption level. If everyone is losing jobs globally, who else can raise the consumption level? The government. That's the only answer.

I do not have a degree in economics but I read a lot when I have the time. The basic fundamentals of an economy. Demand and Supply. Shouldn't politicians have this basic concept when they are elected to office?

I thought this would be simple economics, and yet a politician actually made this remark. Without this basic concept, how can one actually govern the country effectively? Like it or not, there's no way you can get out of this crisis without doing something drastic. They think money/consumption will drop down from the sky? I'm sort of relieved that the Republicans are no longer in control of the US government. I can't imagine what would happen to the economy if they are still in control.

Actually in this crisis, the Doha trade talks become increasingly important. If trade barriers are removed/reduced internationally, and the governments around the world announced stimulus packages simultaneously to benefit from this free trade pact, the global economy will be on its way to recovery.

I'm sort of relieved the ASEAN has made the first step to initiate a free trade agreement with New Zealand and Australia. If Doha rounds cannot proceed, let all the other countries proceed along with their own free trade pacts. Sooner or later, the ones left out will know the advantages of having a free trade pact. Free market economics I feel cannot function without an actual signing of a pact, with the rules and conditions stated out. That is life.

I do hope that not all governments will have this kind of needless in-fighting among themselves in this crisis. It's seriously a waste of time.