So I hear it was flooded back in sunny small Singapore a while ago - Whew! Glad I wasn't there to experience it! But once again, Mr Brown tops the saga off with his new Wave Song, Singaporean style, of course!
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
What made summer so beautiful
Make friends, share lives, leave
Make friends, share lives, leave
The cycle repeats on and on
Each time a friend leaves, they take a piece of me with them
Each time they leave, I feel empty inside
Zen left today - the senior (and person) I got closest to knowing in NCST. I really regret not making the effort to get to know her earlier. The times we spent together were memorable - they made my summer. Firm values, ever compromising, always giving her best. These are qualities that I've been trying to build, qualities that I've found in her. As I spent more time with her, I gradually began to look up to her more, to appreciate her company.
And so I write this to remember so that, as fresh memories curl and fade, these moments will be preserved.
I remember:
An ever willing host - Always offering her place for gatherings, even though we'd end up drunk and messing up her flat
A hardworking senior who put her heart and soul into making sure CAD ran smoothly, never complaining, always tolerant of mistakes, juggling work, school and CAD all at the same time
A beautiful sunset at Aspviksvägen, eating apples, taking photographs, peeing in the bushes
Getting lost every time i went to Sundbyberg :P
Generosity that filled my room and kitchen with tons of good stuff, always making sure that what she gave was quality things that she could offer
A hazy, drizzling day at Mariefred with her and Cai Yan, chicken from ICA in someone else' backyard, homemade ice cream and sweets, mixing up our Swedish, Deutsch and Norwegian - it might have rained, but the company warmed my heart
Cleaning out all the stuff left by her seniors, Norwegian hot wings for supper, talking into the night even though we were tired
Skype chats and smses that were answered 2 days later ^^
Working at her place, being more productive for the first time in a long while, company while riding through the city - a presence that i now miss
A caring friend who never liked to trouble people, yet willing to invest time and effort into catering to the needs of others around her
Relief when overweight baggage made it through without extra charge
A deep sense of loss when she left
I'll miss you girl, but I hope that you'll find you love, luck, success and joy wherever you may go. We'll meet again!
Friends might come, friends might go, yet they'll stay in my heart forever...
Make friends, share lives, leave
The cycle repeats on and on
Each time a friend leaves, they take a piece of me with them
Each time they leave, I feel empty inside
Zen left today - the senior (and person) I got closest to knowing in NCST. I really regret not making the effort to get to know her earlier. The times we spent together were memorable - they made my summer. Firm values, ever compromising, always giving her best. These are qualities that I've been trying to build, qualities that I've found in her. As I spent more time with her, I gradually began to look up to her more, to appreciate her company.
And so I write this to remember so that, as fresh memories curl and fade, these moments will be preserved.
I remember:
An ever willing host - Always offering her place for gatherings, even though we'd end up drunk and messing up her flat
A hardworking senior who put her heart and soul into making sure CAD ran smoothly, never complaining, always tolerant of mistakes, juggling work, school and CAD all at the same time
A beautiful sunset at Aspviksvägen, eating apples, taking photographs, peeing in the bushes
Getting lost every time i went to Sundbyberg :P
Generosity that filled my room and kitchen with tons of good stuff, always making sure that what she gave was quality things that she could offer
A hazy, drizzling day at Mariefred with her and Cai Yan, chicken from ICA in someone else' backyard, homemade ice cream and sweets, mixing up our Swedish, Deutsch and Norwegian - it might have rained, but the company warmed my heart
Cleaning out all the stuff left by her seniors, Norwegian hot wings for supper, talking into the night even though we were tired
Skype chats and smses that were answered 2 days later ^^
Working at her place, being more productive for the first time in a long while, company while riding through the city - a presence that i now miss
A caring friend who never liked to trouble people, yet willing to invest time and effort into catering to the needs of others around her
Relief when overweight baggage made it through without extra charge
A deep sense of loss when she left
I'll miss you girl, but I hope that you'll find you love, luck, success and joy wherever you may go. We'll meet again!
Friends might come, friends might go, yet they'll stay in my heart forever...
Monday, July 19, 2010
All work and no play makes hweehwee a dull girl.. so I play! :P
So... I haven't blogged about Stockholm life for some time, not because nothing's been happening, but because there's too much happening!
IT'S SUMMER! :D I've been traveling more, touring the Swedish countryside (instead of just flying to other countries :P), and it's oh-so-beautiful, especially in the summer!!
So I went to Dalarna (Leksand) and Riga (to visit my corridormate) during midsummer, went to Örebro, Grebbestad, St Petersberg and Tallin with my parents and grandma the following weekend, saw the sunset with Zen on Friday at Aspviksvägen, took a ride down to Nynashamn on Sat, and then went to Linköping, Norrköping and Nyköping (yes I know, WHY are there so many 'köping's??) on Sunday! *whew* That's a mouthful to say in one breath!
So most of the pictures are up on Facebook, but here's some of the trip(s) highlights:
I've yet to get the beautiful sunset pics from Zen, and I didn't take much of the 'köping's, but I'll upload what I've got when I get them! :D
IT'S SUMMER! :D I've been traveling more, touring the Swedish countryside (instead of just flying to other countries :P), and it's oh-so-beautiful, especially in the summer!!
So I went to Dalarna (Leksand) and Riga (to visit my corridormate) during midsummer, went to Örebro, Grebbestad, St Petersberg and Tallin with my parents and grandma the following weekend, saw the sunset with Zen on Friday at Aspviksvägen, took a ride down to Nynashamn on Sat, and then went to Linköping, Norrköping and Nyköping (yes I know, WHY are there so many 'köping's??) on Sunday! *whew* That's a mouthful to say in one breath!
So most of the pictures are up on Facebook, but here's some of the trip(s) highlights:
Midsummer: Darlarna (Leksand)
Riding up past the beautiful Swedish countryside...
... To meet up with Chrissy (and family), Priya, Hari and Huy!
Look at the HUGE Dalahorse!! (It's some Swedish fetish thing that I never really got, but yeah :P)
Then rushing off to Riga to say Happy Birthday to my darling Annie
With the two 'gay' guys from my corridor :P
Grebbestad - we went there for the oysters but it wasn't in season :S
Grebbestad with ma (who's acting cool and trying to look pretty)...
...Papi (who's trying to act cool but fail :P)...
...And darling por por (who doesn't need to act cool - she's so cute! :P)
Riding up past the beautiful Swedish countryside...
... To meet up with Chrissy (and family), Priya, Hari and Huy!
Look at the HUGE Dalahorse!! (It's some Swedish fetish thing that I never really got, but yeah :P)
Then rushing off to Riga to say Happy Birthday to my darling Annie
With the two 'gay' guys from my corridor :PGrebbestad - we went there for the oysters but it wasn't in season :S
Grebbestad with ma (who's acting cool and trying to look pretty)...
...Papi (who's trying to act cool but fail :P)...
...And darling por por (who doesn't need to act cool - she's so cute! :P)I've yet to get the beautiful sunset pics from Zen, and I didn't take much of the 'köping's, but I'll upload what I've got when I get them! :D
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Designers VS Programmers - I win, you lose!
So I was asked for ideas on how to best teach designers to work with programmers. I have no authority to teach anything, but here's what I can share.
Designers are proud people. They’re the ones who make the site look pretty, and, come on, design is unique and it sells. On the other hand, anyone can write a few lines of code.
Or so they think.
I studied Industrial Design for 3 years, and then moved on study Marketing and Technopreneurship. During this time, I took a module with Professor Ben Leong, taking on the role of a ‘designer’ while working with a programmer on a Facebook app, and am now working in two tech companies doing design and marketing.
But let’s get back to the main topic. Ah yes. Those proud designers who think anyone can spew lines of code. Which is partially true. However, like all specializations, there’s a vast difference between quality code and.. well, just lines of crap. And while it can all look pretty much the same from a user’s standpoint, the code can determine whether the user experience is great or frustrating. (Hint: Code can affect user interaction, data presentation and even page loading speeds)
On the other hand, design isn’t just about making the page look pretty. It’s also about user interaction, and how to improve user experience.
So since both programmers and designers are important, who gets to say “I’m right, do it my way”? Let me share three memorable lessons that I’ve learnt over this past year or so.
Lesson number 1: Why should I learn programming?!?! - Ajax vs HTML
While working on my Facebook app with a very talented programmer, we agreed that we wanted to prioritize user experience. That was good – our site needed good user interaction so that people could have a flawless purchase process. One of our lectures about was AJAX, and so we strove to apply that in our app, since we felt that it’d give a good user experience. After almost three weeks, the site still wasn’t up (the initial estimated deadline was a week).
Later, I found out that the site would have taken barely 2 days to complete if it had been done in HTML script, and still provided the same user experience at low traffic levels. What had gone wrong? I had no programming background, and failed to understand the difference in AJAX and HTML scripting. To me, it was all ‘just code’. We were so caught up in ‘providing great user experience’ that we failed to see other options and prioritize according to our deadlines.
Lesson 2: It’s not perfect, it’s iterative
Designers like to get everything right on the first try. I don’t paint half a picture, sell it, then add in the details 6 months later. That doesn’t make any sense to me. The web, however, runs at a completely different pace than your average ‘painting’, and time is seldom a luxury. That’s why you have a buggy Vista launch, and half a dozen updates every month. Designers have to understand that, and learn how to come up with ‘imperfect’ first revisions of their work.
On the other hand, some things need to be perfect from the start. I know of a company that settled for something ‘quick and dirty’ due to time constraints, and never got back to upgrading that particular feature. It was far too much work – nobody wanted to take time off to attend to this annoying buggy bit of the program. It’s been almost 10 years now, and the amount of frustration caused and man-hours lost in inefficiency has long exceeded the additional week of development time. Some things just have to be done right. The difficulty lies in finding what.
Lesson Three: My development time is more precious than your designing time
“Please design and update the About Us page.”
“Excuse me? You want me to do HTML?”
“Yes – we have no development time to spare.”
And so, I took on the insurmountable challenge of coding a page in HTML. Before I carry on, let me explain – I’m a walking code destroyer. For some reason that I cannot comprehend, I can’t seem to even copy and paste code without messing something up. Everyone knew that. But now that my head was on the line, I braced myself and took up the task.
It took one week. One whole week to get a single page up. And in the process, I continually disturbed three excellent programmers by asking them “why my text had gone completely awry”. Any of these three programmers could have done the job in 30 minutes. I think I disturbed them for more than 2 hours.
Was it worth it? For me, yes. I learnt something new. I can now safely say that <p> is for a new paragraph, <embed> allows you to embed a Flash object into a page, and <textarea> allows you to display code as text. (Don’t laugh – that’s how horrendous my programming knowledge is.) But for my company, they lost more hours of development time AND a week’s worth of design time for this little lesson. If the point is to let your team learn cross-disciplinary skills, this venture is well worth the time. But if it’s to ‘save development time’, forget it. You’re going to lose out.
So here's what I have to bring to the table based on my limited experience - hope it helps!
Designers are proud people. They’re the ones who make the site look pretty, and, come on, design is unique and it sells. On the other hand, anyone can write a few lines of code.
Or so they think.
I studied Industrial Design for 3 years, and then moved on study Marketing and Technopreneurship. During this time, I took a module with Professor Ben Leong, taking on the role of a ‘designer’ while working with a programmer on a Facebook app, and am now working in two tech companies doing design and marketing.
But let’s get back to the main topic. Ah yes. Those proud designers who think anyone can spew lines of code. Which is partially true. However, like all specializations, there’s a vast difference between quality code and.. well, just lines of crap. And while it can all look pretty much the same from a user’s standpoint, the code can determine whether the user experience is great or frustrating. (Hint: Code can affect user interaction, data presentation and even page loading speeds)
On the other hand, design isn’t just about making the page look pretty. It’s also about user interaction, and how to improve user experience.
So since both programmers and designers are important, who gets to say “I’m right, do it my way”? Let me share three memorable lessons that I’ve learnt over this past year or so.
Lesson number 1: Why should I learn programming?!?! - Ajax vs HTML
While working on my Facebook app with a very talented programmer, we agreed that we wanted to prioritize user experience. That was good – our site needed good user interaction so that people could have a flawless purchase process. One of our lectures about was AJAX, and so we strove to apply that in our app, since we felt that it’d give a good user experience. After almost three weeks, the site still wasn’t up (the initial estimated deadline was a week).
Later, I found out that the site would have taken barely 2 days to complete if it had been done in HTML script, and still provided the same user experience at low traffic levels. What had gone wrong? I had no programming background, and failed to understand the difference in AJAX and HTML scripting. To me, it was all ‘just code’. We were so caught up in ‘providing great user experience’ that we failed to see other options and prioritize according to our deadlines.
Lesson 2: It’s not perfect, it’s iterative
Designers like to get everything right on the first try. I don’t paint half a picture, sell it, then add in the details 6 months later. That doesn’t make any sense to me. The web, however, runs at a completely different pace than your average ‘painting’, and time is seldom a luxury. That’s why you have a buggy Vista launch, and half a dozen updates every month. Designers have to understand that, and learn how to come up with ‘imperfect’ first revisions of their work.
On the other hand, some things need to be perfect from the start. I know of a company that settled for something ‘quick and dirty’ due to time constraints, and never got back to upgrading that particular feature. It was far too much work – nobody wanted to take time off to attend to this annoying buggy bit of the program. It’s been almost 10 years now, and the amount of frustration caused and man-hours lost in inefficiency has long exceeded the additional week of development time. Some things just have to be done right. The difficulty lies in finding what.
Lesson Three: My development time is more precious than your designing time
“Please design and update the About Us page.”
“Excuse me? You want me to do HTML?”
“Yes – we have no development time to spare.”
And so, I took on the insurmountable challenge of coding a page in HTML. Before I carry on, let me explain – I’m a walking code destroyer. For some reason that I cannot comprehend, I can’t seem to even copy and paste code without messing something up. Everyone knew that. But now that my head was on the line, I braced myself and took up the task.
It took one week. One whole week to get a single page up. And in the process, I continually disturbed three excellent programmers by asking them “why my text had gone completely awry”. Any of these three programmers could have done the job in 30 minutes. I think I disturbed them for more than 2 hours.
Was it worth it? For me, yes. I learnt something new. I can now safely say that <p> is for a new paragraph, <embed> allows you to embed a Flash object into a page, and <textarea> allows you to display code as text. (Don’t laugh – that’s how horrendous my programming knowledge is.) But for my company, they lost more hours of development time AND a week’s worth of design time for this little lesson. If the point is to let your team learn cross-disciplinary skills, this venture is well worth the time. But if it’s to ‘save development time’, forget it. You’re going to lose out.
So here's what I have to bring to the table based on my limited experience - hope it helps!
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