It is quite frustrating when I can’t do what I want because others around me do not want to take the risk. I guess I have to rise above them to be able to do what I want but that would take too long using corporate ladders. I’d prefer not to climb corporate ladders. Maybe I can use something else..

Somehow I forgot to add some includes file on the uploaded demo, so after logging-in it displays an error message. Created some temporary file to fill in the blanks. I also can’t get through the proxy to create a pull request from github. I read through the Smart HTTP but still in vain. Oh well, I’ll fix it up later.

Added Presta to github. Check it out. I’ll be filling up the README file once in a while. View the demo here, http://kpi.sembangprogramming.com

Presta

There are lots of stuffs that I have accumulated over the past 6 years. Some have been used and is still in use, some are abandoned due to various weird reasons. It saddens me when I go over my files and see these systems are just sitting their without any owner, doing nothing at all. The best thing I could think of is to let it loose on the interwebs and maybe someone could benefit from it.

From here on, I will be releasing the projects that I did and abandoned as much as I can and improve on it as a hobby, hopefully I could release once per week till the end of this year.

As I’m experimenting with Google Maps, I though I’d try out using animated gif as image markers on the map. There’s an option in the image marker which by default renders the image as static, called optimized. Need to change that to false and all is well.

var marker = new google.maps.Marker({
    position: latLng,
    map: map,
    optimized: false
  });

Nowadays when a user clicks on something, they expect something to happen instantaneously, not like in the old days, “Hrm, maybe its loading, I’ll just wait a few minutes”, that will never happen these days, they’d be like, wtf? and close the tab. So when you submit a form or click a link that “should” display a modal window, it should do something in the meantime, like displaying an animated loading thing, which is called a spinner.

It looks sort of like this.

So recently I found out that there’s a javascript lib that generates the spinner. Cool enough. Since nowadays everything is being done with javascript, even HTML5 is heavy on javascript (previously called “Web Applications 1.0″), so yeah, why not? Use this library and generate a customizable spinner.

“…Design development cannot be a democratic process. While everyone’s voice should be heard during the discovery and testing process, subsequent actual design decisions and prcesses should not involve representatives from all parts of the portal team.

For example, while the IS team offers essential input into what can or cannot be built using the chosen technology, they do not have the interactive design or usability expertise to help develop such aspects of the site as the graphical design, page layout, or navigation flow.”

- The 6 Immutable Principles of UX

There are days however when I don’t have the strength to argue, I’ll just go with whatever was chosen by the majority of the team members, even though it eats me up. I have to bear it! Endure, in enduring grow strong! Thats what Dakkon would have said if he was here.

It seems I can’t avoid everything, eh? I’m going to have to dive into prefuse and generate some visualizations. Oh, well. I’ll take that as an exercise to jog my memory up about Java.

I used to keep track of stuffs that I do, stuff that I would like to do, future plans and stuffs but after a few companies that I went to, I reserve all that effort for something else.

“Do you have performance reviews?”
“Yes, we do”.

A year later.. still no reviews of any sort. Years passed made me skeptical of these reviews..

As I was reading a post on infoq about Software Engineer rated best job in 2011, I came across a well hidden message..

If the worst job was ranked solely on salary, dishwasher would have been at the bottom of the list with a mid-level income of $18,053, while surgeon, which is the highest-paying job with a mid-level salary of $365,258, would have been the top job. But once you factor in stress, environmental factors, hiring outlook and other factors, income becomes just one piece of the puzzle.

Its true. It exists.. set sail for One Piece!

Set saaaaaail!