Blog Compass Lite 2.0 - personal blog About Me Album Bookmarks

Thursday, July 29, 2004

Blog's the word in big business - News - ZDNet

Blog's the word in big business - News - ZDNet

I just realized that being an IT person, strictly speaking I am not on the bleeding edge of technology. Not until Microsoft sees blog as a business opportunity did I start using it. With the huge capital background, surely she can turn this lucrative within weeks. How can anyone possibly override her market share?

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Rays of Light

"The road is long, there are mountains in our way. But we climb a step everyday..."
There were progress of my webportal project, bit by bit I start to feel more about the power of open source and appreciate it. Last night I have created a scheduler by quartz library which can cast a query to BBC News every 15 minutes and fetch its front page, and then a parser will cut out the headline and put it on my portal.
There're really a lot difference between books and works. No matter it's programming or business intelligence stuff, feelings usually come before memorizing. To survive in the society, what we have learnt from textbook will gradually be filtered and turn into common sense, and we gain an edge by discernment and instincts. If you think something can work that way, think it deeper and go for it. The more your mind is organized, the higher chance you are heading for the right direction earlier.

Sunday, July 25, 2004

A short trip

Today I went on a short trip to 東坪洲 with my family. Hardly can I have time for an outdoor activity these days, today is an exception.
In fact we have just circled the island for once. There were many flying inserts and especially monsquitos along the way. Luckily we have got some spraying stuff to avoid their bites. The sun was exceptionally shiny in the afternoon, not long after setting off I have earned several sun-burns on my skins (especially both of my arms are now totally red).
The whole tour ends after a quick dinner. Everyone is asleep now while I am still setting up something great for my future website. In these days there are nothing else that can interests me except these I have mentioned.

Friday, July 23, 2004

"Developer"

Like what I always emphasize, interests is important, but not as important as a sense of success. The feeling of success is always a propelsion or driver for you to move forward.
I may not be a competent in programming though, I really ended up as a software developer. For me it really needs bravery and courage to take up this challenge, yet it gives me a feeling that I am really at work: not always successful, there are always something that blocks your way.
There were obstacles at the beginning, but practices make perfection. I find that programming is actually quite fun~ and hardly can I imagine that I am planning to write a J2EE webapp as my new webportal, applying what I learn at work on my personal context. Right, that's what I always do, learn and then fully utilize my knowledge assets to gain further more.

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Appreciate Technology

Macromedia - Web Publishing System

One may not be competent enough for his work at the beginning, but you have to love your work before you can improve your work. I start to feel embraced by different forms of technologies (and also opportunities) around. To survive in this industry I have to be more discerning upon slight changes and try to predict how the trend will go.
Try to read "ComputerWorld", you can find many "solutions" happening around for SME and companies that you can hardly filter and sort. Firewall, AntiVirus, VoIP, RFID, WLAN, 3G... Dim as IT in Hong Kong, men in this field have to bear a sharp mind lest you will lag far behind.

The Renovation...

My aspiration is growing. After the one year anniversary of my university graduation, I started to ponder deeply about my future. Where should I head towards? Shall I continue to pursue IT as my career? Or more specifically, assuming I am going to live with it, how can I grasp the bleeding edge of technology to nurture my future life.
Though programming may not be my favourite field in IT, I ended up to be a software developer, at least for now. Substantally I learned more about MVC development, J2EE architecture, JSP and JSF etc, not longer afterwards I came up with an idea to resume my work on the personal webportal -- "The Compass". It is supposed to be the final edition of webportal, but before it is completed, I would like to have something in between.
Being one of the weired technical phenonmenons emerging these days, Blog is my primary choice. Apart from putting my thoughts and feels here, I am proactively exploring the possibility of incorporating this Blog site into my future website. That sounds interesting.
For your reference, my future website will be launched on http://unity.homedns.org/~peter , visit there often!

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Something about me...

My name is Peter Choi and I am a software developer in Hong Kong. Around two decades ago I started up as a little kid with a humble life, caring about nothing else but my studies. Destiny was not too hard on me. As what Jack Dawson said, "I've got everything I need right here with me. I've got air in my lungs and a few blank sheets of paper..."

I ended up graduating in the University of Hong Kong with a BSc degree in Computer Science, two years later I earned the MSc in E-Commerce Technologies in the Chinese University of Hong Kong. I hit the SARS epidemic the year I finished college education, together with the aftermath of the financial turmoil and technology boom in the late 90s, gloomy thoughts were everywhere in Hong Kong and the prospects of IT careers were at stake. Yes, that's the IT I am talking about, the sector that I am working in right now.

Despite the adverse circumstances and the misgivings, I preserve hope and anticipation that in this field, I can yield some meanings out of efforts. Technology is an area that breeds miracles. New concepts emerge every day that inspire everyone's mindsets to evolve. To survive in business, I, and anyone else, should have an innovative mind and look beyond the present. This dynamic process is consistent with the theme of my blog: COMPASS.

Compass is a symbol for direction, which is something that I can't go without. Diligence and hard work are nothing without a goal or destination, that's why I try to have adequate planning for every jobs and reassure myself that I am working smart. As time goes by I feel like having a place to harbour my thoughts and feelings so I started this blog, and I named it COMPASS.

Various web applications abound in the market with increasing functionalities and user-friendliness. I made comparisons among several blogging platforms (eg. Blogger, Yahoo 360, WordPress ...) and eventually I chose the most primitive Blogger for its ability of layout customization. Then I searched through different desktop blogging software and I chose Blogjet for its flexibility and integration with browser. I chose flickr as online photo album for its manageability and del.icio.us as social bookmark for its quick response and simple accessibility. Finally I gave this blog the domain compass.idv.hk and this, as one of my various projects, completes.

I like pressure for I see that as drive. I like the feeling of working hard. I like striving with a potent team for something that makes meaning. I like technologies for their fast evolution. What's life all about? It's simply about what you can do in a few decades.