Imagine that you want to build a house. Do you straight away go to the shop, buy everything you think you will need to build a house and start building? Of course you can, but that’s Orang Asli kind of way. According to standard, people usually get the help of architect and engineers to do the blueprint of the house, find any possible defects from it and then only they proceed to the development.

So that’s why we need proper documentation. In IT world, documentation made the programmer’s job a lot easier. The analogy is simple, whose job is tougher? The engineer or the contractor? If we have a proper document, let say if any new developer comes in, he/she can study the documents and ready to coding in no time. There’s a lot of concept in software engineering – methodology, phases blablabla I’ll continue later.

Today I’m playing another role as system analyst/software engineer. Need to prepare the software requirement specification (SRS), and after approval I’ll work on design document. I’m still learning…

http://gigaom.com/2008/04/08/10-reasons-why-documentation-is-a-startup-secret-sauce/

http://ezinearticles.com/?Why-Do-We-Need-Software-Engineering?&id=402532

http://www.bearcave.com/software/prog_docs.html

Word of the day:

Keluarga=family

Ibu/emak=mother

Bapa/ayah=father

Kakak=elder sister

Abang=elder brother

Adik=younger brother/sister

Yesterday’s task: webcash = change = hyperlink under icon, discuss about micro merchant

Being in front of a laptop 9 to 5, go home and face the laptop again until fallen asleep, and do the same things 5 days a week, no friends, no spouse (obviously), no exercise; I can’t avoid being STRESS. And I believe most of us does, especially Suyash I guess. So the big question is how can I handle this stress thing and thus avoid the burnout syndrome?

Lucky me I own a car, and I use it extensively to release the entire stress and tension hormone inside me. There’s one thing I learned from my dad about driving; drive anywhere and don’t be afraid of getting lost because sooner or later we’ll be able to find the right way or, worst case scenario, a u-turn will do the trick.

There’s a heavy downpour yesterday. Thank God it stops after office hour so with remaining petrol in the tank, I decided to explore a new way home. At the Dengkil junction, I turned left and headed to Bangi. Wow it’s so beautiful for me, being able to savor the moment after the rain in a wide road in the middle of nowhere; priceless. The scenery there is like in the “Heart” or “Taal” movie for me.

How do you manage stress?

Checkout these useful articles:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1580401,00.html

http://www.developerdotstar.com/mag/articles/software_team_turnover.html

Word of the day:

Belajar=learn

Ajar=teach

Eg:

Mari belajar Bahasa Melayu.

Yesterday’s task: MangkukTingkat.com proposal, visit to snow house (data centre)

Today’s task: Making some changes in webcash site + learning object-oriented PHP

Anyway back to UPM, one of the topics that gathered my attention is on the trustability issue. Right until now I still remember the question asked by my lecturer, “How can we increase the user’s trust?” TRUST is a big word in e-commerce. I’ve done some research on the topics and found out that lelong.com.my had paid a great attention on this trustability issue.

I’ve done some buying in lelong.com.my and amused by how it works. It’s getting better since I first used it on 2005. What they did? As you know there are a lot of sellers in lelong, selling same products with different prices; and as a customer we can choose whichever we like. Like today I want to buy a 3G modem, I have option to choose a merchant sell it at RM300 or RM320. I choose the RM320. Why? Because he provides more information on the product, in the way that I can really trust. And as lelong has provided a section for testimonial, I can see that all his customers giving him good ratings. Now they even have the SafeTrade option to increase trust (with some fee of course, money matters).

That’s on lelong. For our online banking, they use the TAC requesting system to promote trust. I think this is a very good approach.

In a nutshell, let’s think about TRUST because in e-commerce, once we get trust, we’ll be rich.

Word of the day:

SENANG/MUDAH=easy (mudah is more referring to simplicity)

Eg: Kerja ini sangat senang.

=> This work is so easy (or suyash would put it this way: “This is easy man!”

Last Friday’s task: kayako + study on pizzahut system

If you noticed since Idayu left, I never go out for lunch. Usually I bring food from home, buy a breakfast somewhere and make it brunch, or simply let my stomach suffer until 6pm. Talk about breakfast, I usually buy them from stalls along my way to work every morning, if I use Sepang-Dengkil route. There’s a lot of stalls opened, you know normal nasik lemak stall, with the table and payung and everything.

But one that grabbed my attention is this one guy with his perodua kancil in front of Sepang F1. There’s no table, just him standing behind his car with the bonnet opened with full of foods in it (lately he place a big umbrella on his car to grab attention). Among all this conventional stalls, his is the one that I think get most customer and usually everything is sold out before 9am. You know why? The customers no need to get out of the car. Just open the window (or he’ll open the passenger’s side door for you) and order whatever you want. He has this constant menu packed nicely, just pick what you would like to have. Its looks like a nasik lemak version of mcdonald’s drive thru to me. What a brilliant idea this guy has. Simple, practical, and I can see that he’s holding a big pile of money in his hand every morning.

And then one thing occurs to me; why not this idea commercialized? The success of his business shows that Malaysians are getting lazier, even to get out of the car to get their breakfast. How about let them make their order and pay it online, and just pick it up the next morning? Imagine stalls with big logo of “Breakfast on the Go” everywhere in Malaysia with Webcash logo with it (kidding). I think I want to implement it one day. The problem is I don’t have the courage to do it ::sigh::….

So suyash, what do you want to learn today? I think I want to teach you numbers:

0=kosong

1=satu

2=dua

3=tiga

4=empat

5=lima

6=enam

7=tujuh

8=lapan

9=sembilan

10=sepuluh

Just remember these first ok.

Yesterday’s task: kayako

I’ll end this mailblog with a quote:

“If you love a bird, let it fly freely. If it comes back to you then it’s yours forever.
If not, it was never yours n will never be.”

Today I want to share my experience on the past few days.

Last Saturday I went to the mines shopping centre to get a handphone for my brother. When I walk past by a maxis shop a sales guy promote me to switch to maxis postpaid but I’m more interested in the wireless broadband which cost RM118 per month. He said if I’m not satisfied with the service, I can terminate within 7days so I agree to sign up.

Then when I test it back home, I’m quite disappointed because the speed is so slow…38kbps because my home area doesn’t have 3G. If I live a few kilometers away in seremban I can get the 3.6mbps speed L. Therefore I decided to return back the thing and I want to sign up with celcom instead. Celcom offers 356kbps for RM68 per month. Pay for what you get right?

The issue is last Tuesday when I went to the mines to return it, the staffs there make a @##$%@# face which rose up my temper sky high. They said I need to return it to the service centre in cheras (which of course had already closed at that time!) #$%^!!! They didn’t mention it at all before, not even stated in the terms and condition. So that’s the first time I yell in a shop. Then a girl there suggested me to go to the service centre in KLCC. And I went there, stranded in a very long queue before I can return the thing and I didn’t even get paid by cash. They’ll pay me by check within 3 months. So I used it for 3 days and get my money back within 3 months. Fair enough. I’m sick of Maxis and will never ever sign up for their internet service again. Ever.

Moral of the story is – customer service. How long does it take for us to respond to customer, are we providing enough information and the way we entertain them. That’s an issue.

So Suyash, today’s word is very practical

BALIK=go back/go home

Eg: “Suyash, balik!” kata Mior.

=> “Suyash, go home!” says Mior.

Yesterday’s task: project proposal & SRS

Today’s task: SRS (requirements gathering)

When suyash said “have you write email for mior?” first thing that comes to my mind is “God! More reports to do and to be honest my motivation gone down 0.5%.

I was thinking how I can make this interesting to do, so I got an idea of writing this email similar to a blog post. This is my way of being innovative, how I motivate myself to complete my job in a different way.

I think this is a good medium for me not just to report to mior but also to tell you guys what I am thinking about everyday.

Being the only girl in this company, I can’t avoid feeling lonely coz I cannot tell anybody about my feelings. Gosh I miss idayu a lot! Sometimes I have a lot of things to talk about but I have no one to talk to. Sorry, I’m not much of a talker and I like writing more than talking. So I think through this way you guys will know me better. And I also hope others would do the same with their emails. Blogging needs comments. So I hope you can reply to all if you have anything to say. Anyway, I hope you can forgive my grammar mistakes here.

One more thing, I’ll try to teach suyash malay language by giving “word of the day”.

So suyash, here’s the word of the day

CANTIK = beautiful

Eg:

Mas Elyna sangat cantik.

=> Mas Elyna (is) very beautiful.

Always remember this sentence suyash..always….

================================================================================

But if you don’t like this idea I’m fine with it. I’ll stick to a formal report format.

(copy paste from suyash’s email)

My yesterday task and today target are below.

Yesterday’s Task: Project Proposal

Today’s Task: Project Proposal & Software Requirement Specification