Failure
Posted by Jackson Lim in Emotional Inteligence on July 29, 2010
Society normally shun failures, see them as obstacle to success, sure people say things like
Failures is the mother of success…
Or other hoopla about how we shouldn’t really feel fear to attempt anything because failure is just a part of life. I bet the same people who promote such a thing has the same fear as all of us have, they still remember they day when they brought back the report card to their moms, only to get a night of beating. Or the day when they got a slap to the face when they try to kiss their first love. Everybody hate to fail, and when you are on the spot where you fail publicly, it is even more traumatizing. The most important thing about the failing business is to do not give up, pick yourself up and get going, confucius say:
It does not matter how slow you go, so long as you do not stop
Once you are on your feet, analyse and think carefully why you fail, is it because the method you use? Is there a better way of doing it? The worst thing you can do when you fail is to drink over it, you know you can’t possibly forget about it, no matter what you do. It is better for your emotional well being when you take steps to actually figure out why you landed here in the first place.
You know who is the real loser? Those people who stand in the sidelines, pointing and talking about how much you suck. Seriously, what benefit did they gain by doing that? What message are they trying to convey? To tell people they are smarter then you? Faster then you? More agressive then you? Ask yourself, so what if you are not that smart, study harder then them. So what if you are slower then them, take your time to make sure you don’t fall. So what if you are not that agressive, use a different approach. The most important thing is to keep going, get it done, and get it over with.
When you fail and give up, you lose. Think about it.
Trust, Expectation, and Limitation
Posted by Jackson Lim in Career on July 19, 2010
Lately I’ve been forced to face a lot of my own shot comings due to the fact that my actions has been scrutinized and analyzed by selected few who’s passion is to see me fall. I can understand their motive, its hard to see one of their own move forward without them, it is just human nature. But I have to face the music day in and day out by those who don’t really understand the circumstances, who don’t really care about the truth of the matter, and just want to go home with an open heart, believe sincerely that they have did the right thing. I learned recently, there are even 1 or 2 people who openly rallied for me, but in actual fact all they are doing is protecting their own interest.
Its easy to blame everything on myself, because the environment foster me to feel inadequate, insufficient to do the job. But once reality has settled in my mind, I come to realized that its simply not true. I know what I am capable of, it is the expectations of people around me that hasn’t come in to terms with reality. They need to understand that my experience and knowledge has limitation, that correlate with time. They need to understand that my innate ability to cope with stress and challenges isn’t what people expected, even I am shocked with my own shortcomings, but its true, and its real.
What really blow my mind, and caused a whole paradigm shift is my tendency to easily trust people, whom doesn’t deserve any of my trust at all. In fact I’m starting to regret some of the things I’ve said openly, but too bad, what has been done is done and there is nothing I can do anymore from this point onwards. But I’ve learned to be careful with people from now on, especially the ones who seems the most harmless. I’ll never really know people’s heart, the best I can do is to hope for the best from people, while I apply my defenses for the time being, until I can really, really trust a person.
Linux for desktop environment sucks
Posted by Jackson Lim in Geek on July 13, 2010
I’ve been a fan of Linux for quite a long time, and our solution works great on Linux. Linux as an operating for server is rock solid, able to handle massive load with low resources and best of all, it is light weight. I can just install a Paris Hilton size of Linux and I’ll have everything I need to get the job done, with none of those expensive maintenance associated with Paris Hilton. I’m so in love with Linux Server in fact, I giggle when I saw people loading up Windows Server at the datacenter.
So when the time comes for me to upgrade my 9 year old Window XP machine, I naturally pick Linux flavored distribution like Ubuntu. I’ve played with Ubuntu when it first launched, it came out almost the same time as Window XP. Before I migrate to XP from Windows Millenium I tried out Ubuntu for 3 months, and back then, the driver support is just not there, the graphical user interface is awful, I have to spend a whole weekend just to make my audio jack work, don’t even get me started with the video card.
But after 8 years, I thought things must have changed a lot in the desktop open source world, I notice that the installation process for Linux server gets a lot easier and prettier, it wouldn’t be as bad as it used to be right? So I decided to go back to the Ubuntu path and give it a shot. Went to Ubuntu website and downloaded the ISO, I know how this work.
Installation
The installation was easy, just click a couple of buttons, check a couple of check boxes and I’m ready to go. It has become so fool proof, I bet even my little brother know how to do it.
Applications
There are tons and tons of app in the Ubuntu repository, more then what they have 9 years ago. But no Microsoft Office, there is a decent alternative called Open Office. It can open any Word document without any hiccups, but don’t expect it to render the tables and font style appropriately, because it just can’t. And if you save the document in Open Office, Microsoft Word can’t render the document properly either, both program don’t play well together.
Gnome User Experience
The latest Gnome interface looks good, for day to day usage I am comfortable with it. The window is sharp, the color is soothing, and best of all you can customize it anyway you want, as long as you are comfortable with the command line interface, and modifying configuration text files.
Bootup time
After 9 years of Window XP, the bootup time for Ubuntu Gnome desktop blows me away. It just take 20 seconds to load up on my desktop, and 35 seconds to shut down, it is unheard of in Windows community. Yes I know Window 7 can boot up and shut down almost as fast, but trust me buddy, after a while my linux will load up at the same amount of time, while your Window 7 will get slower and slower and slower by the day. Just google Window 7 bootup time yourself, some people is experiencing it already.
Audio
When my Ubuntu fire up for the first time, I am perplex as to why there is no welcoming music. I checked the preference and make sure that the volume is all maxed out, then I tried to play my mp3 audio, I can’t because Ubuntu support open standard only. Ok I understand that, I open up the repository to look for the MP3 format, wait for about 2 hours to complete the download while I just sit there staring at my screen.
Alright, the default music player kicks in and start playing the MP3 file, but no sound whatsoever. Maybe I need to restart my machine (Hint: I came from Windows world), when it quickly booted up again, I still didn’t hear any sound. Maybe there is something wrong with my hardware, I pull out my old Window XP hard disk and plug it back in again to test it out. 5 minutes later when Windows loaded up it plays its opening music just fine.
At that point my forehead start sweating, the nightmare I had with Desktop Linux 9 freaking years ago starts coming back to me. I launch my bitch (Google) and start looking for answers. And the following is the steps I troubleshoot my audio problem:
1. Find out my audio card model, I don’t even know the name because I don’t need to when I use windows.
2. Base on the name, I need to Google for any Ubuntu user who face the same problem.
3. Follow their instruction on how to fix it, and if it doesn’t work, maybe it is made in a different year, so try another set of instruction.
The instruction provided in the forum is not something like, double click the preference icon, check this and that, no no no, you need to open up the Terminal, key in a couple of commands and change the configuration file by hand using a text editor. If you are not careful, you screw something up in the configuration file, the whole operating system might not even start, then you are face with a whole new set of new challenges.
It is 2010 mind you, where people are planning to walk on Mars, and I still have to launch a text editor to make my audio jack work?
Video
I have a powerful video card on my desktop, but Ubuntu does not have any suitable driver for my video card. End of story, there are nothing else I can do in this department. I just have to live with a fact that there is 300 horse power sitting quietly inside my machine, doing absolutely nothing. I don’t play any games on my desktop anymore, so its fine, I can live with that, I think.
Reliability
Thunderbird failed to load after 2 weeks, it just can’t handle the amount of e-mail I have in my inbox. Some of my bookmark went missing in Firefox, it never happened to me before in XP, switched to Google Chrome for linux but it doesn’t support java applet, so I just have to live with that. For apps I use for work, its either the app stop working after a while, or the app just doesn’t exist in Linux.
After about a month using Ubuntu, it doesn’t want to boot up anymore, it says the following in the terminal:
“GRUB error: unknown filesystem, grub rescue”
I tried to use partition magic, I googled for solution, I’ve even went as far as to pay for support to get this fix because there are valuable information inside my hard disk, but to no vail. That is the last straw, since then I revert back to Windows XP, and soon after I migrate all my content to Mac OS X.
Linux is a great operating system for server environment where there is no user interface, but for desktop its simply too complicated for average usage, take my audio issue for an example, if this issue happen in Windows I just Googled for a new driver, install it and its done. I don’t have to go to the terminal, look for the configuration file, and edit the configuration file by hand, it is ridiculous.
Linux as a desktop environment simply doesn’t cut it for me. I’m sorry fanboys, I’ve tried, I’ve tried very hard for a month but I just can’t take it anymore.