Entries by Steven Yong

Not really mine. Almost all the code is written by the project lead, Dickson.

It is bascially a Java-based reminder software that allows us to create as many reminders as we want, and makes use of the latest Java Desktop feature like system tray notification and so on.

We just decided to open-source it right after we've got the first version done and we are now looking for Java programmers out there to add features as well as fix bugs. The source code are under Subversion control, so if you want to checkout the source code, just do:

svn co http://jvege-reminder.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ jvege-reminder-read-only

No write access for non-member for the moment, however, highly appreciate if you send patches, please do.



For those who are only interested in using the software, just one click and you are there.

A colleague of mine shared me some idea days ago which may bring benefit to the company. When I asked why did he tell this to everyone but the boss, he said he'd probably be the one being expected to implement the idea if he proposed it.

Again, a common one.

Is there anyone to blame for this kind of culture in an organization? The employee, who always worry too much or the boss, who always get the wrong person to do the job?

Good ideas do often get buried this way, what a waste.

Just learned that Liverpool's been remaining unbeaten since the start of this season when Gerrard and Torres are both playing. No doubt, it is the best season for Liverpool since the establishment of EPL, whereby the team is still in the title race after 2/3 of the season. However, as Stephen Chow mentioned in the film Shaolin Soccer, "A team can never rely on any particular individual." Totally agree, Argentina in year 1986 is an exception.

Just got an email saying that Yahoo! Briefcase is closing on 30th March. It was once my favorite service to keep files on the web, I'm gonna miss it. Remember back in college days I lost all my files stored on then famous e-circle social site due to similar closing, so this time I'm not gonna lose any files again.
The original note:

Dear Yahoo! Briefcase user,

We will be officially closing Yahoo! Briefcase on March 30, 2009. Until then, we are offering you the opportunity to download your files back to your computer. You will need to take action before we close, after which any files remaining on Yahoo! Briefcase will be deleted and no longer accessible.

The "offering me the opportunity" part doesn't sound right to me.

When comes to presentation of business application, ease-of-use is the last thing you should worry about.

Unlike consumer application, if business application appears to be very easy to use, it simply means lack of functionalities. I once wondered why big companies with lots of competent software engineers like IBM and Oracle could come up with server applications which are so complicated and hard to use. I thought they are not that smart after all, but it turns out that I'm the one who is dumb.

Of course it has a lot to do with the audience you present to when you are trying to sell your software. Those are businessman and IT managers, who do everything but use the software.

I once had a blog titiled "Steven on Software" with a summary of "about OO, Design Patterns, especially in Java", which I purposely created to write something about programming. But every now and then, some of my friends complained that I wrote something they don't understand, and claimed that they feel bored reading it.

Eventually, I moved my blog here with no particular theme. They can now have other things like sports, politics, smoking/drinking and funny stories.

It's like someone picking up a copy of Playboy and says "It's all unhealthy stuff in here!"

I wish there would be some technical stuff appears in Playboy, just for me.

Sometimes, I tend to be too optimistic.

Just a single big win, I thought that Liverpool would have no problem breaking their no-premier-league-title record. But after all, Liverpool is still Liverpool, they keep on repeating their old mistake: miss good chance. After a draw with Everton, Liverpool gained same points with Manchester United, while ManU less play by one game. Since when did Liverpool lose its capability of winning english league title?

My optimisticism happens in badmintion as well, after two local titles, I didn't see any problem for Lee Chong Wei to win the Korean Open last week. Did Peter Gade played exceptionally well in the final? I don't think so. Not to mention China Lin Dan is coming back soon. Since when did Malaysia badminton players lose the capability of overcoming pressure?

I will try not to be too optimistic again, I promise.

After following enough news about Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux operating system, find that most compliments he gets aren't about his capability of writing an OS from scratch, instead, they're almost all about his decision to make it open source.

Making Linux open source was a good move, I agree (who doesn't?), but to me, it was rather the only sensible thing to do by then.

No question, Linus is a genius, started programming in his 11 and figured out every single detail of 80386 CPU in his first year of university. He is even smarter than Bill Gates in technical, all Bill Gates did was the BASIC intepreter and he did not write any OS (though it doesn't mean he can't.)

After having a reasonable good OS written by himself, what could he possibly do next? Talk to IBM like what Bill Gates did in order to make Linux available on every PC? Form his own company and start selling Linux? License the OS to Novell or Sun?

You see the chances of success of those so-called alternatives.