1600HRS
11JANUARY2007
MONDAY
CHRUCH STREET, SINGAPORE
The office is great! Excellent decor, I must admit! New York Mayor surely has an unique approach toward office culture.
The first job interview in the new year and am I in for a shock!
The email masked the interview as a "Recuritment Event" with the purpose of introducing the company, its business and career options. Instead after a brief 5minutes introduction, a mass interview begins.
Into 5 groups comprising between 5 to 6 interviewees each, the day's highlight is a forum-style group discussion with chessy topics ranging from banning smoking to legalizing gambling and for me the eternal conflict - are men better managers than women. Needless to say, the stand is largely politically-correct if not outright boring and predictable. Classical arguments of gender being inmaterial at ability assessments, blah...blah...blah....
Despite the post-mortem revealing the series of "debates" being less than truly controversial and heated, I have to admit that my performance is less than sterling as well. The words that came out of my mouth at the moment on stage very simply went out of line with my intended mental script. The arguments I gave lacked wits and humor not to mention true insight. DAMN! All in all, this is the least satisfying of all interviews and may I have better preparation the next time round.
All said and done, the recuritment strategy is truly brilliant. How else can you put the candidate to the test. Having a forum-style discussion meant that the better candidates stands out immediately among the peers sharing the same stage. The many skills and abilities assessed in a single round - confidence, presentation, poise, thinking, logic, idea formulation and articulation - are all put to real demonstration not just mere advertising on the resume.
Going through this round of interview, I am able to see my weakness and the strength of others. A learning experience after all albeit the demoralization served!
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
OpenOffice2.1 Upgrade Alert
For people intending to upgrade to OpenOffice2.1, note that the desktop-integration executables (help add menus) may be in conflict with tcl8.4-dev and tk8.4-dev. So try installing tcl8.4-dev and tk-8.4dev before running the revelant desktop-integration.
For prospective scilab users both tcl8.4-dev and tk8.4-dev are necessary if installing from source.
For prospective scilab users both tcl8.4-dev and tk8.4-dev are necessary if installing from source.
2007 - a simple year
New year, new year, new year! Well, not exactly too new but just 10days old. So what's up with this new year?! Resolutions?!
If history is of any reference, then surely resolution goes unfulfiled more often than achieved...now we don't need charts to tell us this!
So instead of making a resolution that doesn't work out - like what UN and NATO always do. I decide to take the OPEC's approach to things - just a little each day.
For 2007, I will make it a point to do a simple deed on this simple site that makes life of other somewhat a little more easy...
To start off, I will share a little something still fresh in my head - installing a freaking printer on Linux! My woes began with my Brother MFC-5440CN. Ubuntu, maybe humanity towards people, a printer is surely no person.
To start, first download the necessary LPR and CUPSWRAPPER drivers from http://solutions.brother.com/linux/
Assuming the files are promptly downloaded onto the desktop like all firefoxes do, we can proceed to install the printer. For the moment, the printer itself is immaterial :)
1. sudo -i #to access as /root
2. apt-get -i tcsh #get the tcsh shell, we'll need it
3. mkdir /var/spool/lpd
4. mkdir /var/spool/lpd/MFC5440CN (or whatever printer you're using)
5. cd /Desktop #go to the desktop or any other directory the drivers are saved
6. dpkg -i --force-all xxxxx.deb (xxxxx == file_name_of_lpr_driver)
7. DONE LPR is installed
8. sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/cupsys /etc/init.d/cups
9. Step 5
9. dpkg -i --force-all yyyyy.deb (yyyyy == file_name_of_cupswrapper driver)
10. Now exit the terminal
11. Check the printer and print test page
11Steps to printer for the peguine, couldn't have been better on the that wild west old bull (longhorn a.k.a Vista is also a cow variety)
If history is of any reference, then surely resolution goes unfulfiled more often than achieved...now we don't need charts to tell us this!
So instead of making a resolution that doesn't work out - like what UN and NATO always do. I decide to take the OPEC's approach to things - just a little each day.
For 2007, I will make it a point to do a simple deed on this simple site that makes life of other somewhat a little more easy...
To start off, I will share a little something still fresh in my head - installing a freaking printer on Linux! My woes began with my Brother MFC-5440CN. Ubuntu, maybe humanity towards people, a printer is surely no person.
To start, first download the necessary LPR and CUPSWRAPPER drivers from http://solutions.brother.com/linux/
Assuming the files are promptly downloaded onto the desktop like all firefoxes do, we can proceed to install the printer. For the moment, the printer itself is immaterial :)
1. sudo -i #to access as /root
2. apt-get -i tcsh #get the tcsh shell, we'll need it
3. mkdir /var/spool/lpd
4. mkdir /var/spool/lpd/MFC5440CN (or whatever printer you're using)
5. cd /Desktop #go to the desktop or any other directory the drivers are saved
6. dpkg -i --force-all xxxxx.deb (xxxxx == file_name_of_lpr_driver)
7. DONE LPR is installed
8. sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/cupsys /etc/init.d/cups
9. Step 5
9. dpkg -i --force-all yyyyy.deb (yyyyy == file_name_of_cupswrapper driver)
10. Now exit the terminal
11. Check the printer and print test page
11Steps to printer for the peguine, couldn't have been better on the that wild west old bull (longhorn a.k.a Vista is also a cow variety)
4 days into the valley...
The valley of unknown and it promises great returns...at least that's what I have though. Entering the LINUX, bye bye to MSWindows (even if I truly look forward to the Vista version).
For much too long, MSWindows had been sending me crashing like a dummy in a test drive. Brontok, Sasser, you name it and I been through all. So finally, four days ago I started embarking a new journey into the geeks' realm of LINUX.
Ubuntu5.10 or "breezy" as they called it is the distribution I installed on both my vintage desktops and trusty laptop - it is a final solution to rid my IT life of all the annoying "microorganisms". Like a breeze the new OS installed and run, idoit -proof procedures that need no further elaboration (almost like Windows but only for the first 1hour). And damn I love my new screen and interface - like Maserati - aesthetic and smooth.
But be warned LINUX is definitely no walk in the park and there are indeed some difficulties faced.
1. Installation of printers and scanner is one hell of merry-go-round, especially the for the scanner - apart from installing the driver, you will need to make some changes to the file /etc/udev/rules.d/45-libsane.rules
2. Networking is not a charm for Ubuntu, manual configuration is needed as the SAMBA protocol does detect staions automatically
3. Finally, beware of Ubuntu upgrade to v6. - my laptop lost its voice, desktop 1can find its hard-disk and desktop 2 simply can't get through the login...damn...resolving these threw me back to Ubuntu stoneage.
My advice for those who decide to embark on LINUX - upgrade your Ubuntu before proceeding to install the various other components and hardwares, at least if anything goes wrong, you're not stranded between a rock and a hard place.
Simply yours
For much too long, MSWindows had been sending me crashing like a dummy in a test drive. Brontok, Sasser, you name it and I been through all. So finally, four days ago I started embarking a new journey into the geeks' realm of LINUX.
Ubuntu5.10 or "breezy" as they called it is the distribution I installed on both my vintage desktops and trusty laptop - it is a final solution to rid my IT life of all the annoying "microorganisms". Like a breeze the new OS installed and run, idoit -proof procedures that need no further elaboration (almost like Windows but only for the first 1hour). And damn I love my new screen and interface - like Maserati - aesthetic and smooth.
But be warned LINUX is definitely no walk in the park and there are indeed some difficulties faced.
1. Installation of printers and scanner is one hell of merry-go-round, especially the for the scanner - apart from installing the driver, you will need to make some changes to the file /etc/udev/rules.d/45-libsane.rules
2. Networking is not a charm for Ubuntu, manual configuration is needed as the SAMBA protocol does detect staions automatically
3. Finally, beware of Ubuntu upgrade to v6. - my laptop lost its voice, desktop 1can find its hard-disk and desktop 2 simply can't get through the login...damn...resolving these threw me back to Ubuntu stoneage.
My advice for those who decide to embark on LINUX - upgrade your Ubuntu before proceeding to install the various other components and hardwares, at least if anything goes wrong, you're not stranded between a rock and a hard place.
Simply yours
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