Tech Me Here

I read an interesting article about "How IT Job Wears Your Body Down" and I decided to change the title a bit because I think IT Jobs can kill people. It may sound pessimistic but I feel that my job is killing me slowly, where I draw this pleasure of being the masochistic slave worker.

Maybe someday, I will need to switch jobs. Maybe I can take up waitressing jobs or cleaning building windows for my next career \but I need to recover from my future Musculoskeletal disorders.

To read this article, go to : http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/151763-1/how_that_it_job_wears_your_body_down.html

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It has been a couple of days since I got back from Manila. Despite of my short-lived vacation, I am happy that I did fly up to see my family and Ate Desi who came all the way from Australia. I also met up with some of my very good friends and felt guilty that I never had enough time to visit some more of them. If I can only extend my 24 hours into days to make sure I have seen and reconnected to all family and friends I left behind.

While relishing the remain of my days in Manila, I can't help but miss the kind of life I had before going overseas. I met with Honey and Cha one Saturday and walked into a nail parlor to have my pedicure done, which I have done for the longest time. The one who did my nails just loved all the stories I've been telling her. For the first time in a long time, I felt so relaxed enjoying this laid-back lifestyle in Manila. I started remembering my old routines: usual dinner and gimmicks with friends, inuman on Friday nights, coffee on Saturdays, beauty day every other week, shopping, figuring out how to fill my schedule for weekdays and weekends. I miss how I took good care of myself and live that quality kind of life I have always enjoyed.

Living here on the other hand felt so different. For one thing, the kind of service that I get around here is not at par with the kind of experience I had in Manila. I never seem to connect with the people who does my nails, hair, food or whatever. My time is consumed mostly with work. I kept bring home proposals and demos to finish. I signed up to gym which I never go to because I never had enough time or energy to exercise. Acid churns in my stomach because of stress. Life here is entirely different than what I had back home.

But strange enough, I'm getting used to this kind of toxicness. I found this sense of self worth that has somehow left me satisfied and clamoring for more challenges. Manila maybe home sweet home but here in Singapore is somehow my self realisation of what I am capable with. And if I can prove to myself that I can make it in this city, I guess I can make it anywhere.

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Who amongst you have ever used a 5 1/4" floppy drive in school? I have used both low density and high density floppy disks. I even lock them by sticking a black sticker on the right hand side to prevent it from getting a virus.

I used to do some basic programming, word processing using Wordstar and spreadsheets using Lotus 1-2-3.

Back then, you have to know the commands to go around with MS-DOS. There was no Windows XP nor Vista. Windows 3.1 was just emerging and it definitely wowed me when I learned how to play solitaire with a mouse.

There was also a time when I used microprocessors to access my email and chat programs. Internet usage used to be text based using Lynx programs. Multi-user dungeons were the MMPORG games of today. Only it is command-line based gaming which requires a good pair of eyes, fast typing skills and a vivid imagination.

Monitors back then were either gray or green. If you manage to have colored monitor, sikat ka na. You can play pacman, Digdug, centiped and alleycat on those 386x machines when you are bored.

You would know when you have been hanging around with computers long enough when you tell all these stories and they would say "I never experienced those kind of things".

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For the past few days, I've been working on Sharepoint licensing schemes for a customer who is still using Microsoft Office 2000.

As you all know, Office Communicator 2007 is conveniently bundled with Microsoft Office 2007. However, I do not think it would be necessary for my customer to upgrade their whole Office Suite to get the Office Communicator for free.

I was able to find out that Microsoft is offering a stand-alone licensing for Office Communicator 2007 that can only do IM. However, if you want voice over ip and video conferencing, you need to package in Office Communication Server 2007 and user CALS to make it work.

Fortunately, my customer can do away with the VOIP and conferencing feature (less headache for me to include this in my capacity planning woes which I will tell in another time). But he wants online presence in Sharepoint and IM. No problem. Bundle all three of them: Office Communicator 2007 license with Office Communication Server 2007 and Standard User CALS. You can setup this up in a single server and with proper hardware sizing, it can support up to 5,000 online users.

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I've always wanted to take a shot at portraiture. After getting tired of making do with my kit lenses, I have pondered of buying my first portrait lens.

There are two types of portrait lenses that I'm choosing from: a 50mm and an 85 mm. Both lenses comes with f1.4 and f1.8. My first experience with a portrait lens is with a 50mm and I liked how creamy and bright the background even at night when you only have light fixtures in the room as source for ambient lighting. But an 85mm gives me more zoom and nice DOF while keeping some comfortable space between the camera and the subject.

As for the price, 85mm proves to be much more expensive than the 50mm but if I wanted wider angles, I can easily pick up a 50mm and maximize the aperture for poorly lit subjects.

The list of pros and cons goes on and on until I found a winner. Thanks to this flicker site of sweethobbes. Most of his photographs are taken using 50mm f1.4. He is using a Canon though which can have some technical difference with my Nikon but I believe the concept is all the same.

Also, Ken Rockwell approves of this. Even if there is no stark difference between its brother 50mm f1.8, I would rather get lenses that can do low-lit photography and daylight at the same time even it is worth 3 times the price of f1.8 (50mm f1.4 AF costs SGD 450++ btw).

Time to tighten the belt and save up for this baby.

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Signed up for a sneak preview of the face off between VS.Net 2008 and SQL Server 2008 with a special segment on Microsoft Performance Point.

Imagine this, multi-framework support, improved intellisense, WPF (windows presentation foundation) support for ASP.Net, improved Java-scripting debugging, better emulation for Mobile apps development (can even emulate PDA phones on empty battery) are one of the cool things to check out in VS.Net 2008.

Earlier on, there was a demo Performance Point which is a glorified user friendly interface for BI. As my colleague would put it, why bother pay for Performance point when you can actually do it with SQL Server Analysis services + Sharepoint. Also, the page loads very slow even for a demo machine.

I didn't make it to the SQL Server 2008 preview as I have to step out of the room to attend to something urgent. But I was told that T-SQL queries comes with intellisense. Hehehe. So is this goodbye to SQL Server Books Online?

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"Gong Xi Gooong Xi Goooooong...."

This silly hymn of the CNY still kept ringing in my mind.

Later at 9am, I am heading towards the nearest Shop N' Save to buy ingredients for the pasta, which i'm bringing to Claire's All Pinoy CNY Party. I still have yet to decide if I want to toss in the Del Monte Pinoy style spaghetti sauce, hot-dog and the corned beef that I have surreptitiously brought here for the sake of my taste-buds. Who can resist Pinoy style spaghetti (or should I say spa-ketchup).

I'm so looking forward to be in a roomful of Filipinos speaking the same language, laughing at the same old Pinoy hirits and jokes, eating all those glorious Filipino food, Magic sing (I hope there is one) and of course, good old times.

But hey, do not be mistaken that I'm so excited in the party that I cannot sleep. I just can't sleep. Period. Zombified maybe because I cannot do post processing on my truckloads of unprocessed photos. But my eyes are still open wide like it is still daytime.

Maybe I'll try to cook something in the kitchen or do laundry then maybe I will drop on the floor and fall asleep. *blug*

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